Where my hours went

Lina answers Judes customers in the helpdesk. The biggest share of the hours went here, teaching her to finish more cases on her own, and to act on the team's word, so Marie and the team spend less time on routine work.

• Lina finishes more answers herself instead of leaving draftsLive

  We studied every case where she stopped and left a draft, then gave her five new skills in July. She can cancel an order, split an order when one item is missing, send a small replacement, send a discount code, and fix and resend a reply the helpdesk refused. The first four had a real case within a week, and the refused replies have not come back.

  • Studied every ticket Lina left as a draft in late June to find why she stopped
  • Split orders ship the items in stock at once, first real case on 10 July
  • First small replacement created, sent and closed by Lina herself on 10 July
  • Lina no longer stops a return refund when the shop's amount differs by a few cents
  • A 12 July check found every new ability had a real success and none slipped back
  • Found old team notes still blocked safe replies after the team's task was done
  • Sorted 138 drafts on 114 tickets by reason, mostly team tasks with no owner
  • Found replacement drafts stuck after a price change, and order edits blocked by a missing tag
  • Lina's count of 31 drafts found 14 lacked a tool, 10 a permission, 7 a rule
  • In September, of 45 waiting cases about 6 could be done at once under existing approvals
  6½ h
• Lina cancels orders, in the shop and at the warehouseLive

  In the shop since July, on a short note from the team since August, and since September also at the warehouse, for orders cancelled in the shop and not yet shipped, with a guard against double refunds.

  • Lina can cancel for any approved reason, not only when the customer asks
  • Cancellations the team asks for are recorded in the shop with a clear reason
  • First two cancellations done and confirmed to customers automatically on 8 and 9 July
  • Before cancelling on a team note, Lina checks again that the order has not shipped
  • Each approval note works once and must name the action, so it cannot trigger another
  • Fixed note reading so a short order number is never matched inside a longer one
  • Only private team notes count as approval, a public reply on the ticket does not
  • The warehouse tool came after nine cancellations got stuck, eight had already been done by hand
  2 h
• Lina creates discount codes herselfLive

  Since mid July she makes the code in the shop directly, for customers and for creators. A newsletter raffle tool was designed but not built.

  • Found the code tool worked but a gate let only creator codes through, fixed 7 July
  • Lina's standard customer codes are made so they cannot be combined with other discounts
  • The team can ask Lina for a discount code and she creates it
  • Lina sees when a code already exists and does not create it twice
  • First real customer code created and sent by Lina on 10 July
  • Since 16 July Lina can make any type of code the shop offers, within her rules
  • A one use code for a fixed amount off the whole order is now possible
  • Customer codes of 15 and 8 percent and creator codes of 20 percent kept their rules
  • A heavier first design was stopped by two reviews and replaced by a simpler one
  • Matched three team Slack threads to the right piece of work so none was lost
  • The raffle's prize code step is prepared, the raffle itself waits for a go
  5 h
• Lina steps back while the team works a case, then picks it up againLive

  After a one star rating in July, Lina learned to stay quiet while the team handles a case, and to carry on once Marie has decided, so fewer cases stay stuck after the team has answered.

  • Traced the one star rating to a case Lina kept answering during an open team task
  • Found resending the order email cannot fix an email address a customer typed wrong
  • A bigger rebuild was halted by three reviews that found safety holes, never switched on
  • Counted only four real cases behind the complaints and chose a much smaller fix
  • Found Marie's resume rule could fire on 0 of 111 tickets, buried by Lina's repeated notes
  • Lina now updates her open team note instead of posting a new one each time
  • Lina checks for a team decision before skipping a ticket she already drafted
  • Found the real blocker was a rule on second replacements, written three different ways
  • A checked team approval now lets Lina send a replacement for a replacement
  • Lina's daily Slack report shows how long team tasks have been waiting
  • By 3 August Lina had solved 9 resumed team tickets, with 7 more within reach
  • Found 3 resumed cases stopped because a photo check line was missing from her note
  11 h
• Reviews and YouTube commentsPartly live

  A daily review report, a fix for wrong review translations on the shop, and a daily list of YouTube comments that still need an answer. Lina's suggested review replies still need a simple place where Marie can approve them.

  • Lina's 6 pm review report for Marie was ready but never ran, it now runs daily
  • Lina's review report now counts company and product reviews separately
  • Traced the badly wrong English wording on German reviews to the review site's own translation
  • Checked the translation fix live on English, French, Spanish and Italian shop pages
  • Found the review site still sends the bad translation, so the shop side fix must stay
  • Found Lina's YouTube comment check never ran by itself each day and was broken
  • The YouTube check was repaired and now posts daily under the team's 9 am reminder
  • In August found the YouTube check had missed about 6 of 14 days, fixed same day
  • Confirmed the review site cannot move a review, only copy it, so copies stay as duplicates
  • The reviews page now shows only company reviews and the homepage only product reviews
  5 h
• The team tells Lina what to do in one sentence, and she does itLive

  Since late August Marie or Nele can approve a case with one normal sentence on the ticket. Lina does the work and closes the ticket with a note saying why. From 16 to 22 September she carried out 60 actions this way.

