Automating Follow-Ups After a Form Submission

Someone fills out your form and then waits. You are with a client or on a job. The entry sits in a list until you open it. Form submission automation starts the confirmation and the internal task when they click Submit. You spend your time on the people who need a real conversation.

This guide is general education. It is not legal advice. The tools below are examples from their own help pages. Your plan limits may differ.

Start the next step when they submit

Cognito calls a workflow the sequence that moves work from the start to the end. An action is a button such as Submit. That button can show a confirmation and send an email and change the status. The classic path moves an entry from Incomplete to Submitted.

Form triggered emails are tied to that action. Cognito’s example is two notes from one click. The person who submitted gets a confirmation. A manager gets a note that approval is needed. Organizations on the Pro or Team or Enterprise plan can add more than one email to the same action.

HubSpot’s form automation guide uses a demo request as the example. After the submit you can send a confirmation email or add the contact to a segment. A simple workflow in the form editor can create a task or assign the contact or send an internal email to a teammate. That is automated form follow up inside HubSpot. The enrollment trigger is the form submission. HubSpot says you cannot change that trigger.

Contacts enter that simple workflow every time they submit. A second submit enrolls them again. If your subscription uses marketing contacts, those people must be marketing contacts before a workflow email can reach them.

Send the notice the person can trust

Form to email automation in Cognito starts in the action settings. You set who receives it and the subject and the message. The subject can pull a name or a date from the entry.

The From line has two parts. The display name defaults to your organization name. Cognito says that name cannot be an email address. The address on the right defaults to your organization reply address. You can type a different address or pull one from a field. Replies go to that address.

Set a verified email domain if you want the notice to come from your site’s domain. Otherwise Cognito sends from [email protected].

The To line can be a typed address or an email field on the form. You can list up to 8 addresses and separate them with a semicolon. Cognito says you cannot pull an email field from inside a repeating section or a table.

Form email automation can include the entry and a receipt and uploaded files. Cognito does not recommend entry details when the form captures sensitive data. Entry details leave out internal fields. If the email has no workflow link, those details use the Public role. You can include blank fields with the entry details. You can add the organization name and the sender name and the form logo and the form name in the header.

Attachments are on the Pro or Team or Enterprise plan. Uploaded files keep their original names. The total size limit is 17MB for that email. You can attach the entry as a Word file or a PDF. Cognito’s entry audit log shows when the email went out and the delivery status and the files that were attached. You can resend from the entry view.

A workflow link in the email is on the Team and Enterprise plans. The role you pick is the access the person gets when they open the link. A Public link in the confirmation is Cognito’s example. The button text can say Review Order. Cognito limits that button to 40 characters. Choose Not Shared when the email does not need a link.

Form notification automation can be conditional. Cognito offers a send rule for every time the action runs and a rule that checks conditions. The status change from the action happens before the email. Set the condition for the status you expect after the action. A third choice turns the email off until you turn it back on.

Cognito has an extra switch for conditional mail. It sends the first time the condition becomes true during an action. Cognito’s example is an order choice of Lunch. With the switch on, the email goes out the first time the choice becomes Lunch. It does not go out on every save while the choice stays Lunch.

Build the path after the click

A post form workflow is the status and the next record and the human task. Cognito lets the action change the status. You can show a confirmation message or send the person to a URL. You pick one of those two. The same action can create an entry on another form or on the current form.

Cognito can clear selected fields when the action runs. Clearing deletes that data for good. Cleared values are left out of the email and out of generated documents. Cognito names two uses. Reset fields after a denial. Clear a sensitive value such as a password.

HubSpot’s simple workflow actions cover four jobs.

• Communications can send a marketing email or an internal email or an internal marketing email.
• CRM actions can create a record or a task or assign the contact to a team or to named users. Assignment works with activated paid users.
• Marketing actions can add the contact to an ads audience or a static list or remove them.
• A webhook can send company information as JSON to an outside CRM.

HubSpot sets limits by plan. Free tools allow one send-an-email workflow for each form and one action in it. An account on Starter or Professional or Enterprise without Marketing Hub allows one simple workflow for each form and three actions. Marketing Hub Starter allows one simple workflow and up to 10 actions. Marketing Hub Professional or Enterprise allows as many actions as you need and more than one simple workflow on a form. After you publish, an edit reaches people who are enrolled.

