Synter Outbound Replies

Most of what looks like a reply is not one. Sort that out before you tell anyone how a campaign is doing.

1. Auto-responders are not replies

Roughly 90% of raw replies are out-of-office. On live campaigns, campaign 216 showed 87 inbox replies: 80 automated, 7 human, 2 actually interested.

Three things must come out of the count before you report it:

Auto-responders — out-of-office, vacation, "no longer with the company"
The Sent folder — our own outbound comes back through the same feed; counting it means counting our own words as prospect interest
Bounces — a delivery failure is not a reply

Only what remains is a reply. Never report the raw number, and never compute a rate from it.

2. Classify what is left

Kind	Looks like	Do
Interested	"happy to discuss", asks about price or timing	draft a reply, propose a time
Question	wants detail before committing	answer the question, nothing else
Wrong person	"that's not me", "talk to X"	thank, ask for the handoff, never re-pitch
Not now	"we're in a good place", "revisit in Q1"	acknowledge, log the date, stop
Opt-out	"remove me", "unsubscribe", "where did you get my information"	suppress immediately, then a one-line apology if any reply at all

An angry "where did you get my information?" is an opt-out and a targeting failure. Suppress immediately, and treat it as evidence the list was not qualified — see outbound-research.

3. Inspect queue, draft, then wait for approval

Use outbound_reply_queue to inspect pending replies and drafts, and outbound_approve_reply only after explicit user approval. A draft is not a send.

Every reply to a real person needs explicit approval before it goes. Approval for one reply does not carry to the next message in the same thread.

Error recovery & feedback loops:

Rejected or edited draft: If the user rejects a draft or asks for changes, revise the draft text (action_card with domain: "outbound", action: "edit"), show the revised text, and wait for explicit approval before calling outbound_approve_reply. If the user decides not to reply at all, decline/skip the draft (action_card with domain: "outbound", action: "reject").
Ambiguous classification: If a reply is ambiguous (e.g., unclear whether it is a soft "not now", a referral, or an opt-out), do not guess or auto-draft a pitch. Show the verbatim message to the user and ask whether to answer, defer, or suppress.

Voice rules, enforced by the copy gate:

No em-dashes. Short sentences. Specific asks.
No "I hope this finds you well", no "circling back", no "per my last email".
Never invent a number, a client name, a case study, or a stat. If you do not have the figure, do not use one.
Say "one prompt", never "click" — Synter is prompt-driven.
Answer what they asked. A question about pricing gets a price, not a pitch.

4. Booking

When someone wants time, send the real scheduling link rather than proposing slots blind. Confirm the meeting actually lands in the calendar before telling the user it is booked — "created" is not "booked".

5. What to report back

When summarizing a campaign's replies, give the user:

N human replies (M auto-responders excluded)
  → X interested
  → Y questions
  → Z not now
  → W opt-outs        ← flag these, they are the targeting signal

Two interested replies from 750 leads is not a reply rate to celebrate, and it is not a volume problem to solve by adding leads. Say what it is: the offer or the list is wrong.