---
name: "outbound_reply_handling"
description: "Handle replies to outbound email end to end: sort every reply into a full taxonomy, stop sequences, answer interest and objections with short templates, treat not-now as dated future pipeline, and hand interested replies to a meeting owner with a packet that keeps them from getting lost. Triggers on outbound replies, cold email replies, reply triage, objection replies, not-now follow-up, referral replies, or SDR to AE handoff."
---

# Outbound Reply Handling

## Purpose
Turn outbound replies into booked meetings, dated future pipeline, and clean data, without losing warm replies in a shared inbox or letting automated follow-ups run over a human conversation. Covers sales outbound, founder outreach, partnership and recruiting outreach, and any sequence tool where a reply should change what happens next.

## Workflow

### 1. Stop first, classify second
- Stop the automated sequence for that person the moment any reply arrives, before you decide what it means. A follow-up that lands after a prospect replied, especially after they asked to be removed, does real damage and is hard to explain.
- Read the full reply, including the signature and any forwarded thread. Signatures carry role changes, alternate contacts, and phone numbers that the body does not.
- Run the bundled first pass if you want a starting label: `python3 scripts/classify_reply.py reply.txt` or pipe the text in. It returns a category, a next action, and whether suppression applies. Treat it as a draft label. A human confirms every label that drives a reply.

### 2. Sort into one category
Pick exactly one primary category. When two fit, use the priority order in the taxonomy reference.
- opt_out or complaint: suppress the same day, across every list and tool.
- bounce: hard bounces close the address, soft bounces pause it.
- auto_reply: out of office pauses to the return date, left the company closes the address.
- referral or wrong_person: a named owner is a referral, no name is wrong person.
- not_now: a future date or trigger is named.
- objection: a specific blocker, split by kind (price or budget, incumbent, no need, trust or proof, authority, wrong approach).
- not_interested: a plain no, with no date and no blocker named.
- interested: meeting request or a plain positive.
- curious: asks for more, with no yes and no objection.
- question: a direct question that needs a direct answer.
- unclear: intent cannot be read honestly. Mark it unknown, never guess it positive.
Full signals and actions per category are in references/taxonomy.md.

### 3. Apply the stop and suppression rules
- Opt-out and complaint: suppression is permanent for outreach, applied the same day, and checked in every tool that can send, not just the one that received the reply. The FTC CAN-SPAM guide allows 10 business days to honor an opt-out and Google and Yahoo bulk rules allow 2 days. Both are ceilings. Same day is the rule here.
- Interested, objection, curious, question, referral, wrong person, not interested, and unclear: sequence stopped for that person, record updated, human owner assigned.
- Out of office: sequence paused, not stopped for good, with the resume date set to the return date they stated.
- Hard bounce: address marked bad, sequence stopped, no retry and no re-enrichment of the same address.

### 4. Reply like a person, with the right template
- Reply in the same thread, short, with one ask. Use references/templates.md for the exact wording per category and fill every bracket with a real fact.
- Interested: recap why they replied in one line, offer two specific times with time zones, and say what the call will cover. Do not send a bare calendar link.
- Curious: answer the exact thing they asked for, then ask one diagnostic question about how they handle the job today. Do not send a deck or a feature list they did not ask for.
- Question: answer their question in the first line. If you do not know, say so, give a date for the answer, and meet that date.
- Objection: use Listen, Acknowledge, Explore, Respond. Acknowledge their specific point, ask one question that finds the real blocker, then respond with one verified proof point and one next step.
- Not interested: at most one brief thank-you that closes the loop, then stop.

### 5. Treat not-now as pipeline, not as a soft no
- Confirm in one short reply that names the date or trigger they gave, in their words, and promise no contact before it. Keep that promise. No helpful bumps during the wait.
- Close the current sequence, create a dated task with a named owner, and record: their exact timing words, the re-open date or trigger, the blocker, and the signal that was relevant to them.
- Re-open on the date with the re-open template in references/handoff.md. Reference the earlier conversation, name what changed if anything did, and ask once. A new date from them goes back into the pipeline. A no at re-open moves the record to not interested, with the reason logged.

### 6. Hand interested replies off with a packet
- Assign a named meeting owner the same business day. A queue is not an owner.
- Build the packet in references/handoff.md before the meeting: who they are, why now, their reply word for word, the problem in their words, knowns and unknowns against your qualification framework, objections raised, promises made with dates, and the next step with time and agenda.
- If the owner is a different person from the reply handler, the handler introduces them in the thread and the owner confirms receipt of the packet. The owner never re-asks a question the prospect already answered.
- After the meeting, the owner records the outcome the same day and that outcome goes back to the handler. Rejected handoffs get a specific reason from a fixed list, not a vague pass.

### 7. Log, then review the mix
- Log every reply with category, subcategory, verbatim text or thread link, owner, next step, and next step date. A label with no words behind it cannot be audited.
- Report human replies and auto-replies separately, and count unique people for reply rates.
- Review the category mix weekly on active campaigns. Rising opt-outs and complaints point at targeting or copy, rising wrong person points at list building, rising no need points at the problem hypothesis. Fix the cause the mix names.

## Output Contract
When asked to handle, triage, or draft a response to outbound replies, return:
1. A table or list of the replies with category, subcategory, the signal phrase that earned the label, stop or suppress status, owner, and next step with a date.
2. For each reply that needs one, the exact draft response, short, in thread, one ask, built from references/templates.md with no invented facts.
3. For each interested reply, the completed handoff packet fields from references/handoff.md, with unknowns marked as unknown.
4. For each not-now reply, the pipeline entry: exact timing words, re-open date or trigger, blocker, relevant signal, and owner.
5. A short mix summary: counts per category, what the mix says about targeting, copy, or list quality, and the one fix it points to.

## Operating Rules
1. Stop before you sort. No automated step fires after a human reply until a human clears it.
2. Suppression is same day and everywhere. Check every sending tool, the CRM, and any shared list, not just the inbox that got the reply.
3. Never argue with an objection or a no. Acknowledge, ask one question if the door is open, answer with proof you actually have, then accept the answer.
4. Never invent proof. No made up customers, numbers, prices, dates, or certifications to fill a template. Say what you do not have and offer the real review step instead.
5. One ask per reply. Two asks in one short email means the prospect answers neither.
6. Dates are promises. A not-now date, an answer owed date, and a meeting time are commitments. Record them where a task system will fire on them, not in a note nobody reads.
7. The prospect never repeats themselves. Anything they already said travels in the packet, the invite, and the owner first message.
8. Verbatim beats summary for the key lines. Their wording on timing, problems, and reasons goes into the record as written.
9. Referrals are handled with care. Name the referrer only when they offered the introduction or copied the new person in.
10. Response speed targets in this skill are team policy you set, not research findings. Set them, write them down, and measure against them honestly.

## References
- [Reply taxonomy](references/taxonomy.md) for signals, actions, and reporting rules for all twelve categories and the six objection kinds.
- [Response templates](references/templates.md) for fill-in wording for interested, curious, question, objection, not-now, referral, wrong person, not interested, and out of office replies.
- [Handoff and not-now pipeline](references/handoff.md) for the packet fields, the warm introduction, acceptance and rejection rules, and the re-open workflow.
- Classifier script at scripts/classify_reply.py for a deterministic first-pass label on a single reply.