Let your AI agent sort sales enquiries from support requests
In a small business, the same WhatsApp number or inbox takes everything. A new customer asking for prices sits between an existing customer whose order is late and a supplier chasing an invoice. Whoever picks up the phone has to work out what each message is before they can do anything with it, and the urgent ones are easy to miss. An AI agent can do that sorting the moment a message lands. It decides whether it is a sale, a support question, an order query or a complaint, tags it, gives it to the right person on your team and answers whatever it safely can. This guide shows how to choose your categories, write the sorting rules, deal with the messages that fit two boxes and keep the end-of-day lists short.
Why sorting comes before replying
Sales and support need different things. A new enquiry wants a quick, warm answer and a nudge towards the next step. A support request wants someone who knows the customer's history and can fix the problem. A complaint wants a person, soon, and a careful tone. When all three are treated the same, sales go cold while someone deals with a return, and an unhappy customer waits behind a price question.
Sorting first means each message gets the right kind of answer. It also means each person on your team sees only their own list, rather than scrolling through everything to find their part.
Choose four or five categories
Keep the list short. Most small businesses need these, with names that suit you:
| Category | What it looks like | Who it goes to | What the agent does |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sale | Prices, availability, "do you do…?", a first visit | Owner or sales lead | Answers from the brief and moves towards a booking, quote or link |
| Support | How do I…, something not working, account questions | Support person | Answers known fixes from the brief, hands over the rest |
| Order | Where is my order, changes, collection times | Whoever handles orders | Answers what it knows, hands over anything it cannot check |
| Complaint | Unhappy, refund, broken, late, rude | Owner | Apologises briefly, hands over straight away |
| Other | Suppliers, job seekers, press, spam | Owner, once a day | A short polite reply, or nothing for spam |
Spaces lets your agent tag a conversation and give it an owner on your team, and neither of those sends anything to the customer. Our explainer on conversation tags and owners covers how they work. This guide is about using them for one job: sorting.
Setting it up, step by step
- Write your categories and, for each, three or four example messages from your own chats.
- Decide who owns each category. In a two-person business that might be "sales: me, everything else: Tom".
- Write the urgent words that always go to a person, whatever the category, such as refund, broken, allergic, solicitor or cancel.
- Ask your AI agent to add the categories, owners and urgent words to your business brief, changing only that part.
- Ask the agent to sort the last week of conversations, without replying to anyone, and show you what it decided. Correct any it got wrong and add those as examples.
- Hold replies as drafts for a few days, then let the agent send on its own for sales and simple support, and keep complaints with a person.
- Ask each person for their own list at set times, such as "show me everything owned by Tom that is still unanswered".
Step 5 is the most useful. Sorting last week's messages costs nothing, sends nothing and shows you straight away where the rules are unclear.
A sample note for your AI agent
This is the kind of note a small software company might use for its X DMs and support email. Names and details are examples.
Sorting. Before replying, tag every new conversation with one of:
sale, support, order, complaint, other.
sale: prices, plans, demos, "does it do X?". Owner: Priya.
Answer from the brief and offer a demo link.
support: how-to questions, errors, log-in problems. Owner: Tom.
Answer if the fix is in the brief's FAQs, otherwise say Tom will
look today and hand the chat over.
complaint: unhappy, refund, cancel, "this is the third time".
Owner: Priya. Say sorry once, say Priya will reply today, hand
over. Do not explain or defend.
other: suppliers, recruiters, press. Owner: Priya. Reply: "Thanks,
I've passed this on." Spam: tag and do not reply.
If a message fits two tags, use the one higher in this order:
complaint, support, order, sale, other.
Existing customers asking to buy more are "sale", owned by Priya,
even if they also mention a support question.Example: a gym on Instagram
Names and details are examples.
| Who | Message |
|---|---|
| Customer | Hi how much is membership and do you have a creche |
| Agent | Hi, thanks for asking. Membership is £34 a month with no joining fee, and our crèche runs weekday mornings from 9 to 12. Would you like to book a free tour? |
Tagged sale, owned by the manager, answered fully from the brief. A few minutes later, in the same inbox:
| Who | Message |
|---|---|
| Member | My app won't let me book Saturday spin, says membership expired but I paid on Monday |
| Agent | Sorry about that, that sounds frustrating. I've passed this to Ellie on our front desk, and she'll check your account and reply this afternoon. |
Tagged support, owned by Ellie, handed over. The agent cannot see the gym's membership system, so it does not guess. Ellie's list now shows one clear item with the problem already explained.
