AI Prompt Library for Australian Small Business

If you've heard people talk about using ChatGPT or Claude for their business and want to try it yourself, but you're not sure what to actually type when the blank box appears, you're not behind. Most business owners hit that exact wall in the first five minutes. This guide gives you 50 ready-made prompts for the tasks you already do every week, organised so you can find the one you need and use it straight away.

What You'll Need Before You Start

A free or paid account with ChatGPT, Claude, or a similar AI assistant is all you need, and nothing here requires any technical setup beyond having that account open in a browser tab. Paste a prompt in, replace the bracketed details with your own information, and read the result before you use it. Never paste in identifiable customer information (full names alongside personal details, health information, financial account numbers) without first checking your business's privacy obligations, covered in the Australian section below.

How to Get More Out of Any Prompt Here

Every prompt below works as written, but a small amount of extra detail makes the result noticeably better. Instead of pasting a prompt exactly as is, add a sentence about your business at the start: your industry, your typical customer, and roughly how formal or casual you normally sound. "I run a small landscaping business and usually write to customers in a friendly, plain-spoken way" takes five seconds to add and changes the tone of everything that follows.

If the first result isn't quite right, don't start over. Reply directly: "make this shorter," "less formal," or "add a mention of the delay we discussed on the phone." AI tools handle these follow-up adjustments well, and it's almost always faster than rewriting the whole prompt from scratch.

Customer Email Prompts

These handle the everyday back-and-forth of running a business.

• "Write a friendly follow-up email to a customer who hasn't responded to my quote from [number] days ago. Keep it under 100 words and don't sound pushy."
• "A customer is asking why their order is delayed. Write an apologetic but professional email explaining a [reason] delay and offering [what you're offering, e.g. a discount or priority shipping]."
• "Turn these rough notes into a polite email response: [paste your notes]."
• "Write a short email thanking a customer for their business and asking for a review, without sounding like a template."
• "A customer is unhappy about [issue]. Write a calm, empathetic response that acknowledges the problem and outlines what happens next."
• "Write a reminder email to a client whose invoice is [number] days overdue, firm but not aggressive."
• "Summarise this long email thread into three bullet points I can act on: [paste thread]."

Quotes and Invoicing Prompts

These prompts help draft the wording around a quote or invoice, not the actual GST or tax figures, which should always come from your accounting software or bookkeeper.

• "Write a clear, professional cover message to send with a quote for [job description], for a customer who's price-sensitive."
• "Turn this list of job items into a clean, itemised description for a quote: [paste items]."
• "Write a polite message asking a customer to confirm they'd like to go ahead with a quote I sent [number] days ago."
• "Draft a short explanation for a customer about why a quote came in higher than expected, based on these reasons: [list reasons]."
• "Write a message to a supplier asking for a better price on [item/quantity], professional but direct."
• "Summarise these invoice payment terms into one plain-English sentence a customer will actually read: [paste terms]."
• "Write a message offering a customer a payment plan for an invoice, without sounding like I'm chasing debt."

Marketing and Social Media Prompts

Use these as a starting draft, then edit in your own voice before posting anything publicly.

• "Write three short social media post ideas announcing [new product/service/offer], for a small business audience."
• "Turn this list of features into a benefits-focused product description: [paste features]."
• "Write a caption for a photo of [describe photo] that sounds like a real small business owner, not a marketing team."
• "Draft a short email to my customer list announcing [news], with a clear call to action."
• "Write five headline options for a promotion on [product/service], each under 10 words."
• "Turn this customer testimonial into a short quote I can use on my website: [paste testimonial]."
• "Write a short 'about us' paragraph for my website based on these notes: [paste notes about your business]."

Meeting Notes and Internal Communication Prompts

These work well pasted straight after a meeting or call, while it's still fresh.

• "Turn these rough meeting notes into a clear summary with action items and who owns each one: [paste notes]."
• "Write a short recap email to send to everyone who was in this meeting: [paste notes]."
• "Summarise this long document into five key points for my team: [paste document]."
• "Draft a short message to my team explaining [change/decision] and why it's happening."
• "Turn this messy to-do list into a prioritised list grouped by urgency: [paste list]."
• "Write a short agenda for a team meeting about [topic], with three items and a rough time for each."
• "Draft a polite message asking a colleague to follow up on [task] by [date]."

