How to log and work through outreach

Outreach is everything the shop owes a customer: a call back, an email, a text. It lives in Customers › Outreach, one list the whole team shares, beside the customer directory (see What is the Customers area?).

The page says it in one line: "Everything the shop owes a customer. Anyone can pick up anything." Your workspace may use its own word for this; Settings › Terminology shows both.

When would you use outreach instead of a task?

When the job is a conversation with a named customer, and "did anyone actually reach them" is the question you will be asked. An outreach holds who to reach, how to reach them, how many times somebody tried and what was said.

Somebody rings Fairgreen Golf Co. about a warranty repair while the person who can help is out. That is an outreach: a name, a number, what it is about, and a place for whoever picks it up to log each try.

You do not lose the task side. Raising an outreach also raises a paired task, so it shows up in the owner's Work › My tasks next to the rest of their work (see What are tasks?).

Before you start

Every member can open Customers › Outreach and work anything on it. Raising new outreach needs the Create outreach row in Settings › Permissions, which members have by default (see How to set who can do what).

The Total spent column, the customer's profile and their Shopify notes need View customers, and their recent orders need View orders.

How do you raise one?

From Create new (the + just below your workspace name at the top of the menu), choose Outreach. On a phone browser it is the Create pill in the Open menu drawer. The New outreach form opens.

1. Set the pills along the top: Assign to (a teammate, or Nobody, anyone can claim it), Reach by (Call, Email or Text), Kind and Urgency (Normal, Urgent or Emergency).
2. Under Who to call (or Who to email, Who to text), search for a customer or type a new name.
3. Add a Phone number for a call or a text, or an email address for an email.
4. Write what it is about in What's it about? (optional).
5. Press Create outreach.

Choose something in Assign to before you press the button; pick Nobody, anyone can claim it to leave it for whoever is free. Kind starts on General, the one kind no workspace can remove, and an admin sets up the rest in Settings › Outreach types (see How to set up your kinds of outreach).

If you assign it to somebody else, they get a push notification titled "Outreach:" and the customer's name.

Can you raise one from a chat message?

Yes. Hover a message and press the phone button, whose tooltip reads Create outreach. The form opens with the first teammate @mentioned in the message in Assign to and the first customer tagged in it as the contact.

Raised this way, a card headed Outreach is posted into that channel, so the handover happens in front of the team. Raised from Create new, nothing is posted to chat. How to turn a conversation into work covers the card.

A workflow can raise outreach too, with its Create outreach step. Its card shows the workflow's name, and the Raised by filter can pick it out. See How to create tasks and records from a workflow.

What happens to the customer's details?

A new name becomes a contact you can find again. If you picked an existing customer with no phone number on file, the number you typed is added to their record.

A number already on file is never replaced, so logging a call cannot quietly change a customer's details. Numbers show as (214)-555-0123, and you can tap one on a phone to dial it.

If the form asks for a valid phone number, type a ten-digit US number, or start with + and the country code. Put extensions and notes in What's it about? instead.

How do you read the list?

Customers › Outreach opens as a List, newest first, with the columns Customer and reason, Urgency, Due, Total spent, Owner and Added. In Urgency, Normal shows nothing, Urgent shows an amber dot and Emergency a rose one.

The pills under the title narrow it. Everyone is where it opens, Mine is what you own, Unclaimed is what nobody owns yet, and Show done adds finished outreach back. Each pill shows its count.

For anything narrower, use the search box ("Search a customer or reason") or Filter. It offers Urgency and Call, email or text, plus Kind, Stage, Owner and Raised by when there is more than one to choose between. Group by puts the rows under their Stage or Due date, or Nothing.

What does the board show?

Press Board at the top right. It shows one column per kind of outreach, with the most urgent at the top of each column.

Drag a card to another column to change its kind. A card nobody owns carries a Claim button, and a card shows Tried 2× once somebody has logged a try. Clicking a card opens the List with that outreach's row open.

How do you work one?

Click a row and it opens in place, and several can be open at once. At the top is a button to reach the customer, such as Call (214)-555-0123, which hands the number or address to your phone or computer.

The Details card holds what you change as you go:

• Status is the stage. A new workspace has Open, Called and Done, and an admin can rename or add stages in Settings › Stages, so yours may use its own words.
• Kind and How (Call, Email or Text) say what sort of outreach it is.
• Owner shows Claim while nobody owns it. Otherwise pick a teammate, or Nobody, anyone can claim it, to hand it over.
• Urgency, and Due, the date and time on the paired task.
• Tried appears once somebody logs a try, with how long ago the last one was.

Around it sit the customer's profile from Klaviyo (Spent, Orders, Avg order), their notes and recent orders from Shopify, a Related card with the paired task, and Activity and notes, where you add a note.

How do you log a try that did not get through?

Press No answer in Details. It counts a try and keeps the outreach open.

The Tried row then shows the count, so the next person knows the history before they dial.

How do you finish one?

Pick a finished stage, such as Done, in Status. A note box opens: write what happened, then press Save & mark done. The note is required, because it is what the next person reads.

Anyone on the team can move, hand over or finish any outreach. To bring a finished one back, turn on Show done, open it and set Status to an open stage such as Open.

What is the paired task?

When you raise an outreach, Tideswell also creates a task titled Call, Email or Text followed by the customer's name. It goes in the owner's department, or in yours when nobody owns it or the owner is in none. Its priority follows the urgency: Emergency becomes Urgent, and Urgent becomes High.

Finishing the outreach completes the task, and completing the task finishes the outreach. When neither of you is in a department, the outreach is saved on its own and Due reads No paired task. See How to set up departments.

When should you delete one?

Only when it was raised by mistake, such as against the wrong customer. Delete at the foot of Details asks "Delete this outreach?" and then removes it, and its paired task, for everyone.

Make sure before you delete, because a deleted outreach does not come back. If the conversation happened, finish it with a note instead so it stays on the record.

Where does the Customers badge come from?

The number on Customers in the menu, and on its Outreach row, counts open outreach assigned to you. It falls as you finish them.

When that count is zero and open outreach in the workspace is waiting to be claimed, an amber dot shows instead.

Can you work outreach from your phone?

Yes, in the Tideswell iPhone app (see Using Tideswell on your phone). Open the ⇕ menu and choose Outreach, then use the switch at the top to move between All, Mine and Free. Show done at the top right adds finished ones.

Open one to see Why, its Task and its Notes, where you can add a note. Press I'll take this to claim it, Tried, no answer to log a try, or Mark as done, which asks What happened? before it closes.

Reopen brings a finished one back, and the button pinned at the bottom calls, texts or emails the customer. In chat, long-press a message and choose Raise outreach; see How to use chat and tasks on your phone.