ANDLANE v2.1

↳ admin · service

Inbox & email automation, built for the way small businesses actually work.

Stop spending mornings in your inbox. We build the systems that triage, reply, draft and route — so customer emails handle themselves.

Book your free 15-min call See pricing →

Overview

Why automate this, exactly?

Email is the silent productivity killer for small business owners. The average UK small-business owner spends over two and a half hours a day in their inbox — replying to the same questions, sorting supplier invoices, manually forwarding enquiries to the right person, trying to remember which thread that quote was attached to. Andlane builds inbox automation systems that quietly take 70 to 90 percent of this work off your plate, without your customers ever noticing anything changed. Auto-replies trained on your business and your tone, smart filtering that learns from your behaviour, drafted responses for the messages that need a human touch, and integrations with your CRM, accounting, and calendar tools so nothing falls through the cracks. It works alongside the inbox you already use — Gmail, Outlook, Apple Mail, Office 365 — no migration, no learning curve.

What we'll build

Four pieces that work together.

Each one is useful on its own. Stacked, they remove a category of work from your week entirely.

build
01 / piece

Smart inbox triage

AI sorts incoming email into priority buckets (hot lead, supplier invoice, internal, FAQ-able, spam) and routes to the right person within seconds. You see only what needs you.

build
02 / piece

AI-drafted replies

For routine questions, we draft the reply in your voice — pulling context from past threads, your FAQ, and your business knowledge — and queue it as a one-click send.

build
03 / piece

WhatsApp & Instagram reply bot

Customer DMs handled with the same logic as email. Answered, qualified, or routed to you. Critical for any business doing a meaningful chunk of trade via social channels.

build
04 / piece

Calendar booking flow

Booking requests get auto-confirmed against your live calendar availability with no back-and-forth. Integrates with Calendly, Cal.com, or directly with your Google/Outlook calendar.

In practice

What it looks like in a real business.

A real-world scenario ↘

James runs a 4-person sash window restoration business in southeast London. He used to spend the first two hours of every day in his inbox — quote requests, customer questions, supplier invoices, scheduling. We built him a system that auto-replies to common questions ("do you do free quotes?", "are you available in SE15?") using language pulled from his website, drafts personalised quote responses based on enquiry forms, and only pings him when a real human reply is needed. Supplier invoices that arrive by email are forwarded straight to Xero as draft entries. James now starts his day actually building windows instead of writing emails.

Tools we plug into

Plays nice with the tools you already use.

If yours isn't on this list, ask — we can almost certainly work with it.

Gmail Outlook Office 365 Apple Mail WhatsApp Business Instagram DM Pipedrive HubSpot Calendly Cal.com Xero QuickBooks

Common questions

About inbox & admin automation.

Will customers know they're getting an AI-drafted reply?
No — and that's the point. Drafts are written in your voice, using your tone, your phrasing, your business knowledge. We tune them on your real past emails. Most customers can't tell. For higher-stakes messages (complaints, escalations, new leads), the system always escalates to a human.
Can it handle multiple inboxes and multiple staff?
Yes. Most setups cover at least an info@ inbox plus 2 to 3 personal inboxes. The system can route based on sender, subject content, keywords, or your own rules — and learns from how you reassign threads.
What about emails that need a real human reply?
Those are exactly what you want to see. The system's job is to handle the routine 70 to 90 percent so you can give your full attention to the high-value 10 to 30. Anything new, ambiguous, or important is escalated to you with full context.
Is this just an autoresponder?
No. Autoresponders send the same canned reply to everyone. We build context-aware systems that read the actual incoming message, pull relevant information (the customer's history, your live calendar, your product catalogue), and respond appropriately. It's the difference between a vending machine and a receptionist.
How long does setup take?
Usually 5 to 10 working days from kickoff to going live. Week one is mapping your current inbox patterns and training the system on your existing emails. Week two is connecting your tools, testing edge cases, and switching it on gradually so you can build trust.
Ready when you are ↘

Start small. Start with a call.

Tell us what's slowing you down. We'll tell you, in plain English, whether and how we can automate it. Free, 15 minutes, no pitch.

  • Free 15-min call
  • £250 audit option
  • Fixed quotes
  • No long contracts
£250
audit · fixed · one-off
Book the audit → — or — Book a free 15-min call →