This might sound judgmental but I'm honestly puzzled by something I keep seeing... I do some consulting work (mostly helping small businesses with their workflows) and I swear every single business owner I meet treats their inbox like it's a full-time job. Yesterday I was working with a client who showed me their morning routine: 2.5 hours of sorting emails, responding to the same 5 types of inquiries they get every day, forwarding stuff to their team, and filing everything manually. **The wild part? They get the exact same questions every day:** * "What are your pricing options?" * "Do you work with \[specific industry\]?" * "Can you send me more information about \[service\]?" * "What's your availability next month?" When I suggested setting up some basic auto-responses or email rules, they looked at me like I'd suggested they hire a robot to run their business. Is there something I'm missing here? Like, do people actually enjoy typing the same responses over and over? Or is it a trust thing where they think customers will somehow know it's automated? Because honestly, if I email a business asking about pricing and get a helpful response in 2 minutes vs waiting 6 hours for the owner to craft a "personal" email that says the exact same thing... I'm going with the fast response every time. Maybe I'm oversimplifying this, but watching someone spend 15 minutes crafting an email that says "Thanks for your interest, here's our pricing sheet" feels like watching someone hand-wash dishes when there's a perfectly good dishwasher right there. What am I not understanding about email automation? Is there a downside I'm not seeing?