Skills in Claude and ChatGPT: turn your best SOP into a skill the whole team uses

In one line: a written SOP tells a person how your business does a job. Turn the same SOP into a skill, and Claude or ChatGPT does that job your way for anyone on the team: the quote in your format, the complaint reply in your tone, the month-end checklist in your order. Building one from an SOP you already have takes about 15 minutes.

How we assessed this: vendor documentation, published pricing and independent reviews.

What it does

A skill is a saved set of instructions the AI follows whenever someone asks for that job: the steps, the format, the rules and your house style. Your SOP already holds all of that. The AI turns it into a skill for you, and the same skill format works in Claude and ChatGPT (Agent Skills).

The SOP stays the instruction for people. The skill is the same method for the AI, so a new colleague who types “Write a quote for a kitchen refit” gets your format and your payment terms on the first try.

Which plan you need

	Plans with skills	Cheapest plan for a team
Claude	Free, Pro, Max, Team, Enterprise (Claude Help)	Team: USD 20 per person a month if you pay yearly, or USD 25 if you pay monthly, at least 2 people. About CHF 17 or 21
ChatGPT	Business, Enterprise, Healthcare, Edu (OpenAI Help)	Business: USD 20 per person a month if you pay yearly, or USD 25 if you pay monthly, at least 2 people. About CHF 17 or 21

Prices from claude.com/pricing and OpenAI. Both exclude 8.1% Swiss VAT. CHF amounts are approximate (USD 1 = CHF 0.83).

Sharing a skill with colleagues needs Claude Team or Enterprise, or ChatGPT Business or higher. On ChatGPT Free, Go, Plus and Pro, paste the skill’s text into a project’s instructions instead (route C in our install guide).

Turn an SOP into a skill

Claude (about 15 minutes):

On Free, Pro or Max, open Settings, then Capabilities, and switch on Code execution and file creation once. On Team it is on already.
Start a new chat and upload your SOP (Word, PDF or pasted text).
Send: “Turn this SOP into a skill for my team. Ask me one question at a time about anything the SOP leaves open, such as who it is for, the format of the result and what the AI must never do. Then give me the finished skill as a file.”
Answer Claude’s questions. It writes the skill and packages it as a file you can download.
Go to Customize, then Skills, click +, then + Create skill, then Upload a skill, and choose the file.

What you’ll see: your skill in the list with a short description and an on/off switch.

ChatGPT Business (about 15 minutes):

Click Plugins in the sidebar and open the Skills tab.
Click Create.

What you’ll see: Create with chat, Create with editor and Upload from your computer.
Choose Create with chat, paste your SOP and send: “Make this SOP a skill for my team. Ask me about anything it leaves open.”
Answer its questions. The skill appears on the Skills page under Created by me.

Test it in a new chat. Ask for the job the way a colleague would, for example “Write an SOP for closing the till” or “Draft a quote for Muster AG”. If the AI doesn’t use the skill, name it (“Use the quote skill”), then ask it to update the skill’s description with the words your team uses.

When the result isn’t right, tell the AI what to change and ask it to update the skill, not only the answer. Our customise guide shows that loop step by step.

Claude Team or Enterprise: click … next to the skill, then Share, and choose Specific people or Share with organization. When you update the skill, colleagues get the new version the next time they use it.
ChatGPT Business: click ••• next to the skill, then Share.

Keep the SOP and the skill in step: when the job changes, update the SOP in your “How we work” folder, then upload it to the same chat and ask the AI to update the skill.

Three ways to use it in your business

These are made-up examples.

1. Quotes in your format. A joinery in Thun turns its quote SOP into a skill: prices in CHF excluding 8.1% VAT, materials listed separately, payment within 30 days. The apprentice and the owner’s partner now send quotes that look the same.

2. Work instructions that all look alike. A 9-person cleaning company in Lausanne installs our SOP writer skill. Any team leader types “Write an SOP for cleaning a dental practice” and gets the company’s format, in French.

3. One way of working across the team. A 20-person fiduciary firm (Treuhand) in Zug turns its new-client SOP into a “new client checklist” skill and shares it with all staff. When the owner adds a step to the skill, everyone gets it at once.

Limits and gotchas

One job per skill. “Quotes” and “complaint replies” are two skills. A skill that tries to cover everything gets used for nothing.
No sharing on Claude Free, Pro and Max. Each person uploads their own copy.
Administrators can switch skills off on Claude Team and Enterprise, and on ChatGPT Enterprise and Edu. If you don’t see the Skills menu, ask them.
Only install skills you trust. A skill is plain text: open its SKILL.md file and read it before you switch it on.
Updating in Claude without sharing: upload the new version and delete the old one.

Swiss check

Available in Switzerland: yes, both Claude and ChatGPT Business.
Data location: Anthropic stores Claude data in the US (Anthropic). OpenAI offers storage in Europe only for new Enterprise and Edu customers, not on Business (OpenAI Help). What to do: remove customer names, salaries and bank details from the SOP before you upload it. A skill describes how a job is done; it needs no real data.
Training: choose a business plan (Claude Team or Enterprise, ChatGPT Business or Enterprise) for staff. These don’t use your content for training by default. On Claude Free, Pro and Max, go to Settings > Privacy and switch off Help improve our AI models.
Swiss formats: ask the AI to add this line to every skill: “Amounts in CHF, VAT 8.1%, dates as 06.10.2026, Swiss spelling with ss, answer in the user’s language.” Our skills already include it.
Languages: both work in German, French and Italian. Swiss German is not a listed language for either, so write SOPs and requests in Standard German.

Sources

Anthropic, Use skills in Claude: https://support.claude.com/en/articles/12512180-use-skills-in-claude
Anthropic Academy, How to create a skill with Claude through conversation: https://academy.claude.com/tutorials/how-to-create-a-skill-with-claude-through-conversation
Anthropic, Claude pricing: https://claude.com/pricing
Anthropic Privacy Center, server location: https://privacy.claude.com/en/articles/7996890-where-are-your-servers-located-do-you-host-your-models-on-eu-servers
OpenAI, Skills in ChatGPT: https://help.openai.com/en/articles/20001066-skills-in-chatgpt
OpenAI, Data residency for ChatGPT: https://help.openai.com/en/articles/9903489
OpenAI, ChatGPT Business overview: https://help.openai.com/en/articles/8792828-chatgpt-business-overview
Agent Skills open format: https://agentskills.io/

Legal note: This article is general information, not legal advice. Laws change and every business is different, so always get advice from a qualified lawyer or your fiduciary (Treuhänder) before you act on it.