The problem
Custom requests arrive as long, vague messages and wrong details mean remakes. If a maker handles 10 custom requests a month at 18 minutes each (12 reading and asking, 6 writing the brief), that's 180 minutes, 3 hours, and one remake costs £9 in materials and 40 minutes.
What the AI does
Paste the customer's request into ChatGPT, Claude or Gemini and ask it to pull out the details into a brief: item, size, colours, wording or names, deadline, delivery details. Ask for a short list of missing details to ask the customer, in your tone. Check the brief against the original message, send the questions yourself, and only start making when the customer has confirmed. Remove the customer's address and phone number before pasting, and don't paste anything you don't need to.
A worked example
A maker of personalised ceramic mugs in Bristol gets about 10 custom requests a month. She pastes each request into an assistant to turn it into a brief and a question list.
Before
About 18 minutes a request: 10 x 18 = 180 minutes, 3 hours a month
After
About 8 minutes a request checking and sending the questions: 10 x 8 = 80 minutes, 1.3 hours a month
What it's worth
About 1.7 hours a month saved (100 minutes), worth around £20 if your time is worth £12 an hour, plus one avoided remake a month at £9 materials and 40 minutes (£8): about £28 in all. The remake figure is an illustration. Free plans may be enough; ChatGPT Plus is about £20 a month, so £20 is the top of the range.
How to set it up
- Copy the customer's request into your assistant, leaving out their address, phone number and anything not needed.
- Ask for a brief with item, size, colours, wording, deadline and a list of details still missing.
- Check the brief against the original message; wording and names must match exactly.
- Send the customer the missing-details questions in your own words and wait for their confirmation.
- File the confirmed brief with the order so you can check against it before posting.
What goes wrong
- AI can mis-spell a name or change wording. Copy names and text from the customer's message, not from the AI's version.
- Personalised items usually can't be returned for change of mind, so be clear before you start what the customer is agreeing to; check Etsy's and consumer rules for personalised items.
- Anything pasted into an assistant leaves your shop; avoid addresses, phone numbers and payment information.
- Don't promise a deadline the AI suggests; check your own workload and postage time.