The 80/20 of Customer Inquiries: What You Should Automate First
Ali, CTO
Tairo Partners
Most businesses trying to automate customer service make the same mistake: they try to automate everything at once. It fails, frustrates customers, and the AI gets turned off within weeks.
The reality: 80% of your customer inquiries are probably variations of the same 15-20 questions. Automate those first, and you'll free up 15-25 hours per week while finally getting real data on what your customers actually want.
The Hidden Cost of Repetitive Inquiries
Your team is spending hours answering the same questions. Hours that could be spent on actual sales, complex customer issues, or strategic work.
Worse: you have no idea what patterns exist in those inquiries. No data to optimize your offerings, no insights for marketing, no way to know what's actually blocking conversions.
What to Automate First
You already know what these questions are. Ask your team: "What do we answer every single day?"
Common patterns we see in discovery calls:
- Hospitality: Opening hours, directions, booking availability, cancellation policies
- Retail: Order status, return policies, shipping times
- B2B: Pricing, service coverage, scheduling
These make up 70-85% of inquiries in most businesses we audit. Automate them, and here's what changes:
Time: 15-25 hours per week freed up on average
That's 60-100 hours per month your team can spend on revenue-generating work instead of being a human FAQ.
Response time: From hours to seconds
Customers get answers at 2am. On weekends. The second they ask.
Data you never had before
Every inquiry logged, categorized, searchable. You'll finally know:
- What questions spike during peak season
- Which services people ask about most (but maybe don't buy)
- What's confusing in your communication
- Where customers drop off
This data transforms your marketing. You know exactly what to retarget, what objections to address, what content to create.
How to Find Your 80/20
Have data? Pull last quarter's emails/chats. Categorize them. Patterns jump out immediately.
No data tracking? (Most don't) Your team knows. They'll list the top 10 questions in 5 minutes.
Can these be answered with info you already have documented? If yes → automate them.
What NOT to Automate First
- ✗ Complaints or emotional situations
- ✗ Requests requiring judgment calls
- ✗ Anything involving refunds/compensation
- ✗ Highly personalized recommendations
Keep humans on these. AI handles volume, humans handle nuance and close deals.
Why We Stress Test Everything
We train every agent with thousands of question variations before deployment. Every possible way someone might ask - typos, broken English, mixed questions, 2am drunk texts.
That's why our FAQ agents answer correctly every time. We've tested every scenario before you go live.
The Real Transformation
This isn't just about "saving time." It's about:
- Scaling without hiring - Handle 2x the inquiry volume with the same team
- Never missing a lead - Someone asks about availability at 11pm Saturday? They get an answer immediately. Not Monday morning when they've already booked with your competitor.
- Better business decisions - Finally have data on what customers actually ask, when they ask it, and what's blocking them from buying
- Team morale - Your staff stops being a human FAQ machine and starts doing work that actually matters
Start This Week
You don't need months of analysis. You know what questions your team answers daily.
Automate those 5-10 questions. Test properly. Watch your team's time free up and your data quality transform.
Then decide what's next.
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