The situation
Regional teams were clearing the same inbox every morning: rent statement questions, key handovers, repair status, contract copies. Roughly two thirds of the volume was repeatable and already documented somewhere — but finding the documentation took longer than writing the answer from memory, so answers varied with whoever was on shift.
What we built
We built a retrieval layer over the tenancy handbook, the maintenance archive and three years of resolved tickets, then an assistant that drafts a reply with its sources attached. Anything touching contracts, terminations or payment disputes is classified out of scope by design and routed to a named person rather than answered.
How it integrates
The assistant runs inside the existing ticket system, so there is no new tool for the team to learn. It reads from SharePoint and the document archive through service accounts scoped per region, and writes the resolved thread back to the CRM so the tenant record stays the system of record.
Governance & compliance
Classified as limited-risk, with a transparency notice on every outbound message. Draft replies were reviewed before sending for the first eight weeks; the review requirement was relaxed only for the categories where measured accuracy stayed above the agreed threshold. Every draft, source and edit is retained for audit.
Result
First-line responses moved from the next working day to minutes, and operators kept the cases where a tenant actually needed a person. The escalation rate is reviewed weekly — it is the metric that decides whether a category stays automated.