Follow-ups — re-engage silent leads

What it is

When a lead stops replying, ZeroChats sends automatic follow-up messages to reactivate them. You define when they fire and, at each step, you choose whether the AI writes the message or you use fixed text.

Meta's 24-hour window after the lead's last message. Follow-ups are scheduled up to hour 23, so they go out with margin before it closes.

Meta’s window lasts 24 hours

Instagram and WhatsApp only allow outbound messages within the 24 hours after the lead’s last message. The window closes exactly when those 24 h are up, and it doesn’t reopen until the lead writes to you again. Configure all follow-ups inside that range and prioritize the most important ones at the start.

Why the maximum is 23 hours

The follow-up hours selector goes up to 23 h, not 24. The reason is to keep one hour of safety margin: a few minutes pass between the moment a follow-up is due, the message is written and the platform delivers it, and business hours can delay it a little more. A step placed right at hour 24 would go out flush against the cutoff and risk arriving once the window is already closed — that is, never being delivered at all.

With the ceiling at 23 h, the last attempt always goes out before Meta closes the conversation. If you want to squeeze the window, place the final follow-up between hour 20 and hour 23.

What opens that window and what doesn’t

On the follow-ups screen there’s a When are follow-ups sent? button: it opens a reference card with these same rules, so you can check them while you configure.

Only the lead opens the window. These open it:

• A direct message from them, even a “hi” or an emoji.
• A reply or a reaction to one of your stories, or a mention of you in theirs.
• Tapping a button on a message of yours.

These don’t:

• You writing first (welcome message). If the lead doesn’t reply, they get no automatic follow-ups; for those cases there are Welcome follow-ups.
• Them commenting on a post or a reel. A comment entitles you to one private reply — just one, and within the 7 days after the comment — but it doesn’t open the window: until the lead replies by DM, no follow-ups go out.
• Them following you, liking something of yours or visiting your profile.

The hours you configure are counted from the lead’s last message, never from yours. If the lead writes again, the count starts over from that new message.

How to configure it

Configuration lives in two places:

1. On the Follow-ups page in the sidebar, 24-hour Follow-Up tab (the automatic follow-ups), you define how many hours after the lead’s last message each follow-up fires (between 1 and 23) and press Add follow-up to create a new one. The same list is reachable from the business settings, under Wait hours for follow-up messages → Configure follow-ups. The page has three more tabs, 7-day Follow-Up (the manual follow-ups), Welcome follow-ups and Reminders, explained further down.
2. In each follow-up you specify:
   • After N hours — trigger time, counted from the lead’s last message.
   • Uses AI? — if Yes, the AI writes the message and picks the relevant content following your instructions. If No, you write the Follow-up messages one per line and, optionally, attach content.
   • Content — optional. The order in which contents and messages go out is set by the business’s Content placement.

Switching “Uses AI?” changes what your text means

When you turn AI on or off for a follow-up, ZeroChats asks you to confirm, because the text you have written is kept but starts being read differently:

• From No to Yes: what was the literal message becomes instructions for the AI. Review it — a message written for the lead rarely works as an instruction.
• From Yes to No: what were instructions start being sent verbatim to the lead, one message per line and in order.

And watch out for this one: if what you want is to turn a follow-up off, don’t touch this switch. Remove it with the delete button.

Instructions for the AI

In AI mode, the AI follows your instructions to write a personalized message and choose relevant content. State clearly when it should respond and when it shouldn’t to avoid awkward re-engagements.

Follow-ups belong to the business, not to each agent

Follow-ups are configured once per business and apply to all of its leads, no matter which AI agent handles the conversation. There are no separate follow-up sequences per agent: if a business uses several agents (sales, support…), they all share the same follow-up configuration. In AI mode you can tailor the message by the lead’s status and tags (see below), but not by agent.

