Second Desk

A second desk for your front counter

The routine emails your team answers twenty times a day, drafted from your own inventory, prices and orders. Your people check each one and press send. It's there to take the monotonous part of the job, not anyone's job, so your team has more time for the work that matters most. Customized for each business, set up in four weeks.

See it work

This is the page your team works from

The morning's emails arrive sorted, with the numbers looked up and the reply written. Your team ticks each line, fixes anything that's off, and approves. Anything unusual sits at the top of the list.

Change a price, switch the tone, approve a draft. Nothing is sent.

The Second Desk review page: a sorted inbox on the left, and on the right a quote for Two Pines Landscape with each line checked, the subtotal, and the drafted reply ready to approve.
The demo desk, with a fictional supply house.

How it works

Three steps run on their own. The last one is always a person.

  1. 1

    Reads the inbox

    A scheduled scan of your shared inbox runs during business hours. Each email is sorted as a quote request, an order-status question, or something a person should handle.

    • Works with Gmail or Microsoft 365
    • Newsletters, POs and anything unusual are left alone
  2. 2

    Looks it up in your system

    Stock by location, your price list, open orders and lead times come straight from the software you already use. The connection is read-only, so it can look but never change anything.

    • Inventory and ERP systems, spreadsheets, job files
    • Margin floors and customer price levels respected
  3. 3

    Drafts the reply

    Every price, quantity and date in the draft comes from the lookup. It matches the customer, casual for a regular, formal for a first contact, and flags anything that needs a closer look.

    • New customers, assumed quantities, backorders
    • Emails that try to give the assistant instructions
  4. 4

    Your team approves You

    On one shared review page, your team ticks each line, edits if needed and approves. The approved draft lands in their own email, and they press send.

What it handles

The emails you answer twenty times a day

Quotes, order status and lead times

Price and availability requests answered from live stock across your branches, with split shipments and backorders spelled out using real due dates.

  • Price and availability quotes
  • Where's my order
  • Lead times and backorders
Need 10 of the 2" brass gate valves, threaded. You got them?
QuoteBackorder: 3 now, 7 dueDraft asks whether to ship partial or hold.

Safeguards

Built so a wrong email can't leave the building

The same rules run in every setup, and they're written into the contract.

  • Nothing sends itselfThe assistant can draft and label. Only a person can send.
  • Read-only accessIt can look up your inventory, prices and orders. It can't change them.
  • No made-up numbersEvery price, quantity and date comes from your system. If it can't find something, the draft says you'll confirm.
  • Flags the odd onesNew customers, assumed quantities, backorders, prices below your margin floor, and emails that try to give the assistant instructions.
  • You own itThe Claude account, the bill, the data and the rules are yours. If we part ways, everything stays with you.

Hours-saved estimate

What would it give back to your team?

Move the sliders to match your shop. It's a rough estimate; the paid assessment measures the real numbers before you commit to a build.

15hours a week
back for the work that needs your people
$27,300
of staff time a year, at the hourly cost above

Hours × 5 days × share drafted. An example, not a promise.

Pricing

Fixed prices. You know the number before we start.

Founding-client prices for the first three businesses. You pay Anthropic directly for Claude, the AI that runs the desk.

$450
workflow assessment, credited toward a build
$3,500
build and launch, one workflow
$450
a month for care, cancel any time

Questions

What owners ask first

Will this replace someone on my team?

No. It's designed to save time on repetitive lookups and replies, not to cut staff. Your team still checks and sends every email, and the hours it saves go to the work that needs a person: tricky quotes, problem orders, new customers and the phone.

Do I need new software?

No. It works with the email you already use (Gmail or Microsoft 365) and connects read-only to the system you already keep stock, prices or jobs in. Your team gets one shared review page.

What if a draft is wrong?

Then a person catches it before it goes anywhere. That's the point of the review step. Drafts that need extra care are flagged at the top of the list.

Is our data safe?

It runs in your own Claude business account, and Anthropic doesn't train its models on business-plan chats by default. My access is read-only and limited to what the workflow needs, and I keep no copies of your data.

Our system is old. Will it work?

Usually. If it can export a spreadsheet, has a database, or offers any kind of web connection, there's a way to read from it. The assessment tells you for sure before you pay for a build.

Can't we just use ChatGPT ourselves?

You can, for writing. What you're paying for here is the connection to your own inventory and orders, your house rules, and the approval desk, set up and kept running.

Free · 20 minutes

See it work on emails from your trade

At your shop or by video. I'll show you the desk and tell you honestly whether your inbox is worth automating.