A follow-up email on a HubSpot page is not live until you publish or update the page. HubSpot says those follow-up emails go to marketing contacts. If you attach a workflow in the page module, the enrollment trigger updates even when the page is not published. If you clone the page, submissions on the copy do not become a new enrollment trigger.

Delays live in HubSpot’s workflows tool. They are not in the simple form workflow. HubSpot’s delay guide lists them on Professional and Enterprise plans for several hubs. Marketing Hub and Sales Hub and Service Hub are on that list. Use a delay to space the next email. Six types are in the guide.

• A calendar date holds the record until that date. If the date has passed when they enter, they move to the next action.
• A date property can wait until a birthday or another date on the record. You can run the action on that date or before it or after it.
• An event delay waits for something such as a page visit or another form submit. The event has to happen while they are in the delay. A submit from before the wait does not release them.
• A timed delay uses days and hours and minutes. Business days skip Saturday and Sunday. A person who enters a one-business-day delay on Saturday at 3 pm leaves it on Monday at 3 pm.
• A day-of-week delay releases them on the soonest selected day.
• A time-of-day delay waits for that clock time. If they enter after it, they wait until the next day.

Deleting a delay in a live workflow sends waiting records to the next action. HubSpot warns that this can send a marketing email at that moment. Lengthening a one-hour delay to two hours keeps the time they have waited. A record that has waited 30 minutes then waits another hour and 30 minutes.

Decide who hears and who waits

Cognito’s routing steps are short. Open the email on the action. Set the recipient and the subject. Under Send, choose the conditional option and set the rule. Save. A lunch order can notify the kitchen. A service request can notify the person who does that work. That routing is automated client follow up for the team. The person who submitted can get a different note.

SCORE’s lead-scoring article says to start with a simple score and measure before you add criteria. Map each score to a follow-up. The right person at the right time with the right interest is the top priority and gets immediate one-to-one attention. The right prospect at the wrong time gets nurture and follow-up. A wrong fit with no interest can be removed from the active list. Define what a priority lead is and tell the people who sell. Then you can see how they engage and close.

Do not build a long chain for every submit. HubSpot’s free limit is one action. Cognito can send the confirmation and the manager note on paid plans. Save the personal note for the priority lead SCORE describes.

Write the path so you can leave the desk

Automation after form submit covers the receipt. It does not cover the judgment. SCORE’s 2019 systems article by Andrea Gwartney says a busy day is when the wrong email goes to a client or a delivery date is wrong or supplies run out. Those mistakes can embarrass you. They can push back the profit you need to grow. A system turns the steps in your head into a process a teammate can repeat without you watching.

Gwartney says a template does not replace you as the author. You edit it for that person. The article points Gmail users to canned responses in the Labs tab of settings. Check your mail app if that menu has moved. An employee or a virtual assistant can use the same templates. Keep the guide in a shared file such as Google Docs or Dropbox and update it when the tools change. A checklist that is signed each day or each shift creates a record that the steps happened. Put deadlines on a calendar that emails you before the date. Repeat the event each week or each month or each year.

To reduce manual follow up you measure the human step that remains. SCORE’s 2019 quality-control article says the standard has to be something you can count. A judgment of phone manner is the example of a standard you cannot count. Sample standards in that article include a call answered by the second ring and a service email answered within four hours and a problem resolved in five minutes or less. Those are examples. They are not a rule for every shop. Pick the measure that moves profit and the customer experience. SCORE cites W. Edwards Deming for the idea that a well-designed process leads to a strong product or service. Keep measuring it and keep improving it. One illustration in the article is a B2B accounting step that prepares an invoice within 24 hours after the job is done or the product is delivered. Review the numbers on a dashboard. Ask customers through surveys and ratings and reviews and a net promoter score. Ask the team whether the steps work.

SCORE’s scale article says automation can run the business at a lower cost by cutting manual work. Many companies run a dozen systems or more. When those systems do not work together they create silos. Silos create more communication problems and more management problems as you grow. The article tells you to look at CRM and marketing automation and to ask whether you have enough people to follow up and close. It asks for a receivables step so invoices get collected.

