Automation · Message replies

Every enquiry answered in your tone.

In your own inbox, on your own rules, while you’re doing something else. Chief reads each message, writes the reply the way you would have written it, and asks what you always need to know first. Approval stays yours on every send.

Your enquiry inbox Chief replying
New enquiry · 19:41

“Hi — is this still available? I’d love to come and see it this week.”

Sent by Chief · 19:42

“It is. Before we take it any further — when are you looking to move, what budget are you working to, and what’s the best number to reach you on?”

19:42✓✓

Your words, your rules, your own account.

What a slow reply costs
Why speed decides it

The lead goes to whoever answered first.

People enquire in several places at once and stop looking the moment somebody useful comes back to them. An answer in a minute gets the conversation. The same answer at nine the next morning gets read, and nothing else. Chief closes that gap on every enquiry, not just the ones you happened to be at your desk for.

  • The first useful answer is usually the one that keeps the lead
  • No enquiry waits for you to finish what you’re doing
  • The ones you’d never have got to are the ones you were losing
One enquiry, two speeds
  1. 18:04 The enquiry lands

    It went to you and to three other people at the same moment.

  2. 18:05 Chief answers it

    Their question answered, and the things you always need to know asked back.

  3. 09:20 The others reply

    The next morning. By then they have been talking to you since last night.

One minute, not the next morning

Your rules, your words

Written from your brief, not from a script.

Setup asks how you actually work: what you want out of an enquiry, who you’ll take and who you won’t, what you need to know before you’d give anyone a time, and a few of the replies you already send. That becomes your standing brief, and every reply is written against it. Anything the brief doesn’t cover, Chief doesn’t invent — it hands that one to you.

  • Your own past replies set the wording, the greeting and the sign-off
  • Your rules decide what gets asked and what gets ruled out
  • Nothing invented: what the brief doesn’t cover comes to you
  • Changed your mind? Tell us and we change the brief — there’s no screen for you to keep up to date
Your standing brief
What you want from an enquiry

Qualify them properly before anything else happens.

Who works, who doesn’t

Yes: working professionals, postgrads. Ask more: couples, short stays. No: smokers.

What to get before anything else

Phone, email, budget, move-in date.

How you write

“Hi — thanks for getting in touch…” Your greeting, your three standard answers, your sign-off.

Answer tonight’s enquiries tonight.

Tell Chief how you work — your rules, your wording, the questions you always ask — and read your first drafted reply this afternoon.

Qualification

Accept, ask more, or turn down — politely.

Every rule you set is one of three things: fine, worth asking more about, or a no. Chief asks in the thread, checks what comes back against your rules, and collects what you always need before you’d offer anyone a time. The ones that can’t work are turned down in your own words, and you never have to read them.

  • Accept, ask more, or rule out — decided once, applied every time
  • Phone, email, budget and dates, collected in the thread
  • The ones that can’t work turned down politely, without you
  • What’s left is a short list of people worth your afternoon
Enquiry — Rachel Okonkwo ⚠ Two questions outstanding
Answered in the thread
Phone 07700 900 118
Email Given
Budget £850 pcm
Move-in 1 October
Working Full-time, local
⚠ Your rules say ask

Wants to bring a cat — asked, not decided.

Two months to begin with — flagged for you rather than answered.

Chief
Enquiries in, replies out — while you get on with the job 247 replies sent this week
How much rope you give it

One at a time, in your own account.

Chief isn’t a service that posts for you from somewhere else. It answers in the account the enquiry arrived in, one conversation at a time, and how much it does without asking is a setting you own.

Your account

Replies come from you

Every reply is written and sent in the account the enquiry arrived in — your name on it, the whole thread underneath it, and no third address anyone has to trust.

One at a time

One conversation, then the next

Chief answers a thread the way you would: reads it, writes the reply, moves on. Nothing is blasted at a list, and nothing is posted anywhere on your behalf.

Your approval

You decide how much rope

Whether a reply waits for you to read it or goes out on the rules you gave it is your setting, and you can change which at any time.

Auto-send is off until you turn it on. When you do, Chief spells out exactly what that permits before you agree to it — and nothing is ever sent on a rule you didn’t set.

The whole of it — what Chief asks before it acts, and what it will never do — is on how it works.

Automation is priced by the work it does — see pricing.

See it on your own enquiries.

Thirty minutes, your inbox and your rules — a real enquiry read, screened and answered in your words, live.

