Make AI-Drafted Email Sound Like You

Customers notice when the voice changes. A drafting system that has never been told how your business writes will default to generic phrasing, over-apologise, and occasionally state a price or a promise nobody approved. This checklist sets the voice and the approval line before that happens.

Fill this in with real examples from your own sent mail. The voice you want is already in there; the job is to write it down so a system can follow it.

AI Email Voice and Approval Checklist

Set the voice and the approval line before drafting touches a customer.

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Your ticks are saved in this browser, so you can work through the list over several sessions.

01Voice standard

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How every outbound draft should read, written from your own sent mail.

Collected six to ten real sent emails that sound right, across your main categoriesInclude at least one difficult reply, such as a delay or a declined request.
Collected three or four emails that sound wrong, each with a one-line reasonWrong examples teach the boundary faster than right ones alone.
Written the sign-off standard: name, role, contact details, closing wordOne format for the business, with any per-person variation listed.
Written the banned phrase list, starting from phrases the team already mocksFiller openers, filler closers and marketing words. Keep it short and live.
Set the apology rule: one apology where one is due, none where it is notOver-apology is the most common tell in drafted email.
Set a length guide per categoryA receipt acknowledgement is two lines. A quote reply may be ten. Say which is which.
Decided the spelling and date conventionsAustralian spelling, day-month-year dates, dollar amounts with GST stated.

02What always needs a human

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Categories where a person approves before sending, regardless of how good drafts have been.

Any draft that states a price, discount or payment termChecked against the current price list and any agreed rate for that customer.
Any draft that commits to a date, a start time or a deliveryDates are promises. A person confirms capacity before the promise goes out.
Any reply to a complaint, dispute, refund or remedy requestWording about guarantees and remedies is checked against the Australian Consumer Law and your policy.
Any legal, regulatory, insurance or contract correspondenceRouted to the named person responsible, never drafted for a general reviewer.
Any draft using the words guarantee, warranty, liable or entitledA keyword rule that forces review even if the category was missed.
Named the approver for each of the categories above, with a backupApproval by group address is approval by nobody.

03Attachments and customer-specific exceptions

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The two places a good draft can still cause a real incident.

Drafts propose attachments; a person attaches and checks the recipientThe wrong quote to the wrong customer is a privacy incident, not a typo.
Only the current version of each standard document is available to attachOld terms and old price sheets are removed from the attachable set.
Documents marked internal cannot be attached to outbound mailA hard rule in the tool, not a reminder to reviewers.
Recorded per-customer arrangements: agreed rates, terms, delivery, contactsKept short, with an owner and an expiry date on each entry.
Flagged accounts with non-standard terms so every draft to them is reviewedThe flag beats the category rule.
Recorded known sensitivities in plain wordsA past complaint, a bereavement, a dispute. Drafts to these accounts are always reviewed.

04Audit log and review

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The evidence that the rules above are being followed.

Every draft, edit, approval and send is logged with who did it and whenWithout this you cannot tell whether approval rules are being bypassed.
The log shows the draft and the sent version side by sideEdits are the fastest way to find where the voice or the facts are off.
A weekly sample review is scheduled for the first month, monthly afterCheck for banned phrases returning, over-apology and growing length.
A rule that any edit made twice becomes a standing instructionThis is how the voice standard improves without a rewrite.
Named the owner of the voice standard, the banned list and the exception recordThree documents, one owner, one review date.
Log retention and access agreedThe log contains customer correspondence. Decide who can read it and for how long it is kept.

Set up drafting with my approval rules

A general framework. Your always-approve list should be at least as long as the one here and may need to be longer in regulated settings. Where drafts touch consumer rights, pricing or contract terms, a named person checks the wording against your current policy before it is sent.

The Two Halves of the Problem

Voice is about how a draft reads. Approval is about who is accountable for what it says. Both need rules, and they are different rules.

Voice is set by examples, not adjectives

Telling a system to be friendly and professional produces the same generic email every other business gets. Giving it six real emails you were proud of, and three you would never send, produces something that reads like your team. Collect the examples first.

Approval is set by category, not by confidence

The question is not whether the draft looks good. It is whether this kind of message is one a person must sign off. Pricing, commitments, complaints, legal matters and anything customer-specific go on the always-approve list, and the list does not shrink because the drafts have been good lately.

The audit log is what makes the rest enforceable

If you cannot see which drafts were sent as-is, which were edited and by whom, you cannot tell whether the approval rules are being followed or whether the voice is drifting. The log is not overhead. It is the only evidence that the system is doing what you decided.

How to Work Through It

Four passes, each producing one artefact the drafting system and the reviewers both use.

1

Collect the voice

Pull real sent emails that sound right and a few that sound wrong. Write the sign-off standard and the banned phrase list from what you find.

2

Draw the approval line

List every category of message that must have a human approve before sending. Pricing, commitments, complaints and legal matters are the usual minimum.

