Automated WhatsApp lead follow-up
Endelir follows up WhatsApp enquiries on a timer, with an approved template once the 24-hour window has closed, and stops the sequence the moment the lead writes back. Most enquiries do not close in the first conversation. Endelir holds the lead in a chat flow, waits the time you set, and sends the next message only if they have not already replied or been taken over by someone on your team.
The enquiry that went quiet, and nobody noticed
Someone asks for the brochure, the fee structure, the quotation. You send it. They go quiet — not because they lost interest, but because they were driving, or comparing you with two others, or waiting for a decision that is not theirs to make. Two weeks later nobody remembers to ask.
The manual answer is a spreadsheet of names and dates that one person keeps and nobody else reads. It survives until that person is busy, which is most weeks. The other answer is worse: a blanket message to every old enquiry, which reaches the customer who booked yesterday and asks whether they are still interested.
A timer on the conversation, not on a spreadsheet
In Endelir a follow-up is a step in a chat flow. After the first exchange the flow hits a wait step — an hour, three days, up to a maximum of seven. Seven days is the ceiling on any one wait, so a decision that runs longer than a week is built from a second wait step after the first. The wait is stored, not held in memory, so it survives a restart and fires once. When it fires, the next message goes out.
What makes it usable is what stops it. If the lead writes back before the timer runs out, the follow-up that was queued is stopped and the reason is recorded. If someone on your team takes the conversation over in the inbox, automation pauses for that contact until it is released. If the lead replies with STOP — or unsubscribe, cancel, end or quit — everything scheduled for them is stopped and they are added to the suppression list.
How it works
- 1 The enquiry comes in A lead writes to your business number, from an ad, a website button or a QR code, and the flow that matches their enquiry starts.
- 2 What they wanted is saved Question steps write the answers onto the contact record — the property, the course, the dates — so the follow-up can refer to the actual thing they asked about.
- 3 The clock starts A wait step holds the conversation for the interval you set on that flow, up to seven days per step. Different flows can wait different lengths of time.
- 4 Endelir checks before it sends When the timer runs out, the follow-up goes out only if the lead has not replied, has not been taken over by a person, and has not opted out.
- 5 The right kind of message goes out Inside the customer service window that is an ordinary message. Outside it, it is a message template Meta has approved in advance, and a Marketing template needs recorded consent.
- 6 A reply ends the sequence The moment the lead answers, the queued follow-up is stopped. The conversation moves to a person, or on to the next step of the flow.
- 7 Your own system hears about it A webhook step calls a URL you control, so a lead that has come back to life reaches your CRM as it happens.
What this looks like in practice
A property company gets an enquiry about a two-bedroom flat. The flow asks the budget and the area, saves both against the contact, sends the brochure and hands the chat to the agent who covers that area. The lead reads it and says nothing more.
Three days later the flow's wait step comes due. The lead has not written back and nobody has taken the conversation over, so an approved template goes out asking whether they would like to see the flat this weekend. If they answer, the sequence stops there and the agent picks it up. If they had booked a viewing the day before, the agent's takeover would already have paused the automation for that contact.
What can happen when the lead answers
Who this suits
What to know before you set it up
Replying inside the customer service window — the period that starts with the customer's last message — needs no template. A follow-up sent after that window has closed is business-initiated, so it uses a message template Meta has approved in advance. Lead nurturing usually falls under the Marketing category, and Endelir refuses to send a Marketing template to a contact with no recorded consent. That check is in the software, not in a policy document, so it is worth collecting consent properly at the point the lead first writes to you.
Endelir is not a sales pipeline and does not hold deal stages. It does not know a lead has bought unless something tells it: the lead writes back, or a person takes the conversation over in the inbox, which pauses automation for that contact. Build the sequence so those two things are what end it. A single wait step runs for at most seven days, so a sequence that stretches over a month is several waits in a row rather than one long one. Message volume counts against your plan like any other message, and the limits are on the pricing page.
