Interactive tutorial · ~5 min · 10 steps
Follow-up: nudge leads that go quiet
A follow-up rule messages anyone who has stayed in a pipeline stage for a set number of days and stops when they reply. Follow-ups are not paced like campaigns.
Runs on a fictional copy of the screen with a voice guide. Nothing you click reaches WhatsApp.
What the tour covers, step by step
Message anyone who sits in a pipeline stage for N days — and stop the moment they reply.
- 01
Follow-ups live on your pipeline
A follow-up fires when a chat enters or leaves a CRM stage — 'message anyone who sits in Proposal for 3 days'. Each row is a rule; New rule opens the editor.
Read the narration
Welcome to Follow-up. Most sales are lost not to a 'no' but to silence — you send a proposal, the customer gets busy, and nobody writes again. A follow-up rule fixes that. It watches a stage of your CRM pipeline and, when a chat has sat there for a number of days, sends a message for you. This shop already sends a welcome pack an hour after a new lead arrives. Let's build 'nudge stale proposals'. Press Next.
- 02
Funnel — which board and stages
Pick a board, then tick the stages to watch. A chat is 'enrolled' simply by being moved into one of these stages on the pipeline — there's nothing else to do.
Read the narration
Name the rule, then pick the Funnel: that's one of your CRM boards — Sales Pipeline here — and the stages you want to watch. I'm ticking Proposal. This is also how a customer gets enrolled: there's no separate sign-up. The moment you drag Maria's card into Proposal on the pipeline, the clock starts for her. Move her out, and the rule lets go.
- 03
Trigger — entry, exit or fixed time
On funnel entry: fires after the delay once a chat has entered the stage. On funnel exit: fires when it leaves. At fixed time: fires at a clock time for chats in the stage.
Read the narration
The trigger says when to count from. 'On funnel entry' is the classic: once a chat enters the stage, wait the delay, then message. 'On funnel exit' fires when a chat leaves the stage — handy for a thank-you when a deal moves to Won. 'At fixed time' fires at a set clock time for everyone sitting in the stage. I'm using On funnel entry.
- 04
How long to wait
Days, hours and minutes of silence before the first message. Three days is a comfortable nudge; same-day follow-ups feel pushy.
Read the narration
Then the delay: days, hours and minutes. This is how long the chat has to sit in the stage before the message goes out. I'm setting three days. From experience, two to three days is a comfortable nudge; a few hours feels pushy, and a week is often too late. You can create several rules on the same stage with different delays — day three, day seven, day fourteen — and you have a whole sequence.
- 05
Actions — the message sequence
+ Add step… builds what gets sent, in order: Text, Image, Video, Audio, Document, Contact, List, Timer. Here: a text, a short pause, then the proposal image again.
Read the narration
Actions are what actually gets sent, in order. I've added a friendly Text — 'did you get a chance to look at the proposal?' — then a Timer of eight seconds, then an Image step that re-sends the proposal picture. That little pause between text and image is what a real person's hands would do. Write the text like you'd write to a friend; a follow-up that reads like a template gets ignored.
- 06
Stop conditions
Stop if chat replied: if the customer wrote back after entering the stage, nothing is sent. Stop if chat changed stage: leaving the stage cancels it. Tick both.
Read the narration
This is the part that keeps follow-ups from embarrassing you. 'Stop if chat replied' means: if the customer already wrote back after they entered the stage, the follow-up is cancelled — you never send 'did you see my proposal?' to someone who answered yesterday. 'Stop if chat changed stage' cancels it when you move the chat somewhere else, say to Won. Tick both, always. Then Save rule.
- 07
How it plays out
Day 0: Maria's card is moved into Proposal. Day 3, still silent: the sequence is sent. If she replies at any point before that, nothing goes out — and each rule fires once per chat.
Read the narration
Saved. Here's the whole story for one customer. Day zero: you move Maria into Proposal on the pipeline — that's the enrolment. Days one and two: silence, nothing happens. Day three, still silent: the sequence is sent — text, pause, image. Had she replied on day two, the rule would have stopped quietly. And each rule fires once per chat, so Maria never gets the same nudge twice.
- 08
Switch it on and off
The checkbox is the rule's switch. The row summarises trigger, delay and steps, and 'fired N×' shows real usage. Duplicate makes an inactive copy.
Read the narration
Your rule is on the list, switched on. The checkbox pauses or resumes it any time; the summary shows the trigger, the delay and the number of steps, and 'fired' counts real sends. If you want a day-seven version, press the copy icon — the duplicate starts switched off — change the delay and the text, then switch it on.
- 09
Where and how it runs
Rules are checked every five minutes in the background, but the message is sent through your WhatsApp Web tab — so it must be open. Every send counts toward your daily sending limit.
Read the narration
How it runs: every five minutes InboxCRM checks who is due. The message itself goes out through your WhatsApp Web tab on this computer, so the tab needs to be open — a due follow-up simply waits until it is. It only works while your plan is active. And every automated send is counted against your daily sending budget, the same one campaigns use, so campaigns slow down to leave room. Follow-ups themselves are not paced or held back by that limit, so keep your rules small and targeted.
- 10
Set up your first nudge
Open Follow-up, pick the stage where deals go quiet, 3 days, one friendly text, both stop conditions. Then move a test chat into that stage.
Read the narration
That's follow-up. To start: open the real page, pick the stage where your deals usually go quiet, set three days, write one friendly text, and tick both stop conditions. Then move a chat with a friend into that stage to see it work. Or continue with the AI assistant tour — it helps you write these messages faster.