3

Handle the exceptions

Record customer-specific arrangements, agreed rates and known sensitivities so a draft never contradicts a promise already made.

4

Turn on the log and review it

Every draft, edit and send is recorded with who did it. Review a sample weekly for voice drift and approval bypasses.

Where Drafted Email Goes Wrong

Four failure modes that a voice and approval standard is designed to prevent.

A draft states a price or a guarantee nobody approved

Drafting systems complete the sentence. Asked about cost, they will produce a figure that looks plausible. Asked about a fault, they will offer a remedy. Both can bind the business or misstate a customer's rights. Under the Australian Consumer Law, statements about guarantees and remedies carry weight, so every draft that mentions money or a remedy needs a person to check it against the current price list and the current policy.

Pricing statements come from the price list, never from the draft
Refund, repair and replacement wording is approved by a named person
Delivery dates and completion dates count as commitments
Any draft using the words guarantee or warranty is always reviewed

The draft sounds like every other AI email

Certain phrases mark an email as machine-written to anyone who reads a lot of email. A short banned list, applied to every draft, removes most of them. The list should be yours, built from the phrases your team would never use, and it should be reviewed as new ones appear.

Start the list from phrases your team already mocks
Ban filler openers and closers, not just individual words
Ban over-apology: one apology where one is due, none where it is not
Add to the list whenever a reviewer edits the same phrase twice

The wrong attachment, or the right one to the wrong person

Attachments are where a drafting mistake becomes a privacy incident. A quote for one customer attached to a reply for another, an internal document sent externally, an outdated terms document sent as current. The rule is simple: drafts never attach files without a person confirming the file and the recipient.

Drafts propose an attachment; a person attaches it
Customer-specific documents are checked against the recipient name
Only the current version of any standard document is available to attach
Anything marked internal cannot be attached to outbound mail at all

The draft contradicts an arrangement already made

A customer on an agreed rate, a client with a known sensitivity, an account with a special delivery arrangement: a draft that does not know these will quote the standard rate or the standard process and undo a relationship in one message. Exceptions need to be recorded where the drafting system and the reviewer can both see them.

Keep a short record of per-customer arrangements with an owner
Flag accounts with any non-standard terms so drafts are always reviewed
Record known sensitivities in plain words, for example a past complaint
Expire exceptions with a date so old arrangements do not persist

Next Steps

Email Triage Rules Checklist

Set the categories and the do-not-auto-reply list that the approval rules build on.

Write the triage rules →

Email Automation Setup Checklist

The staged rollout where drafting with approval is stage three.

Open the rollout checklist →

AI Email Security Checklist

Access, privacy and data handling controls to settle before drafting touches real mail.

Check the security list →

Frequently Asked Questions

How many example emails do we need to set the voice?

Fewer than most people expect. Six to ten real emails that sound right, covering your main categories, plus three or four that sound wrong with a note on why. Quality matters more than volume. Pick emails written by the people whose tone you want the whole team to share, and include at least one difficult reply, such as a declined request or a delay, because those are where a generic voice does the most damage.

What should always need human approval?

Anything that states a price, a discount or a payment term. Anything that commits to a date. Anything responding to a complaint, a dispute or a request for a refund or remedy. Anything legal, regulatory or insurance related. Anything to a customer with a recorded exception. Anything with an attachment. That list does not shrink because drafts have been accurate, because the cost of one wrong message in these categories is high and the approval takes seconds.

Can the drafting system quote our prices if we give it the price list?

It can draft a reply that includes a price from the list, and a person should still check it before it goes out. Prices change, list prices have exceptions, and a customer may be on an agreed rate. The draft saves the typing. The approval catches the case where the figure is right on the list and wrong for this customer. Treat every pricing draft as a proposal until a person has confirmed it.

How do we stop the voice drifting over time?

Review a sample of sent drafts every week for the first month, then monthly. Look for phrases creeping back onto the banned list, for over-apology, and for length growing. Compare a few sent drafts against your original example set. When a reviewer edits the same thing twice, that edit becomes a rule. The audit log makes this possible because it shows you the draft, the edit and the final message side by side.

Should customers be told a draft was AI-assisted?

That is a decision for your business, and it depends on the setting. Many businesses treat drafting the way they treat spell-check or a template: a tool the person sending the email used, with the person accountable for the content. What matters is that a person did approve it and that the message is accurate. If you operate in a regulated setting or your customers would expect to know, be clear about it and make it easy to reach a person.

Is anything I tick here stored?

Only in your own browser, so the list is still where you left it when you return. Nothing is sent anywhere. No email content, examples or customer details are requested by the checklist itself. Keep your example set and exception list in your own systems with access limited to the people who need them.

Voice Written Down and Approval Line Drawn?

Send us your example set, your banned list and your always-approve categories. We will set up drafting that follows them and show you the audit log before a single draft reaches a customer.

Set up drafting with my approval rules See the features