Replying to customer email with AI
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The Inbound Email Auto-Reply workflow is the one automation that answers customers by itself. It ships as a draft with sending off: switch it on to start drafting replies, and turn on Auto-send only when you're ready.
When a customer writes to your inbound address, the Inbound Auto-Reply agent reads the actual message and the whole thread, works out its intent and tone (at the same time as drafting, so it's no slower), and writes a reply to what was said — in the customer's language, grounded in your support reference and the account's documents.
Never sent automatically, even with Auto-send on: cancellation, pricing, legal, security, complaint and escalation emails, and anything the AI isn't confident about. These become a draft plus a notification. A cancellation email also raises a Cancellation intent signal, which stays open until a person closes it and can start the Cancellation & Churn Save workflow.
| "Auto-send emails" | What happens |
|---|---|
| Off (default) | The reply is saved as a draft for you to check and send. |
| On | The reply is sent immediately, with no approval step. |
How replies are written
- They open with "Hi {first name}," — taken from the contact record, otherwise from the email address, otherwise "there" — and Clynto corrects the greeting if the model gets it wrong.
- The first line fits the email: an apology for a bug, thanks for a question, empathy for frustration.
- They answer what was asked in short paragraphs and never invent dates, numbers, refunds or commitments. When a person needs to decide, the reply says a colleague will follow up, and the CSM is notified.
- Your templates are shown to the model as examples of your house style, never sent verbatim. Your signature is appended.
- Replies thread into the customer's existing conversation, and onto the ticket.
Guards that are always on
- One reply per message, ever.
- No mail loops — no-reply addresses, bounces, out-of-office replies, mailing lists and automatic mail are ignored.
- Empty messages are skipped.
- A model outage loses nothing — nothing is sent, you're told to reply by hand, and the message stays queued.
Tip
Support reference (Settings → Workspace context) gives the drafter your help-centre page, uploaded PDF/Word documents or typed notes as its source of truth for steps, feature names and policies.