What the AI sees when writing a follow-up

In AI mode, when generating the follow-up the AI only has access to this data about the lead and the conversation:

• Lead name — to personalize the greeting.
• Lead status in the pipeline: Open, Discovering, Qualifying, Proposal, Booked, Paid, Postponed, Unqualified, Lost.
• Lead tags (name and description of each assigned tag).
• Recent conversation history (last messages exchanged, trimmed to a short window).
• Time elapsed since the lead’s last message.
• Content attached to that follow-up step (the ones you selected when configuring it), excluding items already sent to that lead. The AI does not see the rest of the library: if you want it to be able to send a content piece at that step, attach it in the follow-up configuration.
• Your instructions from the follow-up field (including the sequence prompt).

The AI does not have access to the main AI Assistant prompt, the Goals, or the global business configuration at this step. Anything you want it to take into account must be in the follow-up instructions, or reflected in the lead’s status/tags.

How to write status- and tag-based instructions

Because the AI knows the lead’s status and tags, the most effective approach is to write the follow-up instructions as clear conditional rules. Recommended pattern:

- If status is `Qualifying`: ask for the missing data point (budget, schedule, urgency).
- If status is `Proposal`: remind them of the offer sent and ask if they need a call.
- If status is `Booked`: confirm the appointment and offer to reschedule if it doesn't suit them.
- If tagged `high-price`: reinforce ROI before pushing the sale again.
- If tagged `cold`: don't insist more than once; offer a valuable piece of content and close.
- If tagged `returning-customer`: switch the tone to familiarity, don't pitch from scratch.
- If no rule matches: open, soft question to restart the conversation.

The more specific the rules (by status, by tag, by combination), the more consistent each re-engagement will be. Avoid generic instructions like “do a friendly follow-up” — the AI will end up repeating itself across very different leads.

Conditions to NOT reply

Take advantage of the fact that an empty follow-up is valid. In the instructions you can say when the AI should stay quiet — for example: “if the lead’s last reply was a clear refusal, don’t send a follow-up” or “if tagged do-not-disturb, return an empty message”.

Follow-up by state

Instead of writing the conditional rules yourself, in AI mode you have the Follow-up by state button. It opens a panel with one field per pipeline state, where you simply describe — in plain language — what the AI should do for each one. On Save prompt, ZeroChats automatically generates an optimized prompt so the AI replies differently depending on the lead’s state, and places it in the follow-up instructions field.

The panel shows one field per state where follow-up is enabled:

• Discovering
• Open
• Qualifying
• Proposal
• Booked
• Paid

The Lost, Unqualified and Postponed states do not appear in the panel: follow-up never fires in those states, so there’s no point defining any logic for them.

Panel rules:

• Only the states you fill in are included. An empty field is skipped: a lead in that state doesn’t get that step. If you want them to get the follow-up, write something in its field.
• You can combine it with the rest of the prompt — the button is available whenever the follow-up is in AI mode.
• If you reopen the panel on a follow-up that was already saved by state, it restores what you wrote in each field so you can edit it.

When to use it

Use Follow-up by state when your re-engagement depends mainly on where the lead sits in the pipeline. If your rules depend more on tags, write the instructions by hand as in the previous section.

Sequence reset

In Reset follow-up sequence you decide what happens if the lead writes back:

• Enabled: a new message from the lead resets the sequence from the start. The 24 h window also resets.
• Disabled: if a follow-up has already been sent to that lead, it won’t be repeated even if the conversation continues.

