A business can have a contact form, an inbox and a spreadsheet and still lose track of requests. The problem may be that no one owns the handoff between them.
Map a request from the customer’s first message through the response and completion. Where is it recorded? Who sees it? How does the customer know it was received? What happens if the owner is unavailable? Those are design questions as much as operations questions.
A small improvement could be a confirmation message, a shared status, or a clearer owner. Automation can help once the sequence is reliable. If the underlying process is unclear, automation may simply move confusion faster.
The goal is an experience that is easier for a customer to trust and easier for a small team to maintain. I favor the smallest system that handles the real workload clearly, with a way to grow when the business needs more.