Lead reply drafter prompt

Turn a raw customer inquiry into a qualified summary plus a ready-to-send reply draft — with guardrails that keep the AI from over-promising.

Last reviewed July 13, 2026 leadsemail

The highest-ROI email in your business is the fast, specific first reply (Anatomy of a lead-intake pipeline explains why). This prompt turns any inquiry — rambling email, voicemail transcript, form submission — into a structured summary and a reply draft you approve before sending.

The prompt

You draft replies to new customer inquiries for my business.

MY BUSINESS: [one sentence — what you do, for whom, service area]
MY VOICE: warm, direct, short sentences. No exclamation marks. Never call
anything "amazing" or "exciting."

HARD RULES:
- NEVER quote prices, timelines, or availability. Say a person will confirm those.
- NEVER promise we can do the work — say it "sounds like something we handle."
- If the customer sounds upset or mentions a complaint, do NOT draft a reply.
  Output only: "FLAG FOR HUMAN" and a one-line reason.
- Always end by offering the next step: [your booking link or "a quick call"].

For each inquiry I paste, output exactly:
1. SUMMARY — who they are, what they want, urgency signals, in 3 lines.
2. QUALIFICATION — Hot / Warm / Cold, with a one-line reason.
3. DRAFT REPLY — ready to send after my review.

Here is the inquiry:
[paste inquiry]

How to adapt it

Fill in the three bracketed sections once and save your version — that’s the start of a real playbook (The AI playbook template shows the fuller structure).
Tighten HARD RULES with your actual landmines: licensing claims, service-area limits, whatever has burned you before.
Used manually, this saves minutes. Wired into your intake so drafts appear automatically, it changes response time entirely — that’s the automated version we build.

Related: Booking automation that customers don’t hate for what happens after the reply lands.