If you’re juggling a messy pipeline and deals keep slipping through the cracks, you’re not alone. Staying on top of follow-ups is the difference between a closed deal and a missed opportunity, but nobody actually enjoys setting reminders or chasing their own tail. This guide is for sales folks and founders who want to automate reminders in Vocal so you can actually move deals forward—without turning into a calendar admin.
Let’s cut through the noise and get your follow-up process running on autopilot.
Why Bother With Automated Follow-Ups?
Let’s be real: most deals don’t close on the first call. The “fortune is in the follow-up” cliché is true for a reason. But if you’re relying on sticky notes or your memory, you’re probably losing business. Automated reminders help you:
- Stay consistent: You’ll actually follow up when you say you will.
- Save mental energy: No more “who was I supposed to email today?”
- Avoid awkward silences: Prospects appreciate a nudge at the right time—just not five in a row because you forgot you already followed up.
But not all reminder tools are created equal. Some are clunky or too basic. The good news? Vocal strikes a decent balance between customization and simplicity, as long as you set it up right.
Step 1: Map Out Your Follow-Up Process (Don’t Skip This)
Automation only works if your process isn’t a mess. Before you dive into Vocal’s settings, grab a notepad (digital or paper) and jot down:
- Typical deal stages: E.g., initial contact, demo, proposal sent, negotiation, closed/won, closed/lost.
- When you usually follow up: After a meeting? After a week of no reply?
- How you like to follow up: Email, call, LinkedIn message?
This isn’t busywork. If you don’t know when and how you want to follow up, automating it just means automating chaos.
Pro tip: Start simple. If you’re not sure, pick one trigger (like “no reply to proposal after 3 days”) and build from there.
Step 2: Set Up Your Pipeline in Vocal
Assuming you’ve already signed up for Vocal and poked around a bit, here’s how to get your pipeline ready for automation:
- Log in and go to your main dashboard.
- Create or review your pipeline stages—use names that make sense to you. Don’t get cute or too generic (“Stage 1” doesn’t help).
- Add your deals (if you haven’t already). Importing from a spreadsheet is usually faster than manual entry.
- Assign owners to deals if you’re on a team. Otherwise, keep it simple and own them yourself.
What to ignore: Don’t obsess over color-coding or custom fields right now. You want to get reminders working first, not build a beautiful (but useless) Kanban board.
Step 3: Enable and Customize Follow-Up Reminders
This is where the magic happens. Vocal has built-in reminders, but it’s not always obvious how to tweak them for real-world sales work.
Enabling Reminders
- Go to your Settings or the Automation section (depends on your version—yeah, that’s annoying).
- Find the Follow-Up Reminders or Tasks section.
- Toggle on reminders for each pipeline stage where a follow-up makes sense.
Customizing Timing
Here’s where most people mess up: they set reminders for “every day” and end up ignoring them. Instead:
- Set specific intervals that match your process. For example:
- After a proposal is sent: remind me in 2 business days.
- After a meeting: remind me in 1 week if I don’t hear back.
- Use business days if possible. No one wants a reminder to follow up on a Sunday.
Pro tip: Start with one or two triggers. You can always add more once you see what works (and what’s just noise).
Choosing Reminder Methods
Vocal typically supports email, in-app, or even Slack reminders. Pick what you’ll actually see—not what sounds cool.
- If you’re in your inbox all day, email is fine.
- If you ignore email notifications (guilty), go for in-app or Slack.
You want your reminders to be annoying enough that you act, but not so annoying you tune them out.
Step 4: Write Follow-Up Templates (So You Don’t Overthink It)
Reminders are great, but writing each message from scratch gets old fast. Most salespeople just need a nudge and a template.
- Go to your Templates section in Vocal.
- Create a few basic follow-ups:
- “Just checking in on the proposal I sent over…”
- “Wanted to see if you had any questions after our call…”
- “Following up as promised…”
Keep them short and in your own voice. Don’t use weird sales lingo or “just bumping this to the top of your inbox.”
Pro tip: Personalize the first line each time. Even the best template feels robotic if you never tweak it.
Step 5: Test Your Setup Before Going All-In
Don’t trust any automation until you’ve seen it work for yourself. Here’s how to sanity-check your reminders:
- Add a test deal with your own email.
- Move it through the pipeline and see if reminders trigger when you expect.
- Check that your reminders show up where you want them (email, app, Slack, etc.).
- Actually send yourself a follow-up using a template—make sure it doesn’t sound like a robot wrote it.
If something feels off (timing, wording, delivery), fix it now. Better to embarrass yourself in private than with a prospect.
Step 6: Iterate and Adjust (Because Life Happens)
No automation is perfect out of the box. Here’s how to keep your follow-up system working:
- Review reminders every month. Are they piling up? Are you ignoring them? Adjust timing or delete the ones you never use.
- Skip the “spray and pray.” If you’re following up with everyone the same way, you’ll start sounding like a bot. Adjust for deal size and priority.
- Ask your prospects. If someone says "thanks for the reminder," you’re on the right track. If three people in a week say "stop emailing me," adjust your approach.
What to ignore: Don’t get sucked into new features or integrations until your basic reminders actually help you close more deals. Shiny objects can wait.
What Works, What Doesn’t, and What to Ignore
What Works
- Relevant, timely reminders that fit your sales process—not just the defaults.
- Simple templates you actually use.
- A system you’ll check every day (don’t pick Slack reminders if you never open Slack).
What Doesn’t
- Over-automating: If you set reminders for every trivial task, you’ll ignore all of them.
- Forgetting to personalize: Templates are a starting point, not the whole message.
- Assuming automation replaces real work: You still have to reach out and build the relationship.
What to Ignore
- Advanced integrations you don’t need yet.
- Endless customization before you’ve closed a single deal using reminders.
- Features you don’t understand: If you don’t know what it does, don’t enable it “just in case.”
Wrapping Up: Keep It Simple, Keep Closing
Automating follow-up reminders in Vocal isn’t about showing off your tech chops—it’s about making sure good deals don’t die because you got busy. Start with your real-world sales process, set up a few focused reminders, and actually use them.
Don’t overthink it or aim for perfection on day one. Iterate, tweak, and keep what works. The goal is more closed deals, not fancier notifications. Keep it simple, and let the system do its job so you can do yours.