Automated Sequences

Automated sequences allow you to automate your client communications. You can use the automated sequences to help you with your marketing, client retention, onboarding, recalls and much more.

Some of the most popular automated sequences we see businesses using include:

Understanding automated sequences

Every automated sequence is a combination of rules and actions. Rules dictate when and who move through the sequence and actions are notifications sent to the client when the rules are fulfilled.

Each automated sequence starts with a Trigger rule.

A trigger is an event, for example a client's birthday, a client cancelling an appointment or a client purchasing a membership.

The event can also simply be the client entering an audience, for example entering the 90 day recall audience or entering the Shoulder Injury audience.

Once you have selected a trigger you can then choose another rule, for example a time delay or If/else scenario, or you can choose an action for example an email, or SMS.

A time delay would postpone the next step of the sequence. For example if your trigger is a client cancelling a class, you might add a 24 hour time delay before sending your follow up notification.

The other option you can add is an If/else scenario. This allows you to create two different journey's in a single sequence based on the client's actions.
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For example you might create a follow up sequence after a cancellation.

Step 1 Trigger = appointment cancellation

Step 2 = email notification

Step 3 If/else
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​If the client has a future appointment, sequence ends, no further notifications.

Else (ie the client doesn't have a future appointment) then continue to send a further follow up notification.

In this scenario if the client books an appointment after receiving your email notification in step 2, they won't get the further follow up notification in step 3. However if they have not booked another appointment, we can continue to follow them up until they do.

​Actions are either emails, SMS or push notification that you send to a client after a trigger has occurred. You can send a single notification (such as an email) or a combination of notifications (such as an email and an SMS).

Creating an automated sequence

To create an automated sequence go to Settings, Communications & marketing, Automated sequences and the click on Create sequence.
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Give your sequence a name, we suggest something simple and clear to identify what the sequence is for.
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Underneath the sequence name is a check box called User goes through the flow once.

If this is ticked, then the user will go through flow only once, each time they enter the audience.

If it is left unchecked, then the user will continue to go through the steps of the sequence again and again. That is, when they get to the end of the sequence, if they are still in the audience, they will return to the beginning of the sequence and start again.

It is important to think about both the audience you are using and the events of the sequence to determine if the user should go through just once, or multiple times.

For an audience that a client will only enter into once, when User only goes through audience once is ticked, the client will only ever get this email sequence once.

For an audience that a client will enter and exit into multiple times, when User only goes through audience once is ticked, the client will get this email sequence once each time they enter the audience, but may get the sequence multiple times over their client lifetime as they may enter the audience multiple times.

Here are some examples of when you might tick this and when you might not.

Birthday Sequence

I want to use the Everyone audience. It is likely once you enter the everyone audience people will be in it forever.

I want the client to get an email every year on their birthday which means I want the user to go through the sequence multiple times.

Therefore I would not tick the box user goes through the flow once.

First membership purchase sequence

I want to use the All memberships (active and inactive) audience. People will enter this audience the first time they purchase a membership and will likely be in this audience forever (as it covers active and inactive audiences).

I will use the trigger Membership - Joined (aka purchased).

I want the client to get a 3 email sequence when they purchase their first membership explaining details like how memberships work, cancellation policies, how to book through the mobile app etc. I only want the client to get this email sequence once. I do not want the client getting this sequence every time they purchase a membership.

Therefore I would tick the box user goes through the flow once.

90 day recall sequence

The specific details of the 90 day recall audience and the steps within the sequence will influence if you should tick the User goes through sequence once or not.

90 day recall sequence - Example 1

I want to use the 90 day recall audience. This audience has the last appointment 90-91 days ago. People are likely to enter and exit this kind of audience multiple times.

My sequence is that the client enters the audience and receives a recall email (lets call this Email 1) the day they enter the audience, then they receive an email 1 week later (lets call this email 2) If they don't have an upcoming appointment.

When the client gets to the end of the sequence, they would no longer be in the audience (as the audience is only day 90-91) and the sequence ends on day 97 (as email 2 is received 1 week after entering the audience). Therefore the client does not re-start the sequence as they have exited the audience.

In this example it would make no difference if I chose to tick User only goes through the flow once.

90 day recall sequence - Example 2

I want to use the 90 day recall audience. This audience has the last appointment 90-120 days ago. People are likely to enter and exit this kind of audience multiple times.

My sequence is that the client enters the audience and receives a recall email (lets call this Email 1) the day they enter the audience, then they receive an email 1 week later (lets call this email 2) If they don't have an upcoming appointment.

When the client gets to the end of the sequence, they are still in the audience (as the audience is 90-120 days) and the sequence ends on day 97 (as email 2 is received 1 week after entering the audience).

If we did not tick User only goes through the flow once, then after the client received email 2 on day 97, the client would re-start the sequence and receive email 1 again, and 7 days later they would receive email 2. This would continue again and again until they exited the audience.

If we did tick User only goes through the flow once, then after the client received email 2 on day 97, the client would not re-start the sequence and would not get the emails again, unless they re-entered the audience again in the future.

In this example the parameters of the audience makes a big difference if I chose to tick User only goes through the flow once or not.

Next select your audience. The only default audience created is your New clients for onboarding audience. Client's are added to this audience when they are added to your business for the first time. You can create your own audiences to suit your business' specific needs.

Next you can add your first trigger by clicking the +.

Then you can add each subsequent step by click on the + button at the bottom of the sequence and choosing your step rule or action.
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Once you have created your sequence, don't forget to scroll to the top and save your sequence.