What do I do when someone is stuck on a sequence step?
Overview
Somebody has been sitting on step 4 for three weeks and nothing is moving. Vome already knows how long they have been there, so the job is to decide how hard to push and whether to automate the pushing.
There are four tools, in the order you should reach for them: the due date on the step, the one automated reminder that comes with it, step automations when one reminder is not enough, and a manual nudge when you want to speak to this one person today.
1. How do I see who is stuck?
Vome tracks the clock for you. Every step records how long each person has been sitting on it, from the moment they landed on that step rather than from when the sequence started.
On the sequence dashboard you get:
- Time in sequence, a sortable column. Sort by it and the people who have been waiting longest come to the top.
- An Overdue badge on the profile card once a step's due date has passed, showing how many days past due they are. Hover it for the detail.
- An Overdue filter in the left-hand panel, with Only show overdue status and a Days overdue threshold, so you can pull up everyone more than, say, ten days late in one click.
If you want the pattern rather than the people, build a tracker on the Sequences category in Analytics. Its Overview carries a Where people are stuck right now panel that ranks every step by how many people are waiting on it, with the average, median and longest wait, a stalled count and an overdue count. Call it stalled after sets the threshold at 7, 14, 30, 60 or 90 days. It is worth a look before you chase anybody, because a step that traps everyone is a design problem rather than a people problem.
2. Give the step a due date
This is the foundation, because the reminder in question 3 counts backwards from it.
Open the step's settings and find the Due Date / Reminder section. Turn on Set a due date, which is measured once a profile has been assigned to this step, then set how long the step can remain incomplete before it is marked as overdue, in days, weeks or months.
Three things to know:
- The clock is per step, and it starts when they arrive. Two people on the same step can have different due dates because they got there on different days, and each step in the sequence can have a different deadline.
- The due date is internal. Nothing is blocked and nothing is closed when it passes. The person is marked Overdue on your dashboard, and the sequence's coordinator and watchers are notified.
- It works on hidden steps too. If the step is not visible to the person, the due date is purely your own tracking and they see no deadline at all.
Full detail is in How do I set due dates and reminders on sequence steps?
3. Turn on the automated reminder before the due date
In the same Due Date / Reminder block, once a due date is on, you can set the number of days before the due date to send an automated reminder. The person is notified that far ahead that the step is coming due and that they need to go and do it.
The arithmetic is a countback. If somebody is due on 15 January and the reminder is set to 15 days, they hear from you on 1 January.
This is one reminder per step, sent once, on Vome's wording. If that is all you need, you are done here. If you want several, or your own words, go to question 4.
4. Set up repeating reminders with step automations
When one reminder is not enough, use step automations. They live on the step, under Step automations, and become available once the step has been saved and published.
Add an automation and set its Trigger to After the user has been pending for a duration. Then:
- Set the duration. Run after the user has been pending for however long you choose. This counts forward from the moment they landed on the step and only fires if they are still sitting there, not yet complete.
- Turn on Repeat if one message is not enough. Repeat every sets the gap and Max times caps it, so "every 3 weeks, up to 4 times" is a polite chase you never have to remember to send.
- Write the notification. Choose the Delivery (email, push, or both), send it from Vome or from your own connected domain, use a saved template if you have one, and set your own subject and message.
You can add as many automations as you like to the same step, which is how you build an escalation rather than a single nag. A friendly note at 3 days, a firmer one at 10, and at 21 days an automation that notifies your coordinators and watchers instead of the person.
Two more actions on the same trigger are worth knowing. The Still interested? notification adds Yes and No buttons to the email: yes puts the person back into the sequence, and no runs whatever follow-up you configured, so a genuinely dead application can close itself out. And an automation can mark somebody inactive for the sequence or remove them from it once you have chased long enough.
Full detail is in How do sequence step automations work on Vome?
Which one do I use?
The due-date reminder counts backwards from a deadline and sends one message in Vome's words. A step automation counts forwards from the moment they arrived on the step, can repeat, and carries your own subject and body. Most organizations end up using both: the due date for the deadline itself, and one or two step automations for the chase.
5. Nudge one person by hand
Automations are for the pattern. When you want to prompt this one person today, nudge them from the sequence dashboard.
Open the sequence, find the person's profile card, and open its three-dot actions menu. Choose Send nudge / sequence link. The popup gives you that person's unique sequence link with a copy button, so you can paste it wherever you like, and a Nudge user button that offers two methods:
- Email nudge. Opens the email composer already filled in with the subject "Reminder to continue sequence" and a gentle message containing their link. Edit it before you send, or send it as it stands.
- Chat message nudge. Opens a chat with that person, pre-filled with the same reminder and their link. This one is unavailable for offline profiles, since an offline profile has no Vome account to receive a chat.
Nothing stops you doing both. Whichever they get, the link takes them straight back into their sequence, so they do not have to go looking for it. That is the whole point of nudging from here rather than sending your own email: the person clicks once and is standing on the step you need them to finish.
6. What if prompting is not the answer?
Sometimes the person is not the problem.
- They are waiting on you. If the step needs administrator review, they may have finished their part days ago. Check the step's status before you chase them.
- The step is the problem. If your Analytics panel shows one step holding almost everybody, rewrite it. Unclear instructions, a review that nobody performs, or a document request that should have been a form all show up as a bottleneck rather than as a group of unmotivated people.
- They have a genuine reason to stop. Pause them instead of chasing them. Paused time can be excluded from automation timing, so they do not come back to a pile of reminders. See How do I pause and resume a user in a sequence on Vome?
- This one person needs a different deadline. You can set or clear a date on an individual profile's step without touching the sequence. See How do I manually set or clear an expiration date on a specific user's step?
- They are simply gone. Move them back a step if they need to redo something, or let an automation mark them inactive and clear your list.
Summary
- Vome tracks how long each person has been on their current step. Sort by Time in sequence, or filter by Overdue, to find them.
- Set a due date on the step. It is internal, it starts when the person arrives on the step, and it drives everything else.
- Turn on the automated reminder to notify the person a set number of days before that due date. One reminder, in Vome's words.
- Use step automations, triggered after the user has been pending for a duration, for repeating reminders in your own words. Add several on one step to build an escalation.
- Check the sequence's master due date/reminder switch before assuming reminders are broken.
- Nudge an individual from their profile card's three-dot menu, by email or chat, and they get a link straight back into their sequence.
- If one step is holding everybody, fix the step rather than chasing the people.