Customer Follow-Up

Customer Follow-Up is the tool that sends the message. It finds the customers worth chasing, writes to each one by name, tells you what the run will cost before you commit, and can keep doing it on a schedule. Open it from TOOLS → Customer Follow-Up in the sidebar.

1. The screen at a glance

The screen is built in layers, and it helps to read them in order:

2. Open Balance — customers who owe you

The default tab: everyone carrying an unpaid balance. Click Change on the filter line to set who counts.

• Minimum balance — ignore anyone owing less than this. Set it high enough that you're not spending a text to chase small change.
• Outstanding at least (days) — how long the debt must have been sitting. Seven days keeps you off the back of someone who bought yesterday.

Click Apply. The tab count, the coverage line and This run needs all update together, so you can see immediately what tightening the filter saved you.

3. Writing the message

3.1 Tokens

Tokens are placeholders swapped for each customer's own details as the message goes out. Click a button to drop one in at the cursor. Which tokens you get depends on the tab:

{storelink} is highlighted on the two win-back tabs because it is the one that gives the customer somewhere to go — it drops in your storefront address so they can browse straight from the text.

You can also type {paylink} into any of these messages: it becomes a short link to a page with the customer's balance and how to pay you (see 12.3). It gets through the networks more reliably than {paymentdetails}.

3.2 The greeting is automatic

Under the box it says: Every message starts with Hi <customer name> and names your shop — both are added automatically if you leave them out. You do not need to open with a greeting; if you write one anyway you'll get it twice.

3.3 Payment details to quote

The Payment details to quote dropdown picks which of your payment types the {paymentdetails} token expands to. Choose the bank or wallet you want the money paid into and the account details are written into every message. Leave it on — none — and the token has nothing to fill in.

3.4 The preview and the price

Beneath the box, Preview as <customer> will receive it shows the finished text for one real customer from your list — tokens filled, greeting added. Under that sits the line that matters most:

167 characters, 2 page(s) — each customer is charged 2 units

SMS is billed per page, not per message. A message that spills to a second page doubles the cost of the entire run. Trim the wording until it fits one page unless the extra words are genuinely earning their keep.

4. Choosing who gets it

Under Add customers (tick as many as you like) you can pick people individually from the dropdown, or use the buttons:

The table's columns change with the tab, and they're chosen so you can sanity-check a recipient before spending a unit on them:

Last reminded is the column to watch. It reads never for someone you've not chased before — and a recent date is your cue to leave them alone a while longer.

5. Gone Quiet — customers who stopped coming

Filters: Quiet for at least (days), and Repeat buyers only. The second one matters — without it you sweep in people who only ever bought once, which is what the next tab is for.

The default wording is a straightforward nudge: "Hi {name}, it has been {days} days since your last visit to {store}. We have new stock in - please come and see us."

The recipient table adds Usual cycle — how often that customer normally buys. Someone whose usual cycle is 39 days and who's now at 100 is genuinely overdue; someone whose cycle is 383 days is not. Use it to avoid pestering people who were never frequent.

6. Bought Once — one-time buyers

One filter: Bought at least this long ago (days). The default wording thanks them and invites them back: "Hi {name}, thank you for shopping with {store}. We would love to see you again - come and check what is new."

The table shows They spent, so you can see whether the single purchase was worth chasing at all before you commit units to it.

7. Birthdays

The fourth tab greets customers on their birthday, with one filter — Greet them this many days early — so the message can land before the day rather than on it.

There is a second reason to be careful here even once it works. Birthday selection reads the customer's date of birth, and on most stores that field was never filled in — leaving the box empty stores the date the customer record was created instead. The result is a large group of customers who appear to share a birthday that is really just the day you added them. Before switching birthday greetings on, open a few customer records and confirm the dates of birth are real.

8. Automate — putting a reminder on a schedule

The Automate sub-tab turns the tab you're on into a standing job. Each of the four audiences has its own independent schedule.

9. History — what went out, and whether it landed

The History sub-tab has two parts.

The schedule summary — one row per reminder, showing Reminder, Status, When, Next run, Last run, Per run and Message, with Refresh and Check for updates buttons.

The run log — one row per run: When, Reminder, How (manual or scheduled), Matched, Sent, Delivered, Not delivered, Skipped, Units.

Read those five numbers together:

• Matched — how many customers the filter found.
• Sent — how many were handed to the network. As the screen itself notes, Sent means the network accepted it and charged you.
• Delivered / Not delivered — what the network reported back afterwards.
• Skipped — matched but deliberately not texted: no phone number, already texted today, inside your repeat gap, or on DND with the corporate route off.
• Units — what the run actually cost.

10. The Customer Follow Up Report

Under REPORTS & DATA → Reports → Customer Follow Up Report is the read-only companion to this tool. It sends nothing; it shows you the same populations so you can study or export them.

• Two tabs: Customers Gone Quiet and One-Time Buyers.
• Headline badges call out the urgent cases — e.g. 17 critical (2x overdue) and 16 with outstanding balance.
• Excel and PDF export the list.
• Each row has a WhatsApp button next to the phone number, for chasing one person by hand.
• Usual cycle is the gap between that customer's last two transactions; the list is sorted most overdue first and shows the top 5 by default — change the length selector to see more.

11. Costs, DND and the rules that hold messages back

11.1 Why the coverage number is lower than the tab count

The tab may say 57 while only 46 can be texted. Click Why not all 57? for the breakdown.

A customer is held back when:

• No phone number saved. Nothing to send to. Fix it on the customer's record and they join the next run.
• Already texted today. One text per customer per day, across all four reminder types — so a debtor who is also a quiet customer can't be hit twice in a morning.
• Inside the repeat gap you set. The Don't repeat within (days) value from Automate.
• On the DND register. See below.

