What you will end up with
By the end of a two-hour session, you will have a sorted inbox, draft replies waiting for your approval on the routine emails, and a short list of urgent emails that need you personally. Nothing goes out until you have read it and approved it.
This is an AI email triage workflow: the AI does the sorting and first drafts, and you make the decisions. It suits a backlog of around 30 emails, but the same steps work for more or fewer.
Before you start
You need three things:
- An AI email assistant that is set up and connected to your mailbox. Rapid Ready Ai's AI Inbox & Email role is one option. Because it needs your mailbox connected, it is quoted before you order.
- Access to your email, so you can check the AI's work against the real messages.
- Two to three hours without interruptions. Most of that time is you reviewing, not the AI working.
It also helps to have your price list, delivery details and opening hours open in another window. You will want them in Steps 1 and 4.
How to do it, step by step
Step 1: Tell the AI what your business does and what counts as urgent
Write one paragraph about your business. Include what you sell, where you operate, your main products or services, and how you like to sound when you write to customers.
Then list what counts as urgent. Be specific. For example:
- Complaints, or anyone saying they are unhappy
- Payment problems, such as a double charge or an unpaid invoice query
- Anything with a deadline, such as "I need this by Friday"
- Requests for refunds or cancellations
The AI works only from what you tell it, so this step decides how good everything else is. Spend ten minutes here.
What you should see: the AI confirms back what it understood about your business and your urgent list. If its summary is wrong, correct it now.
Step 2: Ask the AI to sort your inbox by category
Ask it to go through your unread emails and group them by type. A simple prompt works: "Sort my unread emails into product enquiries, support requests, complaints, feedback and spam. Show the sender, subject and a one-line summary for each."
What you should see: a list that looks something like this (illustrative):
- Product enquiries (11): pricing, availability, delivery to Nelson
- Support requests (8): order status, how to use something
- Complaints (3): late delivery, wrong item
- Feedback (4): thank-you notes, suggestions
- Spam (4): sales pitches, junk
Open three or four emails from different groups and check they landed in the right place. If several are wrong, go back to Step 1 and add clearer descriptions.
Step 3: Ask the AI to draft replies to routine enquiries
Start with your biggest routine category, usually product enquiries. Ask for a draft reply to each email. Tell it to leave out anything it does not know rather than guess.
What you should see: a draft for each email, waiting for you. Here is an illustrative example for a customer in Nelson asking about delivery:
Hi Aroha, thanks for getting in touch. Yes, we deliver to Nelson. Courier delivery usually takes two to four working days, and the cost is shown at checkout before you pay. If you let us know which product you are after, we can confirm it is in stock. Kind regards, Sam
That is a good draft because it answers the question, gives the key detail, and offers a next step. Check each draft for three things:
- Accuracy: are the prices, times and policies right?
- Tone: does it sound like you?
- Completeness: does it answer everything the customer asked?
Step 4: Review and approve each draft before it goes out
Read every draft against the original email. Do not skim. Ask yourself:
- Is the information correct?
- Does it answer the actual question?
- Is the tone right for your business?
- Does it need a real person to sign off, such as a quote, a promise or an exception?
Edit anything that is off, then send it yourself. If your setup can send replies automatically, turn that off for now. The AI can get things wrong, so a person should stay in the loop for anything important.
What you should see: a pile of routine emails clearing quickly. Reviewing a good draft takes far less time than writing from scratch.
Step 5: Flag emails that need a real person
Ask the AI to list every email that falls under your urgent rules from Step 1. Also ask it to flag any email it is unsure about, plus anything involving a custom request, a complaint or a refund.
What you should see: a short list with the reason beside each one, for example: "Complaint: customer says the wrong item arrived" or "Unsure: asks for a bulk discount, no price given."
Handle these yourself, or write the reply and let the AI tidy the wording. Do the flagged emails first on future days, before the routine ones.
If it does not work
The drafts are inaccurate
The AI is missing information. Go back to Step 1 and add the facts it got wrong: prices, delivery areas, turnaround times, what you do not offer. Then ask it to redraft.
Urgent emails are slipping through
Your definition of urgent is too vague. Add real examples, such as the exact phrases customers use when they are annoyed or chasing a payment. Check a sample of the "routine" pile to see what was missed, and add those cases to your list.
It is taking too long
Thirty emails at once may be too much. Split the backlog into batches of ten, and finish the sort, drafts and review for one batch before starting the next.
Next steps
Once the backlog is clear, turn this into a daily habit. Set aside 30 minutes each morning and run the same steps on the new emails: sort, check the flagged list, review drafts, send.
Every week or so, note which drafts you had to fix and add that information to your business description. The drafts get closer to what you would write, and your review time shrinks.
If you have questions about setting this up, get in touch through our contact page.
