AI Frontdesk: Setting up email response behaviour

Valid for: AI Email Assistant (Momentum AI)

You decide which incoming emails your assistant handles and how independently it acts: whether it leaves an email for you, prepares a reply for your approval, or replies itself. For each type of email, you can also give it your own guidance, for example, to refer customers to a free consultation when they ask about prices. You can also specify the signature that appears in its replies and decide whether a short note should indicate that the reply comes from an AI assistant.

This feature is available with the AI Email Assistant. The following steps show you how to configure the reply behaviour.

Requirement

Your mailbox is connected to your assistant. Until it is, the Email assistant section only shows the options for connecting your email provider. The article Connecting and managing your email account explains how to connect your mailbox.

Which emails the assistant handles

The assistant sorts each incoming email into one of three categories:

General business inquiries: opening hours, prices, location, directions, and services.
Appointment requests: booking, moving, or cancelling an appointment.
Inquiries: emails that match one of the inquiries you have set up.

All other emails and spam remain untouched. The assistant never guesses: if it cannot clearly identify the category of an email, it leaves the email in your inbox for you.

Your assistant also only replies to the first email in a thread. If your customer replies to that, the follow-up message is left for you to answer.

Note

The Inquiries category only applies if you have set up inquiries. Until you do, the assistant cannot assign any email to this category. The article AI Frontdesk: Setting up inquiries explains how to set up inquiries.

Open the Email assistant section

Log in to your IONOS account.
Click on Menu > AI Frontdesk in the title bar.
In the contract overview, click on Manage in the tile for the contract you want.

In the navigation bar on the left, under Settings, click Email assistant. The Email assistant section opens on the Configure assistant page. You can configure all of the following settings there.

Set the reply mode

For each category, you specify how independently the assistant may act.

Under What may the assistant answer?, select one of the three modes for each category:

Leave alone: The assistant leaves these emails in your inbox. You reply to them yourself as before.
Draft for me: The assistant prepares a reply and waits for your approval. The article Checking and approving email drafts explains how to review and send drafts.
Answer automatically: The assistant sends the reply without your approval.

Answer automatically is only available for General business inquiries. For Appointment requests and Inquiries, the option is greyed out and marked Coming soon. For these categories, the assistant can prepare drafts, which you then review:

For appointment requests, the draft asks for details and preferred dates. You confirm the appointment yourself.
For inquiries, the draft acknowledges receipt and asks for any missing information.

Note

In Answer automatically mode, the assistant sends its reply after a delay of a few minutes. If you reply yourself during this time, the automatic reply is not sent.

Tip

Before you set a category to Answer automatically, try out the result with a test email. The article AI Frontdesk: Testing replies with a test email explains how to do this.

Add guidance for a category

Below each category, there is an Optional guidance for these replies field. The assistant applies what you enter there only to emails in that category.

Click in the Optional guidance for these replies field below the category you want.
Enter your instructions in your own words, for example, When asked about prices, always mention that a free consultation is available.

Note

Guidelines on tone and wording that should apply to all replies belong in the Email style guide instead. The article Customising the writing style for email replies explains how to do this.

Set a signature

The assistant adds the signature to every email reply, both to automatic replies and to drafts that you approve.

Enter the text you want in the Signature field, for example, a closing line with your team or business name.

Note

The assistant’s signature is independent of the signature in your email program. It does not affect emails that you write yourself.

Turn the AI note on or off

The AI note is a short transparency note shown below your signature. It tells recipients that the reply was written by an AI assistant.

Use the AI note in replies toggle to turn the note on or off. A preview shows how the signature and the note appear together in a reply.

Note

We recommend turning on the AI note. It ensures transparency for your customers and helps prevent misunderstandings, particularly when the assistant sends replies automatically.

Note on hallucinations

AI systems may occasionally make incorrect or inaccurate statements, known as hallucinations. This means that the AI estimates or interprets answers when no clear information is available.

Please Note:

The AI cannot always adhere 100% to your specifications.
You should therefore scrutinise important answers carefully.
Such deviations are not technical faults, but a typical characteristic of generative AI.