Automate the first touch and the routing, never the judgment. A safe setup has four tiers: auto-reply, auto-reply with review, draft only, and human only. Sort your incoming messages into them once, and the risky ones never get an automated answer.
TLDR: Tag every message type by risk. Auto-reply only to questions with one correct answer, draft the middle tier for a human to send, and route complaints and legal topics straight to a named person. Review the replies every month.
The four tiers, from safest to riskiest
The idea is to decide in advance, not message by message. Put each type of inbound message in a tier and write the rule down.
| Tier | Message type | What the system does |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Auto-reply | "Where is the link?", opening hours, shipping times | Sends a pre-written answer instantly |
| 2. Auto-reply, then review | Product questions, simple how-tos | Sends an answer, a person checks within 24 hours |
| 3. Draft only | Pricing, availability, partnership asks | Prepares a draft, a person edits and sends |
| 4. Human only | Complaints, refunds, safety, press, legal | Tags and routes to a named owner |
When you are unsure about a message type, put it one tier higher. Moving a type down later is easy. Cleaning up one bad auto-reply in public is not.
Start with comment-to-DM replies, the easiest tier 1
The cleanest automation is the one the customer asked for. Someone comments a keyword like "GUIDE", and a link arrives in their DMs. There is no guessing involved and no tone to get wrong.
Trigger-word comment automation in Mydrop does exactly this. You choose the word, write the reply once, and every matching comment gets it. It is a good first rule because the person opted in by typing the word.
Write replies once, in a real voice
Robotic replies come from copy written by a committee. Write each tier 1 reply as if you were typing to one person.
- Use a first name or the brand's human sign-off.
- Answer in the first sentence, then add one helpful line.
- Never say "Dear valued customer" or "your query has been logged".
- Keep it under 280 characters where you can. Shorter replies read as human.
Keep all of them in one response library so the wording stays consistent across brands and teammates.
Add four guardrails that catch the dangerous cases
Rules fail on the edge cases, so build the safety net before the first reply goes out.
- Keyword blocklist: words like "refund", "lawyer", "scam", "injured" or "cancel" bypass automation and go to tier 4.
- Sentiment check by eye: a person scans the auto-replied threads once a day for the first two weeks.
- Reply cap: one automated reply per person per thread. Never let two bots chat with each other or answer the same person twice.
- Off switch: during a crisis or a launch glitch, pause all tier 1 and tier 2 rules in one click.
Our triage guide covers the daily five-minute review that keeps the voice consistent.
Route the rest to a named owner
Tier 4 only works if someone owns it. Assign each message type to a person and set a response target, for example 2 hours on weekdays for complaints. Mydrop's social inbox pulls comments and messages from your connected accounts into one place, so you can assign threads instead of hoping someone notices.
Review the rules monthly
Once a month, open the ten most-used automated replies. Ask three questions: did customers follow up with "that did not answer my question", did any reply fire on the wrong message, and is anything out of date. Fix or retire any rule that fails.
A worked check: one week of messages through the tiers
Take last week's 50 messages and sort them. In most inboxes the pile splits into a large tier 1 group of repeat questions, a handful of tier 3 pricing or availability asks, and two or three tier 4 complaints. Count your own split.
If more than a third of your messages land in tier 4, automation is not your bottleneck. Your product or process is generating the complaints, and a faster reply will not fix that. Share the tagged list with whoever owns the fix.
Your next step: list your ten most common inbound messages, put each in a tier, and automate only tier 1 this week. Add tier 2 after two clean weeks. You can set up the first keyword rule free at app.mydropai.com.
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