How to Set Up AI Auto-Responders for Email and SMS

AI Auto-Responders read incoming emails and texts, sort each one into a message type, and draft a reply for you, grounded in your business's own knowledge bases. You decide, per phone number and per email address, whether replies wait in your approval queue for a human to check first or send straight away, and which message types the AI should handle at all.

Find every Auto-Responder at https://app.trustpager.com/ai-agents/agent-hub.

What you'll see in Agent Hub

The Auto-Responders section lists every phone number and every workspace email address you have, whether an auto-responder is set up on it yet or not. Each row shows the number or address, and its current status. Click any row to open that Auto-Responder's detail page and configure it.

Turning one on

Each Auto-Responder detail page has an on/off switch at the top right. Nothing drafts or sends until you switch it on.

Draft for review or send automatically

Choose how confident you want to be before a reply goes out:

• Draft for review (the default, and what we recommend) drafts a reply and queues it in your approvals queue. A person on your team reads it, edits it if needed, and approves it before it sends. Nothing reaches a customer without a human checking it first.
• Send automatically sends the AI's reply straight away, with no review step. Only switch to this once you have seen enough drafted replies to trust the tone and accuracy.

Review, edit, and approve queued drafts at https://app.trustpager.com/settings/api?tab=approvals.

What to respond to

Every incoming email or text is automatically sorted into one of ten types. For each type, you choose what the AI does with it:

• Auto respond: the AI drafts a reply, and it goes out (or waits in your approvals queue) exactly as set by "Draft for review or send automatically" above.
• Escalate: the AI still drafts a reply, but that draft always goes to your approvals queue for a person to check first, even if this Auto-Responder is set to send automatically.
• Do nothing: the message is left alone. No draft, no reply. It sits in your inbox for a person to handle as normal.

The ten types, with their defaults out of the box:

• New enquiry - auto respond
• Existing customer - auto respond
• General question - auto respond
• Booking request - auto respond
• Complaint / escalation - escalate
• Billing / account - escalate
• Sales pitch to us - do nothing
• Vendor / supplier reply - do nothing
• Recruitment / partnership - do nothing
• Automated / notification - do nothing

These defaults mean your Auto-Responder won't draft replies to cold sales pitches or automated no-reply mail, and complaints or billing questions always get a person's eyes before anything goes out. Change any of the ten to whatever suits your business on the Auto-Responder's detail page, at https://app.trustpager.com/ai-agents/agent-hub.

Grounding replies in your knowledge bases

Tick which knowledge bases the AI can draw on when it writes a reply. The more relevant material you attach, the more accurate and specific its answers will be. Create and manage knowledge bases at https://app.trustpager.com/ai-agents/knowledgebase, then come back and tick the ones that apply to this number or address.

Customer context

Tick which of the customer's own records the AI can use as background when it drafts a reply: Opportunity, Contact, Customer account, Products, Work orders, Bookings, Invoices. The AI works out who it's talking to from their email address or phone number, then only pulls in the ticked records if the customer's message is actually about them. It never volunteers this information unprompted.

Tools

Tick which actions the AI can take mid-reply, on top of just drafting text, when a customer's message calls for it.

Read-only, no approval needed: Look up account, Work order status, Check pricing, Check availability.

Write actions, each with its own "Requires approval" toggle: Book appointment, Cancel booking, Reschedule booking, Request callback, Take a message, Unsubscribe, Create payment link. Switch it on and the action queues at https://app.trustpager.com/settings/api?tab=approvals for a person to approve before it happens, the same place drafted replies wait. Switch it off and it happens immediately. Customer-visible actions (bookings, unsubscribe, payment links) default to requiring approval; internal ones (take a message, request a callback) default to happening immediately.

Tone and Instructions

Use Tone for a short style note, for example "warm and concise" or "formal". Use Instructions for anything business-specific the AI should always follow when replying: products and pricing to mention, policies to stick to, and anything it should never promise. Both are optional, but the more specific your instructions, the closer the drafts will match how you'd actually reply.

Business hours only

Turn this on and the Auto-Responder only drafts or sends outside your set business hours. Outside those hours, the message simply sits in your inbox, waiting for a person to reply as normal, the same as if the Auto-Responder was off.

Bound to and Reply from

The "Bound to" card shows the incoming number or address this Auto-Responder is listening on. That's fixed, since it's what defines the Auto-Responder. For email, you also get a Reply from selector: choose which of your workspace's sending addresses the reply actually goes out from. The AI signs off as whichever address you pick, so a shared inbox like info@ can still have replies go out under the right name.

Tracking activity

Each Auto-Responder's detail page shows four running totals over the last 30 days: replies drafted, sent to human, total messages handled, and failed. If any drafts are currently waiting in your approvals queue, a banner on the page tells you how many, with a direct link through to review them.

Related pages

• https://app.trustpager.com/ai-agents/agent-hub, for an overview of every AI agent running in your workspace, including your Auto-Responders, voice agents, and scheduled agents.
• https://app.trustpager.com/ai-agents/knowledgebase, to create and manage the knowledge bases your Auto-Responders can be grounded in.
• https://app.trustpager.com/settings/api?tab=approvals, to review, edit, and approve drafts and queued tool actions waiting for you.