Time rules for support teams: 8 follow ups to automate when a conversation waits too long

You asked a customer for an order number, a photo or a yes, and they went quiet. Or the customer is the one waiting, and their chat has slipped below 30 newer ones in somebody's list.

A timer catches both kinds of silence. Below are 8 rules with exact timers and message texts you can copy, plus how the timer counts, so each rule fires when you expect it to.

Customers remember the waiting

In a survey of 800 Americans who bought a home in the past 2 years, published by Jobber, 15% said they had to follow up repeatedly with a service provider. 9% never received a response at all (reported by Cleaner).

Jobber sells software to those service businesses, so read the numbers as vendor research from the US.

The rules below use Deskwoot's names for triggers and actions, because Deskwoot is our tool. The timers and message texts work in any help desk that can act after a set time.

First, agree whose turn it is

A timer knows how long a conversation has been quiet. It does not know who wrote last.

In Deskwoot a time rule cannot check the message type or the content, so the status has to carry that information:

• Open means it is your turn. The customer waits on you.
• Pending means it is their turn. You answered and asked for something.

Send and wait sets the status for you

Deskwoot's send button has a menu with Send and wait. It sends the reply and sets the conversation to Pending.

When the customer answers in that conversation, whichever channel it runs on, it goes back to Open by itself. Snoozed and resolved conversations are left out of time rules completely.

One habit before you build anything

If your team only ever presses Send, every quiet conversation stays Open. Then no rule can tell a customer who owes you a photo from one who has waited 2 days for an answer.

So agree on one habit first: a reply that ends with a question goes out with Send and wait.

How the timer counts

Each rule has the trigger Time Passed, a timer, conditions and actions. The timer measures from one of 3 points:

• the last activity, such as the last message from the customer, your team or your bot;
• the status change, for example the moment a reply set the conversation to Pending;
• creation, when the conversation started.

You set it in hours or days, anywhere from 1 hour to 365 days.

Checks run every 5 minutes, nights included

Deskwoot checks every 5 minutes, and only open and pending conversations. A 1 day rule fires within about 5 minutes after the 24 hours are up.

Nights and weekends count, because business hours play no part. A reply sent with Send and wait on Friday at 17:30 gets its 1 day nudge on Saturday at about 17:30.

Whole days at least keep the nudge at the time of day your team was working.

Each rule acts once per conversation

A rule acts again only when its time starts over, for example after the customer writes again.

A new rule works through your backlog at once

A new rule acts at once on everything that already qualifies, oldest first, up to 200 conversations per rule and check.

Save "resolve after 3 days pending" while 450 old pending conversations sit in your list, and all of them are resolved within about 15 minutes.

Chains of reminders measure from the status change

A message sent by a rule counts as activity. So a second rule that measures from the last activity starts counting again at that message.

For a chain of reminders on a pending conversation, measure every step from the status change, which a message does not move. A private note from a rule moves neither.

The 8 rules at a glance

When the customer goes quiet

1. A friendly nudge after 1 day

• Timer: the status change is more than 1 day ago.
• Conditions: Status is Pending, Inbox is your support email address.
• Action: Send Message.

Hi, just checking in. If you still need help, reply to this email with the details we asked for and we will pick it up right away. If it is sorted, you don't need to answer.

The text goes to the customer as a reply on the conversation's channel. Build rules that write to customers per inbox, because channels differ in what you may send and when (rule 2 shows why).

One day is a sensible start for consumers, while the request is still fresh in their mind.

Business customers often need longer. Zendesk's own workflow recipe for ticket reminders sends the first reminder after 4 days in Pending, a second after 6 days and solves the ticket after 7. Timers of 4, 6 and 7 days copy that pace.

2. A nudge on WhatsApp inside the 24 hours

• Timer: the status change is more than 12 hours ago.
• Conditions: Status is Pending, Inbox is your WhatsApp number.
• Action: Send Message.

WhatsApp has its own clock. According to Meta's documentation, a message or call from the customer opens a 24 hour customer service window, and "businesses can only send non-template messages to users when this window is open."

The 24 hours start with the customer's last message, and your own reply does not extend them. If your team answers within a few hours, a 12 hour nudge lands inside the window.

If it lands outside, WhatsApp refuses it and Deskwoot marks the message as failed. On a number connected through Meta's Cloud API, Deskwoot also adds a line to the conversation saying the 24 hour window has expired.

From then on only an approved template reaches the customer, which our WhatsApp support guide explains. Rules never write into group chats.

3. Last call and resolve after 3 days

• Timer: the status change is more than 3 days ago.
• Conditions: Status is Pending, Inbox is your support email address.
• Actions: Send Message, then Change Status to Resolved.

We haven't heard back, so we are closing this for now. Nothing is lost: reply to this email whenever you are ready and we will continue where we left off.

Rules 1 and 3 both measure from the status change, so the nudge on day 1 does not push the last call back. If the customer answers in between, the conversation turns Open and both rules stop.

