How do I make the AI follow up with a customer until they reply or book?

A follow-up sequence is a plan for keeping in touch with a customer who has gone quiet: a few messages, spaced out, each with a job to do. You set the plan up once. The AI then writes every message for each customer, so it can mention what they actually asked about. Follow-up sequences come with Pro and up, and setting them up needs an organization admin.

Set up a sequence

1. Open TMS, then Setup, then the Follow-ups tab.
2. If you have no sequences yet, you see a ready-made one called "Follow up after an enquiry": three texts, sent 1, 3 and 7 days apart. Click "Use this starter" to save it as it is. It appears in your list, and you can edit it.
3. To make your own, click "New sequence".
4. Give it a name, then fill in "What these follow-ups are for". The AI reads this when it writes each message, so say it in plain words, for example "Check that they still need help with their quote".
5. Fill in each step. "Wait" is the number of days after the step before it (for the first step, after you start the sequence). The first step may wait 0 days; every later step waits at least 1 day, and no step waits more than 60 days. "Send by email or text" defaults to text. "What this message should do" is one line, for example "Offer to answer any questions".
6. Click "Add a step" for more. A sequence has up to 8 steps.
7. Click "Save sequence". The sequence appears in your list. If the name is the same as another sequence you already have, you are asked to pick another.

Choosing email on a step shows a reminder. With a Peakify email inbox, replies come into it and stop the follow-ups. Without one, each email waits for your approval and replies go to your own mailbox, so if a customer answers there, stop the follow-ups by hand. Text replies come back into Peakify.

To change a sequence, click Edit. To remove one, click Delete and confirm. Deleting a sequence cannot be undone, and it stops the follow-ups for every customer who is still going through it.

Start or stop follow-ups for one customer

Anyone on your team can start or stop follow-ups for a customer.

1. Open the customer's page from Contacts, then open the Payments tab. The Follow-ups card sits below Payments.
2. Pick a sequence from the list and click "Start a follow-up". The card now shows the sequence, which step it is on, and when the next message is due.
3. To end it early, click "Stop the follow-ups" and confirm. Nothing more is sent to this customer from that sequence.

A customer can only be in one sequence at a time. If they already have one running, you see a message such as "Sam is already getting follow-ups." Stop the running one first if you want to switch. You can start a sequence again later; it begins again from its first step.

Messages are only ever due between 9 am and 9 pm in your business's time zone. If a wait would land at night, the message is due at 9 am instead.

The card also lists earlier sequences for this customer and why each one ended, for example "Stopped: Sam replied", "Stopped: Sam booked", "Stopped by your team" or "Finished".

When the follow-ups stop by themselves

You do not need to watch for a reply. The follow-ups stop on their own when:

• the customer writes to you after the sequence started, on any channel Peakify receives: a text, WhatsApp, web chat, an email that reaches a connected Peakify email inbox, a call, or a meeting;
• the customer books an appointment after the sequence started (a cancelled booking does not count);
• the customer opts out of messages;
• the customer is deleted, merged into another customer, or blocked.

When your business has a Peakify email inbox, replies to follow-up emails come into that inbox and stop the follow-ups, like any other reply. An automatic reply, such as an out-of-office message, does not stop them. Without an email inbox, follow-up emails always wait for your approval before they go. Text replies always come back into Peakify.

The AI writes each message, and the bell tells you

When a step is due, the AI writes that one message for this customer. It writes from the sequence's purpose, what this step should do, the customer's first name and the service they chose, what they said in earlier conversations, and the follow-ups already sent, so it does not repeat itself. On plans that share the customer's journey with the AI, it can also use where they are in the journey, what is still missing and whether they have an appointment. It never sees your team's private notes. It is told never to write prices or dates, and a message with a link or a web address is never kept: the AI tries again instead.

Until the AI has earned sending follow-ups on its own (see "Letting the AI send follow-ups on its own" below), nothing is sent without you. The message waits on the customer's Follow-ups card, and the bell tells the person who started the follow-ups (or your admins, when a journey started them) that a follow-up is ready to check. The bell never shows the message itself; open the customer to read it.

Read it, then approve, change or skip it (next section).

The next step is not written until you deal with the waiting one. Messages are written within about 15 minutes of being due.

If the AI cannot write a usable message, it tries again 30 minutes later. After three failed tries in a row the follow-ups stop, the card says "Stopped: the AI couldn't write a message", and the bell tells you. If the customer replies or books while a message is waiting, or someone on your team stops the follow-ups, the waiting message is cancelled and nothing more is sent.

Check, change or skip a follow-up

The customer's Follow-ups card shows the waiting message: whether it goes by text or email, its subject for an email, and the words the AI wrote. You have three choices:

• Click "Approve and send" to send it as it is. Once approved, a follow-up cannot be taken back, and the card says so beside the button.
• Click "Edit" to change the words, and the subject for an email, then click "Approve and send". The customer gets your words. A text can be up to 320 characters and an email up to 1,200. Neither can contain a link, a web address or a placeholder such as {{name}}. An email with no subject goes out as "A note from" and your business name.
• Click "Skip this one" if you do not want to send it. The sequence moves to its next step, counting that step's wait from now, or finishes if that was the last one.

Just before it is sent, Peakify checks again that the customer has not replied, booked or opted out. If they have, nothing is sent, the follow-ups stop, and you see why, for example "Sam replied, so this follow-up was not sent and the follow-ups have stopped."

