What runs without you, once you have decided it
The automatic follow-ons to a request: assign, follow up, collect, publish — each with the decision you keep.
7 days, 20 answered calls, no card
An automation is a follow-on decided in advance
An automation here is not an intelligence that starts doing things on its own. It is a follow-on you decided once: when this happens, if that condition holds, then this action runs. An estimate sits unanswered for five days? A follow-up goes out. A call does not connect? A text goes to the number that tried. A job finishes? A review request follows.
The difference from doing it by hand is not speed, it is consistency. Nobody forgets a follow-up on a busy Tuesday, and nobody follows up twice with the same person because two people on the team had the same idea. Those are the two mistakes that cost a small business the most, and they are exactly the ones a written rule does not make.
The automations inside a base are few, and tied directly to the act of answering — and answering, in Quebec, starts with a voice from here: the receptionist speaks French with a natural Quebec accent, and you choose its voice and style before publishing your rules. The others are added one at a time, when you have a use for them, and each one pauses without disturbing its neighbours.
What goes out without you, and what waits for your approval
There are two families, and the line between them is a decision, not a technical limit. On one side, what answers a person who already approached you: the missed-call text, the written summary, the acknowledgement of a request, the reminder before an appointment, the follow-up on an open file. Those run on their own, because a late answer is not worth much.
On the other side, what speaks in your name to the whole world: a social post, a reply to a public review, a page on your website, a campaign. Those are prepared automatically and wait for your approval. The order of the two verbs is the rule, and it is not reversed to save time.
Between the two, consent decides. A follow-up stops at the first reply, at a refusal, or at an opt-out expressed on any channel of the same file. Someone who said no is not followed up through another door.
Why every run leaves a trace
An automation nobody reviews turns into an expensive habit. Every rule therefore carries a version, every run leaves a log, and you can see what went out, to whom, and why the condition held.
A rule stopped mid-run does not leave half a job behind, and a technical retry does not repeat the same effect twice: nobody receives the same message twice because a server restarted.
Finally, an automation pauses. It is a switch, not a final decision, and that is what makes it possible to try a rule through one busy season and reopen it the following year.
Answering customers
A request arrives by more than the phone. A form on your website, a directory, a partner referral: those get lost the same way, and they are handled in the same place. They often land in an inbox nobody opens before evening, while the person wrote to three businesses at once. Receiving them where your calls are, removing the duplicates and giving a first acknowledgement changes the outcome more than any turn of phrase.
Booking and tracking requests
What was promised during a conversation becomes a follow-on: a reminder before the visit, a follow-up when nothing moves, a stop as soon as the person answers. The reminder before an appointment is the least spectacular follow-on and the most profitable: a lost slot does not resell itself the same day, whether it is a treatment chair, a garage bay or an examination window. The follow-up tracks the state of the file rather than the calendar: an accepted estimate is not followed up, and a person who asked to be left alone receives nothing further.
Quoting, selling and getting paid
The moment money comes in is the most fragile of all: a payment link sent late is worth less than one sent during the conversation. A deposit asked for the moment someone has just said yes confirms the appointment, and it filters out the enquiries that were not going to turn into work. The real status of that payment then follows the file, so nobody has to guess whether the money arrived. And an order placed in your online store can become a request in the same queue as your calls, instead of living in a separate tab.
Organising the team and the files
A request assigned to nobody is handled by nobody. Assignment, acceptance and response time are rules, not reminders on a whiteboard. An urgent request assigned to someone who is off that week has to move on without the owner noticing it late: that is what an escalation rule does. A business with several crews or several locations describes once who receives what, by area, by type of job or by hour. The rest of the time, nobody has to decide.
Getting your business known
What gets published in your name is prepared automatically and approved by you. The order of those two matters: nothing goes out before your approval. A Google profile with the wrong hours costs calls nobody counts, and fixing it takes five minutes a season rather than a strategic decision. A review reply is drafted for you to read, including — especially — when the review is a bad one. And a campaign is prepared paused: it exists, it can be read, and it spends nothing until you launch it.
Improving the conversations
An automation nobody reviews turns into an expensive habit. Every run leaves a log, and every rule has a version. So you can tell what went out, to whom, and why the condition held — which is the only honest way to decide whether a rule deserves to stay. Improvements the receptionist suggests follow the same logic: they are proposed, then applied if you authorise them.
Included in your base
Three follow-ons exist with nothing added, because they are part of answering.
- The text to the person whose call did not connect
- The written summary sent after every conversation
- The immediate alert when the situation matches your urgency rule
- The written request created from the call, carrying the fields of your trade
What you add on purpose
Each automation is switched on separately, can be paused, and keeps a log of what it did.
- Receiving requests that came from elsewhere — a form, a directory, a partner — and removing duplicates
- Assigning a request to someone and tracking their acceptance
- Following up based on the state of a file, and stopping on a reply, a refusal or an opt-out
- Matching where a request came from to its commercial outcome
- Requesting a deposit or a payment, and tracking its real status
- Preparing posts, the Google profile and campaigns, published after your approval
- Assembling your own rules from the actions already permitted
A rule stopped mid-run does not leave half a job behind: a technical retry does not repeat the same effect twice.
What an automation does not do
A rule runs what is written. What is not written does not run, and that is deliberate.
- It does not create demand. It reacts to what already exists: a call, a message, a form, an open file.
- It does not follow up a person who asked not to be contacted, neither on the channel of the refusal nor on another one.
- It publishes nothing under your name without approval. A post, a review reply, a page or a campaign waits for you.
- It does not guess a rule on your behalf. A condition you did not write is not applied, however obvious it may look.
- It does not replace your management software. It connects to it, reads what you authorise it to read and writes what you authorise it to write.
- This is not a code editor. Rules are assembled from the actions your plan already permits, not from a language to learn.
- An automation cannot recover information that is missing. If the original request has the wrong address, no follow-on will make the right one appear.
Frequently asked questions
What is an automation here?
A follow-on decided in advance: when this happens, if that condition holds, then this action runs. A call that does not connect triggers a text; an estimate with no answer triggers a follow-up; a finished job triggers a review request. You decide the rule once, and it then applies the same way on the busy days.
Can anything go out without me deciding it?
No. Three follow-ons exist in every base because they are part of answering: the missed-call text, the written summary after each conversation, and the urgency alert. Everything else is switched on separately, and whatever speaks in your name to the public waits for your approval before it goes out.
What stops a follow-up?
The person's reply, their refusal, their opt-out, or a change in the state of the file. An accepted estimate is not followed up. An opt-out expressed on one channel applies to every channel of the same file.
Can I pause a rule?
Yes, and it is a switch, not a final decision. A paused rule stops running and keeps the log of what it did. A rule stopped mid-run does not leave half a job behind.
Where do requests that do not come by phone come from?
From a form on your website, a directory, a partner referral, or an online store. They can be received in the same place as your calls, stripped of duplicates, assigned to someone and tracked through to their commercial outcome.
Do I need to know how to program?
No. Rules are assembled from the actions your plan already permits, in an owner's words, with no interface key and no language to learn. The standard path requires no consultation.
Do I see what was done while I was away?
Yes. Every run leaves a log: what went out, to whom, and why the condition held. Every rule carries a version, so a change can be read instead of guessed at.
Do social posts go out automatically?
They are prepared automatically and published after your approval. That is the boundary of the product: what answers a person who approached you runs on its own, what speaks in your name to the public waits until you have read it.
What runs without you, once you have decided it