What to watch
- How many leads reply to the first follow-up, and to the second
- How many stop the sequence by replying rather than by timing out
- How many reach the end of a sequence with no answer at all
- How long a lead sits between the enquiry and the first follow-up
- How many opt out after a follow-up, by flow
- How many follow-ups are refused for want of recorded consent
Related
Questions people ask
Can WhatsApp automatically follow up with a lead who stops replying?
Yes, within the messaging rules. A chat flow holds the lead at a wait step for the interval you set — up to seven days for any one step — and when the timer runs out Endelir sends the next message. Before it sends, it checks the lead has not written back, has not been taken over by someone on your team, and has not opted out. Inside the customer service window the follow-up is an ordinary message. Outside it, it is a message template Meta has approved in advance, and if that template is in the Marketing category Endelir will not send it to a contact with no recorded consent. The wait is stored rather than held in memory, so it survives a restart and fires once.
When should I follow up with a WhatsApp lead?
It depends on the decision the customer is making. A table reservation or a test drive goes cold in a day. A property purchase or a course admission runs for weeks, and a message every second day reads as pressure rather than service. Endelir does not fix one interval for every flow: the wait is set on the flow, so the enquiry about a flat and the enquiry about a weekend booking can follow completely different timings. One wait step runs for at most seven days, so a sequence that spans longer than a week is built from several waits in a row. The useful rule is to match the interval to how long the customer genuinely needs, and to write a follow-up that carries something new — the brochure they asked for, an available date — rather than one that only asks whether they are still there.
Do lead follow-up messages require an approved template?
If the message is business-initiated after the customer service window has closed, yes. Endelir sends it as a message template Meta has approved in advance, and it can only use templates whose status came back approved on the last sync with Meta. Lead nurturing is usually promotional, which puts it in the Marketing category, and a Marketing template is refused unless that contact has consent recorded against them for marketing on WhatsApp. Inside the window no template is needed and you can write freely. Endelir tracks which of the two situations a conversation is in, so the flow does not have to be built twice.
What happens if the customer replies before the next follow-up?
The queued follow-up is stopped, and the reason is recorded against it. In practice that is the check that prevents the message everyone dreads — asking whether someone is still interested five minutes after they have booked. What happens instead depends on the flow: if it was waiting on an answer, the reply carries the conversation to the next step; if it was not, the message lands in the shared inbox for a person. If someone on your team takes the conversation over, automation pauses for that contact until it is released, so the person and the flow never talk over each other.
What happens if the lead has already converted?
This is worth being plain about. Endelir is not a sales pipeline and holds no deal stages, so it does not know a lead has bought unless something tells it. Two things do tell it, and both are ordinary parts of the work. The lead replying stops the queued follow-up on its own. A person taking the conversation over in the inbox pauses automation for that contact until it is released, which is what happens anyway when a salesperson closes the deal in the chat. If the sale happens somewhere else entirely — in a showroom, over the phone — someone has to take the conversation over for the remaining follow-ups to stop.
How many follow-up messages should I send?
There is no number that is right everywhere, and Endelir does not set one for you. What is worth deciding before you build the flow is the point at which you stop. A short sequence that says something useful each time will do better than a long one that repeats itself, and a lead who has ignored three messages is telling you something. Watch the opt-out rate on each flow: people sending STOP after a particular follow-up is the clearest signal that the sequence has gone one message too far.
Can different lead stages have different follow-up sequences?
Yes. Each flow has its own wait steps and its own messages, so the person who asked for a brochure and the person who asked for a quotation are not treated the same. Question steps write what the lead told you onto the contact record — the budget, the area, the course, the dates — and the follow-up can use those saved details, so it refers to the actual thing they enquired about rather than to nothing in particular. A webhook step can also tell your own system where the lead has got to, which is how the follow-up reflects the latest thing the customer did rather than the first.
Keep genuine opportunities from disappearing inside old conversations.
Set the wait, write the follow-up once, and let it stop itself when the lead answers. We connect your business number with you on a call and build the first flow alongside you.
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