Reply Modes and Autonomy
Automation is controlled by four settings. Keeping them separate is what makes it safe. Read this page before you change anything.
The four settings
Section titled “The four settings”| Setting | What it decides | 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 |
| The autopilot works on | Which groups of fans autopilot handles right now | Side panel → Autopilot | Chatters |
| What the autopilot may do in the extension | Whether a chatter may turn those groups on at all | Creator Studio → Tools | Managers and owners |
Think of a plane. The reply mode says where the plane may fly. Autopilot says whether it is flying itself right now, and over which chats.
Everything must agree before a message goes out by itself. A fan on Draft and send gets nothing while autopilot is off. Autopilot working on Draft only fans sends nothing to anyone.
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 it for: your most valuable fans, any fan who needs judgement, and every creator for at least the first week.
Every new creator starts here, on purpose.
Draft only
Section titled “Draft only”When autopilot is on and serves these fans, it writes a draft as soon as the fan writes, and the draft waits for a person. A person always sends.
Use it for: your main mode once a creator works well. Chatters find replies ready instead of empty boxes, and that is where most of the time is saved.
There is no sending risk: a draft nobody sends affects nobody.
Draft and send
Section titled “Draft and send”Autopilot writes drafts and may send them without a person, if the manager allowed it and every safety check passes.
Use it for: many simple chats where a so-so reply costs little and no reply costs a lot. For example, fans in early small talk who would otherwise wait hours.
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. It becomes the default for every fan of that creator, including fans nobody has touched yet and fans who are not in the CRM yet.
So raising the creator’s mode raises all fans who follow it, in one move.
For one fan
Section titled “For one fan”Set it on the fan’s card: in the dashboard, or on the Fan or Autopilot tab of the side panel. It is the same switch everywhere.
Leave Same as the creator for almost everyone.
| Situation | Setting |
|---|---|
| A big spender on a creator who is otherwise automated | Manual: every word written by a person |
| A demanding fan who needs judgement | Draft only: draft prepared, a person sends |
| A small, low-risk chat on a manual creator | Draft and send |
Sufflera never decides this from spend. A fan becomes manual because someone decided so, not because of a threshold.
For many fans at once
Section titled “For many fans at once”The fan list in the dashboard has a checkbox on every row. Tick the fans, 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 in the extension, a manager decides how much of this a chatter may actually turn on:
| Setting | Default | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Autopilot available for this creator | On | Off turns off the whole Autopilot tab for this creator in one move, without touching the two below |
| May serve fans set to “Draft only” | On | Autopilot writes replies for those fans and leaves them for a person |
| May serve fans set to “Draft and send” | Off | Autopilot writes and sends to those fans |
The third setting is the one that lets messages go out without a person reading them. Turning it on asks you to confirm and saves your consent, with your IP address and browser, in the account’s consent log.
Chatters can see these settings but 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 |
| Side panel, Draft tab | Pause |
It is on purpose not on the Autopilot tab. Next to a line that says Autopilot is off, a button that stops the whole team would look like it stops only this tab, and stopping the whole team is not a chatter’s job. Start / Stop on that tab does exactly what it says, in this browser only.
The emergency stop instantly stops all automatic sending for that creator, whatever the modes and whatever autopilot is doing. A fan’s own setting cannot get around it.
Use it the moment something looks wrong. It is instant and costs nothing.
It is a creator setting, so managers and owners use it. A chatter who needs everything stopped right now turns off autopilot on their own Autopilot tab (that stops all automatic sending in their browser at once) and tells a manager.
What is checked before every automatic send
Section titled “What is checked before every automatic send”Automatic sending is not just “the mode allows it”. Every message is checked on its own.
Always, and these cannot be turned off:
| Situation | Why |
|---|---|
| The draft did not pass the automatic check | Nothing unchecked is sent |
| The fan is new | New fans are never answered automatically |
| The chat changed while the draft was being written | The context is out of date |
And the four stop rules below, which are on by default: a fan in distress, a complaint, a banned topic, and the creator’s night.
A held-back message does not disappear. The draft waits in the panel with the reason, and a chatter handles it.
The four stop rules
Section titled “The four stop rules”For each creator you can choose situations in which autopilot stops and waits for a person. They are on the side panel’s Autopilot tab under A reply is held back when…, and a manager changes them in Creator Studio:
| In the panel | Default | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| the fan may be in crisis | On | Never answer a fan in distress automatically |
| the fan is complaining | On | Never answer a complaint or refund threat automatically |
| the fan pushes a banned topic | On | Stop when the fan keeps pushing for something on the banned list, such as a real-life meeting. A reply in which the AI itself touches a banned topic is never sent automatically anyway |
| it is the middle of the creator’s night | On | No automatic sending at night in the creator’s time zone |
We strongly recommend keeping all four on.
How to roll it out
Section titled “How to roll it out”Week 1 — Manual everywhere. Your team works by hand. You read drafts, tune the creators and get a feel for quality.
Week 2 — Draft only on your best creator. With autopilot on, drafts appear by themselves; people still send everything. Watch how much your team edits. That is your quality signal.
Week 3 — Draft only on all creators. Once editing is low and steady.
Week 4 and on — automatic sending, carefully. Turn on May serve fans set to “Draft and send” for one creator, and move single low-risk fans to that mode first, not whole creators. Read the autopilot log every day. Expand only when the results show it works.
Never automate: VIPs, open complaints, anyone in a payment dispute, and anyone your team tagged for manual handling.
Who controls what
Section titled “Who controls what”- 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 saved: the fan, the text, the time and the result.
- A bulk mode change records what every fan was on before.
- Chats where automation stopped and a person is needed appear in Needs attention on the dashboard, so nothing waits unseen.
Next step
Section titled “Next step”Reply modes give permission. To actually run automation, see Autopilot.