Hiring and HR Prompts

Use these for drafting, not for making final hiring decisions, which should always involve human judgement and, where relevant, professional HR advice.

• "Write a job ad for a [role] at a small business, focusing on what a candidate would actually do day to day, not generic corporate language."
• "Turn these bullet points about a role into a clear job description: [paste bullet points]."
• "Draft a rejection email to an unsuccessful candidate that's kind and specific without being generic."
• "Write three interview questions to assess whether a candidate can handle [specific skill/situation]."
• "Draft a welcome email for a new staff member starting on [date], covering [key details]."
• "Turn these performance notes into constructive, specific feedback for a one-on-one conversation: [paste notes]."
• "Write a short internal announcement about a new staff member joining the team."

Supplier and Vendor Communication Prompts

These help with the ongoing back-and-forth of managing suppliers.

• "Write a firm but professional email to a supplier about a late delivery of [item], asking for an updated timeline."
• "Draft a message negotiating payment terms with a new supplier, professional and direct."
• "Turn this list of complaints about a supplier's service into a clear, factual email: [paste complaints]."
• "Write a message to a supplier confirming a new order, including quantities and delivery expectations."
• "Draft a polite email ending a supplier relationship after [reason], without burning the relationship."

General Admin Prompts

Everyday prompts that don't fit neatly elsewhere but come up constantly.

• "Turn this messy paragraph into three clear bullet points: [paste text]."
• "Write a professional out-of-office reply for [dates], mentioning who to contact in the meantime."
• "Draft a short template I can reuse for [recurring task, e.g. weekly status updates]."
• "Explain [business term or process] in plain English, as if to someone new to the industry."
• "Proofread this text for grammar and clarity without changing the meaning: [paste text]."

Common Mistakes to Avoid

The biggest mistake is sending an AI-drafted message without reading it first. Every prompt here produces a draft, not a finished product, and it can get names, numbers, or tone wrong, especially anything specific to your business that you didn't explicitly state. The second mistake is pasting in identifiable customer information without thinking about where that data goes, covered below. The third is expecting AI to know your business's specific policies, pricing, or legal position without you supplying that context in the prompt itself, since it has no memory of your business between separate conversations unless you tell it again each time. A fourth, subtler mistake is using the exact same draft for every customer without personalising it at all, which readers can often tell, and which undoes some of the relationship-building an email is supposed to do in the first place.

Quick Checklist Before You Send Anything AI-Drafted

• Read the whole draft, don't skim it
• Check names, dates, and figures are correct
• Confirm the tone matches how you'd actually speak to this person
• Remove any placeholder brackets you forgot to fill in
• Check you haven't pasted in sensitive customer information you shouldn't have

Australian Businesses: What You Need to Know

Before pasting customer details into any AI prompt, think about what you're sending overseas. Most AI tools process your prompt on servers outside Australia, which can engage the Australian Privacy Principles' cross-border disclosure rule (APP 8) if the information is identifiable personal information. Keep customer names generic in your prompts where you can ("a customer" rather than a full name plus account details), and check the OAIC's guidance on AI and cross-border data before using these prompts with anything genuinely sensitive. This matters more for some of the prompts above than others: a generic marketing caption carries essentially no risk, while a customer complaint email that includes an order number, a home address, or a health-related reason for a refund is a different matter entirely. When in doubt, strip out anything that could identify a specific person before it goes anywhere near an AI tool, and paste it back in once the draft comes out clean.

Related reading: our can staff upload customer data to AI tools.

Do I need a paid ChatGPT or Claude account to use these prompts?

No, most of these work fine on a free account. A paid plan mainly helps if you're using AI heavily every day or need higher usage limits, not for the prompts themselves.

Can I paste customer information into these prompts?

Be careful. Keep prompts generic where possible and avoid pasting identifiable personal information like full names alongside contact or financial details, since this data is typically processed overseas.

Why did the AI's response not sound like my business?

The first draft rarely matches your exact voice. Ask it directly to adjust tone ("make this more casual" or "make this sound less formal") and it will usually get closer on the second try.

Which AI tool is best for these prompts, ChatGPT or Claude?

Both handle these prompts well. Try the same prompt in each and see which output you personally prefer editing, since the difference mostly comes down to writing style rather than capability for tasks like these.