# Follow-up Assistant

The Follow-up Assistant follows up every quote and enquiry until the customer says yes or no, reminds past customers when they're due again, and stops the moment someone replies.

Status: available; get started and we set it up with you. Checked 2026-11-06.

## Who it's for
- Trades and service businesses that send quotes, from 1 to 30 people
- Owners and office managers who mean to follow up quotes and never quite get to it
- Businesses with work that comes round again: an annual service, a WOF, a gutter clean, a filter check

## The problem it solves
Quotes go out and nobody chases them, new enquiries wait a day for a reply, and past customers forget they're due, so the work goes to whoever followed up first.

## Why businesses use it
- Every quote is followed up until the customer says yes or no, without anyone remembering to
- It stops the moment a customer replies, and reads the reply, so nobody gets chased after answering
- Each follow-up says something useful about that customer's quote, never "just checking in"
- Quotes in Xero get followed up too: Xero has no quote reminders of its own
- Past customers are reminded when they're due again, found from your Xero invoices
- You see what it brought in, in dollars, every month

## What it does
- **Follows up quotes.** Each quote from the Quoting Assistant or Xero gets a plan of dated follow-ups: Gentle, Standard or Persistent, with one just before the quote closes. Follow-ups go on working days, never on a public holiday.
- **Answers new enquiries.** An enquiry from your website or Live chat gets a first reply the same morning, then follow-ups if they don't answer.
- **Writes each one for that customer.** Each follow-up is written on the morning it goes, from the quote and your answers in the AI control centre: what's included, the options again, an answer to a question others ask, or when the quote closes.
- **Reads every reply.** Any reply stops follow-ups at once. A question gets an answer drafted for you. "Not now" waits until the date they gave. "No" is marked lost with the reason and a short thank-you waits for you. Anyone who asks not to hear more hears nothing more.
- **Reminds customers who are due again.** Tell it the services you do again and how often. It finds who had each one from your Xero invoices and writes their reminder two weeks before they're due.
- **Shows what it brought in.** Quotes won after a follow-up and repeat jobs from reminders, in dollars, the reply rate, why quotes were lost, and what it cost each month.

## How it works
1. **A quote goes out.** From the Quoting Assistant or Xero, or one you add by hand. It's planned at once from your plan.
2. **Each morning.** The day's follow-ups and reminders are written and wait for you under Needs you.
3. **You approve them.** Approve all in one press, or open one to change or skip it. They go at 9am from your name, with replies coming to you.
4. **It watches.** A reply, an accepted quote or a payment stops the plan at once.
5. **It reads the reply.** Questions come to you with an answer drafted; everything else is handled the way you'd want and shown on the timeline.
6. **Results.** Each month: what was won after a follow-up, repeat work from reminders, and why quotes were lost.

## Setting it up
About 8 minutes.

1. **What to follow up.** Quotes, new enquiries and customers due again, each showing what's already connected.
2. **How to follow up.** Your plan, shown as dated follow-ups for one of your own quotes, your send times and who it's from.
3. **Try it.** Send yourself a test follow-up.
4. **Go live.** What happens from tomorrow, what to do with older quotes (left alone unless you choose one last check-in), and a test email to yourself.

## How it uses the AI control centre
Every Buildloop assistant works off your AI control centre, which holds your company details, knowledge and settings, trains each assistant and passes what one learns to the others. The more it knows about your business the more accurate every assistant is, and each one you add makes the others stronger.

Your AI control centre keeps what it knows about your business in Content Sections you can open, check and add to, with what's missing shown. Each says whether it's for customers, staff or both. You start with About the business, Products and services, Pricing, Payments, Opening hours, Contact details, Locations and service areas, Booking and ordering, Delivery and collection, Returns, refunds and warranty, Terms and policies, Common questions, Staff knowledge, Other, and can add, rename or remove them; the AI suggests sections from what it reads. How we talk, Rules and Suppliers are kept beside them.

It reads:
- About the business, How we talk and Rules, for every message
- Your answers to questions customers ask about quotes, to make each follow-up useful
- Who signs messages and who gets Needs you

It adds:
- Questions customers ask about quotes, and the answers you approve
- Reasons customers give for saying no
- The services you do again and how often

## How it gets better
- Questions customers ask about quotes, and the answers you approve, into Common questions in your AI control centre.
- How you like follow-ups written, from the changes you make before approving, into How we talk in your AI control centre.
- The services you do again and how often, from Due again, into Products and services in your AI control centre.
- Kept as a test: every follow-up you edited before approving: what you took out must not come back.
- Kept as a test: no follow-up says "just checking in".
- Anything it works out for itself waits for you to check before your other assistants use it.

## Training
A screen-by-screen narrated training video and guide, last reviewed 2026-11-06. They are reviewed every month and updated before any change to the screens.

## What it connects to
- **Quoting Assistant** (optional): Quotes you send, when they're opened and accepted, and the options in them
- **Xero** (optional): Quotes sent from Xero, and past invoices for customers due again
- **Email** (needed): Follow-ups sent in your name, with replies coming back to you
- **Text messages** (optional (coming)): Follow-ups and reminders by text as well, for customers who gave a mobile number
- **Live chat** (optional (coming)): Enquiries from your website chat

## What a person approves
- Every follow-up and reminder waits for a person until you let ones that follow the plan go on their own
- Every answer to a customer's question always waits for a person
- The thank-you after a "no" waits for a person
- Nothing goes over your monthly limit; the limit is never raised on its own

## Price
NZ$79 a month, including 300 messages a month, then NZ$0.05 for each message after that. Cancel any time. Plus a one-off set-up and configuration fee, agreed after a short call about your business. Every account also has the AI control centre, NZ$49 a month, once for all its assistants.

## What it doesn't do
- Email at first; text messages once they're switched on for your business
- No calls, voicemail or WhatsApp
- Never messages anyone who didn't enquire or buy from you, and never mass messages an old customer list
- No booking: the Booking Assistant does that
- Changes nothing in Xero

## Your data
- Your quotes, customers and their replies are stored in Sydney, Australia, and only people in your business can open them
- Replies are read by the AI model and are never used to train it
- Every email has a working Stop these emails link, and anyone who uses it hears nothing more
- Emails are sent and received through our email provider, Resend

## Questions
**What counts as a message?**
One email or text sent, whether it's a follow-up, a reminder, an answer or a thank-you. Reading replies and writing drafts are included.

**Does it send anything on its own?**
Not at first. Every follow-up waits for you to approve it each morning. You can let follow-ups that follow the plan go on their own later. Answers to questions always wait.

**What if the customer has already replied to me directly?**
Any reply to a follow-up stops it at once. If they answered you some other way, press Pause or Mark won on that follow-up.

**Will it chase my old quotes?**
No. At set-up, quotes over 30 days old are shown and left alone, unless you choose one last check-in for those under 90 days old.

**Does it work with Xero quotes?**
Yes. Xero has no quote reminders of its own; the Follow-up Assistant reads your sent Xero quotes and follows them up.

**I already use the Quoting Assistant. Do I need this?**
Quoting has a Send a reminder button for a one-off. The Follow-up Assistant runs the whole plan for every quote, reads replies, and adds enquiries and customers due again.