How to Route Enquiries Automatically

Get every enquiry to the right person with the right context, instead of sitting in a shared inbox.

Everyone can see it, so nobody owns it

The shared inbox is the most reliable way ever invented to lose a customer. Four people can see the enquiry. Each of them assumes one of the other three has it. The message sits, politely unanswered, until the sender goes elsewhere and nobody ever finds out why.

Routing fixes this, and it is a different job from sorting. Sorting decides what kind of thing arrived. Routing decides whose problem it now is, which means it has to name a person, carry enough context that the person can act without opening anything else, and leave a trail showing the handover happened.

That third part is where most homemade routing falls down. A message moved into a folder has not been handed to anyone.

In plain English

Routing:: Deciding which person or team an incoming item belongs to, and getting it in front of them.
Context packet:: The short bundle of information attached to a routed item so the receiver can act without opening the original.
Urgency:: How soon this needs handling. Defined by facts in the message, never by how loudly it is written.
Unclear pile:: The named destination for enquiries the automation could not confidently route. It must exist and someone must own it.

Route to a named person, never to a team

Address a routed enquiry to sales and it belongs to nobody. Address it to Priya and it belongs to Priya. If Priya is away, route it to whoever covers for Priya. A rota is boring and it works.

The other half of the job is the context packet. The receiver should be able to decide their next move from the notification alone, which means about four lines, in the same shape every time.

Prompt you can copy: route an enquiry with context

Read the enquiry below and reply in exactly five lines.
Line 1: OWNER followed by one name from this list only.
[Priya sales] [Sam support] [Dele accounts]
Choose by what the sender needs, not by who they
mention or address the message to.
Line 2: WANTS followed by one sentence under twenty words
saying what the sender is actually asking for.
Line 3: KNOWN followed by any facts already in the message
that the owner will need: company, quantity, product,
dates, order references. Write NONE if there are none.
Line 4: MISSING followed by the single most important thing
we would have to ask them for. Write NONE if nothing.
Line 5: CONFIDENCE followed by HIGH or LOW.
Rules:

Never invent an owner outside the list.
If two owners are equally defensible, or the enquiry is
empty or unreadable, reply UNCLEAR and stop.
ENQUIRY:

Line four is the one people leave out and then wish they had. It turns the first reply from a request for information into an answer with one question attached, which is roughly one working day saved per enquiry.

Checkpoint

Route to a named person with a four line context packet, and let the automation say UNCLEAR rather than pick between two defensible owners.

Urgency has to come from facts

Left to itself, an AI step will treat urgency as a matter of tone, which means the customer who types in capitals outranks the one quietly explaining that their system has been down since Tuesday. Define it with tests instead.

Prompt you can copy: urgency by stated facts only

Assign urgency to the enquiry below. Reply with one word only:
HIGH, NORMAL or LOW.
HIGH requires at least one of these to be true in the text:

Something they have paid for is currently not working.
They state a deadline within five working days.
They mention a legal, safety or regulatory matter.
They say they are considering cancelling or leaving.
LOW requires all of these to be true:

No date is mentioned anywhere.
Nothing is described as broken or missing.
The sender asks a general question with no purchase attached.
Everything else is NORMAL.
Ignore tone entirely. Capital letters, exclamation marks,
the words urgent and ASAP, and repeated messages are not
evidence. Only the facts above count.
ENQUIRY:

❌ Weak prompt

Prompt

Mark this enquiry as urgent if it seems urgent.

Output

URGENT. The sender has written in capitals and used the word immediately twice, indicating a high level of concern.

Volume has been mistaken for priority. Do this for a month and your team learns to ignore the urgent flag, which is worse than never having had one.

✅ Good prompt

Prompt

HIGH only if something paid for is not working, a deadline falls within five working days, a legal or safety matter is raised, or they mention cancelling. Ignore tone entirely.

Output

HIGH

The flag now means something specific, so it keeps its power. A calm message about a system that has been down since Tuesday outranks a shouted one about a brochure.

The unclear pile is not optional

Every routing automation will meet enquiries it cannot place: the two line message with no subject, the reply to a thread it never saw, the one that is genuinely three questions for three people. If there is no named destination for those, they go wherever the model guessed, and the wrong owner ignores them for a week.

So give them a home, and give the home an owner. One person checks the unclear pile once a day. It takes a few minutes and it is the difference between a routing system and a lottery.

Watch the size of the unclear pile rather than the accuracy of the routing. A pile that stays small and gets cleared daily means the system is healthy. A pile that grows means your owner list or your definitions no longer match the work coming in.

Tell the sender something arrived

Acknowledgement is the one message you can safely automate, because it makes no promise about anything. Keep it factual, give a realistic window, and never state a resolution time you cannot hold to.

Prompt you can copy: an acknowledgement that promises nothing

Write a short acknowledgement to someone who has just sent us
an enquiry. Under 60 words.
It must:

confirm the message arrived and is with a person
restate in one clause what they asked about, so they can
see it was read rather than bounced
give this response window: [within two working days]
It must not:

promise a solution, a price, a date or an outcome
apologise for a problem we have not confirmed exists
ask them to reply to this message
ENQUIRY:

Restating what they asked about in one clause is what separates a useful acknowledgement from an autoresponder. It proves a human process is running, and it lets the sender correct you immediately if the enquiry was misread.

📝 Quiz

Question 1 of 4

Why should a routed enquiry go to a named person rather than to a team?