With the power of VSCO Workspace, you can set up an automated follow-up chain that takes care of lead follow-ups for you.
For this type of lead follow-up process, you'll use a mix of automatic lead status updates and automations. This setup ensures your leads are managed efficiently - automatically sending the next follow-up or, if a client replies, moving them to Ongoing Contact to remove them from the follow-up sequence.
Set Up Your Automatic Lead Status Change Rules
First, head to Settings › Lead Status and use the Automatic Status Changes section to set the rules.
Let's work through an example to see this in action!
NEW
Change to INITIAL CONTACT if email sent/received (the first manual or auto-responder reply sent will auto-change the lead status to INITIAL CONTACT).
INITIAL CONTACT
Change to ONGOING CONTACT if email sent/received.
Change to FOLLOW UP #1 if remains in this status for 3 days.
If the client responds the lead will auto-change to ONGOING CONTACT and if they don’t then the lead will change to FOLLOW UP #1, which will trigger your first follow up automation.
FOLLOW UP #1
Change to FOLLOW UP #1 DONE when email sent/received (the automation sending will auto-change the lead immediately to FOLLOW UP #1 DONE so you don't need any other rules on this status).
FOLLOW UP #1 DONE
Change to ONGOING CONTACT if email sent/received.
Change to FOLLOW UP #2 if remains in this status for 7 days (i.e. 1 week after they got their first follow up email).
If the client responds the lead will auto-change to ONGOING CONTACT and if they don’t then the lead will change to FOLLOW UP #2, which will trigger your second follow up automation.
FOLLOW UP #2
Change to FOLLOW UP #2 DONE when email sent/received (the automation sending will auto-change the lead immediately to FOLLOW UP #2 DONE so you don't need any other rules on this status).
FOLLOW UP #2 DONE
Change to ONGOING CONTACT if email sent/received.
Change to STALE if remains in this status for 7 days.*
*You could continue this pattern of lead status changes and corresponding automations further than 2 but you’ll always want your last 'FOLLOW UP # DONE' to change to STALE if remains in this status for x-days to eventually stop the follow up chain.
The Key is the 'Done' Status!
The key to setting up an automatic follow-up chain is to create a corresponding 'Done' status for each follow-up. Once a follow-up email is sent, the lead will move into its matching 'Done' status. The automation that sends the email counts as "an email sent or received", so the lead status will update right away.
For any status that triggers an automation, you only need one rule - define which 'Done' status the lead should move to once the follow-up email is sent.
These are “in-and-out” statuses: as soon as a lead moves into one, the automation runs, sends the email, and immediately updates the lead to the corresponding 'Done' status. The lead then waits in that status until either the client replies (moving it to Ongoing Contact) or enough time passes for the next follow-up to trigger automatically.
Set Up Your Follow-up Automations
Next, you'll set up your follow-up automations. In the example above there would be two follow-up automations - one sending the first follow-up when the lead status automatically changed to FOLLOW UP #1 and the other sending the second follow-up when the lead status automatically changed to FOLLOW UP #2.
Let's set up the first follow-up automation! Head to Settings › Automations and create a new automation observing Lead › Lead status changed:
Add a condition to specify the exact lead status change you want this automation to run for (i.e. when the lead changes to FOLLOW UP #1):
The must exactly match value is very particular (and case-sensitive) so be sure to enter your lead status exactly as you've set it up in Settings › Lead Status.
You'll can then set up the Action to send your first follow-up email:
TIP: If you're using our Quo integration to send text messages, why not add a second action to also send a follow-up text at the same time!
That whole automation would then look something like this:
Here's what it's doing:
WHEN a lead status changes
IF the lead status changes to FOLLOW UP #1
THEN send out the first follow-up email
You can then duplicate that automation using the option at the top here:
Change the name, condition value and email being sent out - to set this up for your second follow-up:
Your lead follow-up chain is ready! 🎉 Don't hesitate to reach out to Support if you have any questions on setting up this kind of lead follow-up chain.