Automating Workflows

Creating automated customer flows with Quotient.

Quotient allows you to automate common internal and external workflows throughout your marketing stack. With the help of the Flow Agent, you can easily put together automations such as…

Sending automated sequences of marketing emails based, like a welcome series or account activation
Sending highly personalized, AI generated emails tailored to each customer's recent activity and firmographics
Updating a prospect's lead score when they signal high intent to purchase, e.g. by performing specific actions on your site
Sending automated notifications to your team when a new customer signs up for your product or achieves a certain lead score

Automations like these help you engage with customers with personalized content at the right time, and they can also help automate repetitive work for your team.

Core Concepts

Flows

Flows are automated sequences of actions orchestrated by the Quotient platform. You can create flows using the flow editor or with the help of the Flow Agent. Every flow starts with a trigger and then proceeds through a series of steps until it's finished.

Flows can also optionally be scoped to a specific segment of people, which you can define dynamically in each flow.

Trigger

Triggers are events or schedules that initiate a flow. There are six different trigger types:

Event Trigger: Activates when a specific user action occurs (email subscribe, page view, add to cart, checkout complete). Responds to customer behavior.
Schedule Trigger: Runs at defined times and frequencies (daily, weekly, monthly). Used for recurring communications.
Person Update Trigger: Activates when a specific field in a customer profile changes. Can trigger on any change or only when matching a specific value.
Person Created Trigger: Activates when a new person record is added to Quotient. Used for initial contact sequences.
Programmatic Trigger: Activates via the Quotient API or SDK. Provides programmatic control over flow initiation.
Marketing Event Trigger: Activates when someone's participation status changes in a marketing event (webinar, conference). Tracks status changes like registered, attended, or no-show.

Steps

Once the trigger has been activated, the flow proceeds through a series of steps. There are seven different step types:

Send Email: Sends an email to the customer using a specified template. Can include dynamic variables for personalization.
AI Email: Uses artificial intelligence to dynamically decide whether to send an email and which template to use based on customer data and behavior.
Delay: Pauses the flow for a specified duration (minutes, hours, days, weeks, months). Controls timing between actions.
Update Person: Updates a field in the person's profile. Works with both standard fields and custom properties.
Notify User: Sends an internal notification to a team member. References users by USER-type fields on the person or company record.
Update Lead Score: Modifies the person's lead score using increment, decrement, or set operations.
Send to CRM: Sends person data to connected CRM systems (Attio, Salesforce, HubSpot). Configurable for different CRM object types.

Conditionals

Conditional steps create branching paths in your flow based on either profile data or random sampling. They evaluate a statement about a person and route them down one of two paths: the "if true" branch or the "if false" branch.

Conditions can be based on:

Profile properties (location, preferences)
Behavioral history (pages viewed, purchases made)
Email engagement metrics
Random sampling (for A/B testing)

Conditionals transform flows from linear sequences into adaptive journeys that respond to each person's unique attributes and behaviors, allowing for targeted messaging without creating separate flows for each scenario.

The Flow Agent

The Flow Agent will assist you with creating and optimizing your flows. You can simply explain the business objective of your flow and it will help fill in the details.

The Flow Agent will commonly work with other agents, particularly the Email Agent for creating email templates to be used in flows and the Audience Agent for creating segments to be used in the flow.

Here are some tips for getting the most out of the Flow Agent:

If there are specific email templates you want to use in your flow, @ mention them so that the Flow Agent knows to use them.
If you are using the Flow Agent to automate workflows with your CRM, make sure to explain to it how your CRM is set up, e.g. any custom fields you use for lead qualification.

Common Use Cases

Flows are a versatile tool that can support a wide range of marketing automation needs. While most commonly used for customer communication, flows can also streamline internal processes and automate data management across your marketing stack.

Let's walk through a few of the most common use cases for flows.

Sending Email to Users

The most common use case for flows is sending automated marketing emails to users. Whereas email broadcasts send a single blast email to many people all at once, flows allow for more personalized, timely messaging that reaches customers at specific moments in their buying journey.

These flows typically leverage the Send Email step to deliver targeted messages, often combined with Delay steps to control timing and Conditional steps to create personalized paths based on customer behavior.

Here are some examples:

Welcome Series - Automatically send a sequence of emails to new subscribers introducing your product or service, typically spaced over several days or weeks. Uses Send Email and Delay steps with an Event trigger for new subscribers.
Customer Activation - Guide new users through key features with timely, targeted emails based on their activity (or lack thereof) in your product. Combines Send Email steps with Conditional logic to check user activity.
Customer Winback - Re-engage inactive customers with personalized offers or content based on their previous purchase history and browsing behavior. Uses Schedule triggers with Conditional steps to identify inactive users.

AI Personalized Email

AI Personalized Email steps are an especially powerful feature of flows in Quotient. These steps allow you to use AI to predict the best email to send a user based on their recent behavior - plus the instructions you provide.

This helps improve conversion rates and improve outreach to customers who may not have been addressed by more deterministic, logic-based flows.

An AI Personalized Email step accepts two main parameters:

Instructions - A single block of instructions you wish to provide the AI. You can give the AI whatever instructions you like here. For example:

"Send promotional emails only to users who have opened emails in the last 30 days"
"Prioritize product recommendations from categories the user has previously purchased"
"Avoid sending more than 2 emails per week to any user"

Available Templates - A list of templates that the AI can choose from. The AI will only choose from a list of pre-approved templates for this particular flow.

Based on these, the AI will choose whether to send a template at all and, if so, which template to send.

It is common to use AI Personalized Email steps in conjunction with schedule triggers. For example you might have a flow that is triggered at 9:00 am every Monday for any users that have not opened an email in the past two weeks. In this flow you could instruct the AI to choose from a set of templates in an effort to re-engage the customer.

Sending Data to the CRM

CRM integration flows automate the synchronization of customer data between Quotient and your CRM system, ensuring your sales and customer success teams always have access to the most current and relevant information.

These flows typically use the Send to CRM step to sync data with systems like Attio, Salesforce, and HubSpot, often combined with Update Lead Score and Update Person steps to track customer progression.

Here are some examples:

Lead Score Updates - Automatically increment a prospect's lead score when they perform specific high-value actions like downloading resources or visiting pricing pages. Uses Update Lead Score steps with Event triggers for high-value actions.
Deal Stage Progression - Move leads through your sales pipeline based on their behavior and engagement with your marketing materials. Uses Conditional steps to check engagement levels before Send to CRM steps.

Notifying Your Team

Quotient can also send notifications via email or Slack to your team when certain events happen. This is helpful for getting your team's attention when someone performs an action that your team should know about - e.g. a new signup or a cancellation.

These flows use the Notify User step to send internal notifications to team members, often triggered by Event or Person Update triggers that signal important customer actions.

New Account Alerts - Notify relevant team members when a new customer signs up, including essential information about the customer's profile and initial activity. Uses Notify User steps with Person Created triggers.
Lead Qualification Notifications - Alert sales representatives when a prospect reaches a specified lead score threshold or performs high-intent actions. Combines Notify User steps with Person Update triggers monitoring lead score changes.
Customer Milestone Notifications - Keep customer success teams informed when accounts reach important usage milestones or when accounts show signs of churn risk. Uses Conditional steps to check milestone criteria before Notify User steps.

Documentation