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One call is a phone call. A sequence is a campaign. The difference in results is not small: most of what a campaign gets you comes from steps two and three, because the people who answer the first call were always going to answer, and everybody else is where the work is. You build the sequence on the campaign’s Overview tab.

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Before you start

  • A campaign with one call step that you have already tested on five contacts. See Start a calling campaign.
  • Fifteen minutes.
  • For text steps, a number with texting switched on. For email steps, Pro or above.
  • A decision about what you want the sequence to achieve. A sequence with no goal becomes four ways of saying the same thing.

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Steps

1

Open the Overview tab

Open the campaign and go to Overview. Your existing steps are laid out in order, and this is where you add, reorder, and remove them.
2

Add the second step

Add a step and choose its type: Phone call, SMS, or Email. For a first sequence, make step two a text to the people who did not answer step one.See Add a text message step.
3

Set when it runs, and on what

Every step has a trigger and a delay. Set the trigger to run only after a call that went to voicemail or could not be connected, and give it a delay so the text does not arrive while the caller’s phone is still ringing.This is the part that makes a sequence intelligent rather than repetitive. See Choose when each step runs.
4

Add the third step

An email a few days later, or a second call attempt at a different time of day. Different time of day matters: somebody who does not answer at 10 AM twice may answer at 6 PM once.
5

Order the steps

Drag steps to reorder them, and use insert to drop a step between two existing ones rather than adding at the end and rebuilding the delays.
6

Run it on five contacts

A sequence has more ways to be wrong than a single step, and most of them only show up when a real contact walks the whole path. Watch one contact go all the way through. See Track a contact through a campaign.

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You will know it worked when

You can watch one test contact take the branch you expected: answered on step one and stopped, or missed on step one, texted on step two, emailed on step three.

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Sequences that work

The one everybody should start with. Call, then text the no answers, then stop. Appointment reminder. Short, and it should stop the moment it succeeds. Invoice chase. The text carries the payment link, which is the whole point. Notice step two runs when a person answered. Somebody who agreed to pay on the phone still needs the link, and sending it five minutes later while the conversation is fresh is the highest converting message in the sequence.

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How long a sequence should be

Three or four steps. Beyond that you are not following up, you are pestering, and the marginal contact you reach on step seven costs you the goodwill of everybody who got six messages and did not want any. Two rules worth holding to:
  • Every sequence needs an end. Either it runs out of steps, or an exit rule stops it. See Stop calling a contact.
  • Mix the channels. Three calls is worse than a call, a text, and an email, because the person who ignores calls may read a text.

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What else you can do here

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If it did not work

Step two never runs. Its trigger does not match. If step two runs only after voicemail, contacts whose call was answered never take that branch, which is correct. Check what outcome your contacts actually got. See Track a contact through a campaign. Steps ran in the wrong order. Delays overlap. A step with a one hour delay can overtake a step with a two day delay, because delays run from the previous step, not from a fixed timetable. A text arrived while the phone was still ringing. The delay on step two is too short. An hour is a sensible floor for a follow up text. Everybody gets every step. Your triggers are set to run unconditionally. Add outcome conditions so each step only reaches the people it is for. Contacts pile up on one step. That step is not firing. Filter the contacts list by step to confirm, then check its trigger and delay.

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FAQ

Yes, and that is the point of a sequence. Add a step per channel on the Overview tab, give each one a trigger and a delay, and Brilo runs the whole thing without anybody driving it.
Three or four. Most of the value is in steps two and three, and past step four you annoy more people than you reach. Every sequence should also have an exit rule so it ends for people who are not interested.
Yes. Set the text step to run only when the previous call went to voicemail or could not be connected. The people who answered skip it. See Choose when each step runs.
Yes. Drag to reorder, or insert a step between two existing ones. Contacts partway through continue on the updated sequence, so check the delays still make sense after a reorder.
At least an hour between a call and a follow up message, and one to three days between attempts to reach somebody again. Delays run from the previous step rather than from a fixed schedule.
Once more, at a different time of day, is worth it. A third and fourth call at the same time of day is not, and it is what gets numbers reported. Cap it with Max call attempts.