The importance of machine learning in email management

05 Jul The importance of machine learning in email management

Let’s be honest, a lack of user discipline when filing or storing emails costs organisations a huge amount of money and can put the company at significant risk. Relying solely on our colleagues to have good email filing discipline, ensuring that all relevant business is filed diligently can have serious repercussions for the company. 

Our colleagues may not invoice our customers fully, or we may waste a lot of time trying to find information embedded in emails, and we could even risk regulatory fines or be unable to defend litigation. A poor email filing discipline or everything stored in individual staff email Inboxes, where you don’t have access to the information, is very frustrating. Consider the following:

• Client Service – with critical data being spread across numerous individual mailboxes, how quickly can you establish the full and most up-to-date position?  This challenge is made even greater when members of staff leave.
• Productivity – have you ever sat down and thought about how much time is wasted trying to search and find emails?
• Risk – having data scattered across multiple mailboxes not only makes it much harder to search and find information but also increases the chances of using out-of-date or incorrect information.
• Staff Morale – with staff being copied in to all emails relating to a particular client or job, whether the email is relevant to them or not, they run the risk of email overload.  Typically they either waste time by having to read every single email or they start skipping emails, leaving them left unopened, which increases the risk of missing something important.
• Data Storage Cost – An email received by 5 people is stored 5 times which then increases storage capacity exponentially.  It also means that mailboxes become quickly cluttered, making it even harder to search and find information.

Machine learning can go a long way to solving the complex problem of email management. It can be used to learn from a user’s email filing behaviour and can prompt the user when it’s not sure where an email should be filed. i.e. automate as much as possible (zero click filing) and use the human brain to do the rest.

Knowledgemill provides an intelligent machine learning email filing system that works seamlessly as part of Microsoft Outlook (Office 365 or Exchange) and integrates with the document management system of your choice or the native Knowledgemill DMS.  It also provides a full filing capability for iPhones, iPads and Android phones.

One question I’m often asked is, how accurate is machine learning? In our experience it can be pushed to 95% but that once you get above 80% you will get some filing errors. You will not be surprised to learn that Knowledgemill files up to 80% of emails automatically to guarantee accuracy.

At Knowledgemill we have been working with many organisations to solve their operational email management problems, Legal firms, construction firms, accounting firms or professional services organisations. Click on the link www.knowledgemill.com to find out more.  We would be pleased to demonstrate/discuss how Knowledgemill works with your existing systems and how it could help your organisation. 

Kevin has been successfully delivering technology solutions to companies for over 30 years both on the buying and selling side of a number of blue chip organisations, e.g. with Deloitte or as a CIO/COO.