How a lighting agency reviews its inbox every 15 minutes
A regional agency represents European lighting brands across the Middle East. Quotations and customer follow-ups move through one shared inbox. The team previously reviewed that inbox by hand throughout the day. The agent now checks it every 15 minutes, day and night. During its first 49 days, it processed 643 emails and asked management to make 216 decisions.
The situation
The team had not documented its pricing rules or the way it routed each message. Processing the inbox depended on people who carried those rules in their heads, which slowed replies and made the work difficult to hand off.
Documented rules
We turned the agency's brand price lists and past quotations into instructions the agent follows.
01Each brand has a discount range that the agent can apply without approval. Requests above that range go to management before the factory receives an instruction.Pricing
02The factory sets every price. The agent manages the request through delivery using only the quotation returned by the factory.Pricing
03The agent removes internal instructions from any message that leaves the agency. Correspondence from a factory stays inside the agency.Communication
04Every follow-up includes the original thread. If the thread is missing, the agent records the missing context and pauses the reply.Communication
05A request to change a payment account stops the thread and alerts management. The agent does not send bank details by email.Security
06When a project specification conflicts with a product datasheet, the agent treats the project specification as the requirement and asks the factory to quote against it.Technical
Rules held by the team
Conversations with the team surfaced the judgment calls that were missing from the documents.
The agency does not enter a thread when the factory already communicates with the customer directly.Source: ManagementCommunication
The company that introduced a project receives a preferred price. The agent quotes other companies at the higher standard rate and keeps the difference confidential.Source: ManagementPricing
Response time is part of the agency's service. The agent follows up before unanswered reminders begin to damage the customer relationship.Source: ManagementTiming
The team identified trusted senders whose messages can proceed without review. It also listed the project types that always require a management decision.Source: Sales teamRouting
The agent drafts answers to non-pricing questions from manufacturers and waits for approval before sending them.Source: ManagementRouting
Before opening a new project, the agent searches previous correspondence for an existing record.Source: OperationsProcess
From written rules to live operation in 25 days
The agency first documented the decisions its team made while processing email. For two weeks, the agent worked in shadow mode: it drafted each reply but could not send it. The team compared every draft with the response it would have sent. Once the decisions matched, the agency allowed the agent to send within a defined boundary.
Timeline
Week 1
Write the rulebook
The team documented its pricing rules and message-routing decisions.
Week 2
Run in shadow mode
The agent drafted replies without sending them while the team checked each decision.
Week 3
Route decisions to chat
Messages that required judgment became short questions in management's existing chat.
Week 4
Begin controlled sending
The agent began sending replies when the written rules gave it authority to act.
System integration
The agent connects to the software the team already uses, so the agency kept its existing workflow.
G
GmailDedicated mailbox and customer threadsConnectedD
Google DriveProject files and price listsConnectedC
Google CalendarMeetings and schedulesConnectedH
HubSpotCustomer relationship management (CRM) records and dealsConnectedD
Google DocsWorking documentsConnectedS
Google SheetsSchedules and pricing sheetsConnectedT
TelegramManagement questions and approvalsConnectedW
WhatsAppCustomer messagesConnectedGuardrails
One reply per thread
Before sending, the agent checks the thread for a reply from the team or an earlier run. It stops when the message has already been answered.
Payment-account changes require approval
Any email that changes a payment account is held for management. The agent cannot reply or send bank details.
What the agent does
The agent works from a dedicated mailbox. It processes unread threads every 15 minutes, starting with the oldest. The team is copied on each reply. When the written rules do not cover a message, the agent asks management one focused question in chat.
QuotationsFrom request to customer quotation
When a customer sends a request for quotation, the agent extracts the bill of quantities, the line-by-line list of fixtures the project needs. It formats the list for the factory. When the offer returns, the agent checks it against the request before sending it to the customer.
CorrectionsRules updated through chat
When a manager corrects a decision in chat, the agent saves the rule and applies it to the next relevant email. The team has made more than 30 corrections this way without waiting for an engineer.
Skills in production
Inbox triageclassifies each email and records the reason
Quotationsmanages each request through a checked factory offer
Follow-upsreopens unanswered threads until someone resolves them
Daily summarysends management one short email at the end of the day
CRM syncadds new notes and deals without overwriting existing records
What changed
Measured workload
15min
maximum wait for review
throughout the day and night
6.2/day
management decisions requested
25days
from rulebook to production
The four email outcomes below account for 554 logged events during the measurement period:
| Outcome | Share |
|---|
| Replies sent with the team copied | 15% |
| Held for a management decision | 39% |
| Closed without a reply | 40% |
| Filtered as noise or phishing | 6% |
| Schedules created from bills of quantities | — |
The agent covers about 127 hours of coordinator work each month.
What changed for the team
Management now receives a short chat question whenever the written rules do not cover a decision, and the team is copied on every email the agent sends. The agent also sends management a summary at the end of each day.