  • Marie's first approval note was refused for lacking an order number, so a ready replacement stuck
  • A review caught that a German refusal could count as a yes, that version was undone
  • Lina writes the exact action in a note and Marie answers with one word like OK
  • First real case on 26 August, Marie wrote OK and Lina created the approved replacement
  • A later note from the team cancels an earlier approval
  • A written team instruction now overrides Lina's usual rules, with no upper amount limit
  • Warehouse returns can be approved with the same kind of note
  • Closed tickets also get a tag showing how they closed
  • The evening returns report can no longer silently skip a case, each one posts once
  • Since 27 August no set words, order number or second OK are needed
  • Notes written before the switch on cannot be acted on by mistake
  • Switched on knowing three rare faults the reviewer found in refunds and notes, I accepted them
  • Marie and I can also ask Lina in Slack, she sums up the request first
  • Fixed a timer that made Lina's ticket jobs expire while still waiting to start
  • Since 23 September Lina closes warehouse returns as refunded, replaced or no refund on team request
  • A review stopped that return tool from closing the wrong return before it went live
  • Each hand off blocked by a rule ends with one yes or no question
  • When an approval is paused Lina says at once which actions and why
  • Two looser approval designs were undone after reviews found money risks, the strict rule stayed
  11½ h
• Tools for the tickets that get stuck with the teamPartly live

  We sorted the 118 tickets waiting on the team by their real reason. 44 of them only needed a tool Lina did not have. In late September she got several of those tools, and twelve rule changes I approved. Most were still waiting for their first real case at the end of the month.

  • Of the 118 waiting tickets, 23 needed only an approval above the limit, 30 a decision
  • Found about 11 waiting tickets were second or third tickets about the same order
  • Found team tasks had grown from 9 percent of open tickets in April to 77 percent
  • Built a phone friendly yes or no page for Nele, a demo with invented cases
  • Counted 15 of 55 waiting cases the page could move, only 8 of them real decisions
  • Found incoming tickets were flat in September, the pile grew over the holidays
  • Checked a claim that 46 orders were held by mistake, all were real sets
  • Found Lina's rules never mentioned the planned 25 day wait for sets, added 29 September
  • Studied two weeks of hand offs, 182 in total, about 12 team hours a week
  • Fixed a fault that had hidden locked tickets from the team's view since late July
  • Lina stops refusing safe holding messages and replacement offers asked as a question
  • Lina can send a missing item when the customer writes from another email address
  • Chat replies refused since late August because of one missing detail now go out
  • Lina now passes clear warehouse good news to customers herself, the team no longer relays it
  • When the warehouse cannot book a return, Lina reads the label photo and finds the order
  • Lina asks the warehouse about a late order herself
  • Lina now reads PDF files and phone photos sent by customers
  • Lina's order tools no longer wrongly refuse Swiss orders or replacements drawn from two orders
  • Lina may now ask the warehouse to cancel an order or change an address
  • Lina may answer plain tracking questions while the team decides the rest of a case
  • Zero value replacement returns are now closed by Lina instead of by hand
  • Size swaps before shipping and a daily decision list for Marie are built but off
  5 h
• No customer waits in silenceLive

  Since September every customer handed to the team gets a short message in their own language, and the daily and Monday reports show how many people have waited more than two days. That number went from 68 to 32 in nine days, with Marie back from holiday and Leon helping.

  • Messages go out at hand off, when the customer chases, and after two days of silence
  • 17 such messages went out on the first day, each in the customer's language
  • When a customer had to write again, Lina now says sorry first, after Nele's feedback
  • The waiting count counts people, not tickets, because duplicates cannot be merged automatically
  • Lina's own holding messages do not count as an answer in that number
  • Tamara could approve refund returns while Marie was away
  • A review stopped a wrong refund route in Tamara's approvals before it was switched on
  • Each ticket in Lina's log shows what she did and why she did not answer
  • Lina no longer repeats the same apology when a customer only writes to say thanks
  • Customer follow ups have their own log channel, separate from the ticket log
  • Automatic warehouse emails are no longer treated as customers following up
  • A follow up reply in German that was refused before now goes out
  • A failed follow up now raises an alarm instead of passing silently
  • A review of the follow ups found three issues, all fixed the same morning
  5¼ h
• Lina's replies really go outLive

  She now checks that a reply was really sent before closing a ticket, and missed replies were recovered. In two weeks of August she sent 584 replies.

  • Lina's warehouse return closings were refused 55 times on 12 returns, now they go through
  • In the August quality check 12 of 15 sampled answers passed and none failed
  • Found some replies failed to send while Lina's note said sent and the ticket closed
  • Unconfirmed sends now keep the ticket open and tell the team
  • Two of Lina's jobs stopped for lack of memory, her memory allowance was raised
  • Removed two files with customer details that had been saved into Lina's backup history
  • Repaired Lina's memory search, which had stopped after a settings change
  • In September three missed replies were found, two answered and closed, one acknowledged
  • Fixed a new return check that wrongly held two replies, both then went out
  • Her refund limit stayed at 200 euros through these return fixes
  • Fixed Lina's record of replies on closed tickets, which stayed marked unfinished
  • Lina's returns run kept being cut off at 30 minutes, now it stops itself in time
  3 h
• Paid extra items and late orders, the way Marie does themLive

  Since the end of September Lina builds an order with free and paid items, sends the payment link and ships once paid. Before, Marie built these by hand and it usually took about three days. Late orders now follow Marie's rules. Both were still waiting for their first real case at the end of September. In early October she also started offering another design when one in a set is sold out.

