Follow-ups

Follow-ups are how the assistant chases quiet leads. It checks every active lead once a day, at 9:00 in the lead's own timezone, and decides on its own whether to follow up, wait or stop. Most of this runs automatically; you only set a few escalation thresholds.

The controls live in the Conversion section of the AI page, under the qualification rules.

Overview#

Once a day the assistant reviews every active lead and decides, per lead, whether to send a follow-up, hold off or stop.

• Each lead is checked at 9:00 in their own timezone (see When follow-ups are sent for how Gene knows it). A lead in Amsterdam is checked on an Amsterdam morning, even when your office is in Bali.
• When the check decides to follow up, the message goes out later that day, between 9:00 and 18:00 the lead's time. Sends are spread across those hours, so your number never sends a burst all at once.
• The rhythm is fixed. There is no cadence, eagerness or max-attempts setting to tune for your workspace.

What you can configure are four rules around it. Each saves on its own: a switch the moment you flip it, a number shortly after you stop typing. The card's header shows Saving..., then Saved, or "Not saved. Try again" with a Try again link if a save fails. Clearing a number box to type a new one saves nothing until a valid number is in; leave it empty and it goes back to the saved value.

• an opt-in re-engage task for cold leads;
• a handover follow-up window;
• when Gene takes an unanswered handover back;
• how many days without a reply before a lead is marked Abandoned.

The four settings#

The four cards sit under Follow-ups, after an AI handles this card: "Gene checks every lead at 9:00 in their own timezone and writes a follow-up when one is due." Its Write my own button opens Flows > Inbound, where your own follow-up messages are written per lead source, in its Welcome flow (see Nurturing).

There is no stuck-lead (stage stall) card. That automation is paused, so the page does not offer it.

Re-engage cold leads#

A toggle, off by default.

• When on, a lead who engaged before but has gone quiet gets a re-engage task, assigned to whoever owns the lead.
• When enabled, a No reply for ... days number (1 to 365) sets how long the silence must last before the task is created.

Handover follow-up#

What happens when a lead is handed to the team and nobody replies. The card has only its title and the After ... hours number (1 to 168), with no description.

1. The assigned person already gets a reminder after 3 hours.
2. If nobody replies within your window, the assistant tells the assigned person's manager.
3. At twice the window, it alerts the whole team in the app, and posts the lead in your team WhatsApp group when one is connected.

Gene takes the lead back#

If nobody on the team replies at all, the assistant starts answering that lead again after this long, so the lead is not left in silence. Set the After ... hours number (0 to 336, where 0 means never take a lead back).

It only happens after the assigned person, their manager and the whole team have all been alerted. It never happens while someone is replying, has the conversation snoozed, or has closed the handover task.

Mark as abandoned#

How long a lead Gene is on can go without replying before Gene marks it Abandoned and stops following it up. Set the No reply for ... days number (1 to 365). It starts at 30 days.

• It applies to every open lead Gene is on, in any stage of any pipeline. Leads in a Won stage are never marked Abandoned.
• Leads with Gene switched off, and leads imported from another CRM, are never closed this way.
• Gene checks once a night, so a change takes effect on the next nightly check. Lowering the number can close a batch of quiet leads that night.

Control follow-ups for one lead#

The daily check itself has nothing to set and no card on the page. It works like this:

• When Gene waits: if a lead asks to be contacted later (for example "next week"), the assistant parks them until that time and skips the daily check until then. If a lead opts out or clearly says no, it stops following up.
• Pausing follow-ups for one lead: switch the assistant off on that contact. Everyone else keeps their daily check.
• Seeing the next check: in the Inbox, the clock chip at the top of a conversation shows when Gene next looks at that lead, for example "Gene checks today at 9:00". That time is on the lead's own clock, 9:00 in their timezone, so for a lead abroad it is a different hour where you are. Click the chip to set a follow-up time yourself instead.
• Seeing a queued follow-up: once Gene has decided to follow up, the message waits at the bottom of the conversation as a dashed bubble, with "Gene sends this" and the time on the lead's clock. Cancel on the bubble stops it. It also shows under Scheduled.
• Changing a lead's timezone: set a new timezone (or phone number) on the contact and their next check moves to 9:00 on the new clock straight away. A follow-up Gene has already queued is kept inside 7am to 8pm on the new clock.

When follow-ups are sent#

A follow-up only goes out between 7am and 8pm in the lead's own local time.

• The lead's time is the timezone set on the contact. Without one, it is the timezone their phone number points to, when that country has a single timezone (a Dutch number means Amsterdam time; a US number says nothing). Otherwise it is your workspace's timezone, otherwise UTC.
• When a send would land outside those hours for the lead, it waits until 7am their next morning.

The same hours apply to everything Gene schedules on its own:

• follow-up steps in a Welcome flow (timed on the same lead's clock);
• follow-ups Gene set itself as a task;
• next steps approved from a meeting;
• WhatsApp follow-up templates that get approved overnight.

Note

A follow-up time you set yourself from the clock chip in the Inbox is not moved to the lead's hours. It keeps the office window of 9am to 6pm in your workspace's timezone.

The first follow-up on WhatsApp#

The first follow-up after a lead writes on WhatsApp goes inside the free 23 hours after their last message.

