CanLift's Staff-Led AI Delivers Instant Support, Faster Quotes, Smarter Rentals

CanLift Rolls Out AI Across Rental Operations with Employee-Led Innovation

CanLift Equipment Ltd. has deployed AI across customer-facing and internal workflows-without sidelining people. The independently owned MEWP rental provider is among the first in Canada to scale AI in this way, aligning with projected industry growth from the Canadian Rental Association, which expects construction rental to rise 4% in 2025 to $6.6 billion. CanLift is based in Burlington, Ontario, and is No. 84 on the RER 100.

The headline move: Clive (CanLift Intelligent Virtual Expert), a 24/7 AI chatbot that turns web inquiries into instant replies. Paired with AI-powered call routing, customers get to the right department faster, quotes move sooner, and rental downtime drops.

What Changed for Customers

• 24/7 support via Clive, delivering instant responses on the website.
• AI call routing that directs calls to the correct team on the first try.
• Faster quote turnaround and fewer missed calls, translating to less downtime on site.

What Changed for the Team

• Employee-led "AI Club" that pilots and standardizes new use cases.
• Custom GPTs built in-house for fleet optimization, urgent repair prioritization, and cash flow management.
• AI-generated training and onboarding videos to speed up knowledge transfer.
• Measured gains across a 50-person staff: faster A/R collections, quicker service calls, and more accurate dispatching.

"There's no doubt that professionals across Canada are feeling anxious about AI replacing their jobs, but CanLift took the opposite stance," said Paul Cavert, rental coordinator at CanLift. "We've been able to take an active role in how AI is used on the team, and the tools we've helped implement to automate repetitive tasks have made my work more rewarding."

"Our AI innovation is empowering people, not replacing them. The industry relies on individual knowledge, which AI cannot replicate," said Ryan Fitzgibbon, director of technology and marketing at CanLift. "Combining AI with our team's expertise allows us to serve customers more effectively than companies that haven't adopted these tools. These tools free our team to do what they do best, which is build relationships and deliver exceptional service."

Why It Matters for Operations Leaders

This approach hits the targets operations teams care about: response time, first-contact resolution, dispatch accuracy, wrench time, and utilization. Instead of a top-down rollout, CanLift built adoption from the inside, using frontline insight to prioritize high-impact tasks. The result is fewer handoffs, tighter SLAs, and capacity created without headcount churn.

Implementation Playbook You Can Adapt

• Start with one visible win: Deploy a website chatbot with clear boundaries (FAQs, availability, basic quoting) and add AI call routing. Track response time, quote turnaround, and missed calls.
• Form an employee-led AI group: Host monthly demo days, share prompts, and document standards. Give operators a simple channel to pitch use cases tied to KPIs.
• Build lightweight custom GPTs: Target bottlenecks like repair triage, parts ETA, and fleet allocation. Keep data access scoped and auditable.
• Instrument the metrics: Response time, FCR, quote-to-order rate, DSO in A/R, dispatch accuracy, technician utilization, and downtime avoided.
• Operationalize training: Use short AI-generated videos for SOP updates and scenario practice. Keep them searchable and versioned.
• Guardrails: Set privacy rules, human-in-the-loop for approvals, and quality checks for customer-facing outputs. Review quarterly.

Operational Impact (What You Can Expect)

• Instant web replies instead of queue-based responses.
• Shorter call routing paths and fewer transfers.
• Faster quotes, improved conversion, and better schedule adherence.
• More precise dispatching and prioritization for urgent repairs.

What's Next for CanLift

CanLift plans to extend AI into predictive maintenance and personalized rental recommendations. For operations, that means better parts planning, fewer surprise breakdowns, and equipment matched to the job with stronger accuracy. The strategy stays consistent: augment the team, keep the human judgment, and apply AI where it removes friction.

Context and Resources

• Industry outlook: The Canadian Rental Association projects continued growth for construction rental in 2025.
• Upskilling your team: Explore practical AI training by job role at Complete AI Training or build with Custom GPTs.

Bottom Line

CanLift shows a practical path for AI in rental operations: start with customer responsiveness, empower employees to lead, and measure what moves the business. The tech supports the team; the team delivers the service. That mix is hard to beat.