Five emails a workflow can send for you, and what each one should say

Why these five

Look at your sent folder for last week. Strip out the one-off conversations and most of what is left falls into five shapes. You acknowledge something that came in. You chase someone who went quiet. You ask someone for a yes. You confirm a booking. You close the job out.

None of them takes long to write. The cost is remembering: the follow-up you meant to send on Thursday, the customer who never heard the job was done. Each one is tied to a moment in the work, which is why a workflow can send it at that moment.

1. The acknowledgement: "Got it, we're on it."

When: within the hour, the same day at the latest.

What it says: that you have it, what happens next, and when they will hear from you. A reference number helps: it is what stops the "any news?" email two days later.

As a workflow step: a Send Email step straight after the trigger, so it goes out as soon as the job is opened in RouteWrk. When an email is the start of a job, routing it from your inbox opens the job, and the acknowledgement follows.

2. The follow-up: "Just checking in."

When: after two days of silence. Not sooner, which reads as pushy, and not a week later, when the job has already slipped.

What it says: one line, with the question repeated, so they can answer without scrolling back.

As a workflow step: an Await Reply step with a 48 hour timeout. If a reply comes in, the job moves on. If the timeout runs out, the timeout path sends the follow-up. A reply counts once it is linked to the job: RouteWrk suggests which job a reply belongs to, and linking it is your click.

3. The approval ask: "Can you approve this?"

When: as soon as you have everything the approver needs to decide. Asking before then gets you a question back instead of an answer.

What it says: the decision in the subject line, the amount and the reason in the first sentence, and an answer that takes one word.

As a workflow step: a Send Email step to the approver, then an Approval step. The email asks; the job waits on your board until someone approves or rejects it in RouteWrk. A reply to the email does not count as the answer. A rejection can take its own path, such as telling the customer it is on hold.

4. The update: "It's booked for Thursday."

When: the moment it is booked, not the morning of.

What it says: the day, the time window and who is coming. That is everything someone needs to plan around it.

As a workflow step: a Send Email step after the step where you book it. If booking is a checklist ("call the contractor", "confirm the time"), the email goes out when the last box is ticked. Fields like the date fill in from the job, so the email says the right Thursday.

5. The wrap-up: "All done, closing this out."

When: the same day the work is finished.

What it says: what was done, and how to reopen it if it comes back. Without that last line, a repeat problem becomes a new email that starts from nothing.

As a workflow step: a Send Email step just before the Resolve step, so the customer hears about it before the workflow closes the job.

Three ways to stop typing them

Once you know what each email says, there are three ways to stop typing it. Pick by how much of the remembering you want to hand off.

Email templates. Save each email once and insert it with one click. Most email programs have them: look for templates or saved replies in the settings. Best when you choose the moment to send it yourself.

A text shortcut. Type a few letters, such as ;ty, and the whole email appears. Phones and Macs have this built in as text replacement, and there are apps that do it on Windows. It works in any app, not just email.

A workflow that sends it for you, such as RouteWrk. The email is a step in the job, so it goes out when the job reaches that step, without you having to remember. That is what each "As a workflow step" above describes.

What a workflow does not do

It sends what you wrote, at the step you put it. It does not decide what an email means or reply to a new one for you. A person still reads the inbox and opens the job, approvals still wait for a yes, and checklists still wait for someone to tick them. What goes away is the typing and the remembering.

Each email goes out from your own address, in the same thread as the conversation when the job started from an email, and every send is written in the job's history.

Start with one

You do not need all five on day one. Pick the one you forget most often, which for most teams is the follow-up, and build that step first. RouteWrk is free to start, with no credit card: start from a workflow template, or see how steps are drawn in the workflow builder.