The SBA’s manage-your-business guide says the marketing plan should describe the support that happens after the sale. Operations such as the return process shape whether a customer stays or tells friends to stay away. The guide’s section on AI lists repeat work you can hand off. Sort email into inboxes by task. Set calendar reminders. Use reusable templates. Add a site chatbot that answers common questions or completes an order. Route calls to the right department. The same section says a person should review messages and campaigns that AI writes. Tools that detect AI writing may mark it as spam or as writing that does not know the recipient. That can make the next outreach harder. The SBA page does not describe form tools. On your form, the receipt can go out on submit. You own the words that ask for the sale.

A setup you can test this week

1. Write the one outcome of the form. A confirmation or a manager task or both.
2. Draft the confirmation in your own words. Leave a blank for the name. SCORE says you remain the author.
3. In Cognito, attach that email to Submit. Add a second email to the manager if your plan allows it. Leave entry details off when the form holds sensitive data.
4. In HubSpot, create the simple workflow from the form editor. Turn it on and publish the page. Confirm the contact can receive marketing email if your subscription requires it.
5. Route one answer to a different person with a conditional send. Test Lunch and test the other choice.
6. Write a one-page guide and a checklist for the human step. Put the priority-lead conversation on the calendar.
7. Submit twice. Confirm the second submit does what you expect. In HubSpot that means a second enrollment. In Cognito the first-time switch can block a repeat.
8. Open the audit log or the workflow history. Confirm the delivery status before you tell the person to check spam.

You can collect the submission in Jotform. The confirmation text and the routing rules stay yours to write and test.

Pitfalls

The notice comes from [email protected]. People may not recognize it. Verify your domain if you want your own address.

Entry details ride along on a sensitive form. Cognito says to leave them out.

The condition watches the old status. The status changes before the email. Match the status you expect after the click.

Every save sends the kitchen email. Turn on Cognito’s first-time switch if you want the Lunch note once.

You list a ninth address or an email inside a repeating section. Cognito stops at 8 addresses and blocks that insert.

The attachment is over 17MB. That email will not carry the file.

Clear fields runs on the same action as the email. The cleared value is gone and it is absent from the notice.

A second submit sends a second HubSpot email. Simple workflows enroll on every submit.

The contact is not a marketing contact. HubSpot will not send the workflow email.

The page is not published. The follow-up email stays off. A cloned page does not add itself as an enrollment trigger.

You delete a delay in a live workflow. Waiting people move to the next action. That can send the email now.

The template goes out with no edit. Gwartney says you are the author.

AI writes the nurture note and nobody reads it. The SBA says a person should review that outreach.

The form tool and the CRM do not share the record. SCORE warns that separate systems become silos. HubSpot’s webhook is one bridge. It is not a promise that every tool connects.

Trade-offs

A receipt at submit versus a personal note. Neither Cognito nor HubSpot nor SCORE publishes a completion rate for speed. Use the action email as the receipt. Keep the one-to-one note for the priority lead.

Two emails on one click versus a chain of delays. Cognito can send the confirmation and the manager note when the action runs if your plan allows more than one email. HubSpot delays sit in the workflows tool on the Professional or Enterprise hubs named above. A free form workflow gives you one action.

Entry details in the email versus a short confirmation. The email can show the entry. Cognito warns against that when the form holds sensitive data. A workflow link on Team or Enterprise lets them open their own entry.

Enroll on every submit versus send once. HubSpot’s simple workflow repeats. Cognito’s first-time switch does not. A second request may be a new job. A second newsletter signup may be an accident. Pick the rule that matches the form.

Route by the answer versus one shared inbox. Routing gets the note to the right person. A shared inbox is easier to watch when you are the whole team. SCORE’s checklist is the backup either way.

What you do next

Submit a test entry on your phone. Read the confirmation as if you were the client. Read the internal note as if you were the manager. Check the status and the delivery log.

If you want the form hosted in one place, Jotform can hold it. You write the next email and you decide who is worth a personal reply.