What To Do When Your Customer Starts Moving Faster Than You Can

AI could change what builders and contractors expect from LBM dealers before it changes the lumberyard itself. Get ahead of the challenge by asking yourself four questions.

By John Marshall

Artificial Intelligence may change the expectations placed on LBM dealers before it changes the lumberyard itself.

Builders, remodelers, and contractors are beginning to use AI to prepare estimates, organize project information, draft customer communications, and manage follow-up. Some will become faster and more organized, and when that happens, they’ll expect the companies around them to move faster as well.

The competitive threat is not an AI-powered dealer. It is a well-run dealer whose people now have better tools.

This is no longer theoretical. ServiceTitan’s 2026 survey of more than 1,000 commercial construction leaders found that 38% reported measurable business impact from AI, up from 17% the year before. Estimating, budgeting, and bid management were leading uses.

For the LBM dealer, AI may first arrive through a customer who submits a cleaner material request, expects a quicker response, wants better order visibility, and has less patience for information that takes several calls to find.

The LBM industry has always been built around relationships, and I do not believe AI changes that. A strong dealer understands the local market, solves problems when a job goes sideways, and delivers when the customer needs material. Those capabilities require experience, judgment, and trust.

But relationships can sometimes hide operational friction.

A contractor may like a salesperson while still becoming frustrated that quotes take too long, delivery information is difficult to get, or commitments aren’t followed through.

Customers may have tolerated those problems because every supplier operated in roughly the same way. That changes when one competitor becomes easier to do business with.

AI doesn’t have to replace the relationship to affect it. It only has to help someone else respond faster, communicate consistently, and make fewer preventable mistakes.

Customers won’t move business because a competitor announces that it uses AI. Most don’t care what technology sits behind the counter. They care whether they receive an accurate quote, someone returns their call, the right material reaches the jobsite, and problems are communicated early enough to address them.

In the companies I work with, I am already seeing the conversation move away from what AI can produce and toward how quickly people can turn that work into a better decision or response for the customer. The technology matters, but the advantage comes from execution.

A contractor who prepares estimates faster may expect pricing sooner. A project manager who organizes open items more effectively may expect clearer order status. A builder who can summarize a customer meeting in minutes may become less tolerant of waiting days for routine answers.

None of these expectations will sound like an AI issue; they’ll sound like service issues.

This doesn’t mean every dealer needs a large AI initiative. It does mean owners and executives should look at their businesses through their customers’ eyes and ask:

• Where do we make customers wait unnecessarily?

• Where does information become trapped with one employee?

• Where do customers have to call more than once for an answer?

• Where are good people spending time finding information instead of solving customer problems?

Those are leadership questions before they are technology questions.

The strongest dealers won’t become technology companies. They’ll remain relationship businesses that use technology to support the relationship. AI will not make trust less important. It may make slow and inconsistent execution harder to excuse.

Start with one customer interaction. Identify where customers most often wait, call twice, or ask for the same information again. Fix that point of friction first, whether the answer involves AI or not. Do that before launching a broad initiative, and you’ll be solving the customer’s problem instead of chasing the technology.

John Marshall is co-founder of AI Growth Partners. Prior to that, he was chief operating officer at Wilson Lumber in Huntsville, AL. john@aigrowthpartners.net