  • Paid extras have no upper amount limit, and free only replacements work as before
  • If unpaid, Lina reminds the customer on day 3 and asks the team on day 7
  • A guard stops orders being built with the wrong country's prices
  • Research found 32 of 71 paid manual orders this year mixed free and paid items
  • Set orders are chased at the warehouse only after three weeks, as sets wait on purpose
  • When stock is short Lina lists every missing item, not only the first
  • A late second hand item can be swapped for a new one at no extra cost
  • The customer can wait, split, remove the item with a refund, or pick another design
  • Lina checks restock signs so she can tell customers when an item comes back
  • The first real late order enquiry passed, swaps and splits wait for their first case
  • On 1 October a check found design swaps refused on every real case, fixed that evening
  • Stock checks now read full sets of up to 50 items, before only 10
  • Five swap cases already waiting stayed with Marie and were not redone automatically
  • Lina's report caught a Klarna deadline, Jess raised it with Nele and Leon, still open
  2 h

Jess and Lina share one server and depend on outside services. These hours went into upgrades, more capacity and repairs, so both keep working every day. Every day I also read what they did for the team and corrected them, and that time is counted inside each day's work.

• Five tickets at once, without going round in circlesLive

  In mid September Lina kept retrying replies her own checks refused, and the helpdesk turned most requests away. We stopped the loop, got Judes its own helpdesk connection with twice the allowance, and Lina now works on five tickets at once instead of three.

  • Found why Lina kept retrying replies her checks refused, she now remembers what blocked her
  • Lina's team notes about blocked hand-offs are now retried quickly instead of waiting
  • Traced a wrong answer on guarantee, used products and UK returns to the exact rules
  • Lina's automatic self repair no longer edits her own code, it raises an alert instead
  • Return postage promises abroad needed a team member's word, eased for routine routes in October
  • One shared warehouse reference no longer stops the whole daily returns report
  • Lina now reads the helpdesk in limited batches, so waiting tickets are not skipped
  • Team instructions are still read when all of Lina's ticket slots are busy
  • WhatsApp customers keep priority while Lina works on several tickets side by side
  • A ticket now starts 3 to 4 minutes after pick up, instead of 4 to 18
  • Protection added against sending the same reply twice or losing track of a ticket
  • Stopped review site tickets reaching Lina, which had caused red error posts since May
  • Lina waits and tries again when the helpdesk says she is going too fast
  • Internal notes refused for speed are retried, and a stray test note was removed
  • Helpdesk refusals fell from about 26,000 a day on 13 Sept to 327 on 16 Sept
  • Lina's first 85 requests on the new connection were all accepted, Jess moved onto it too
  6 h
• Both agents on the newest version of their software and AI modelLive

  At the end of September, with their history, settings and all 74 of Jess's scheduled jobs kept, and between half an hour and an hour offline per move. The breakages found after each move, such as stuck customer replies and stopped reports, were fixed.

  • Jess's first move kept all 886 conversations, and she answered a live test in 20 seconds
  • Two early Lina attempts stopped safely at the backup step and went back untouched
  • Lina's three Shopify helpers could not read their settings after the move, fixed the same morning
  • A suspected Jess freeze was a one time memory rebuild after the move, no repair needed
  • Jess's nightly backup stopped whenever an ad project file changed, now it only warns
  • One Lina ticket was relaunched 18 times, the retry limit now counts unsent attempts
  • Two customers stuck after Lina's move got a reply, and open team notes are now tagged
  • Jess lost her Slack identity at start, so tags went unseen, fixed the same night
  • Jess's switching between her two AI accounts broke in the move and was repaired that night
  • Jess's Instagram creator mention check stopped after the move, Nele spotted it, five stories recovered
  • Eight Jess reports cut by an AI provider outage were rerun one by one
  • Jess and Lina answer replies in Slack threads only when tagged again, as before
  • Jess's letter scanning job still pointed at the removed version, fixed before any letter arrived
  • Lina's memory search was rebuilt after her move and worked the same night
  3¾ h
• Twice the server for about 10 euros more a monthLive

  The shared server was out of memory, which made both agents slow. It now has twice the power and twice the storage for 29.49 euros a month instead of just under 20. A second server of the same size, about 30 euros a month, was bought on 15 September so Jess and Lina can be split later. It was still empty at the end of September.

  • Found the shared server out of memory, Jess crashed and team requests timed out
  • Moved to a bigger plan at once, then a watcher caught the cheaper one next morning
  • The expensive plan ran only about 10 hours, costing about 2.20 euros
  • Jess got twice the memory and can work on six things at once instead of three
  • Lina's memory limit was raised after she reached it on the first day
  • In the first 10 hours on the new plan Jess had zero timeouts and zero crashes
  • Archived old files with a full restore test each and cleared caches, freeing 16.5 GB
  • Disk doubled from 160 to 320 GB at no extra cost, now 41% full
  • An automatic buyer took the second server the moment stock appeared, after a quick fix
  • Checked a false alarm that a Judes AI account was missing, it was healthy
  2¾ h
• When Lina breaks, the repair starts on its ownLive

  After a few customers went unanswered in September, a new alarm now starts a repair directly instead of only posting a warning. Lina also got her own instructions back after other rules had reached her by mistake.

