AI Distilled
Playbooks · Support your customers
Support your customersHuman approves

Answer routine customer emails, with a person approving every send

Draft replies from your own answer bank so routine emails take minutes, and nothing goes out unreviewed.

Setup
45 min
Rung
02 → 03
Tool cost
Free–$30/mo
Approval
A person

Before and after

Before

  1. Email arrives
  2. You read it
  3. You write a reply from scratch
  4. Send

After

  1. ToolEmail arrives
  2. AIAI drafts from your answer bank
  3. YouYou review and edit
  4. YouSend
  5. YouAnswer bank updated

Five steps, 45 minutes

  1. 01Build your answer bank

    15 min

    Pull 20 recent customer emails and the replies you sent. Remove names, order numbers and anything private before pasting them anywhere. Then list each common question once, with the answer you actually give, and mark the ones a person always handles, like refunds.

  2. 02Write the assistant’s instructions

    10 min

    Tell it what it may use, how you sound, and what it must never do. Check your plan’s data settings first. If your tool can save instructions (in a project or custom assistant), keep these there with the bank.

    You draft replies for [business].
Use only the answer bank below. Match my tone: [three words].
Never promise refunds, discounts or dates.
If you are unsure, write [CHECK] and stop.

Answer bank:
[paste your answer bank]
    Open ChatGPTOpen ClaudeOpen Gemini

  3. 03Draft, don’t send

    4 min

    Paste new emails in batches and collect the drafts. Keep sending manual; nothing leaves without you. When a question isn’t in the bank, answer it yourself, then add it.

  4. 04Review with the checklist

    1 min

    About a minute an email. Check the four things below before you send. Anything with money in it comes to you, always.

    Human check: Names, numbers, promises, tone: right customer, right order, right amount; no promise you didn’t make; sounds like you. Clear every [CHECK] before sending.

  5. 05Automate the drafting

    Optional · rung 0315 min

    Once the manual version runs smoothly, move up to rung 03 (Automator): use an automation tool (Zapier or Make, for example) to drop a draft reply into your drafts folder for every new customer email, with the same instructions and bank. Sending stays manual.

What to measure beyond “time saved”

  • Drafts sent unchanged

    Count them for a week. Rising means the bank is good.

  • Edits per draft

    Light edits are fine; rewrites mean the bank needs work.

  • Follow-up questions

    If customers ask again, the reply wasn’t clear.

  • Errors caught at review

    Proof the human check is doing its job. Don’t expect zero on day one.

Common pitfalls

  • Letting it promise things. Refunds, discounts and dates belong to a person. Say so in the instructions.

  • Pasting private data you don’t need. Strip names and order numbers before building the bank.

  • Skipping review “just this once”. The one unchecked email is the one that goes wrong.

Need help building it?

AI Distilled can build this with you: a working pilot, tested on your real work.

Scope a build