Why email is still the dominant channel
Many B2B clients order by email because it's what they've always done: no app, no portal, no friction on their end. The problem isn't the channel, it's processing it manually.
Copying data from an email into a spreadsheet or ERP is slow and error-prone: one mistyped digit in an address or quantity can cause a failed delivery.
Recommended workflow
- 1. Dedicated inbox or subject filter.
- 2. AI extracts client, products, quantities and address.
- 3. Business rules: stock, rate, required fields.
- 4. Missing data → automatic reply to client.
- 5. Order created → available for routing.
What to do with ambiguous emails
Not every email is clean: some clients write in free text with no format or clear references. A good extraction system has to handle that variability without blocking the whole flow.
When the AI isn't confident about a piece of data, the right move isn't to guess: flag the order for human review or ask the customer for automatic confirmation.
Want to see how this applies to your operation?