Following up on a request nobody replied to

A request that gets no reply is the most expensive thing in a small business's week: the work of getting the enquiry is already paid for. This Premium tool sends at most two polite follow-ups - and the interesting part is not the sending, it is the six separate things that stop them, because a chase sent to somebody who already answered does more harm than the follow-up was worth.

Two messages, then it stops

The first follow-up goes a day after the request, the second two days after that, and there is no third. Two is where polite ends. The point is a nudge for the enquiry that fell through a gap, not a sequence that wears somebody down - and a business that sends five is training people to ignore its e-mail.

The six stops, which are the actual feature

Any one of these cancels the remaining follow-ups immediately:

1. The customer writes in the chat again. They are clearly still engaged; chasing them now reads as not paying attention.
2. The customer sends a new request. Same reason, more so.
3. The customer opts out, through a signed link in the e-mail itself that needs no account and no password.
4. Your team takes over the chat. A person is now handling it; an automatic chase would talk across them.
5. You mark the inquiry in progress or completed. The status is the truth and the automation respects it.
6. The whole automation is switched off for your business, which is how it ships - off by default.

Most products in this category get the sending right and the stopping wrong. The stopping is what decides whether your customers find it thoughtful or irritating.

If nobody on your side picked it up either

A request can go unanswered because the customer went quiet or because your own team missed it, and those need different responses. When follow-ups run out without a reply, the person the request is assigned to is told - so the last word is a prompt to your own team rather than silence. If you have not assigned requests to people, that is worth doing first; see team accounts and roles.

One rule that surprises people, and the reason for it

If your team has taken over a conversation and then hands it back to the assistant, the follow-ups do not resume. They were stopped by a person getting involved, and a person getting involved is a decision the automation should not quietly reverse an hour later. If a chase is still wanted, somebody sends it deliberately.

What they say

The follow-up refers to the request the customer made and offers an easy way back into the conversation. It does not add urgency, it does not invent a discount or a deadline, and it does not quote a price that was never agreed. Write the wording the way you would write it yourself - short, human, and with a single sentence saying what you need from them to carry on. A follow-up that asks a precise question gets a reply; one that says "just checking in" does not.

Delivery you can see

Every message goes through the notification queue with retries, and you can see whether it was accepted, is still waiting, or failed permanently - with the reason. A follow-up that bounced is useful information about that contact, not a silent nothing. Your panel also lists the follow-ups in flight so you can stop one by hand.

Before you switch it on

• Decide whether you want it at all. Some businesses - a funeral director, a clinic - should not chase, and that is a legitimate answer.
• Write the two messages yourself. Ten minutes, and it is the difference between a reply and an unsubscribe.
• Make sure requests get a status. The automation reads the status, so a team that never marks anything will chase customers it is already talking to.
• Check who gets the escalation, so the prompt to your own team reaches somebody who can act on it.

See the inquiry inbox for where statuses live, and writing the way your chatbot should speak for the wording.