Messages that fit two boxes
Real messages are messy. A customer writes "my last order was missing a part, and also do you sell the bigger size?" That is a complaint, a support question and a sale in one line. Without a rule, the agent will pick whichever it noticed first.
The simplest fix is an order of priority, as in the sample note: the most serious category wins, and the person who owns it deals with the rest. A missing part goes to whoever handles problems, and they can answer the size question while they are there. If your team is two people, that rule might simply be "anything with a problem goes to Tom, everything else to me".
Tell the agent to answer the easy part straight away where it can. "Yes, we stock it in large. I've also passed the missing part to Tom, who'll sort it today" is better than making the customer wait for both answers.
Example: a wholesaler on email
Names and details are examples.
| Who | Message |
|---|---|
| Shop owner | Hi, can you send me your new spring price list? Also our last delivery had two cases of the oat milk damaged. |
| Agent | Thank you for letting us know, and sorry about the damaged cases. I've passed that to Marcus, who will sort a credit or replacement with you today. Our spring price list is here: [price list link]. |
Tagged complaint, owned by Marcus, handed over, with the easy part answered at once.
Keeping each person's list short
Sorting only helps if people look at their own list. These questions work with any AI agent connected to Spaces:
Show me every conversation owned by me that is still unanswered,
oldest first.
List today's conversations tagged "complaint" and whether a person
has replied yet.
How many conversations were tagged sale, support, order and
complaint this week?The weekly count is worth a glance. If complaints jump, something has changed in the business, such as a late supplier. If sales enquiries drop, check whether a post or an advert has stopped running.
If you use a chat app such as ChatGPT, Claude or Grok, it only acts when you ask it something in a chat, so it will not watch your messages on its own. An always-on agent such as Claude Code, Codex, OpenClaw or Hermes can run continuously and pick up each message as it arrives.
The honest limits
An AI agent will sometimes sort a message into the wrong box, especially short or sarcastic ones. "Great, another late delivery" can read as praise. That is why urgent words should go to a person whatever the category, and why a weekly look at a few tagged chats is worth the time.
Spaces does not connect to your order system, membership software or helpdesk. The agent sorts and answers from what is in the brief. Anything it would need to look up elsewhere, it hands to a person, unless you give the agent its own tools for those systems separately.
Common mistakes
- Twelve categories. The agent and your team both get confused. Four or five is plenty.
- No order of priority, so a complaint with a price question gets tagged as a sale.
- Letting the agent answer complaints on its own.
- Owners who never check their list. Fix it by asking for each list at set times.
- Forgetting "other", so supplier emails and job applications land in the sales list.
Who you message
Summing up
Pick four or five categories, give each an owner and a few real examples, add an order of priority and a list of urgent words, and test by sorting last week's chats without replying. Then let the agent tag, assign and answer the easy parts as messages arrive. Each person checks their own list at set times, and complaints always reach a person first.
Pricing
FAQ
Do I need a team to make sorting worthwhile?
No. Even on your own, sorting lets you deal with complaints first and sales next, and leave suppliers until the end of the day. With a team, it also means each person sees only their own messages.
Does tagging a chat send anything to the customer?
No. Tags and owners are only for you and your team. The customer sees nothing change.
Can the agent sort messages across WhatsApp, Instagram and email together?
Yes. Use the same categories on every channel, so a complaint is a complaint wherever it arrives. Your agent can list conversations by tag or owner on each connected account.
What if the agent puts a message in the wrong category?
Correct the tag, and add that message to the examples in your brief, so the agent learns the pattern. In the first week, sorting last week's messages without replying is the quickest way to find these.
Should the agent reply to sales enquiries straight away?
Yes, if the answer is in the brief. A quick, accurate reply is what turns an enquiry into a customer. Hand over anything it cannot answer from the brief.
How do I stop complaints being answered by the agent?
Write a clear rule in the brief: for complaints, apologise once, say who will reply and when, and hand the chat over. Spaces then keeps the agent out of that chat until a person hands it back.
Can I see how many of each type came in?
Yes. Ask your agent to count this week's conversations by tag. It is a simple way to notice when complaints rise or enquiries fall.