When it goes:

• A text is only sent between 8:00 am and 9:00 pm in the customer's own time zone, worked out from their phone number. Approve a text in the evening and it waits until 8:00 am their time. The card says "Waiting to send by text" until then.
• An email goes into the send queue straight away.
• If the step's channel cannot reach the customer (for example no permission to text them, no phone number, or your business has no texting number), the message goes the other way instead: by email for a text step, by text for an email step that is short enough for a text. If neither works, nothing is sent, the follow-ups stop, and the card says why, for example "There is no phone number on file."
• A customer gets at most three follow-ups in an hour. If you approve more than that, you are told so and the message waits; approve it again later.

Texts go out like your other automatic texts: they start with your business name, end with how to opt out, are charged like any other text, and appear in the customer's text conversation. Emails go out in your branded email with an unsubscribe link.

After you approve, the message is listed under the sequence with what happened to it: "Sending by text now", "Waiting to send by text" (it is due later, for example in the customer's morning), "Sent by text", "Sent by email", or "Not sent: the text could not go out" if the texting service refused it at the last moment. A skipped message reads Skipped, and a message cancelled because the follow-ups stopped reads Cancelled. The next step's wait counts from when the message is sent.

After you approve the last message, the card says "Last follow-up approved. This finishes once it has gone." The sequence finishes shortly after that message's send time. Until then a reply or a booking still stops it, so a last text waiting for the morning is cancelled if the customer answers overnight.

Letting the AI send follow-ups on its own

Follow-ups can earn sending without your approval, the same way other AI messages do. Every follow-up you approve counts. Approving one as written, or with a small fix, adds to the run; a bigger rewrite, a changed number, or "Skip this one" starts the run again from zero.

Once you have approved 20 follow-ups in a row without real changes, covering at least 5 different customers, right after the 20th approval an admin is asked on the Follow-ups card: "Let the AI send them on its own?" Click "Let it send on its own" to switch it on, or "Keep checking first" to carry on approving. Only admins are asked, and only on Pro and up.

Once it is on:

• When a step is due, the AI writes the message and it goes out by itself. The bell does not ring for it. On the card it reads "Sent on its own by text" (or by email) instead of "Sent by text".
• Every tenth follow-up still waits on the card for you to check, and the bell tells you, as before.
• Skipping one of those, or changing it a lot, puts follow-ups back to checking with you first.
• Emails only send on their own when replies to them come back to Peakify, through a Peakify email inbox. Without one, an email step waits for you, and the card says "Emails wait for you until replies to them come back to Peakify. Add an email inbox to change this." A short email step can still go on its own as a text when the customer can get texts.

To switch it back, open the AI Assistant page and find the card "What the AI sends on its own". For the full rules, see When does the AI send a message without asking me first?.

Start follow-ups from a journey job

A sequence can start by itself when a customer reaches a job in your journey, so nobody has to remember to start it.

1. Open TMS, then Setup, then the Follow-ups tab, and click Edit on the sequence (or "New sequence").
2. Under "Start automatically when a customer reaches this job", pick the job. Jobs are listed by journey and step. Only ordinary jobs can be picked: a job that asks the customer for documents, a payment or a signature cannot start follow-ups. A job that already has the AI doing something else is shown but cannot be picked.
3. Click "Save sequence".

From then on, each customer who reaches that job starts the sequence within a few minutes, and the job is marked done once their follow-ups have started.

Only jobs your team sees can start follow-ups. A job the customer is told about (one that sends them a message when it is done) cannot be picked.

Sometimes a customer cannot start the sequence: they are already getting follow-ups from another sequence, or the sequence is switched off. The job is then not marked done. Peakify tries again a few times, then leaves the job for your team, and you get an alert in the bell such as "Ada could not finish Follow up after three tries", using your assistant's name and the job's name.

Customers who are already at that job when you save also start the sequence. Before saving, you see how many, for example "3 customers are at this job now. They will start getting follow-ups within a few minutes." Tick "Start follow-ups for them too" to save, or pick a different job.

To stop a job starting the sequence, choose "Only when someone starts it" and save. The job goes back to being done by a person. Deleting the sequence does the same.

Start it from the job in the journey editor

You can also pick the follow-up on the job itself, in your journey editor. It does the same thing as the Follow-ups tab, from the other side.

1. Open TMS, then Setup, then the Journey tab, and click "Edit journey".
2. Open the job. Under "What the AI does", pick "Start the follow-up:" followed by the sequence's name. This sets the job to "AI does it". A business with no sequences sees no follow-up option.
3. Click Publish.

Only an ordinary job your team sees can start a follow-up. If the job asks the customer for documents, a payment or a signature, or the customer is told about it, you see "Follow-ups can start from an ordinary job, not one that asks the customer for documents, a payment or a signature." or "Follow-ups can start from a job only your team sees, not one the customer is told about."

Customers already at this job start the follow-up within a few minutes of publishing. Unlike the Follow-ups tab, the editor does not ask you to confirm first, and shows this under the choice.

A sequence starts from one job only. Pick it on two jobs in the same journey and publishing asks you to pick it on one. Pick one that a job in another journey, or elsewhere in this one, already starts and it moves to this job; the other job goes back to a person.

To stop the job starting the follow-up, pick another action or set "Who does this" to Person, then publish. The sequence is kept, and you can still start it by hand.