11 · Working with the agents
What you will have done: asked an agent to do revenue work in chat, and understood exactly where it stops.
The one rule
An agent may draft. An agent may never send.
There is no tool, anywhere, that puts a letter on the wire without a person approving it. This is not a setting you could turn off by accident; the tool simply does not exist.
flowchart LR
A["You ask in chat"] --> B["The agent works"]
B --> C["A draft, a proposal, a list"]
C --> D["The Inbox or Approvals"]
D -->|"you accept"| E["It happens"]
D -->|"you do not"| F["It does not"]
Who does what
Four agents build a campaign’s list, and each answers a different question.
| Agent | Question it answers |
|---|---|
| Artemis | Which companies are worth writing to? |
| Athena | What is true about this company? |
| Themis | Is this company worth the letter, and why? |
| Ariadne | Who at this company should be written to? |
Above them, the Outreach Manager runs the campaign: it decides what happens next and when. All five arrive together with the marketing team — journey 1 is where you staff them.
The walkthrough
1. Ask for something in chat
Plain language. The agent has tools for the same routes the screens use, so anything it does appears on the screens exactly as if you had done it.
Useful asks:
- “Find twenty British knitwear makers with no US distributor.”
- “Who at Bexley & Crane should we be writing to?”
- “What came back since yesterday?”
- “Read the reply from Aldermoor Leather and tell me what it says.”
- “Draft an answer to Jonathan Church.”
- “That reply reads as not now. It is a meeting — correct it.”
- “What is holding everything that has not gone out today?”
- “Propose stopping the addresses that asked to come off the list.”
- “Draft this week’s note.”
2. Know what comes back to you
Some things happen straight away. Others become something waiting for your decision.
| You ask for | What happens |
|---|---|
| A list of companies | Built, and lands on the campaign |
| Research on a company | Done, and recorded |
| A person found at a company | Found, and added |
| The replies that came back | Listed, newest first, each with the reading on it |
| One conversation read | Read back to you in their words, both ways |
| A reading corrected | Recorded on the reply, and everything that reading means follows |
| What is holding the queue | Read back, letter by letter |
| The week’s note | Drafted and shown to you. Never posted, sent or stored |
| An answer written | A draft in the Inbox, under the agent’s name |
| An address stopped | A proposal, waiting for you to accept |
| A letter sent | Refused. No agent tool sends. |
3. Give it a task rather than a question
An agent given a goal does better than an agent given an instruction. “Find me companies like Aldermoor Leather but in knitwear” beats “search for knitwear companies”, because the first says what good looks like.
4. Check its work on the screens
Everything an agent does shows on the ordinary screens: companies on Leads, drafts in the Inbox, proposals and letters in Approvals. There is no separate agent view to learn, and no hidden state.
What it can do with the Inbox
The Outreach Manager works its daily pass through the same Revenue › Inbox you do, and it has four separate jobs there. None of them writes to the person.
| Its job | What you get back |
|---|---|
| List what came back | The conversations, newest first, with the reading each carries and whether anything has answered it. Ask for the ones since your last look, or one reading at a time. |
| Read one conversation | Every turn both ways, in the words they actually wrote, with the reading on each of theirs and where that reading came from. Any draft already waiting on it, and any correction somebody made. |
| Write the answer | A draft in the Inbox, under the agent’s name instead of yours. It looks exactly like one you typed and it waits exactly as long. |
| Correct a reading | The right reading recorded on the reply. What the machine said and what the agent said are both kept, which is how the reading improves. |
Three things are worth knowing about the third.
A draft it writes is a draft. Nothing about it is closer to sent than one of yours. The approval in the Inbox is what puts a letter on the wire, and it is the same approval either way.
A claim it has not been given, it cannot cite. Evidence in an answer is checked against what that campaign may say in its own locale, before the draft exists. An unapproved claim is refused where it is written rather than arriving as something you can approve with one click.
One reply takes one waiting draft. Ask it to draft an answer to a reply that already has a draft waiting in the Inbox and it refuses, naming the draft that is there. Edit or discard that one first.
What always needs a person
- A first letter to somebody new. Approvals.
- A drafted answer. The Inbox, whoever wrote it.
- Stopping an address. An agent that reads an unsubscribe, or a bounce off a dead mailbox, proposes the suppression against the message that earned it. Nothing reaches the do-not-contact list until you accept it, and the record keeps both names — who proposed and who agreed.
- Un-pausing a domain the warden paused. Journey 8.
- Anything that spends money outside the configured vendors.
A worked example
This is one day’s pass at Meridian Supply, in five asks.
“What came back since yesterday?”
Six conversations, newest first, each with the reading on it and whether anything has answered. Two read as positive, one as a meeting, two as unsubscribes, and one nothing has read yet.
“Read the Aldermoor Leather one.”
Both sides of it, in the words Jonathan Church actually wrote, quoted trail and all. Nothing is waiting on it and nobody has corrected the reading.
“Draft an answer.”
The agent writes one, citing two claims the campaign has approved for the United Kingdom, and it lands in Revenue › Inbox under the agent’s name. They then ask: “Good — send it.” The agent cannot. It says so and points at the draft. Meridian open it, read it, and press Approve & send themselves.
“Nothing has read the sixth one. Read it and record what it is.”
The agent reads it as a meeting and records that on the reply, and what a meeting means is carried out from there. Both readings are kept — what the machine said, what the agent said — which is how the reading improves.
“Two of those asked to come off the list. Propose stopping them.”
The agent proposes each one against the message that asked, and nothing else happens. On Revenue › Approvals the two proposals wait, each showing the address, why it was proposed and which agent proposed it, with Accept and Decline beside them. Meridian accept one and decline the other. The accepted address reaches the do-not-contact list, the declined one is left alone, and both decisions are on the record with the name of whoever made them.
Five asks, and nothing left the building. The agent found the work every time; the answer and both suppressions waited for somebody to say yes.
What to do if
The agent says it cannot send. Correct. Approve the letter yourself in Approvals.
It says the inbox is empty and you can see replies in it. It read the wrong one. Every agent has a mailbox of its own, and that is a different inbox from the campaign replies. Say the revenue Inbox and ask again.
It refused to cite something you know is true. An answer may only cite what the campaign has approved for that locale, and the check runs before the draft exists. Approve the claim on Settings › Revenue › Claims and ask again.
It would not answer a reply. Some replies arrive on a channel that is not email. The agent will not answer one of those by writing to whatever address is on file, which is the refusal working — answer it where it came in.
It built a list of companies you did not want. The brief is what it works from. Sharpen the brief on the campaign’s Setup and ask again — the brief is the instruction, the chat message is only the trigger.
A proposal you accepted did not stick. Accepting settles a proposal once. A second accept is refused rather than recorded as a second decision, so a row that will not accept again has already been accepted. Look for the address on the suppression list.
It did something you did not expect. Everything is on the screens and on the person’s timeline. The timeline is the record, and it settles disagreements.
Confirm it worked: whatever you asked for is visible on the ordinary screens — a company on Leads, a draft in the Inbox, a proposal or a letter in Approvals.