Core Synopsis
The dealership's customer re-engagement operation is functionally stalled because the team lacks the basic ability to extract a targeted contact list from its own messaging platform. Speaker 2 sent a "Been a While" loyalty template to an estimated 200–300 former Audi customers — largely legacy accounts from a salesperson named Ryan — and now needs to personally reach out to that specific cohort via personal cell phone as the dealership phases out of a product line. The operational blocker is not the outreach itself, but the inability to filter Podium's inbox to surface that precise recipient list. Compounding this, the conversation exposed a deeper systemic failure: Podium messages are being buried without resolution — a customer had been waiting three weeks for a reply — because the team has not adopted the platform's filtering and task tools with any discipline. Lance pointed to the "Engaged" filter and the task list as the correct triage mechanisms, but the team is clearly not using either consistently. We are sitting on a communication infrastructure that nobody has actually learned to operate, and customers are falling through the gaps because of it.
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The Podium Competency Gap: Buried Leads and a Broken Retrieval Workflow
1. The Immediate Operational Need
Speaker 2 requires a filtered export of all contacts who received the "Been a While" template message — an estimated 200–300 recipients, predominantly former Audi owners previously handled by Ryan. The intent is to transition outreach to personal cell phone contact as the dealership exits a specific product or service line. The Podium platform holds this data, but neither Speaker 2 nor Lance immediately knew the precise export or filter path to retrieve it during the conversation.
2. The Systemic Inbox Problem
The conversation surfaced a structural failure in how Podium is being used as a daily triage tool:
- Messages are going unanswered for weeks. Speaker 2 cited a customer who waited three weeks for a reply — a direct consequence of replies being buried beneath high-volume outbound blast threads.
- The "Engaged" filter is the correct tool but unused. Lance identified the Engaged filter as the mechanism to surface contacts who have replied and are awaiting a response. This was apparently unknown or underutilized by the primary daily user.
- The Task List is not being maintained. Lance referenced the Podium task list as the intended follow-up safety net. Speaker 2's experience contradicts its effectiveness in practice — the three-week lapse suggests tasks are either not being created or not being checked.
3. The Opt-In Friction Point
Speaker 2 expressed reluctance to route outreach through Podium due to the opt-in confirmation message it sends to contacts. Lance clarified that the opt-in checkbox can be pre-selected before sending to suppress that prompt, and that recipients would only receive a standard opt-out notice. For a list of established repeat customers, this distinction is operationally significant and removes the stated barrier to using the platform for follow-up.
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Action Items
@Lance
- [ ] Pull and deliver the full recipient list for the "Been a While" template — names and contact numbers — for Speaker 2's personal outreach campaign - [TBD]
@Speaker 2
- [ ] Use the Engaged filter in Podium daily to identify and respond to all contacts awaiting a reply - [TBD]
- [ ] When sending outreach via Podium to existing customers, pre-check the opt-in box to suppress the confirmation prompt - [TBD]
0:03
Every hour or so, the radio. Yeah, the radio.
0:06
When they say radio, do they mean radio or do they mean like car play or? I made sure it was radio because it was. They had to reset the MMI. Is it AM, FM, or Sirius? I did not ask that question. That was a good question to ask. I should have. Okay, never mind. Just tell him to come in, and we'll figure it out. He's in the same frame. Okay, so I said. Like hundreds of people, the same template message that were like people that had cars that they bought from us like two, three, four years ago, right? That were a lot. Most of them were Ryan's customers. Yep. We are phasing out of this. I want to call and text all of them with my cell phone. How can I get a list of the people I sent a certain template to? I know the data is here. I don't know how to.
0:54
Yeah, totally. We can do that. Okay. So, what what template is it?
0:58
Or template is been a while.
1:01
Been a while, so you send a template. Been a while.
1:03
Yeah, it's got to be like at least two, three hundred people. Yeah. And then I'm just if I what about print it out?
1:09
All of the people you've contacted. Do we want all of it, or we just want that, or what do we want?
1:13
I just want this because this is specifically people who own Audi. It's been a while. Okay. Yeah, some loyalty.
1:18
I get it figured out because I've got a couple more calls. Yeah, you could get that. But for me, like starting now, you can just use just use Ven to text.
1:28
I'm just texting from my phone.
1:29
That's fine, but I'm just saying like. The old just.
1:31
When I text her, Finn doesn't it send a message that says, " Hey, check yes." So, be able to get past that. I just, I just want to get away from using the system to come here in general.
1:46
You see, yeah, to opt in, yeah, I get that.
1:48
You can just check that, yeah, even before you hit send, and they'll stay opted in. And what they'll get is they'll just get the opt out message, just like oh,
1:56
Yeah, oh, I get that, but yes, just check that. Also, a lot of these people are my repeat customers that have myself and others. That's fine too.
2:03
I'm just saying, moving forward, that thing's going to be able to do all of our follow up, all that crap. Everything you were doing.
2:11
And it'll actually notify me because I talked to a lady this morning that had been waiting for a response for like three weeks. From podium. Like it, like the message will get buried, right? Well,
2:23
And then where's podium? Just so you know, you have. My task list, right?
2:30
I check it. Good tasks.
2:37
How do you have no tasks? Because I do my tasks.
2:40
Okay, so you're telling me the task wasn't in there? That's what I'm saying. Like, if there was a woman that needed to be contacted, it should have been in task.
2:47
Like, how do? Okay, where do I go for people like, let's say, they responded to something I texted them? How do I pull up the people that had responded and are waiting for me to say something? How do I pull that up? Because otherwise, I I've just been scrolling and scrolling and scrolling and scroll. It doesn't though, because I'll scroll down and there will be a little different problem. Because you're sending out here.
3:08
Here's one. Three thousand messages from the system.
3:10
So it like you see how I just scroll down like. You got to learn how to use all the filters. Okay. Puns of which filter am I looking for?
3:18
I don't know. I'm not the podium expert, but you use it every day. How you not figured itself out yet? Watch. If we say, let me see, clear filters.
3:28
This is kind of a moot point at this point. Yeah, I know. Look, so it could be has a closed conversation, has a conversation over any channel,
3:39
Any. What the fuck does any channel mean?
3:42
Let's see. Assigned to you. Hot leads engaged and not engaged. Mentioned failed. I mean, these engaged should be people that have followed up with you and they're waiting. Okay. Here's one. Yeah.