  • Found one unanswered customer, a lost acknowledgement and false stall alarms on 19 Sept
  • WhatsApp follow-ups past the 24 hour window now become a team note instead of failing
  • Ticket slots left by interrupted jobs now free themselves
  • The twice daily account update now waits until Lina is idle before restarting her
  • Frozen hand-offs no longer raise false stall alarms
  • Two waiting customer cases were passed to Marie by hand
  • On 22 Sept the new alarm caught a failing returns run, fixed the same day
  • Decided on 19 August that Lina gets only a small safe part of the shared rules
  • The full set reached her anyway through later updates, it was removed on 22 Sept
  • Removed 26,000 characters of rules she never needed from every Lina answer
  • Lina reads all her own instruction files at every answer, and her returns job ran again
  • Planned maintenance pauses no longer count as an incident for the alarm
  • Both Judes AI accounts ran out on 23 Sept, one was reset within half an hour
  • Three stuck tickets blocked all of Lina's ticket slots, two freed by hand, one expired
  • Automatic system updates no longer restart Lina mid work, after two customers waited 90 minutes
  3¾ h
• More hand-offs after our new checks, being fixedIn progress

  In the first week of October Lina handed about a third more cases to the team, because of our own new checks. The first fixes went live and 13 tickets were solved again without the team. More repairs are under way.

  • Ruled out more customers or a more careful AI, incoming tickets were flat
  • Found our own checks and tools caused 29 extra hand-offs a week
  • Harmless answers our checks wrongly refused now go out, wrong promises are still blocked
  • Tested on 2,837 saved answers, 27 now pass and none is newly refused
  • Chat answers can now carry a file
  • Lina now takes a second look at her own hand-offs, 13 solved the first night
  • Two more solved on 6 Oct after the new permissions went live
  • A hand-off closed by a helpdesk auto rule is now reopened for the team
  • Design swap choices now survive Lina's own notes, and same price exchanges pass
  • Routine returns from abroad now go through, following Marie's answer on 6 Oct
  • An offer from Marie, Nele or Tamara plus the customer's yes now counts as approval
  • Health cases narrowed to real skin, pain and medical issues, replacements limited by value
  • One waiting ticket took 38 of 192 runs and got 11 identical notes, now fixed
  • Marie answered that customer personally the same evening, at our request
  1⅞ h
• Jess keeps answering through slowdowns and AI outagesLive

  Slow answers in late August were traced and fixed one by one, and Jess now has a backup AI, so a short outage at the provider is less likely to stop her.

  • Traced Nele's slow answer complaint, part was real review work, part Jess juggling too much
  • Stopped the emoji bursts Nele saw, an old rule made Jess add one per step
  • Found Jess's memory search broken, and the rebuild blocked by a free Google limit
  • Her memory was finally rebuilt in full during the September upgrade
  • Archived 43,000 unused conversation files, Jess's store shrank from 8.7 to 2.2 GB
  • Repaired the server commands used to recover stuck Jess conversations
  • The 3 Sept outage lasted 16 minutes, the backup AI answered a live test that afternoon
  • Leon got a plain explanation of the outage, its cause and the fix
  • Leon could not see some Jess replies in Discord, his access rights were fine, still unsolved
  3¼ h
• Jess and Lina on a newer version in JulyDone

  Jess had missed a reply to Nele because a message sent while she was busy got lost. The July move gave her room for one more conversation at a time, so this happens less.

  • Checked the upgrade plan first, the advice was to prepare but not switch yet
  • Checked Jess's conversation memory size and set it explicitly in the 22 July update
  • Jess moved on 17 July and Lina on 18 July, with all 40 Jess jobs kept
  • Two Jess switch attempts stopped safely and Jess was restored, the third one worked
  • Found why Jess lost Nele's message, a waiting request was killed before it started
  • Lina was reported stopped on 21 July, a check showed she was working normally
  • Jess now handles three conversations at once instead of two, no rebuild needed
  • Lina's quick but less careful answer mode was switched off on 23 July
  3¼ h
• Two broken daily jobs fixedLive

  Lina's morning returns check kept stopping halfway, and Jess's nightly bank check had failed 11 nights in a row. Both were fixed in August. On the first good day Lina closed three returns on her own.

  • Found our own change made the returns check redo deep checks on every stuck return
  • Lina now checks at most 6 stuck returns deeply per run, longest wait first
  • Every stuck return still gets a full check at least once a day
  • Morning check took 26 minutes on 21 August, and 12 to 18 minutes next day
  • The list of stuck returns fell from 25 to 17 in one day
  • First bank check fix missed, the real cause was too many AI steps for 5 minutes
  • Jess's nightly bank check now gets 15 minutes and handles at most 8 cases a night
  • Fixed a hidden flaw where one inserted sheet row could hide a new bank transaction
  • Jess now posts every night, even when nothing is new
  2¼ h
• Upkeep of safety checks, security reports, backups and loginsLive

  Safety checks after the creator reply slip, a weekly security report that only alerts for real reasons, backups working again, customer files kept only 7 days, a reminder before Leon's login runs out, and a check that the warehouse link works.

