Reply Modes and Autonomy
Automation on this platform is controlled by four settings, and keeping them apart is what makes it safe to operate. Read this page before you change anything.
The four settings
Section titled “The four settings”| Setting | Answers | Where | Who changes it |
|---|---|---|---|
| Fan’s reply mode | What is allowed for this fan | The fan’s card, in the dashboard or the side panel | Chatters |
| Creator’s reply mode | The mode for fans who have none of their own | Creator Studio → Tools | Managers and owners |
| What the autopilot works on | Which groups of fan the autopilot handles right now | Side panel → Autopilot | Chatters |
| What the autopilot may do here | Whether a chatter may switch those groups on at all | Creator Studio → Tools | Managers and owners |
Think of it as an aircraft. The reply mode says where the aircraft is permitted to fly. The autopilot says whether it is flying itself right now, and over which conversations.
Everything has to agree before a message is sent automatically. A fan set to Draft and send with the autopilot off gets nothing sent. An autopilot working on Draft only fans sends nothing to anybody.
The three reply modes
Section titled “The three reply modes”
Manual (the default)
Section titled “Manual (the default)”A person generates every draft and sends every message.
Use for: your highest-value relationships, any fan who needs judgement, and every creator for at least the first week of operation.
Every new creator starts here. This is deliberate.
Draft only
Section titled “Draft only”When a fan writes, a draft is prepared automatically and waits for a person. A human still sends every message.
Use for: your main working mode once a persona is proven. Chatters arrive to prepared replies instead of blank boxes, which is where most of the speed gain in this platform actually comes from.
This mode carries no sending risk whatsoever — a draft nobody sends affects nobody.
Draft and send
Section titled “Draft and send”Drafts are prepared and may be sent without a person, provided the autopilot is engaged, the manager has allowed it, and every safety condition is met.
Use for: high-volume, low-complexity conversations where the cost of a mediocre reply is low and the cost of no reply is high — for example, fans in early small talk who would otherwise wait hours for an answer.
Setting the mode
Section titled “Setting the mode”For a creator
Section titled “For a creator”Open the creator in the dashboard, go to Tools, and set the mode under Sending automation. This becomes the default for every fan of that creator — including fans nobody has ever touched, and fans the CRM has not met yet.
Raising the creator therefore raises everyone who is following it, in one move.
For an individual fan
Section titled “For an individual fan”Set it on the fan’s card — either in the dashboard, or in the side panel’s Fan or Autopilot tab. It is the same control in all of them.
Leave it on Same as the creator for almost everyone.
| Situation | Setting |
|---|---|
| A whale on an otherwise automated creator | Manual — every word written by a person |
| A demanding fan who needs judgement | Draft only — draft prepared, human sends |
| A low-value, low-risk conversation on a manual creator | Draft and send |
The platform never derives this from spend. A fan becomes manual because someone decided they should be, not because a threshold guessed.
For many fans at once
Section titled “For many fans at once”The dashboard’s fan list has a checkbox on every row. Tick the fans you want, choose the mode, and press Apply to selected. See Changing many fans at once.
What the autopilot may do, per creator
Section titled “What the autopilot may do, per creator”In Creator Studio → Tools, under What the autopilot may do here, a manager decides how much of the above a chatter may actually switch on:
| Setting | Default | Effect |
|---|---|---|
| Autopilot available for this creator | On | Off makes the whole Autopilot tab inert for this creator, in one move, without disturbing the two below |
| May serve fans set to “Draft only” | On | The autopilot writes replies for those fans and leaves them for a person |
| May serve fans set to “Draft and send” | Off | The autopilot writes and sends to those fans |
The third one is the setting after which messages leave without a person reading them. Turning it on asks for a confirmation and records your agreement, with your IP address and browser, in the account’s consent log.
Chatters can see these settings and cannot change them.
The emergency stop
Section titled “The emergency stop”Every creator has an emergency stop, in two places:
| Where | What it is called |
|---|---|
| Creator Studio | Emergency stop — freeze auto-sending |
| Extension popup | Pause auto-send |
It is deliberately not on the Autopilot tab. Beside a row reading Autopilot is off, a button that stops every operator on the creator reads as though it stops this tab — and stopping a whole team is not a chatter’s control. Start / Stop in that row does exactly what it says, and only in this browser.
Turning it on immediately stops all automatic sending for that creator, regardless of any mode and any engaged autopilot. A per-fan setting cannot escape it.
Use it the moment anything looks wrong. It is instant and it costs nothing.
It is a creator setting, so managers and owners operate it. A chatter who needs everything stopped right now disengages the autopilot from their own Autopilot tab — that ends all automatic sending in their browser immediately — and tells a manager.
What is checked before every automatic send
Section titled “What is checked before every automatic send”Automatic sending is not simply “the mode says so”. Every message is evaluated independently, and any one of these conditions holds it back for a human:
| Condition | Why |
|---|---|
| The fan is in distress | These conversations need a person, always |
| The fan is complaining | A complaint answered by automation becomes a bigger complaint |
| The fan is pushing on a topic your creator has banned | Judgement required |
| The draft did not pass automatic review | Nothing unreviewed is ever sent |
| The relationship is too new | New fans deserve a person |
| It is quiet hours where the creator lives | Real people sleep |
| The conversation changed while the draft was being written | The context is no longer current |
When a message is held back it does not disappear — the draft waits in the panel with the reason shown, and a chatter handles it.
These checks cannot be bypassed. They apply to every automatically sent message, on every creator, on every subscription.
The four stop-gates
Section titled “The four stop-gates”Each creator can be configured to stop for a human in specific circumstances. They are shown on the side panel’s Autopilot tab under A reply is held back when:, and changed there or in Creator Studio by a manager:
| Control | Default | Effect |
|---|---|---|
| the fan may be in crisis | On | Never answer a fan in distress automatically |
| the fan is complaining | On | Never answer a complaint automatically |
| the fan pushes a banned topic | On | Stop when a fan pushes on a forbidden subject |
| it is the middle of the creator’s night | On | No automatic sending overnight in the creator’s time zone |
We strongly recommend leaving all four enabled.
The recommended rollout
Section titled “The recommended rollout”Week 1 — Manual everywhere. Your team works manually. You read the drafts, tune the persona, and build a feel for quality.
Week 2 — Draft only on your strongest creator. Drafts appear automatically; humans still send everything. Measure how much editing your team does. This is your quality signal.
Week 3 — Draft only across the roster. Once editing rates are low and stable.
Week 4 onward — selective automatic sending. Unlock May serve fans set to “Draft and send” on one creator, and move individual low-risk fans to that mode first, not whole creators. Watch the autopilot log daily. Expand only on evidence.
Never automate: VIPs, active complaints, anyone in a payment dispute, and anyone your team has tagged for manual handling.
Governance
Section titled “Governance”- Creator modes and the manager’s autopilot settings are changed by managers and owners. Chatters change a fan’s own mode.
- Every automatic send is recorded, with the fan, the text, the time and the outcome.
- A bulk mode change records what every fan was on before it.
- Escalations — conversations where automation stopped and a person is needed — appear in the dashboard’s Needs attention panel, so nothing waits unseen.
Next step
Section titled “Next step”Reply modes set the permission. To actually run automation, see Autopilot.