The whole inbox

Sit down, start the pass, make the coffee.

You don’t have to hand Chief one thread at a time. Start a pass over the inbox and it works down what’s waiting — read, reply, next — while you get on with something else. It’s a run you start rather than something ticking away in the background: it happens in the inbox you have open, you can stop it whenever you like, and a long queue can take more than one pass.

  • Everything waiting, worked down in one go: read, reply, next
  • It runs while you have the inbox open, not while the laptop is shut
  • Stop it whenever you like — a long queue can take more than one pass
  • A morning’s worth of typing happens while the kettle boils
Monday morning
  1. 08:31 You open the inbox

    Nine enquiries came in after you shut the laptop on Friday. Nothing typed yet.

  2. 08:31 You start the pass

    Chief works down them on your brief: your rules, your wording, your questions.

  3. 08:36 You read the ones worth reading

    Each answered in the thread it arrived in, while you were making a coffee.

Nine replies before the first phone call

The ones that go quiet

Most enquiries die of a second message nobody sent.

A good first reply is not what loses the lead. What loses it is the fortnight afterwards, when nobody remembered to go back. Chief keeps track of who never came back and sends the next message itself, on the same brief as the first one.

  • Knows who never replied, without you keeping a list
  • Follows up in the thread it started in, in your words
  • Stops the moment they reply, or the moment you say so
  • The leads you already paid for keep moving
One enquiry, chased
  1. Day 1 Answered

    Their questions covered, and two viewing times offered.

  2. Day 4 No reply yet

    Chief goes back to the thread — both times still free.

  3. Day 9 Still quiet

    One more, offering something closer to what they asked for.

Replied on day nine, and back in play

One pass over the inbox

You get on with the day. Chief gets on with the inbox.

Reply sent
Questions asked
Number collected
Turned down politely
Flagged for you
5 enquiries answered in a single pass

FAQ

Does Chief send replies without me?

That’s your setting. Every reply is drafted in the account the enquiry arrived in, and you choose whether each one waits for you to read it or goes out on the rules you gave it. Auto-send is off until you turn it on, you are told exactly what it permits before you do, and nothing is ever sent on a rule you didn’t set.

Will this get my account restricted?

Nothing Chief does looks like a bot to the site you’re on. It works inside your own logged-in account, answers one conversation at a time at the pace a person answers, and only ever writes in threads somebody sent to you. It doesn’t post at a list, and it doesn’t repost or refresh anything to make you look busier than you are — which is the behaviour those rules exist to stop. We can’t speak for another company’s terms, but Chief is deliberately built to work the way you would.

Will the replies sound like me?

Yes. Setup asks for a few of the replies you already send, and Chief writes against those: your greeting, your wording, your sign-off. It answers from the brief you gave it rather than from a generic script, so a reply reads like the one you would have typed. Anything the brief doesn’t cover it doesn’t invent — it says you’ll come back to them, and passes it to you.

Can I change the rules later?

Yes. Tell us what’s changed — a new dealbreaker, a question you want asked, a reply you’d rather it copied — and we update your brief for you. There is no rules screen for you to keep up to date, which is most people’s favourite part: you say it once, in your own words, and the next reply is written that way.

Can it work through a whole inbox in one go?

Yes, and that is how most people use it: start a pass and Chief works down what’s waiting, read, reply, next. It is a run you start in the inbox you have open rather than a service ticking away in the background, so you can watch it and stop it whenever you like, and a very long queue can take more than one pass.

Which inboxes does it work in?

Wherever the conversation continues in writing. Chief works on the threads in front of it, so it isn’t tied to one site or one inbox: listing enquiries, marketplace messages, WhatsApp, LinkedIn and Slack, and your own email are all threads it can read and answer, whichever webmail you use. Somewhere we haven’t met yet is configuration rather than code, so tell us where your enquiries land and we’ll add it.

Does it answer while my computer is off?

No, and we would rather say so. Chief replies from your own machine and your own account, which is what keeps your name on every message. So the promise isn’t an inbox that empties overnight — it’s that nothing waits for you to find the time: the moment you’re at the machine, everything waiting is answered in minutes rather than over a morning.

Is my data safe?

Yes. Your data is encrypted in transit and at rest, your conversations are never used to train third-party models, and you choose what gets shared. Enterprise plans add further security controls and SSO.

Start free today.

Answer the questionnaire once and Chief has your brief. The next enquiry that lands gets the reply you would have typed, in the account it arrived in.