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AI Inquiry Triage Case Study for a Regional Service Business

An AI layer was introduced to classify incoming inquiries, detect urgency, and suggest the next action to operators.

Business type
Regional field-services business
Project type
AI workflow automation
Outcome
42% faster first response
Duration
4 weeks
Channels
3 channels
First response
-42%
Manual triage
-31%

Project summary

The client handled 120-180 daily inquiries from email, web forms, and messaging channels.

Operations staff manually routed messages to the right person, creating delays.

The project goal was to reduce first-response time without increasing headcount.

Problem

  • Response quality and speed varied by shift.
  • Urgent requests were buried in a shared inbox.
  • Sales staff spent time on low-quality or irrelevant inquiries.

Solution

  • AI classification by request type: new sales, support, urgent service, administration.
  • Priority rules to automatically flag urgent requests.
  • Draft response and next-step suggestion for operators with mandatory human approval before sending.
  • CRM integration to assign each inquiry to the right owner.

Stack used

ASP.NET MVC portal Azure OpenAI (GPT-4o mini) Azure Functions Microsoft SQL Server SendGrid + webhook intake Power BI operations dashboard

Measurable result

  • 42% reduction in first-response time (median 94 min to 55 min).
  • 31% fewer manual message-routing tasks.
  • 18% increase in qualified inquiries passed to sales during the first 30 days.

Implementation notes

Timeline
4 weeks from discovery to production
Scope boundaries
The system does not send final responses automatically without human approval; the scope focused on triage and operational efficiency.
Data/privacy
Personal identifiers were masked before model calls; retention rules aligned with the client’s internal policy.
Adoption
Operators received short enablement training and a simple QA checklist to validate suggested responses.

What made rollout successful

  • Clear owners for each inquiry category.
  • Minimal disruption to existing operations tooling.
  • Weekly review of classification misses and rule tuning.

Dealing with the same inquiry bottleneck?

We can map your inquiry flow and propose an AI triage setup that fits your team and budget.

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