Automations: The Messages You Never Get Round To Sending

Every venue knows it should message the regular who stopped coming in, and no venue has the hour on a Tuesday to work out who that is. Automations does the working out, and sends the message.

The eight

• Win back lapsed customers — someone who ordered and has not been back for the number of days you set.
• Post-order follow-up — a thank you a couple of days after the meal, which is the moment a rating is most likely.
• Loyalty milestone nudge — a member one visit short of their reward.
• New follower welcome — somebody who has just followed you.
• Cart abandonment — a basket left sitting a couple of hours with no order after it.
• Promotion ending soon — your followers, the day before it ends.
• First order incentive — a follower who has never ordered.
• Custom — your own message, sent when you approve it.

Each one has a written message you can rewrite in your own voice, and a timing you can change.

Three ways to run it

Automatic sends without asking. Capped does the same up to a monthly limit you set, then stops until next month. Manual writes the message and holds it: it appears in Pending approvals and goes out when you press send, or not at all if you reject it.

Manual is the honest place to start. Run a rule that way for a fortnight, read what it would have sent, then switch it to automatic once you trust it.

It will not pester anyone

Every rule has a cooldown — 90 days on win-back, 30 on the first-order nudge — and the same customer cannot be sent the same rule again inside it. The engine runs hourly and checks that before anything sends, so a customer who qualifies twice still hears from you once.

Marketing messages are also opt-in on the customer's side. Someone who has turned them off does not receive them, which is worth knowing before you judge a rule by the number it reached.

Attach an offer, and it becomes a voucher

The rules that carry a discount mint a real voucher for each person, with a code and a 14-day expiry, rather than a message saying "ask us about a discount". The customer has something to spend and you have something to count.

What you get back

Per rule: how many were sent, how many in the last 30 days, how many vouchers went out, and how many of those people then ordered. Conversion is the number that decides whether a rule earns its place.

What it costs

Nothing per message. A boost is priced per recipient because it reaches people who do not know you; an automation goes to your own customers, so there is no per-message charge.

Setting it up

1. Open Automations in your dashboard. All eight are there, switched off.
2. Turn on one. Win-back is the one most venues should run first.
3. Rewrite the message in your own words. The default is a starting point, not a voice.
4. Set it to manual and leave it a fortnight.
5. Read what it wanted to send, approve the good ones, then switch it to automatic.

What it connects to

• Loyalty — the milestone nudge reads how close a member is to their reward.
• Order Ahead — win-back, follow-up and cart abandonment all read real orders.
• Vouchers and promotions — a rule with a discount mints a voucher automatically.
• Analytics — the customer data the rules select from.
• Boost — what you reach for when the people you want are not yours yet.