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What Reply Handling Gives You

Tuco doesn’t just send messages—it also captures replies, links them back to the right lead and conversation, and makes them available to you:
  • In the Tuco UI (inboxes, timelines, and campaign views).
  • Through APIs and exports.
  • Via webhooks you can plug into your own systems.
From your point of view, replies become a first‑class signal you can use to:
  • Route conversations to humans.
  • Update CRM timelines.
  • Trigger follow‑ups or automations.
You never need to manage how replies are matched internally; Tuco handles that.

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How Replies Show Up in Tuco

When a recipient replies on a supported channel:
  • The reply is attached to:
    • The relevant lead, where known.
    • The originating campaign or message, where a match is clear.
  • The reply content and timestamp are visible:
    • In the Tuco app (conversation view, lead history, campaign stats).
    • Through public APIs and exports.
Typical things your team can see:
  • Last reply content and time for each lead.
  • Whether a reply was part of a specific campaign step or a one‑off message.
  • Which line and channel the reply came back on.

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Using Replies in Your Workflows

Replies are especially powerful when you connect them to your own tools.

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In your CRM

By consuming reply events (see /api-reference/message-webhooks), you can:
  • Add timeline entries with:
    • Reply text.
    • When it was received.
    • Which campaign or message it refers to.
  • Update fields like:
    • “Last replied at”.
    • “Reply sentiment” (if you classify it).
This gives sales and support teams a complete picture of conversations without leaving the CRM.

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In your automations

Replies can be treated as triggers for:
  • Moving a lead to the next stage in your funnel.
  • Creating tasks for an owner to respond.
  • Stopping or skipping later campaign steps for that lead.
  • Performing routing (for example, assigning conversations by region or product line).
You decide the rules in your own systems; Tuco provides reliable events with stable identifiers.

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Reply Webhooks (Conceptual Overview)

When you enable reply webhooks, Tuco sends a notification to your backend whenever a new reply is recorded. At a high level, each event includes:
  • Which message was replied to (when known).
  • Which lead it relates to (when known).
  • Which workspace and line own the conversation.
  • The body of the reply.
  • Timestamps so you can order events in your own logs.
  • repliedAtUtc — when the reply was received (UTC). Always present.
  • parentMessages — the last 2 outbound messages you sent to that lead (campaign-scoped when the reply is in a campaign, otherwise last 2 in the workspace). Omitted when none exist.
All of this is backward compatible: existing fields are unchanged; new fields are additive. When a reply is outside a campaign, repliedAtUtc is still set, and parentMessages (when present) are the last 2 messages you sent to that lead in the workspace. For concrete field names and shapes, see /api-reference/message-webhooks. Those schemas are the stable contracts you should integrate against; you do not need to know anything about the internal bridging or storage layers.

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Behavior When No Perfect Match Exists

In real life, you may see replies that:
  • Come from a contact you messaged long ago.
  • Come from a slightly different address or number than the one you used.
  • Don’t clearly match a recent outbound message.
From your perspective:
  • Tuco will still try to associate the reply with:
    • The closest known lead.
    • The most relevant recent conversation.
  • When a clean match isn’t possible, Tuco:
    • Avoids guessing in ways that would corrupt your data.
    • Still preserves the raw reply information where it can be safely attached.
Because of this, you can trust that:
  • When a reply is shown as belonging to a lead or campaign, Tuco has already done the heavy lifting to match it.
  • You’re not exposed to the internal matching heuristics—only to outcomes that are safe to build on.

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Patterns for Classifying Replies

Many teams treat replies as more than just free‑form text. Common patterns include:
  • Interest level
    • “Interested”, “Not now”, “Not interested”.
  • Intent
    • “Book a meeting”, “Ask a question”, “Negotiate pricing”.
  • Compliance
    • “Opt‑out” or “Unsubscribe” messages (see /features/compliance-and-optouts).
You can implement classification:
  • In your own backend by:
    • Examining reply text from webhooks.
    • Applying your own NLP models or rule‑based logic.
  • In your CRM using:
    • Formulas or automation workflows acting on the reply content and tags.
Tuco’s responsibility is to deliver the raw reply in a consistent format and context; your responsibility is to decide how to interpret and act on it.

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Operational & Analytics Use Cases

Once replies are flowing reliably, you can:
  • Measure engagement
    • Reply rates per campaign, per segment, or per rep.
    • Breakdown of classifications (e.g. positive vs negative replies).
  • Improve targeting
    • Identify segments that consistently reply positively.
    • Suppress or adjust campaigns for segments with high complaint or opt‑out replies.
  • Refine content
    • Compare reply patterns across different templates.
    • Use replies to inform future copy and cadences.
All of these insights come from the data Tuco already exposes; you never need to access any internal worker endpoints or logs.

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Best Practices

  • Normalize identifiers upstream
    • Store phone numbers in a consistent format (e.g. E.164).
    • Lowercase emails before storing.
    • This makes reply‑to‑lead matching more accurate.
  • Keep one source of truth for routing
    • Decide in your own systems how replies:
      • Are assigned to owners.
      • Affect deal or account stages.
  • Respect consent and expectations
    • Use reply content to:
      • Honor opt‑outs quickly.
      • Avoid over‑messaging after clear “not interested” replies.
  • Log and monitor
    • Capture reply events in your logging and analytics tools.
    • Watch for sudden changes in reply volume or tone that may indicate an issue with a campaign or template.
Handled this way, Tuco’s reply features give you a reliable feedback loop for your outreach, while keeping all underlying implementation detail safely abstracted away.