Twenty terms used across AI reception, automation and lifecycle marketing. Written for business owners, not for marketers.
Software that answers inbound calls and messages in a natural conversation, takes the details a business needs, and books the appointment. It differs from an answering service in that no person is involved, and from a phone menu in that the caller speaks normally rather than choosing options. Anything it cannot handle is passed to a human with the context attached.
The time between an enquiry arriving and a business responding to it. It is the single strongest predictor of whether an enquiry converts, because most buyers contact several suppliers and tend to engage with whoever replies first.
An automatic text message sent to a caller whose call was not answered, usually within seconds. It converts an abandoned call into a conversation the business can continue later, and is the cheapest form of call recovery for trades and local services.
A single feed containing messages from every channel a business uses, typically calls, SMS, WhatsApp, email, web chat and social media direct messages. The purpose is to stop enquiries being missed because they arrived on a channel nobody was watching.
A rule that runs a sequence of actions when a trigger occurs, without anyone starting it. A trigger might be a form submission or a missed call; actions might include sending a message, creating a task, or updating a record. It removes the follow-up that depends on someone remembering.
Customer relationship management. A single record for each customer holding their contact details, history, orders and conversations. Its value is that marketing, sales and service all read from the same record rather than three separate systems.
Ranking enquiries by how likely they are to convert, usually from signals such as budget, urgency and fit. It exists so that a small team spends its attention on the enquiries most worth answering personally.
A planned series of messages sent to an enquiry that did not convert immediately, spaced over days or weeks. It assumes most buyers are not ready on first contact and that the supplier still in front of them when they are ready usually wins.
Marketing organised around the stages of a customer relationship rather than around campaigns. Typical stages are acquisition, onboarding, repeat purchase, and win-back, each with its own messaging.
An automated sequence sent to an online shopper who added items to a basket and left without paying. It is usually the highest-returning automation in e-commerce because the buyer has already shown purchase intent.
Automated messages sent after an order, covering confirmation, delivery updates, care instructions and a review request. It reduces support contact and is where repeat-purchase behaviour is established.
A campaign aimed at customers who have stopped buying or engaging. It is normally cheaper than acquiring a new customer because the relationship and the data already exist.
Automatically requesting a review at the point a customer is most satisfied, usually just after a completed job or delivery. It differs from review management, which is about monitoring and responding to reviews once they exist.
The proportion of booked appointments where the customer does not attend and does not cancel in time to refill the slot. It is a direct margin loss for any business whose capacity is time, such as clinics, salons and garages.
Taking a small payment at the point of booking, refunded or deducted at the appointment. It is the most effective single measure against no-shows because it gives the customer a reason to cancel properly rather than simply not arrive.
Automatically offering a cancelled appointment slot to customers waiting for one, without a member of staff noticing the gap and phoning round. It protects revenue from late cancellations.
A stored set of a business’s logos, colours, fonts, tone-of-voice rules and prohibited words, applied automatically to generated content so output stays consistent without manual checking.
Supplying a product under another company’s brand. An agency reselling a white-label platform presents it as their own, sets their own prices, and is the customer’s point of contact.
The configuration work done before an automation system goes live, covering call handling, calendars, message templates, workflows and integrations. It is the difference between software being purchased and a system actually running.
Assigning credit for a sale to the marketing that contributed to it. It matters because the last click is rarely the whole story, and channels that assist conversions are easy to underfund when only final clicks are counted.
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