• The assistant picks a natural time for the lead: a morning, afternoon or early evening slot.
• If 7am the next morning would be past those 23 hours, it goes before 8pm that evening instead.
• When no time fits, the next day's check takes the lead. On WhatsApp via the Meta API, the follow-up then goes out as a template.

How many follow-ups a lead gets#

Counted from the lead's last reply, a lead gets at most three follow-ups and then one final message, about 3, 6, 9 and 12 days after that reply. A reply from the lead starts the count again.

A proposal from Push this project starts the count again too, when Push this project is on for your account. The follow-ups then run from the proposal, even for a lead who used up their follow-ups months ago or has not written in over 30 days.

On WhatsApp via the Meta API, a follow-up due more than 24 hours after the lead's last message goes out as a template written in the lead's language, or in your first listed language when theirs is not among the languages Gene replies in (see Communication channels).

Which channel a follow-up goes on#

One conversation holds every channel a lead has used, so Gene picks the channel per message:

• Replies go on the channel the lead just wrote on. An email gets an email back, a WhatsApp message a WhatsApp reply.
• Follow-ups go on the channel the lead last wrote on. The same goes for reschedule nudges and next-step messages you approve.
• A number WhatsApp refuses (not on WhatsApp, or written without a country code): Gene marks the number Not on WhatsApp and moves the follow-ups queued on WhatsApp to email when the lead has an email and email is set up as a fallback channel, or cancels them otherwise. The clock chip in the Inbox then no longer promises a follow-up, and the conversation moves to Open so you see it. A note only your team sees says which, so you can fix the number.
• A lead who switches channel (for example writes on WhatsApp after starting on Instagram) stops any follow-up queued on the old channel. The next one goes out on the new channel.
• Out-of-office and other automatic email replies from a lead stay in the conversation for your team to read, but they do not count as the lead replying. Gene does not answer them, they do not stop or restart follow-ups, and the conversation does not move to email. Gene spots them from the email headers, the subject and the wording, in several languages. The thread shows a label, "Auto-reply (out of office)". When the message states a return date, the label adds "Back <date>. Follow-ups wait until then.", and that contact's pending follow-ups and campaign email steps move to the day after the date. Without a date, follow-ups carry on as planned.

Follow-ups that did not arrive#

Only follow-ups that actually reached the lead count. When WhatsApp refuses a follow-up, the lead never received it, so:

• it does not use up one of their follow-ups;
• the next one is not written as if it had arrived;
• it is not treated as something already said.

After three refused follow-ups since the lead last wrote, the assistant stops trying and waits for them to write again. The contact's timeline says so: "Skipped: the last follow-ups did not reach the lead, waiting for them to write".

When Meta holds a template back#

WhatsApp limits how many marketing messages one person gets, based on how that person engages with them. When a lead is at that limit, Meta holds the template back and the lead never sees it (Meta error 131049). Gene sends the same template again later:

1. a day later;
2. three days later;
3. a week later.

Each retry is moved into the lead's 7am to 8pm hours, and each one leaves a note in the conversation that only your team sees, with the time, for example "Gene tries again on Tue 6 Oct at 10:00, the lead's time (retry 1 of 3)".

• The lead writes first: the waiting retry is dropped and Gene answers them in the chat. A note says so.
• The third retry is held back too: Gene stops sending that message and notes it. Gene stays on for the lead and replies as soon as they write. To reach them sooner, call or email.
• No second channel: Gene does not switch to email or resend the text as a normal WhatsApp message while a retry is waiting.
• A teammate sends a template: it goes straight away and replaces the waiting retry, so the lead does not get both.
• No "Send again" for a day: the held-back message has no "Send again" button for 24 hours after it failed, because Meta says a resend inside that day fails too and can keep the lead blocked another day.

This covers templates sent in a conversation: Gene's follow-ups, replies, later welcome steps and reminders, and templates your team sends from the Inbox. Campaign sends are not retried this way.

Gene's own follow-up templates go to Meta as Utility (see Channels). Gene keeps its Marketing templates to one lead at least 24 hours apart: one that would go sooner than 24 hours after the last (a follow-up Meta moved to Marketing, say, or a retry of one) waits until then. A template a teammate sends from the Inbox is never held.

Some refusals are never retried, because Meta says a resend fails the same way:

• the lead turned off marketing messages from your business (Meta error 131050);
• the lead's number is in a Meta test that holds back marketing messages (Meta error 130472);
• the number cannot receive WhatsApp messages (Meta error 131026).

The final message and Abandoned deals#

The final message tells the lead this is the last one from your side for now, and that you will keep them posted. Sending it marks the deal Abandoned.

• An open lead Gene is on that goes 30 days without replying is marked Abandoned too, in any stage except Won. You can change the number of days under Mark as abandoned.
• Leads with Gene switched off, and leads imported from another CRM, are never closed this way.
• An abandoned lead who writes again comes back as Open in the same stage (see Pipeline).

Tips#

• The daily check is automatic and per lead, so you do not schedule anything; just leave active leads in the pipeline.
• If a lead's checks land at an odd hour for them, set their timezone on the contact. Gene then uses it instead of guessing from the phone number or your workspace.
• Turn on Re-engage cold leads if you want the team prompted to revive leads who went silent. It stays off so the task list stays quiet until you want it.
• The handover ladder is about being seen, not about more alerts: each step reaches a new person, because an unopened notification helps nobody.
• To stop follow-ups for one specific person, switch the assistant off on that contact rather than changing any global setting.