Notes and messages

Two panels sit near the bottom of every lead, one above the other, and they look much alike. A box, some text, a button.

Notes are internal. The customer never sees them. Messages go straight to the customer’s account, and email them to say so.

That is the whole of it, and it is the only thing on this page you have to remember. The two are kept apart rather than merged into one tidy timeline precisely because a single timeline is the interface that gets an internal note typed into the customer’s box, and the cost of that mistake lands on you rather than on us.

The panel headings say which is which. Notes carries the line “Internal. The customer never sees these.” Messages is titled with the customer’s name and says what they can see.

The figures here are illustrative.Screenshots come from a demo installer with example pricing, so every cost, saving, payback period and instalment is made up. Your own numbers come from the pricing your installer has entered.

Notes

The record of what your team did. Calls, site visits, the thing the surveyor noticed, why you dropped the price.

123

1. The panel says it out loud, because the message box is only a little further down the page.
2. The note you are about to add. Nothing here is saved yet.
3. Add note is dark because there is something to add. On an empty box it greys out.

Notes are attributed and dated automatically, as the saved one underneath shows. You never have to sign one.

Type into the box and press Add note. The note is saved against your name and the date, and appears in the list underneath, newest first, because the useful question on opening a lead is what happened last.

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1. The box clears back to its prompt, so the same note cannot be added twice by accident.
2. Add note greys out again until there is something to add.
3. The name of whoever wrote it and the date, under every note. The newest sits at the top.

Up to 5,000 characters a note. That is several paragraphs, which is more than a call summary needs.

Three things about notes that are not obvious:

• A note cannot be edited or deleted. There is no control for either. If you need to correct one, add another saying so. This is what makes the thread a record rather than a scratchpad, and it is why nobody has to wonder whether what they are reading is the version somebody tidied up.
• The Comment box on the quote list writes into this same thread. It is pre-filled with the latest note, but typing over it adds a new note rather than editing the old one. Nothing is lost, but the box does look more like an edit than it is.
• Everyone at your company can add one. Reps as well as admins.

Messages

Two-way correspondence with the homeowner, in their own account with you.

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1. The heading carries the customer's name, and the line below says whether they can actually receive this.
2. The reply, typed and not yet sent. This is the last moment at which it is still yours.
3. Send to customer. Not Save, not Add. The button is worded to be read.

Up to 4,000 characters a message. There is no attachment control here; files go through Documents.

12

1. Your message joins the thread immediately, timestamped and attributed to whoever sent it.
2. The box clears back to its prompt, which names the person you are writing to. There is no draft state and no way to unsend, so read before you send.

Both of these went out from your side. A message from the customer carries an amber rule down its left edge, so the two directions never blur.

Sending does two things at once: the message appears in the customer’s account, and an email goes to them saying there is a message waiting, branded as you. There is no unsend. Nothing typed here can be taken back.

When the customer has no account

Messaging only works if the homeowner has an account with you. Where they do not, the panel says:

{name} has no account yet, so they cannot receive messages.

and the compose box is not shown at all, rather than accepting a message that would go nowhere.

A homeowner gets an account in one of two ways: by leaving the box on the last step of your calculator ticked, which is the default, or by asking for a sign-in link themselves. You cannot create one for them. If you need to reach somebody who has no account, use the phone number or the email address at the top of the lead, or send them a quote, which is an ordinary email and needs no account at all.

Unread, and who counts as having read it

A message from a customer is marked Unread in the thread, and the lead shows an amber “{n} unread” badge on the quote list.

Opening the lead marks the thread read for your whole team. There is no per-person read state, deliberately. Per-rep unread counts double the amount of state in the system and answer a question nobody at a five-person installer is asking: if one of you has dealt with it, the company has dealt with it. The trade is that a colleague opening a lead out of curiosity clears the badge for everybody, so the badge is a team to-do list rather than a personal inbox.

One email per unread run

This is the rule that surprises people, and it is worth understanding before you rely on email to tell you anything.

An alert is only sent if the recipient has no other unread message in that thread. A customer who writes four messages in a row generates one email, not four. The counter resets the moment somebody on your side reads them, so the next message after that produces a fresh email.

The consequence is blunt: a recipient who never reads gets exactly one email, ever. There is no reminder, no daily digest and no second nudge, because a re-nudge needs a scheduler and this deployment does not have one. The same rule applies in the other direction, so a customer who ignores your first message will not be emailed again about your second.

Set your notification address

If Where new enquiries go in Theme settings is empty, nobody is told anything: not about a new enquiry, and not about a customer writing to you. It is the one field with no sensible default, which is why at least one address is required and why an empty one blocks going live. See email reference.

Which one do I want?

You want to	Use
Record what happened on a call	Notes
Flag something to a colleague	Notes
Answer a question the customer asked	Messages
Tell the customer a survey date	Messages
Write down why you discounted	Notes
Send a document	Documents
Send a price	A quote

If you are unsure, use a note. A note that should have been a message is a delay. A message that should have been a note is in somebody’s inbox.