ChatGPT
1,689 messages, 11 needed her
A small e-commerce company selling digital goods was buried in support mail. David Gewirtz describes building a mail system for his wife's business: Claude built a rulebook from an export of 88,777 past messages. A scheduled ChatGPT run now reads the rulebook each day, sorts and files new mail, and drafts template replies. An hourly script sends drafts that qualify, then labels and archives the originals. Urgent items go to the owner.
How it wentIn a tested backlog of 1,689 messages, only 25 were from real customers, and only 11 needed her response. Two earlier builds failed over about four weeks: their tests passed but never tested real unattended processing. The working system needed 15 rulebook revisions in its first two weeks. Cost is her $20 a month ChatGPT Plus plan, plus the builder's own Claude plan used to build it.
Try it · based on the source's workflow
Build a rulebook for my support inbox in [email account]. Read these past messages: [export or folder]. Sort senders and topics into rules: what a template can answer, what needs a draft for my review, and what must reach me the same day. Then sort the last [number] messages by those rules and draft replies for the template topics only. Do not send anything until I approve the rules and the first 10 drafts. Log every message you file, draft or escalate.
A starting template based on the workflow the source describes. Review it before you use it; you are responsible for what it does.