Gmail and Outlook

How do you automate customer follow-ups from Gmail or Outlook?

To automate customer follow-ups from Gmail or Outlook, connect your mailbox to a Muzau agent. Every quarter of an hour it rereads your Sent folder according to a rule you set (recipient, subject, attachment), or tracks the emails where you copy it in. With no reply, it follows up in the same thread, copying you, at D+3, D+7 and D+14 by default. To begin with, every follow-up waits for your approval, and it stops as soon as the customer replies.

Why follow-ups get lost in a mailbox

A quote goes out on Monday, a question waits for its answer on Tuesday, then incoming emails bury everything. Nobody rereads their Sent folder to see what was left without a reply, and the customer who was hesitating never gets the message that would have moved things forward.

Gmail and Outlook can schedule a send or remind you about an email, but neither follows up with the customer for you. Your team keeps the relationship and decides what deserves a follow-up; the schedule, the checking and the first draft are what the agent takes on.

How the agent goes about it

Input

Your connected Gmail or Outlook mailbox, and the emails you entrust to it

It does

Spots the ones left without a reply and prepares the follow-up on the right day

It delivers

Follow-ups in the original thread, to approve, that stop at the reply

The agent only tracks the emails you choose

Gmail connects to Muzau with an app password created once, Outlook and Microsoft 365 through the Microsoft sign-in (see connecting Gmail without your usual password). After that, there are two ways to entrust it with an email. You copy the agent in, and the email is tracked. Or the agent rereads your mailbox's Sent folder every quarter of an hour, according to a rule on the sender, the recipient, the subject or the attachment, for example emails whose subject contains “quote”. For an email picked up this way, the AI checks before the first follow-up that it really expects a reply and concerns a customer, a prospect, a partner or a supplier: a “thanks, have a good day” is not followed up.

Emails sent before the connection go through a review

Sent folder tracking only picks up emails sent after the connection. For earlier ones, the Follow-ups screen in Muzau rereads the last 60 days of your mailbox and lets you tick the conversations to follow up: see how to follow up with a customer who does not reply.

The follow-up comes from your address, in the same thread

When your company's mailbox is connected, the follow-up goes out from it, in the thread of the original email, copying the team member who sent it. Gmail and Outlook file it in your Sent folder. By default, the agent follows up at D+3, D+7 and D+14, Monday to Friday at 9 am, Paris time; in the Muzau Workshop, you can ask for up to six follow-ups, spaced 1 to 90 days apart.

You read every follow-up before it goes out

To begin with, the “Email follow-ups” agent submits every follow-up for your approval. They wait for you on the Manage page, under “To chase?”, where you click “Send” or “Do not send”. The schedule for the next 14 days also shows each planned follow-up: you read it exactly as it will go out, and you edit it or have it rewritten with an instruction. After 10 follow-ups in a row sent without edits, Muzau offers to let them go out on their own, and the decision is yours. The follow-up stops as soon as the customer replies, or a colleague writes to them from the connected mailbox: see how to avoid a duplicate follow-up.

Automatic follow-ups: what Gmail and Outlook do on their own

Without another tool, both mail services can remind you about an email; they do not follow up for you.

• In Outlook, the follow-up flag with a reminder brings an email back on the chosen date. No Outlook rule triggers on a reply that never arrives: the follow-up is still yours to write.
• In Gmail, “Snooze” brings a conversation back to the top of the inbox on the chosen day, and Gmail can suggest following up on an email left without a reply if the option is on in its settings.
• Scheduled send, in either one, sends an email written in advance at the set time. It goes out even if the customer replied in the meantime.

Before letting a follow-up go out, by hand or not, check these points:

• The email really expects a reply: a quote, a proposal, a question asked. A thank-you or an email sent for information is not followed up.
• Nobody has replied in the meantime, neither the customer nor a colleague from their own mailbox.
• The follow-up replies in the original thread, so the customer finds everything without searching.
• The email has only one outside recipient. If it went to three people, choose yourself whom to follow up.
• The number of follow-ups is set in advance, and everything stops if the person asks not to be contacted again.

For the wording of the follow-up itself, see how to politely follow up on an email left without a reply.

What it does not do

• It does not pick up on its own the emails sent before the connection: those go through the review of the last 60 days, where you choose which ones to follow up.
• It does not track an email sent to several outside people: it does not choose whom to follow up for you, and it flags it to you.
• It sees neither an email sent from a mailbox that is not connected, nor a phone call: in that case, you cancel the follow-up yourself.

Frequently asked questions

Can Outlook automatically follow up on an email left without a reply?

On its own, Outlook reminds you about an email with the follow-up flag, but does not write the follow-up for you. Connected to Muzau, an agent rereads your Outlook or Microsoft 365 Sent folder every quarter of an hour according to the rule you set, prepares the follow-up in the same thread when nothing has come back, submits it for your approval first, and stops as soon as the person replies.

Can you automatically follow up on only some emails, like quotes?

Yes, with Muzau. You set a rule on the sender, the recipient, the subject or the attachment, for example sends whose subject contains “quote”, and the agent tracks only those. You can also copy its address on only the emails to track.

Do automatic follow-ups come from my own address?

With Muzau, yes, when your company's mailbox is connected: the follow-up goes out from it, in the thread of the original email, copying the person who sent it. With several mailboxes connected by password and no Outlook, or if the agent is set to its own address, it goes out from the agent's address.

Can you see planned automatic follow-ups in advance?

Yes, with Muzau: the schedule for the next 14 days shows one card per follow-up and per day. You read the follow-up there before it goes out, you edit it or have it rewritten with an instruction, and you drag the card to another day the agent runs if needed.

Does an automatic follow-up tool read every email in my mailbox?

With Muzau, no. For follow-ups, the text of an email is read only if it is to be reviewed or tracked, no attachment is downloaded (only its name is read) and nothing is marked as read on your side. The follow-ups the agent sends from your mailbox appear in your Sent folder.