11.2 DND

Customers who registered their number on the national Do-Not-Disturb list cannot receive ordinary promotional SMS — their network blocks it. They are excluded by default. Ticking Also reach customers on DND routes them through the corporate route, which does reach them but costs more per page.

If you pick a DND customer by hand without ticking that option, the send is blocked rather than silently failing — the screen tells you the message cannot arrive on the standard route.

11.3 What a run costs

Cost = pages per message × number of recipients, with DND recipients priced higher when the corporate route is on. Both numbers are on screen before you send: the per-message page count under the preview, and the run total in This run needs. Compare that with SMS units available and top up first if it's short — Buy SMS units opens in a new tab and your draft survives.

12. Automatic Messages — texts that go out by themselves

Customer Follow-Up's tabs (Open Balance, Gone Quiet, Bought Once, Birthdays) chase groups of customers on a schedule. Automatic Messages react to events: a sale, a payment, a date. Set one up once and every customer it applies to gets their own text at the right moment — you don't pick anyone.

12.1 Where to find it

12.2 The page

From top to bottom: your SMS units (with Buy SMS units), your messages once you have some, Add a message with the ready-made starting points, any Customer Follow-Up reminders you have switched on (they are still managed on their own tabs), and Recent activity.

12.3 Setting one up

1. Name — for you; customers never see it.
2. When should it go?
   • After a purchase — then Send it [24] [hours] after each purchase. Minutes, hours or days; 0 sends straight away.
   • After a payment is received — a payment on account: money a customer pays towards what they owe. Money taken at the till with a sale does not count, so customers aren't texted for every cash sale.
   • On a date I choose — pick the date and time, and whether it goes once, every week or every month. It goes to every customer with a phone number.
3. What should it say? — pick a ready-made wording from the dropdown (the list changes with the kind of message: thank-yous after a purchase, payment notes after a payment, offers, new stock, order ready, holiday greetings and notices for a date), or write your own. If you've typed something, choosing a ready-made wording asks before replacing it.
4. Use the buttons under the box to drop in the customer's name, your shop, the amount and date of the purchase or payment, the balance owed, a payment link, payment details, or your online store address (the buttons offered depend on the kind of message). You don't need to type a greeting or your shop's name — both are added automatically. Web addresses can't be typed; use your online store.
5. What it will look like shows the finished text, and the line under it says what it costs: units per text, and roughly what a month would have cost based on the last 30 days.
6. Save and turn on — you're shown the cost once more and asked to confirm, because from then on it sends by itself. Save keeps it switched off.

12.4 Advanced options

12.5 Switching messages on and off

• Turn on shows what it will cost and asks you to confirm.
• Switch off stops it straight away. Any messages waiting to go out are cancelled; nothing already sent is affected.
• Edit opens the same form. Delete removes the message; what it already sent stays in Recent activity.
• Waiting means queued for later — for example a thank-you whose 24 hours aren't up, or a message held by quiet hours.

12.6 A message to one customer — and WhatsApp

In Customer Center, every customer with a phone number has two new buttons on their card (and the same in their profile panel):

• Msg — a text from your SMS units, on a date and time you choose.
• WhatsApp (green) — opens a WhatsApp chat with Hi <first name>, already typed. It uses your own WhatsApp, so it costs no SMS units. Numbers saved as 0803… are converted to the international form WhatsApp needs.

The form is the same one, simplified: it always goes on a date and time you choose, to that customer only, once. Pick a ready-made wording or write your own, choose when, and press Schedule message. To send it as soon as possible, choose a time a few minutes ahead — messages go out in the next 15-minute run, inside your sending hours.

12.7 Date messages to all customers

A date message goes to every customer with a phone number, so check the count before you turn it on. It respects Never more than N texts a day: a list bigger than that is spread over several days, and anything still unsent after 3 days is dropped (a greeting a week late does more harm than good). If the form warns you, raise the daily limit under Advanced options.

12.8 The prompt after a sale, and the dashboard card

When you save a sale on New Sale & Quotation and you don't yet have a purchase message, the Sale saved box offers Turn on thank-you. It shows the cost and asks first, exactly like the page. Not now hides the offer for 30 days. Once you have any purchase message — on or off — it stops asking. (It appears after Save; Save and Generate Invoice goes straight to the invoice.)

12.9 Recent activity — what happened to each message

13. Quick reference

If something looks wrong

• Fewer customers than the tab says. Click Why not all …? — usually missing phone numbers.
• "This run needs" is more than I expected. Your message runs to two pages. Check the counter under the preview.
• A customer never gets the text. They may be on DND, may have been texted already today, or may be inside your repeat gap.
• Sent but not delivered. The network took the message and charged you, then failed to deliver — usually a dead or barred number. Correct it on the customer record.
• The Birthdays tab does nothing. Known — the pane doesn't load in this build. See section 7.
• Messages arrive with the greeting twice. You typed one as well; the greeting is added automatically.
• Texts with my account number aren't arriving. Networks sometimes hold back texts with a 10-digit account number. Use {paylink} instead of {paymentdetails}.
• Texts arrive from SmartShop's shared name, not mine. You don't have an approved sender name yet. See the Merchant Storefront guide, 12.2.
• An automatic message is on but nothing goes out. Look at Recent activity: Waiting usually means quiet hours or no units left; nothing at all means no sale or payment has happened since you turned it on — it never texts about sales from before.
• A customer who bought twice today got one thank-you. By design — one automatic text per customer per day.
• "That date and time has already passed." Pick a moment in the future. A one-off that already went out needs a new date before it can go again.
• The payment message didn't go for a cash sale. By design — it's for payments towards what a customer owes, not money taken with a sale.