Follow-up Rules
Follow-up rules schedule messages to customers automatically after an event, such as a form submission, a resolved conversation, or an opened case. You set them up under Settings, then Follow-ups. This is also where you decide whether agents may schedule their own follow-ups during a conversation.
The customer satisfaction follow-up email is configured separately. See CSAT Settings.
The follow-up rules page
Section titled “The follow-up rules page”The Rules tab lists your rules. Each row shows the rule’s name, what triggers it, a summary of its schedule, and whether it is active or disabled. Select Add rule to create one, or select a row to edit it.
Creating a rule
Section titled “Creating a rule”A rule has five parts.
General
Section titled “General”Give the rule a name, for example “Follow up after quote”, and set whether it is enabled. Disabling a rule stops it scheduling new follow-ups, but it does not cancel follow-ups already in flight; use “Cancel all in flight” for that.
Trigger
Section titled “Trigger”Choose when the rule fires:
- After form submission. You can narrow this to a single form type, or leave it to match any form.
- After conversation resolved.
- When a case opens. You can narrow this to a single case type, or leave it to match any.
Schedule
Section titled “Schedule”Add one or more steps. Each step has a timing, expressed as a number of hours or days after the trigger, and the message the follow-up should carry. A rule can have several steps, for example one message 72 hours after the trigger and another a week after.
Cancellation
Section titled “Cancellation”Choose whether the follow-up should cancel itself automatically:
- Cancel when the customer replies. On by default.
- Cancel when the conversation resolves. On by default.
These keep a follow-up from going out once it is no longer needed.
In flight
Section titled “In flight”On an existing rule, this section shows how many follow-ups this rule currently has scheduled. Cancel all in flight stops all of them at once; you are asked to confirm, since customers will not receive those messages. You cannot delete a rule while it still has follow-ups scheduled, so cancel them first.
Save to create or update the rule.
Letting agents schedule follow-ups
Section titled “Letting agents schedule follow-ups”The Agent follow-ups tab lets agents schedule a follow-up themselves during a conversation, for example a check-in a few days after a quote is sent. Unlike a rule, which fires on a fixed event, an agent chooses the moment and the timing as part of the conversation.
This is off by default. When you turn on Allow agents to schedule follow-ups, you also set two limits:
- Maximum per conversation: how many follow-ups an agent may have scheduled on one conversation at a time.
- Maximum time ahead: the furthest ahead an agent may schedule a follow-up.
Agent-scheduled follow-ups respect do-not-contact preferences and, like rule-based ones, cancel automatically if the customer replies first. They appear in the Follow-ups operations view alongside every other follow-up, and you send, cancel, or dismiss them the same way.