Customer operations · UK teams
AI email triage
Help staff see which messages need action, with transparent routing and a clear boundary around sending.
Understand the service
What this means in practice
AI email triage classifies incoming messages, extracts the requested action and prepares a useful queue for a person. It can be valuable when the inbox mixes routine requests with exceptions. The system needs to preserve the thread and source context so an urgent or unusual message is not hidden by an overconfident label.
Temrik can scope triage around one authorised mailbox or queue. A first pilot can remain read-only and compare suggested priorities with staff decisions. Sending replies, deleting messages or changing business records should be treated as separate capabilities with their own permissions and tests.
- Google: Gmail API access scopes Choose narrowly scoped access; verification requirements may apply.
- Microsoft Graph: permissions overview Access depends on permissions and resource authorisation.
A practical workflow example
A shared inbox receives service requests, supplier updates and complaints. The proposed triage view identifies the category, suggested owner and missing information. A complaint or uncertain urgency is escalated. Staff can override a category, and the original message remains available beside the summary.
Proposed engagement
How we would approach the work
Define categories and exceptions
Use the team’s real queue and routing rules. Include messages that span categories and requests that need immediate human attention.
Test against historical examples
Use authorised, appropriately handled messages. Compare false urgency, missed urgency and incorrect ownership before enabling automatic routing.
Make correction easy
Retain original messages, record overrides and establish an exception queue. Keep external replies in draft until separately approved.
Deliverables to agree in the scope
- An inbox taxonomy and escalation rules.
- A pilot evaluation of routing and urgency decisions.
- A proposed operator queue with source links and correction paths.
Access, sample information and reviewer availability affect the plan. Any implementation, provider costs, support arrangements and acceptance criteria are agreed before work begins.
Limits worth understanding
- Tone alone is not a reliable measure of urgency or importance.
- Incoming messages can contain misleading instructions; their content must not grant the assistant new permissions.
Questions to bring to the first conversation
- Which missed message would cause the most harm?
- How will an operator correct a wrong category?
- Does the first release need to send anything at all?
UK teams
Scope the work for your operating context.
For a UK shared inbox, include complaints, contractual notices and customer requests that need specialist handling in the test set. Preserve receipt times and original attachments; an AI summary should not replace the business record.
A starting reference for your review: ICO: AI and data protection guidance. Local obligations and deployment settings need to be assessed for the actual use case.
A focused next step
Work with Temrik.
Tell us about the workflow you want to improve and the outcome you need. We can review the context and discuss a focused assessment. Scope and price are agreed before paid work begins.