Handle replies and stop follow-up

Recovery brings tracked replies into the inquiry conversation and pauses follow-up for human attention. Your team handles the conversation and the next step. Managed owner alerts support that handoff; they are not a promise that every teammate or external tool receives a notification.

Respond and take over

1. Open the recovery conversation and read the customer reply, any exception, and the email status before acting.
2. The responsible owner can use Reply in Porchlight and Send human reply when sending is authorized and configured. Recovery stays paused after the human reply.
3. To work in your own mailbox, choose Email from my inbox. This pauses recovery and opens a draft. Opening the draft does not send email or record a sent message.
4. If you replied or called elsewhere, use Record Contacted elsewhere and record the next action. Personal mailbox activity and calls are not synchronized.
5. Use Pause or Save next action when you need to hold work for an owner decision. Finished or handed-off inquiries require a separate owner resume preview; they do not automatically restart.

Ambiguous replies or missing plain text create an exception and pause possible follow-up. Review the source with support before trying to resume. Auto replies are handled separately from human replies; do not assume an out-of-office response is a sales conversation.

Check owner notifications

The recovery sender setup shows the current verified owner mailbox used for notifications. The conversation's Owner alerts section shows pending, accepted, delivered, rejected, or uncertain states. Provider acceptance is not confirmed delivery.

Use Retry owner alert only when offered for a pending or rejected alert. An unknown or dispatching attempt needs reconciliation; do not resend blindly. Arrange your team's internal handoff from that owner mailbox. Additional recipients or external team-notification integrations need confirmation with guided setup rather than an assumed setting.

Respect opt-outs and suppression

Follow-up messages include a visible Unsubscribe link and instructions to reply STOP. Opening the link displays a confirmation; submitting it stops marketing follow-up. Supported mailbox one-click unsubscribe also stops follow-up. Recognized opt-out replies, complaints and provider delivery blocks prevent further sending. A plain STOP on the first line is the clearest reply request. Uncertain refusal creates an owner-review hold. Do not rely on every possible phrasing being recognized automatically: when you see a request to stop, pause the inquiry and get help if its suppression state is unclear.

During factual review, set Permission to use this email for follow-up to Not permitted when appropriate. Unknown permission is not approval. Do not confirm permission merely because an email appears in an export.

Reimporting a CSV or merging a contact does not erase suppression. A paused inquiry is not the same as permission to resume. Deliberate human replies may remain available after a marketing opt-out, but still respect hard bounces, complaints, and provider blocks. Do not use that path to continue a marketing sequence.

A stop cannot recall an email already handed to the provider; later follow-up remains blocked. If acceptance is uncertain, wait for reconciliation rather than sending a duplicate. Get recovery reply or suppression help. Include the conversation reference and visible status, without copying private customer correspondence unnecessarily.