If you’re running customer feedback programs, you know that the real work starts after you get replies. Following up is tedious, but skipping it means missing the whole point—closing the loop. This guide is for anyone who’s tired of chasing NPS survey responses across spreadsheets or inboxes, and wants a straightforward way to automate customer follow-up using AskNicely triggers and actions. No hype, just what works.
Why automate follow-ups in the first place?
Let’s be honest: nobody’s got time to manually track every piece of customer feedback, and even if you did, you'd still miss things. Automated follow-ups help you:
- Respond faster (before people forget what they told you)
- Avoid letting important feedback slip through the cracks
- Make your team’s life easier—less copy-paste, more actual customer conversations
But automation can also go sideways: too many generic emails, or clumsy “robot” messages, and you’ll just annoy your customers. So the goal’s to automate what should be automated, and keep things personal where it matters.
Step 1: Get clear on what you want to automate
Before you click anything in AskNicely, figure out your workflow:
- Who needs a follow-up? (E.g., anyone who gives a low score? Only promoters? Just survey comments with keywords?)
- What should happen next? (Send an email? Assign a task? Notify a manager? Push to Slack?)
- How personal does the follow-up need to feel? (Fully automatic, or just tee up a draft for a human?)
Write this down. Seriously. Don’t automate just for the sake of it—make sure each step actually solves a problem for you.
Step 2: Map your feedback journey in AskNicely
AskNicely organizes automations around two things: triggers (the “when this happens”) and actions (the “do this next”). You can mix and match these to build your workflow.
What’s a trigger?
A trigger is an event, like:
- Someone submits a survey response
- A customer gives a low (or high) NPS score
- A tag is added to a response (manually or by automation)
- A set period passes without a response
What’s an action?
An action is what happens next, like:
- Send an email to the customer (or to your team)
- Create a task in another app (like Salesforce or Zendesk)
- Update a field or tag in AskNicely
- Push a notification to Slack or Teams
Don’t get overwhelmed by the possibilities. Most teams just need a couple of these to get real value.
Step 3: Build a simple follow-up automation
Let’s walk through a bread-and-butter use case: You want to email any customer who gives a “detractor” score (6 or below on NPS), and notify your support manager.
3.1 Create a trigger for detractor responses
- Go to your AskNicely dashboard.
- Find the "Triggers" or "Workflow Automation" section (naming may vary).
- Click “Add Trigger.”
- Set the trigger event: “Survey response received.”
- Add a filter: NPS Score less than or equal to 6.
Pro tip: If you want to catch specific comments (like anyone mentioning “bug” or “cancel”), add a keyword condition.
3.2 Set up actions
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Action 1: Send an email to the customer.
- Use a thoughtful, personalized template. Don’t make it sound like a robot (“We value your feedback…” gets old fast).
- Example: “Hi [Name], saw your recent feedback. Mind telling us a bit more about what went wrong?”
- Use merge fields to include their name, company, or feedback—keeps it human.
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Action 2: Notify your support manager.
- Choose action: “Send email” (to manager) or “Push to Slack.”
- Include all relevant details: customer name, score, comment, and a direct link to the response.
What to skip: Resist the urge to set up a dozen actions “just in case.” Start with what you know you’ll use.
3.3 Test before turning it loose
- Use AskNicely’s “preview” or “test” mode to see exactly what emails or messages will look like.
- Run a couple of real responses through the workflow.
- Ask your team: “Would you appreciate this email if you got it as a customer?”
If it feels spammy or tone-deaf, rewrite the templates.
Step 4: Automate follow-ups for promoters (the right way)
It’s tempting to set up automations for people who love you (NPS 9-10), but don’t just blast everyone with generic requests for referrals or reviews.
What works:
- Thank them with a short, sincere note.
- If you want to ask for a review or referral, do it sparingly—and only if it feels natural.
- Optionally: trigger a task for your customer success team to reach out personally to especially enthusiastic customers.
What to avoid:
- Don’t send the same “please leave us a review!” email to every promoter—people spot a robot a mile away.
- Don’t push too hard or too often. If someone’s already referred you, don’t ask again.
Pro tip: Use AskNicely’s tags or custom fields to track who’s already been contacted for reviews or referrals, so you don’t double-dip.
Step 5: Automate internal follow-up tasks
Not every follow-up should go directly to the customer. Sometimes, you just want to make sure your team acts.
- Set up triggers to assign tasks in your CRM or helpdesk when feedback meets certain criteria (e.g., “needs escalation” or “churn risk”).
- Use tags to group responses (e.g., “feature request,” “billing issue”) and set up actions to alert the right owner.
- Push notifications to Slack or Teams channels, but don’t overload—only send the stuff that’s truly urgent.
Honest take: If you send every piece of feedback to your team’s Slack, people will ignore it. Be ruthless about what’s truly important.
Step 6: Watch out for common pitfalls
Automations can make your life easier—or just create new headaches if you’re not careful.
- Too many triggers: Don’t try to automate every possible scenario at once. Start simple, see what works, then layer on.
- Generic messaging: Customers know when you’re phoning it in. Personalize where it counts.
- Lack of review: Review your automations every couple of months. Business needs change, and what worked last year might be annoying today.
- No feedback loop: Make it easy for your team to report when an automation isn’t helping—or is making things worse.
Step 7: Monitor and tweak
Don’t “set and forget.” Check your automation logs in AskNicely. Are emails being opened? Are tasks getting completed? Are you missing important feedback?
- If follow-up rates aren’t improving, tweak your triggers or the timing.
- If your team’s ignoring automated tasks, ask why—maybe you’re sending too many, or not enough detail.
- Regularly ask customers how they feel about your follow-ups. If people start opting out or complaining, dial it back.
What’s actually worth automating (and what isn’t)
Worth it:
- Immediate follow-ups for low scores or urgent issues.
- Notifications to the right internal owner for tricky feedback.
- Simple, one-click thank-you notes for promoters.
Skip or do manually:
- Complicated, multi-step escalations with lots of “if this, then that”—these usually need human judgment.
- Highly sensitive follow-ups (like churn threats or legal issues)—automate the flag, but let a real person respond.
- Mass review requests—keep these personal, or at least segment and space them out.
Keep it simple and iterate
Most teams overcomplicate this stuff. Start with one or two automations that solve a real pain. Watch what happens. If it’s working, add more—but only as needed. The best automations are the ones your customers don’t notice, because they just feel like you’re on top of things.
Automate what’s repeatable, keep the rest human, and don’t be afraid to turn off anything that isn’t helping. That’s how you actually get value out of AskNicely triggers and actions—without driving your customers (or your team) up the wall.