  • July safety audit found Lina's live setup clean and fully saved
  • Confirmed the weekly open orders report was right, 31 late warehouse orders
  • A report said Lina's warehouse login was dead, a direct check proved it works
  • After the creator reply slip, every safeguard was rechecked and the gap confirmed closed
  • Fixed the helpdesk link that since June failed to remove tags, so done tickets stayed open
  • Jess's ad upload check now runs every two hours to save AI allowance
  • Stopped a crashing Jess helper for an old starter credit offer
  • Jess got her own guide for building Judes tools, pointing to the right KPI data
  • Leon is tagged with a sign in link a week ahead, then checked daily
  • Marie's older second Discord account with Lina was kept on purpose after the security review
  4¼ h

Madeleine's partner program for creators and experts. It was rebuilt in July and August to the shape agreed in her call. In September partners kept their familiar codes and the new discount was prepared.

• One partner program in German and EnglishLive

  We first built a separate English copy, then Madeleine's call on 28 July showed one program in both languages was right. Groups went from 15 to 6, new sign-ups get a code only after approval, with a new partner dashboard and welcome emails in both languages. 70 partners moved without losing their commission. A short list of partner program decisions waits for you, such as a lawyer's check of the new partner agreement.

  • Built a separate English sign-up route in July, removed it when the call chose one program
  • Jess's check of the English pages found gaps, so they were never sent to creators
  • Found sign-ups were handed a live 12% code before anyone checked who they were
  • Found the automatic tier upgrades almost never fired, removed them so upgrades are chosen by hand
  • Closed an old midwife sign-up page that approved every applicant automatically
  • Fixed the English website buttons, which sent English visitors to the German application form
  • Cleaned the German application form and removed a free-set code that anyone could read
  • Made an English application form with the same questions and logic as the German one
  • Replaced the 2019 partner agreement with a new one in German and English
  • Fixed the partner agreement page, which showed garbled characters
  • Corrected the partner FAQ, which promised automatic upgrades, and the invoice email address
  • Turned the payout page from one video into a full written how-to
  • Redesigned all five partner dashboard pages in Judes fonts and colours, in both languages
  • Made the sign-up email, form labels and dashboard home text work in both languages
  • Fixed a sign-up hint that English visitors still saw in German, on all five pages
  • The team now gets a Slack notice for each new partner application
  • Switched off the old sign-up automation once codes were given only after approval
  • Found 96 partners with about 34,500 euros of earned commission they had not yet invoiced
  • Set up a weekly list of partners who earned a higher tier, later made monthly
  • Set up a quarterly list of unpaid partner commission for Madeleine
  • Tested seven full sign-up journeys in a real browser, German and English, all passed
  • Removed the test partner accounts and test discount codes left over from the checks
  12¾ h
• Clean private sign-up links for each partner tierLive

  Madeleine's links for 6, 10 and 15% now carry the tier name. The old links still work, so links already sent still count.

  • Added links named partner-6, partner-10 and partner-15, with the same pages behind them
  • Kept the old links working for the 213 partners already in those three tiers
  • Renamed the pages in the admin to Partner names, with old links clearly marked
  • Checked all six links in a real browser, each one shows the right tier
  • Checked the partner pages and dashboard in both languages, no old VIP wording remains
  2 h
• The partner list reaches the email tool every weekLive

  The first weekly copy failed without telling anyone. It was fixed the same day and handed to Jess, who now runs it every Monday and reports in Slack.

  • Moved the weekly copy off the old automation tool, all 1,341 partner profiles matched exactly
  • Copied 1,343 partner profiles by hand on 10 August, fixing two missing or old groups
  • Found the check meant to watch that first run had also failed without a word
  • Proved the hosting service's weekly timer never fires for Judes, and removed it
  • Every run now leaves a record, so a missed week can always be traced
  • Jess's Monday report says plainly whether the copy ran on time or had to be rerun
  • Tested all four kinds of Monday report before handing the job to Jess
  • Checked again in August and September, the weekly copy ran on time
  3¼ h
• Creator search keeps running when one research account runs outPartly live

  Jess now switches to a second account when the first one is empty. Both ran out again at the end of September, so the last weekly search found only 2 of 20 creators. Madeleine asked you about a bigger plan. On 1 October I suggested first keeping the paid account for creator search and scanning ad comments less often.

  • Found Nele's daily creator check had failed for eleven days because the research account was empty
  • The creator check now posts a clear Slack message when the research money runs out
  • Worked out the free account ran dry after about 11 days each month, with three options
  • After the monthly reset, confirmed the checks ran again and the waiting creator shares were handled
  • Stopped false failure warnings in Madeleine's channel when the weekly creator search had actually worked
  • Tested the switch, with one account empty it moved to the other by itself
  • The same switch now protects the daily ad comment scan and Nele's creator check
  • Traced a 3 September failure to Jess lacking a backup AI model, added the same day
  • Found the daily ad comment scan used up the shared research money before creator search
  2¼ h
• Creator replies only go out after Madeleine approvesLive

  On 1 September Lina sent 16 creator replies that were only drafts. We closed that gap the same evening, and creator replies now always wait for Madeleine.

