Why Felix sends nothing without the owner

Felix tells the owner of a boutique who to contact today and why, and drafts the message. Nothing goes out without the owner reading and approving it. That is why the project page shows a zero next to “messages sent without approval”.

Software that drafts messages could technically send them too. With personal messages in someone’s name, that is not a good idea.

The message comes from the owner

A customer who gets a message from her regular boutique reads it as a message from the owner. She knows that person, and that person knows her by name. The next time she walks in, it is the owner who answers for it.

A general marketing email that misses the mark goes in the bin without another thought. With a personal message that misses, you wonder what the shop actually knows about you.

What is not in the till

Felix works with the sales history from the till. That says who bought what and when, and there it stops.

Say Felix reports that someone hasn’t visited in six months. Perhaps she came in last week to try something on and bought nothing. Or Felix notes that a new arrival matches something she bought last spring, when that was a present for her sister. Someone who has moved house or just lost someone looks in the till like any other customer.

The owner may well know these things. That knowledge only reaches the message if that person reads it before it goes.

AI makes mistakes

You need a way to catch those mistakes. A drafted text can read smoothly and still claim something untrue, or strike a tone that does not suit the shop. If that message goes out directly, you only find the mistake once the customer has read it.

With Felix, that check sits with the person who knows the customer and whose name the message goes out under. More on using this kind of AI in a small business is in What AI can do in a small business today.

What the owner has to do

Approving is work, and a boutique usually has little time. Felix does the preparation. You get the name, the reason and a message that is already written. With the reason there, you can judge straight away whether the suggestion holds up.

After that the choice is yours. You can edit the message and send it, or leave it. If you leave it, that customer gets nothing.

On the till side, too, Felix keeps its hands off. The connection is read-only, so it can look at the sales data and change none of it.