Operating rules

• Follow-ups are only sent within the configured Business hours. If a step falls due while the office is closed, it waits for the next opening; if the 24 h are over by then, it’s lost. To avoid that, turn on Send before the office closes in the 24-hour Follow-Up tab: that step goes out in the last 15 minutes before closing instead of being lost. It only works with business hours turned on.
• They’re only sent to leads in Automated mode; Manual leads are excluded.
• They’re only sent to leads who have written to you at least once. If you opened the conversation and the lead has never replied, they get no follow-ups: Meta’s messaging window only opens when the lead writes, so that message wouldn’t be delivered. The sequence waits and starts as soon as they reply. In the meantime, you can re-engage them with Welcome follow-ups.
• They’re not sent if the lead’s status is Lost, Unqualified or Postponed.
• They’re not sent if the last message in the conversation is from the lead (you owe them a reply, not a re-engagement).
• A follow-up never goes out within an hour of the last message that came from your business, whether it was an AI reply, an earlier follow-up or a message you wrote yourself. If you configure steps close together, the next one waits until that hour has passed.
• If Don’t answer leads you follow is enabled, those leads don’t receive follow-ups either.
• If the lead has an open Resume conversation reminder (see Reminders), their automatic follow-ups pause until you close it or the lead writes again.
• The AI never repeats messages it already sent in previous follow-ups.
• Content already sent to that lead is filtered out automatically — the AI cannot resend it.
• An empty follow-up is valid: the AI decided it wasn’t the right moment to write.
• If a step has nothing to say for the state the lead is in — because you left that state empty in the per-state instructions — the sequence treats it as done and moves on to the next one instead of getting stuck there. That way later steps, which may carry different text, still get their turn.
• If the platform refuses the send, that step isn’t spent: it’s attempted again later, as long as the window is still open.
• If a follow-up falls outside the 24 h window, it simply isn’t delivered. That’s why the configurable hours stop at 23 h.

Welcome follow-ups

Automatic follow-ups only reach people who have already written to you. For the people you wrote to first who haven’t replied —a welcome from Instagram or the private message sent by your comment automation— there’s the Welcome follow-ups tab.

How it works:

1. On the Follow-ups page, open the Welcome follow-ups tab and press Add welcome follow-up.
2. Choose how many hours after your first message the step goes out, between 1 and 23 h (not after the lead’s last message, because the lead hasn’t written yet).
3. Write the message. With AI on, what you write are instructions and the AI drafts a message for each lead based on your first message; with AI off, the text is sent as is, one message per line. These steps are text only: they don’t take attached content.

Rules:

• 2 steps at most. Each one reaches someone who hasn’t replied to you, so the sequence is short on purpose: keep the messages brief and natural, with a question or a reason to reply, nothing promotional.
• On Instagram they only go out during the 24 hours after your first message. With WhatsApp connected by QR there’s no such limit. With Facebook Messenger or the WhatsApp Business API (Cloud API) they aren’t sent, because those platforms don’t allow writing to someone who has never written.
• The sequence stops as soon as the lead replies, a person writes to them or you switch them to manual. It isn’t sent to leads in the Lost, Unqualified or Postponed state either. If they reply, the regular automatic follow-ups apply from then on.
• Instagram decides whether to deliver a message to someone who hasn’t written. If it refuses a step, it isn’t sent or charged, and the lead stays in Pending follow-ups (filter Unanswered welcomes) so you can write to them yourself.
• If another app connected to your account (ManyChat, for example) holds the conversation, no step is sent. See New Instagram messages.

Manual follow-ups

Automatic follow-ups run out at 24 h. For the leads the AI has already marked as lost, the 7-day Follow-Up tab gives you a second sequence that you send, one lead at a time: nothing here goes out on its own. The AI only drafts when you ask it to; reading, editing and sending is up to you.

How it works:

1. In the 7-day Follow-Up tab, click Add manual follow-up and pick the wait: from 1 day to 6 and a half days after the lead’s last message, in half-day steps. As with automatic ones, each step can be fixed text (one message per line) or instructions for the AI draft, plus any content you want to attach.
2. When a lost lead’s silence reaches one of your steps, the lead shows up in Pending follow-ups, oldest silence first.
3. Open the list, review the conversation and click Load the message (fixed-text step) or Generate with AI (instructions step). The draft lands in the composer for you to edit.
4. Click Send follow-up. As soon as anything reaches the lead — this message or any other — they leave the list.