  • Found the cause, Lina trusted notes written under a shared name that Jess also uses
  • Removed that shared name from the people Lina accepts approvals from
  • Deleted 16 more unapproved creator replies that were waiting to go out
  • Lina now holds back anything that looks like a creator reply by default
  • Lina now recognises Jess's usual draft label, so such drafts do not count as approval
  • Kept Lina answering customers the whole time instead of pausing her
  • Marie's customer care approvals still work as before
  • A separate reviewer checked the fix before it was called done
  1 h
• Top partners move up a tier every monthLive

  16 partners had earned a higher tier but stayed stuck. Now Jess lists them each month, Madeleine picks, and Jess moves them up.

  • Jess can now move a partner up one tier in the partner tool, and nothing else
  • Jess moves a partner only when Madeleine's own Slack reply names that partner
  • Fixed the sales count, which wrongly added a deleted payout to one partner's total
  • Fixed list numbers that shifted between reports, so Madeleine's picks always match the right partner
  • A reply like "upgrade to 10%" can no longer be misread as partner number 10
  • A first review found a fault that could have moved the wrong partner, fixed before use
  • Moves never send an email by themselves, so each upgrade stays a personal moment
  • Madeleine approved her first upgrade by 7 September, and Jess moved that partner up
  1 h
• Partners keep their familiar codes, and the new discount is ready to announceWaiting for your go

  Every partner keeps a familiar code as the main code. 1,116 got their old code back, and 6 who never had one got a new easy one. The new shared discount and the announcement email in German and English are ready and wait for your go. Before sending we need a new date with two weeks' notice, and a way to tell the 233 partners who do not get marketing emails.

  • Random new codes set as main codes on 7 September were swapped back before any use
  • Fixed new expert approvals, which were getting random codes that did not work yet
  • Found Jess's checkout test skipped real buyer cases and would briefly switch on every new code
  • Kept partners with their own special deals out of the change
  • A checkout test with a mixed basket showed the new discount combines with set discounts
  • Checked all 41 active 5% partner codes also combine with set discounts
  • A separate check on 12 September confirmed every main code and commission was correct
  • Found Jess's guide still taught the old random code plan, and corrected it
  • Rewrote the announcement warmer, with one set's price before and after, about 30 euros less
  • Built both emails in the real Judes email design, after a plain first version was rejected
  • Sorted partners by language so 882 get the German email and 9 the English one
  • Checked that partner replies to the email reach customer care
  • Sent Nele a short video and diagram of the change on 14 September
  6¾ h

Reading Slack so nothing gets lost, keeping one plan, calls, and a few fixes in the shop itself.

• Slack check-ins, so open problems do not get lostDone

  In July I had three months of Judes Slack reviewed (4,394 messages in the channels we could read) and listed the 49 problems that were still unsolved. From August, regular checks sent each open issue to the right place.

  • Ranked the 49 problems by urgency, 13 of them marked most urgent
  • Found 65 of 86 open tickets were stuck after Lina handed them to the team
  • Found returns marked done in one system while the warehouse decision stayed open
  • Checked two weeks of my Judes messages and mentions in August, found six open problems
  • Gave each of the six its own working channel with the Slack thread and context
  • Traced the jump from 120 to 249 open tickets to a one-time WhatsApp re-sync
  • Confirmed no customer was spammed, and passed the two still waiting to Marie
  • Sent the team a plain message explaining the ticket flood and that it was over
  • Spotted Marie's request for one-off exceptions in Slack, and it was built the next day
  4 h
• One plan for Lina, agreed with the teamLive

  All Lina work in one plan with a plain message to the team, reset around Marie's returns, then around the customers waiting too long, then around the tools Lina was missing. Clear rules for when Marie's word changes what Lina does.

  • Turned 99 tickets where Lina stopped into a spreadsheet of fixes to build
  • Pulled Lina work from six channels into one plan, with an owner for each part
  • Sorted 296 August drafts by cause, the biggest was rules not letting Lina act
  • Wrote the team a plain message about Lina's improvements, without alarming technical words
  • Caught that unfinished returns vanished after a new instruction, a daily list now tracks them
  • Checked the three changes Marie built with Lina and fixed a money approval gap
  • Fixed the weekly support score, which showed about 50% when real weeks reached 65 to 86%
  • After Nele's report of long waits, found hand-offs had no owner and no deadline
  • Found Lina's money limit held back only 2 of 79 waiting cases, not the real blocker
  • Added Marie's and Nele's wishes to the plan, like an instant reply on every hand-off
  • Rebuilt the plan around giving Lina missing tools, kept apart from what she may do alone
  • When Lina reports a missing tool, Marie tags me and we build it
  • Made sure out of stock or unclear warehouse answers go to the team, not the customer
  9 h
• New Shopify thank you and order status pagesLive

  Shopify is switching off the old pages. We moved them on 3 August, kept the tracking and the survey working, and gave Heike full shop rights.

