AI Triage Support Emails with GPT-4.1-mini, Gmail & Sheets

AI triage support emails automatically—using GPT-4.1-mini, Gmail, and Google Sheets

Turn incoming customer inquiries into categorized, ready-to-send support replies. This n8n workflow uses OpenAI (GPT-4.1-mini) to decide whether an email can be handled normally or needs human escalation—then it sends the right message via Gmail and logs everything to Google Sheets.

What this workflow does

• Receives inquiries via webhook: Your website/contact form (or any source) sends a POST webhook containing name, email, and message.
• Adds business context and normalizes data: The workflow injects your company details (services/pricing, business hours, and response time), normalizes incoming fields, and timestamps the inquiry.
• Generates a structured AI support reply: It sends the inquiry plus your context to GPT-4.1-mini to produce a categorized response, including an escalation flag and escalation reason.
• Escalation decision with notifications:
  • If escalation is required: it sends an acknowledgement email to the customer, emails the full details to your human support address via Gmail, and appends the inquiry + AI output + escalation reason to Google Sheets.
  • If escalation is not required: it emails the AI-generated response to the customer via Gmail and logs the inquiry and AI response to Google Sheets.

Use cases

• SaaS support that needs fast first responses without losing track of edge cases.
• Customer inquiries routed from a contact form to the right team automatically.
• Operational logging for auditability: every AI decision is recorded in Google Sheets.

Technical details

• n8n nodes used: webhook, set, if, gmail, google sheets, and a sticky note for workflow clarity.
• AI model: GPT-4.1-mini.
• Credentials required: OpenAI, Gmail, and Google Sheets (select the target spreadsheet and sheet for both logging steps).