Why a person can write later than the AI

On Instagram, a message written or reviewed by a person can be sent up to 7 days after the lead’s last message, versus the 24 h the AI has. That’s why this sequence starts where the automatic one ends. In return, Meta requires that message to answer the lead’s conversation: nothing promotional — no offers, discounts or coupons — or the account may lose the ability to send messages. The composer reminds you every time you send outside the 24 h.

Rules:

• Only leads in the Lost state are listed. If the lead writes again, they change state and leave the list.
• Available with Instagram and with WhatsApp connected by QR. With Facebook Messenger or the WhatsApp Business API (Cloud API) the tab shows an unavailable notice.
• A step counts as done as soon as any message reaches the lead after it came due, whoever sent it. If the platform refuses your send, the step stays pending.
• AI drafts follow the same rules as automatic follow-ups: they don’t repeat content already sent or earlier messages.
• Once the 7 days are up, ZeroChats can no longer send that follow-up. If the lead crosses that limit while you had it pending, the send stops and the notice explains why and offers to open the chat on Instagram so you can write from there. The same applies in the lead detail: see After 7 days, you write from Instagram.

Reminders

A reminder is a pending action on a lead at a date. It covers two situations that neither the funnel state nor follow-ups handle well:

• Resume conversation — the lead puts the conversation off in their own words: on holiday, busy until the weekend, “I’ll write you Monday”. They’re not lost, they’re unavailable, and nobody should chase them until that date.
• Task — you committed to deliver something by a date and the lead is counting on it: “so you’ll send me the report on Thursday”. The lead stays active.

The lead keeps its funnel state: a Booked lead going on holiday stays Booked. The difference is what happens while the reminder is open:

• A Resume conversation reminder takes the lead off automatic follow-ups and keeps them from becoming Lost through inactivity, until you close it or the lead writes again.
• A Task changes nothing: the conversation and the follow-ups carry on.

Who creates them

• You, from the lead’s page: the Create reminder button above the conversation asks for the kind, the date, what has to be done and optional context (for example, the lead’s words).
• The AI, if you turn on AI detection in the Reminders tab. When the lead puts the conversation off or your business commits to something for a date, the AI opens the reminder with the lead’s literal quote. It’s in beta and starts off; reminders you create by hand don’t depend on this switch.

The reminders AI never talks to the lead

Detecting a reminder sends no message and changes no lead state. All it does is add it to the list so you can decide.

How they close

• Resume conversation closes on its own when the lead writes again, or when your business writes to them on or after the due date (for example, with a manual follow-up). A message from you before the date doesn’t close it.
• A Task closes on its own when, in your next message, the AI sees that what was promised has been delivered (the file, the answer, the confirmation). If it isn’t sure, the task stays open: one extra click beats a lost commitment.
• You can always close one yourself with Delete reminder. It’s immediate and asks for no confirmation.

A reminder nobody closes stays listed as Overdue until you delete it: it doesn’t expire on its own.

The Reminders tab

The tab opens on three figures — Overdue, Today and the period you choose (by default Next 7 days; 14 or 30 days or a custom range are also available) — and a Volume by day chart. Every figure and every bar is a filter: click to see only those reminders. Below, the list narrows by date (All, Overdue, Today only, This week or Date range), by kind and by source (Detected by the AI or Created by hand), and searches by lead name or username. Reminders are always ordered soonest first; click one to see what the lead said and the Open conversation button.

In the sidebar, the Follow-ups entry shows how many reminders you have due today or overdue.

If the lead has been silent for more than 7 days

A reminder opens no messaging window. If more than 7 days have passed since the lead’s last message when the date arrives, write to them from the Instagram or WhatsApp app itself.

Best practices

• Start with two or three steps: one early (2–4 h), one middle (8–12 h) and one final close to the limit (20–23 h).
• Combine AI and fixed text: let the AI handle the first contextual re-engagement and save a more direct fixed text for the last attempt.
• If you sell with links, check the Content placement setting: it decides whether the link goes out before the follow-up messages, after them, or wherever you state in each content item’s description.
• Review Business hours: if they’re very narrow, follow-ups can get blocked even if they’re within the 24 h.