Where a lead is, and what moves it
Leads, then a lead, for whoever answers enquiries.
A lead is always in one stage. New means nobody has answered them, and a New lead never lapses: it stays, and is escalated as an unanswered enquiry, until somebody answers it, closes it or pauses it. Awaiting them means you have answered or spoken and the next move is theirs. Awaiting us means they have written and you owe an answer. Message sequence means calls went unanswered and the automatic messages carry on. Paused, Booked and Closed are what they say, and a lead that was passed to another surgeon, joined into another lead or found to be an existing patient is shown as Reassigned, Merged or Existing patient. The line under the name, Next, says what happens next, when, and who does it.
Spoke and No answer record how a call ended. Only speaking to them, sending a message or closing counts as an answer. No answer keeps the to-do open and puts the next attempt on the next working day; after three, the lead moves to the message sequence. Pause takes a day: the lead leaves the list, nothing is sent to them meanwhile, and on that day it comes back as a to-do. Close returns you to the list, and a new message from a closed lead reopens it.
Book and Assess, on a flagged application, show exactly what they will send and to whom, before they send it, and ask once. Merge joins a lead into another that is the same person; the same person asking for the same procedure within thirty days is joined automatically. Existing patient, under More, finds somebody already on file. Joining a lead to someone who has been seen here closes it as an existing patient and keeps the conversation on their record. Merge also offers, marked Possibly the same person, a lead with the same first name that arrived within a day where one of the two has no email or mobile to compare, such as an Instagram message; those are never joined by themselves.
Reassign is for a lead that is not this surgeon's. Choose a colleague, read the message that will go and the colleague's next free times, change the words if you want, and press Send. The person is offered times in the colleague's own clinic, not referred, and from then on nothing of the first surgeon's is sent to them. Transfer gives the lead, and its application, to the colleague you chose and sends nothing to the person: it stays open, now theirs. If what they asked for is not known, choose it on the Procedure card first.
Follow-up messages keep somebody company while the next move is theirs. Each lead's Follow-up card shows the pathway carrying them and the messages that will go, with their days. A lead whose procedure has its own pathway gets it; a broad enquiry is carried by the general pathway, whose messages ask what they are interested in. The first goes a few hours after the enquiry, the rest on their own days, never two within a couple of days. They hold while the person has written and is waiting for an answer, and stop when they apply, book, ask to hear no more, or the lead is closed. A pathway can keep some messages for somebody closed for price, and send others only where they asked about breast surgery.
Pathways are written under Settings, Enquiries and applications, Follow-up messages. Every message is a Draft until somebody marks it Ready, and only Ready messages go, never one still holding a bracketed instruction.
On an Instagram conversation, Booking link puts a link in the reply. It opens an application first. If the application is green they go straight on to choosing one of the next free consultation times and paying to secure it; an amber or red one waits for a coordinator, and somebody who has been seen here before goes straight to the times, as does anybody whose practitioner books directly and takes no application.