Dura-Deck Marine  ·  Smedja

Week in review

Friday, August 14, 2026  ·  covering August 7 through August 13

Second full week with the assistant writing real drafts. The number that matters went from about a third to just under two thirds: replies that went out to the customer exactly as the assistant first wrote them, with nothing changed.

63 customer emails drafted 60 of them sent
58% sent exactly as first written up from 31%
30 sent straight from your phone new Sunday
9 times it stopped and asked instead of guessing by design

The trend

Three weeks of live drafting

Only weeks from July 29 onward count. Before that the assistant was running silently in the background and you were writing every reply yourself, so there is nothing to compare.

Week Drafted Sent Sent as first written You reworked first
Jul 24 – Jul 307257partial week
Jul 31 – Aug 6786731%24
Aug 7 – Aug 13636058%15

A second read on the same thing: of the 45 drafts you sent without touching them in Telegram first, 35 went out with nothing changed. When it was left alone, it was right 78% of the time, up from 49% the week before.

One caution before we call this a trend. Two weeks is two data points, and the first one was your first week using it. Some of the jump is the assistant learning and some is you settling into it. The third week is the one that tells us which.

Shipped

Approve and send from Telegram

Live since Sunday. You and Lianne now press one button on the card and the reply goes out on the customer's thread, no Gmail step. You used it 30 times this week. Every one of those sends was checked byte for byte against what was on the card before it left, and all 30 matched.

What you corrected

Four fixes, and all four were missing knowledge

Worth saying plainly: none of these were the assistant writing badly or inventing a price. In every case it wrote a reasonable reply from what it knew, and what it knew was incomplete. That is the fixable kind.

Sun Aug 10  ·  learned It told an Oklahoma customer there was no dealer nearby. You gave it Brandon Wykoff at Reeltech Marine in Mannford. That dealer is in the queue waiting for you to confirm, and I want to walk the whole dealer list with you today.
Mon Aug 10  ·  needs your answer It said orders ship "right away." You changed it to a same-day commitment. It also narrowed "decking and mats" to "custom cockpit mats." I need the real shipping promise from you so it stops hedging.
Wed Aug 12  ·  needs your answer You added $100 off for a bundle, landing at $1,045, plus a how-to video. The assistant has no idea that discount exists. Is it a standing offer or was that one just for Kenneth?
Wed Aug 12  ·  learned You explained why full decking is dealer-only and offered self-install accessories. Both are in the queue to confirm. Once confirmed it will say this itself every time.

Today's agenda

Nine questions the assistant raised this week

These are the ones it flagged on its own rather than guessing. Answering them here is the fastest way to move next week's number. The first six are permanent. The last three are about how you want it to work.

  1. Do you offer a military discount, and at what rate?

    A customer asked outright on Aug 12. It had no answer and had to punt.

  2. Does one FX20 fender pad listing cover all three pads on a side, or is it priced per pad?

    This decides whether it quotes one pad or three. Wrong either way is a bad look.

  3. Is the cleaner, UV and waterproof bundle a real listing that just is not syncing from the website?

    If it is real I can pull it into the catalog today and it can sell it.

  4. Does the 2005 SX190 template set include a front deck pad, or is that templated separately?

    Same question comes up on most multi-piece boats. Answering the pattern once helps everywhere.

  5. Do you have anything on file for the upper or back deck on the 488VS?

    It found the cockpit but nothing above it, and did not want to promise.

  6. On a mail-in template, is the note with name, boat year, make, model and phone number a hard requirement?

    If yes it will say so every time, which should cut the unlabeled packages.

  7. When should it stop explaining and just ask for a phone call?

    Three times this week you replaced a full written explanation with "give me a call." I would rather it learn where that line is than keep making you do it.

  8. Should it lead with mailing in the old carpet instead of the template process?

    Twice you rewrote a template-first answer into a carpet-scanning one. If carpet is the better first offer, it can lead with that.

  9. Product link and video, or written instructions?

    You twice swapped a written walkthrough for a link and a video. Easy to make the default if that is what you prefer.

The review queue

I am cutting it down before you touch it

You told me the queue still reads half-finished and you were right. I went through all 48 items line by line this morning. Roughly half of them do not belong in front of you at all.

That leaves about twenty items that are genuinely worth your time, and I would rather hand you twenty good ones than fifty of anything.

Next

Before we meet again