  • Saved a full backup of the old page scripts before the switch
  • Switched off two old tracking tools that were no longer used
  • Left visitor recording untouched until admin access came, so tracking never went dark
  • Checked the customer survey showed on both new pages before going live
  • Checked after the switch that every checkout setting matched the old one exactly
  • Moved visitor recording to its official Shopify app and removed the old copy, no double counting
  • Sent the team a summary with preview links of the new pages
  • Gave Heike full admin rights in Shopify without handing over shop ownership
  • Confirmed the rest of Heike's styling wishes are not possible in Shopify's page editor
  • Found Jess cannot edit the checkout look on this Shopify plan, a safer route awaits setup
  3½ h
• Prices in pesos for MexicoLive

  Mexico was priced in euros. It now has its own market in pesos, so its prices can change on their own.

  • Found pesos were never switched on in the shop, so Mexico silently fell back to euros
  • Showed the 8% lower price came from a setting shared by 231 countries
  • Checked the peso price equals Mexico's old euro price at that day's exchange rate
  • Checked live that prices in Germany and Japan stayed exactly the same
  ¾ h
• A check of the Meta ads accountDone

  The ad system Leon built runs well. The ads bring back about 1.75 euros in sales per euro spent, by Meta's own numbers, and make money in German-speaking countries and Europe. The gap is fresh customer research, which has not been updated since February.

  • Checked all 14 automatic ad routines Leon and Jess built, all were running fine
  • Found about 3,580 euros a month in four weak ads the automatic pause did not catch
  • Found the biggest campaign, about 44% of spend, returned 1.40 per euro by Meta's count
  • Found the North America scaling campaign brought back only 0.67 per euro spent
  • Found the tool meant to refresh customer research had never run once
  • Found nobody tracked which of the 6 to 8 daily ad ideas were used
  • Counted about 15 new ads a week, with a fresh English winner from August
  ¾ h
• Claude Code for the Judes teamLive

  Leon, then Nele, then everyone in the Judes Slack can ask Claude Code for help, with Jess's rules and access.

  • Jess stays quiet when someone asks Claude Code, so the two never answer at once
  • Requests now show a live progress card while Claude Code works, tested on Jess's server
  • Added Nele as a user, and her first requests ran the same day
  • In Slack only full team members can use it, guests and outside people cannot
  • Claude Code joined the 10 public and three private Slack channels Jess is in
  • Each person's requests stay separate, so one user's work never mixes with another's
  • Tested it live in a Slack thread and fixed its access before calling it ready
  • Restored the team's Claude Code on 3 October, Leon renewed its login with one code
  3¼ h
• Stock holds for Nele's out-of-stock planBuilt, not switched on

  What Nele asked for in her out-of-stock plan, built in early October as one small program between the shop and the warehouse, and kept switched off. Jess found more fixes to make, and will walk Nele through it before anything goes live.

  • Set orders can be held up to 25 days, with early release, as Marie asked
  • Out-of-stock holds wait for a team approval, as in Nele's plan
  • When switched on, it releases held orders once the missing product is back
  • It cannot change any order until it is deliberately switched on
  • A read-only check found 8 US orders held for a German shortage, though stock existed elsewhere
  • Checked all 14 running-out products were already set in the shop as Nele's rules say
  • Fixed faults two reviews found, such as two updates able to collide on one order
  • Jess's own check found more faults, such as a released set order getting held again
  • Drew Nele's plan beside the build, with four reasons hand steps and shop rules can fail
  • Opened a walkthrough channel where Jess will take Nele through it, not started yet
  1¼ h
• Safe access for Leon's trial set pageDone

  Leon can build his new page while Jess cannot break the live shop.

  • Checked Leon's work, a sound plan to test the new trial set page against the old
  • Found the test counted carts but not finished purchases or revenue yet
  • Found Jess lacked the server rights to put Leon's visitor counter online
  • Gave Jess control of that one counter only, not of the whole server
  • Jess still cannot change other services, the agents or the server's protection
  • Tested both page versions send their counts, with doubles blocked and the report password protected
  • Leon was told it was ready, with the split test left switched off
  ½ h
• Call with Nele on prioritiesDone

  A full review of all Judes work before the call, then one hour on Lina's backlog, one agent or several, and a permission layer for Jess. The permission layer was agreed in the call and was not built yet at the end of September.

  • The review found Lina solved 87% alone, with a 4 hour typical first answer
  • Found Lina was closing emails about Noah Quinn as spam
  • Found Jess's shop access for Noah Quinn had never been approved
  • Found the shop runs in five languages, and our files name no owner for translations
  • In the call, agreed to work the 60 to 100 old hand-offs from the bottom up
  • Recommended one company agent, Jess, and separate ones only for privacy or work like Lina's
  • Found the first gap for Jess's permission list, she can read HR files in Drive
  • Laid out two options for a private agent for Nele and Leon, with costs
  1 h
• Partner dashboards checked and stray test emails stoppedDone

  Nine old test profiles were getting real marketing emails. All nine were unsubscribed.

