Follow-up fails because people are busy
Nobody decides to ignore a new lead or forget a quote. It happens because the front desk is on the phone, the owner is on a job site and the follow-up lives in someone's head. By the time anyone remembers, the customer has booked with someone else.
Automation doesn't replace the personal touch. It makes sure the first step always happens, so your team spends its attention on the conversations that need a person.
How automations work
Every automation in Everything Portal is a trigger, then steps. When something happens, the portal does the next thing for you.
Triggers include:
- A contact being created, by website form, booking, import or email
- A website form submitted
- A tag added or removed, or a field changing
- A deal created, changing stage, won or lost
- A deal stale for a set number of days, or no activity on a contact for a set number of days
- A date reminder, such as a birthday or renewal
- An appointment booked, rescheduled or its status changing
- An email received, or a conversation left unanswered for a set number of minutes
- An invoice sent, viewed or paid
- A document sent, signed, completed or declined
- A task due, a schedule, or an incoming webhook from your own software
Steps can add a tag, send an email, assign to a person, create a task, and wait between steps.
Eight recipes to start with
- Website form follow-up. When a website form is submitted, tag the contact "web lead," assign them to whoever is on intake and send a short reply email from your own domain.
- New lead response. When a contact is created by email, create a task for the assigned person to reply within the hour. Pair it with "conversation left unanswered for 60 minutes" to assign it to a backup person, who gets a team chat alert.
- Stale quote nudge. When a deal is stale for 5 days in Estimate or Proposal, send a friendly check-in email and create a task to call.
- Appointment confirmation. When an appointment is booked, send a confirmation email with what to bring and tag the contact "booked."
- No-show win-back. When an appointment status changes to no-show, wait one day, then send an email inviting them to rebook through your booking page.
- Signed agreement to onboarding. When a document is completed, tag the contact as a client, send a welcome email and create an onboarding task.
- Invoice paid thank-you. When an invoice is paid, send a thank-you email and create a task to schedule the next visit.
- Renewal reminder. When a renewal date is 30 days away, create a task for the account owner and send the customer a heads-up email.
For more examples by industry, see small business automation ideas.
Ready-made templates
You don't have to build these from a blank page. Ready-made automation templates cover lead follow-up, appointment reminders, no-show win-back, stale deal nudge, website form follow-up, guest pre-arrival, guest thank-you and review request. Switch one on, edit the wording and timing, and it runs from then on.
Automations use your own words. If your setup calls people Patients and work Cases, or Customers and Jobs, the triggers and steps follow those names. Pick your industry setup and the stages are ready to automate.
No middleware between steps
Many teams string tools together with Zapier or a similar service: a form tool, a calendar tool, a CRM, and per-task fees for each connection. When everything lives in one portal, the form, booking, deal, invoice and signed document are already in the same place, so an automation can act on them directly.
When you need to reach your own software, use incoming webhooks with a call log, outgoing webhooks for 34 live events (signed, logged and retried) or the API. Read direct integrations vs Zapier for the trade-offs, or see integrations.
Texting steps aren't available today. Business texting is coming, and you can follow it on the roadmap.
Getting started
Pick the one follow-up your team misses most, usually new leads or quotes. Turn on that template, test it on yourself, and watch it for a week. Then add one more. Three or four well-chosen automations cover most of the gaps in a small business.
