Message Flow

Reply timing controls how long the assistant waits after a lead's message before it answers. The goal is to feel like a person who read the message and got back shortly, not a bot that fires instantly.

There is no separate Message Flow tab: the Reply timing slider lives in the Sales agent section of the AI page.

Overview#

The assistant waits a random moment inside a range you choose before replying.

• Anything the lead adds during that wait folds into a single reply, so a burst of quick messages still gets one natural answer.
• The range is bounded: replies never come faster than 30 seconds or slower than 5 minutes.

Set the reply timing#

Reply timing is a two-handle range slider that sets the window the assistant waits in before replying.

1. Drag the handles anywhere between 30 seconds and 5 minutes, in 15-second steps. The two handles always stay at least one step apart.
2. Check the current band, shown next to the heading (for example "30s to 5 min").
3. Release the handle. Changes save when you let go.

The assistant picks a random delay inside this band for each reply. The wait also lets it gather any follow-up messages into one response.

How messages are split#

Typing speed and how a message is broken into shorter messages are tuned globally for a natural feel, so there is nothing to set for those here.

• A reply with several paragraphs goes out as one message per paragraph, with a short typing pause between them.
• The same goes for everything else Gene writes to a lead: the welcome message, follow-ups, monthly updates and the other check-ins. Each paragraph is its own message.
• A message sent with a file attached stays one message, with the whole text as the file's caption. A WhatsApp template is also sent whole, because WhatsApp approves it as one message.
• If a reply says the same paragraph twice, near word for word, only the first copy goes out. Paragraphs with different numbers (two units, two prices) are both kept.
• Only an empty line between paragraphs starts a new message. A single line break, a full stop or a long paragraph never does.
• Splitting happens on WhatsApp, Telegram, Messenger, Instagram and SMS. Email and website chat messages always go out whole.
• The Test your agent practice chat in the Inbox splits replies and the website form test's welcome message the same way, so you see what a live lead would get.
• A reply, welcome or follow-up that goes out as several messages is still one message and is charged once, never per paragraph. See Billing for what counts as one credit.

Tips#

• A narrow band near the fast end feels snappy; a wider band feels more human and unpredictable.
• The wait is what lets the assistant combine a lead's rapid-fire messages into one reply, so a slightly longer window can actually read more naturally.
• You cannot go below 30 seconds or above 5 minutes. The slider and Gene itself both hold to that range.