  • Checked which partner dashboards had really been opened in a browser, not just checked on paper
  • Traced the stray emails to test accounts left from the July partner testing
  • Found that deleting a partner does not remove them from the email list
  • Checked in the email tool that none of the nine can receive marketing now
  • The nine profiles still exist, deleting them needs a person in the email tool
  • Set a rule that future partner tests also clean up the email tool
  ½ h

Jess does operations work for Nele and Leon. These hours connected her to more of Judes's tools. One is ready and waits for one click from Leon.

• Jess works in Judes's Google accountLive

  Gmail drafts and Drive, set up so Nele only had to do the sign in herself, with no passwords passed around.

  • Planned it so nearly all setup was done before Nele had to touch anything
  • Chose Gmail access first, with wider Google Cloud access as the later goal
  • Updated Jess's existing Google skill in place, no duplicate setup and no passwords copied
  • Jess later made checked Gmail drafts in Madeleine's mailbox
  2½ h
• A map of who does what in creator workDone

  It showed the work was already shared between Lina, Jess and Madeleine, so no third agent was needed.

  • Found Judes already had a partly automated creator system, Lina routes and Jess researches
  • Madeleine owns the creator relationships, Jess keeps the creator board
  • Delivered an editable diagram of the whole creator flow
  • Linked the live creator board and the diagram for the team
  1 h
• Jess drafts creator replies for MadeleinePartly live

  Jess drafts creator replies in Slack and Madeleine sends them herself. Drafts inside the helpdesk are paused since the 1 September slip. A safer daily flow was planned in September and is parked for now.

  • From 19 August Jess left creator drafts as private helpdesk notes for Madeleine to send
  • Done with Jess's existing helpdesk access, no extra login or browser robot
  • Checked Madeleine's request against other workflows and found three safety gaps
  • Agreed flow, Jess drafts, Madeleine approves and sends, and Lina stays out of creator replies
  • Restarting Jess's helpdesk drafts judged unsafe until a focused build and Madeleine's OK
  1¾ h
• Jess and Leon share a browserNot working yet

  So Jess can work in tabs Leon shares (Caya documents, for example) while Leon keeps the logins. Set up in August, then blocked because the browser add-on did not work with Jess's version. In October Nele got two ways forward to choose from.

  • Wrote Nele a guide and Jess a prompt for getting Caya documents through a shared browser
  • Chose a private connection so Jess sees only the tabs Leon shares, his Mac stays closed
  • Wrote a step by step guide so Jess and Leon can finish the pairing themselves
  • Leon keeps logins, codes and approvals, and can cut Jess's access at once
  • Restored a lost server permission and found the browser add-on did not fit Jess's version
  • Upgrade fixed the version clash, a second clash on the private address was fixed 6 Oct
  • Jess's own browser now runs without a window, but Shopify's bot check blocks its sign in
  • A fresh pairing is ready but not delivered, Nele is not yet on the private network
  2½ h
• Bank and survey connections for JessWaiting for Leon

  Safe sign in paths for Qonto and Plantvibes, and a rebuilt Grapevine survey connection. Grapevine needs one click from Leon to approve it. For Qonto and Plantvibes I have no record that the sign in was finished, so Leon and I should check it together.

  • Added three sign in pages for Qonto on the Judes server, behind the site password
  • Logging switched off on the page Qonto sends back to, so no secret leaks into logs
  • Added a sign in page for Plantvibes the same day, existing connection untouched
  • Jess's own Grapevine attempt could never sign in, rebuilt on Grapevine's official read only access
  • Survey tools load only when needed, so they do not crowd Jess's other conversations
  • Tested on Jess's server and reviewed twice before Leon got the approval link
  2¼ h
• Jess answers again in Slack after a stallLive

  At the end of August some of her Slack work stopped without a word. We found three causes, finished the stuck work and wrote down the fix.

  • Corrected a wrong first diagnosis that blamed the conversation size
  • The AI provider refused requests at busy times that morning
  • Found work stopped after 5 minutes when a finished signal never came
  • Found a 30 minute limit cut a long update run
  • Messages sent by helper tools were ignored by Jess, only people's messages wake her
  • The stuck master data update had actually finished, only its announcement was lost
  • Recovery steps written down for next time
  2½ h
• A usage page, a Figma check and more time for the KPI exportDone

  Nele and Leon can open a page by link that shows how much they use Jess. A check of what Judes needs to design in Figma. Jess's KPI export got more time. It finished on 29 and 30 September but was cut off once more on the 28th, so a lasting fix is still open.

  • Jess's usage page opens by link without the main password
  • Nele and Leon shown by name, with Slack use counted and channel names instead of codes
  • Figma check found Leon's account reads Judes files but sits on a free plan
  • A free plan allows only 20 design requests a month, too few for real page work
  • Missing for Figma work, a paid seat, a Judes brand kit and Jess's setup
  • KPI export time limit raised from 20 to 45 minutes
  • Most export time is spent rebuilding returns history back to 2023, every single day
  ¾ h

I run AI agents for several companies. Much of the work on the software, the AI models, safety and repairs is done once for all of them and billed elsewhere. Jess and Lina got all of it at no cost to Judes.