Overwhelmed by Email Management in Our Growing Small Business

TL;DR: Many apologies in advance if this isn't the right place but we're kind of out of ideas – please feel free to point me elsewhere (even if that elsewhere is just the exit door). Our small business is swamped by the daily deluge of emails, requiring a manual review to differentiate new document review requests from ongoing project correspondences. This process involves one dedicated admin who manually sorts, allocates, and follows up on tasks – a method that’s neither scalable nor failproof. We're in dire need of an automated/software solution to:

• Automatically categorize incoming emails.
• Allocate tasks according to a round-robin/capacity system or based on ongoing engagements.
• Efficiently manage deadlines (by the hour and minute) and follow-up actions.
• Has some sort of reporting so we can track customer usage, customer rep usage, request type, the time it takes us to complete the work for them, and other data about the work request.

Seeking advice on tools or strategies that could help streamline our process.-

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Hey r/CRM, I’m reaching out in hopes of finding some guidance, or perhaps a lifeline, to tackle an issue that’s increasingly becoming a bottleneck for our small business’s operations and growth. Many apologies in advance if this isn't the right place but we're kind of out of ideas – please feel free to point me elsewhere (even if that elsewhere is just the exit door),

The Backstory:

As we’ve experienced growth, the volume of inbound emails has skyrocketed. Each email is crucial – they’re either new requests for us to review and negotiate documents (the bread and butter of our services) or ongoing correspondence concerning existing requests.Currently, our entire email management process hinges on the Herculean efforts of one admin team member. Their day-to-day involves meticulously reading through each email to determine its nature, allocating the work to team members in a fair round-robin manner (unless it’s ongoing work, in which case it’s routed back to the original handler), setting deadlines, sending reminders, and chasing up post-deadline. This manual process is a mammoth task that's prone to inefficiency and human error, not to mention the stress it places on our admin.

The Quandary:

We're at our wits’ end trying to find a more sustainable and error-proof method of managing this crucial aspect of our business. The dream solution(s) would:

• Seamlessly categorize emails into "new requests" or "ongoing correspondence,"
• Automate task allocation while respecting our round-robin distribution, and also intelligently direct follow-ups to whoever is handling the corresponding task,
• Automate deadline setting (by the minute), follow-up reminders and alerts to ensure nothing slips through the cracks.
• Has some sort of reporting so we can track customer usage, customer rep usage, request type, the time it takes us to complete the work for them, and other data about the work request.

Given the variety of our needs and our limited big-company resources, navigating the maze of automation tools and software solutions has been daunting. We know we need to adopt a more scalable, automated approach but finding the right fit is where we’re stuck.

The Appeal:

So, I turn to you, fellow tech savvies, business owners and process optimizers. Have any of you faced similar challenges? If so, how did you navigate them? Are there particular tools, software, or strategies you’d recommend that could alleviate our email management woes? Any and all advice is welcome. We’re particularly interested in cost-effective solutions that won’t break the bank but are open to all suggestions that could help us turn the tide on this issue.Thank you for taking the time to read through this and for any insights you can offer. Navigating this challenge is critical for our business’s continued growth and efficiency, and your expert advice could be the beacon of hope we need.