A reply after the resolve still reaches you. Within the inbox's reopen window, 7 days by default, it reopens the same conversation.

A rule resolves exactly like a click on Resolve. So if the inbox sends satisfaction surveys, this customer gets one too.

For WhatsApp, make a copy of this rule with Change Status only, since the message would arrive after the 24 hours.

When the customer waits on you

4. Remind the owner after 4 hours

• Timer: the last activity is more than 4 hours ago.
• Condition: Status is Open.
• Action: Add Private Note, notify the assignee.

This customer has waited 4 hours. Answer, or use Send and wait if the next step is theirs.

The note stays inside the team and resets no timer. A chat that arrives at 22:00 gets it at about 2:00, where it waits for the morning.

On a conversation without an assignee the note notifies nobody. A team that works from a shared queue should notify the team instead (teams come with Business).

5. Raise the priority after 1 day

• Timer: the last activity is more than 1 day ago.
• Conditions: Status is Open, Priority is None.
• Actions: Change Priority to High, Add Label "waited 1 day".

Rule 4 fired on these conversations hours earlier, so this one catches what the reminder did not fix. The label gives whoever starts first in the morning a list to filter for.

6. Give a stuck conversation back to the team after 2 days

• Timer: the last activity is more than 2 days ago.
• Conditions: Status is Open, Team is your support team.
• Actions: Unassign, then Add Private Note, notify the team.

Unassigned after 2 days without an answer. Whoever is free, please take it.

This one covers the colleague who is ill or on holiday. Unassign works exactly like the Unassign button: the conversation stays with its team.

If the inbox assigns by round robin, another team member gets it (never the one who had it). Otherwise it waits as unassigned. Teams are part of the Business plan.

7. Escalate after a week

• Timer: creation is more than 7 days ago.
• Condition: Status is Open.
• Actions: Assign Team "Team leads", Change Priority to Urgent, Add Private Note, notify the team.

It measures from creation on purpose. A conversation with daily back and forth never goes quiet long enough to trip a rule on activity, yet a week without a solution is what a team lead should see.

Check one setting first. Deskwoot's auto resolve is on by default and resolves open and pending conversations after 7 days without activity.

Under Settings, Conversation Workflows, turn on "Skip conversations waiting for agent's reply". Then a customer who waited a week for you gets escalated instead of quietly closed.

Tickets that wait on someone else

8. Chase the supplier after 5 days

• Timer: the status change is more than 5 days ago.
• Conditions: Type is Ticket, Ticket status is Waiting on supplier.
• Actions: Add Internal Comment, notify the assignee, then Change Priority to High.

Tickets are part of Enterprise. Before you save the rule, prepare the status:

1. Create a custom ticket status called Waiting on supplier under Open.
2. Switch on Pauses SLA, so your response targets stop counting while the part is on its way.

The time rule still counts while the SLA is paused. Moving a ticket into a custom status is a status change, so the 5 days start when someone sets it.

Rules on tickets never write to the customer.

Time rules or auto resolve?

Auto resolve works on every Deskwoot plan, the free Hacker plan included. It checks once an hour, can send a closing message, and single inboxes can get their own number of days (settings here).

Treat it as the broom that keeps old conversations out of your lists. Use time rules for anything that should happen sooner, only to certain conversations, or do more than resolve.

Before you switch them on

• Run the internal rules (4 to 7) for a week before the ones that write to customers, and read the notes they leave.
• Count what already qualifies. Filter the list for Pending and look at the oldest, because a new rule acts on all of them in its first minutes.
• Name each rule after what it does, such as "Pending 3 days: last call and resolve". Status changes, assignments and notes made by a rule carry its name in the conversation, so your team sees why something moved.

Run the 8 rules in Deskwoot

With the rules running, a conversation that waits on you puts a reminder note in front of its owner after 4 hours and lands with your team leads after a week. A customer who went quiet gets a nudge and a last call, and nobody has to keep a list by hand.

See the first rule work on day 1

Build rule 4 with a 1 hour timer as a test and write to your inbox from a private address. About an hour later the note appears in that conversation with the rule's name on it.

What it costs

Time rules come with every paid Deskwoot plan, priced per agent per month:

• Startup, $4 ($3.20 billed yearly): rules 1 to 5.
• Business, $8 ($6.40 billed yearly): adds the teams that rules 6 and 7 use.
• Enterprise, $12 ($9.60 billed yearly): adds tickets, custom statuses and SLA policies for rule 8.

Start with the internal rules

Every new account starts with 7 days of Enterprise without a credit card, for up to 30 seats including yours. That covers everything the 8 rules use.

Start the trial and build rules 4 to 7 first, with the time rules help article open next to you.

When the 7 days end, you pick a paid plan or keep working on the free Hacker plan, which has auto resolve but no time rules. The pricing page shows what each plan includes.