Referral follow-through

Pump Up's hosted referral follow-through agent processes incoming introductions from partners, customers, and mutual connections. It analyzes the introduction thread in Gmail, inspects prior relationship history and account status in Attio or folk, checks for existing pipeline conflicts, and drafts a tailored, context-aware response. The assigned commercial owner retains full authority to approve or adjust the drafted message, confirm next steps, or politely decline before any external email is sent.

Set up with Claude

Set up with ChatGPT

Or copy into your agent

Customize this Pump Up template for me: pumpup.com/templates/referral-follow-through/template.md

When to use it

Commercial operators, account executives, and founders managing inbound introductions and partner referrals at growing companies.

Example scenario

A customer success manager introduces the VP of Engineering at an enterprise account to a sales lead via email. The agent extracts the thread context, verifies in Attio that the engineering lead is a new contact with no active open deals, but notices a previous support ticket mentioning budget freeze. The agent drafts a tailored reply acknowledging the customer referral, addressing the prior technical context, and asks the sales lead to approve sending the outreach. The sales lead edits one sentence to reference a recent security update and approves the message, which is delivered via Gmail and logged to the CRM.

Getting started

Use Claude or ChatGPT to customize playbook rules, referral criteria, and response templates
Connect Gmail or your communication workspace to ingest introduction threads
Connect Attio, folk, or your primary CRM to read and update contact and deal records
Define the assigned commercial owner or routing rules for incoming referrals
Set guidelines for referral attribution and polite decline responses

Common questions

How does this agent prevent stepping on an active account executive's deal?

The agent queries Attio or folk for active open deals matching the company domain or contact email. If an existing deal or assigned owner is detected, it raises an exception to the existing account owner rather than initiating parallel outreach.

Does the agent send emails automatically without human intervention?

No. The playbook enforces an explicit Approval checkpoint. Every outbound note to the prospect or referrer must be reviewed, adjusted if desired, and approved by the assigned commercial owner before transmission.

What happens if an inbound referral is missing contact details or specific context?

The agent pauses at an Information request checkpoint to ask the operator or referrer for the missing detail, such as the prospect's direct email, company domain, or mutual introduction rationale.

How does the agent handle unresponsive referrals after the initial follow-up?

If no reply is received after a user-defined waiting window, the agent presents a status update to the commercial owner to decide whether to send a polite reminder, archive the referral as unresolved, or hold.

Platform documentation

How the referral follow-through agent works

One run of this playbook handles a single inbound referral or partner introduction from initial receipt to confirmed commercial ownership and verified outreach. It gathers the introduction context, cross-references CRM history and open pipeline in Attio or folk, prepares a tailored response draft, and ensures the designated commercial owner explicitly approves all actions before any external communication is sent. Teams can use Claude or ChatGPT to customize playbook rules, referral criteria, and response templates, while Pump Up hosts background execution. When platform integrations are unconfigured or restricted, the process falls back to manual thread intake, exportable summaries, and local message drafting, presenting the draft to the operator to copy, send manually, and verify the resulting outcome.

Ingest the inbound referral notification or email introduction thread from Gmail, extracting the referrer identity, referred prospect, initial context, and mutual objectives.
Query Attio or folk for prior interaction history, matching company domains, existing contact records, and active pipeline status to identify potential collisions or past disqualifications.
Information request. If the inbound referral lacks essential prospect contact details, company context, or explicit introduction rationale, prompt the operator or referrer for the missing information; resume research once verified details are supplied, or route to an owner disposition if the missing evidence cannot be obtained.
Exception. If an active opportunity or assigned commercial owner is detected for the referred company in Attio or folk, alert the existing account owner to reconcile deal ownership; resume outreach under the confirmed owner only after ownership is explicitly settled, or transition to declined or unresolved if the referral is disqualified.
Synthesize relationship evidence, company fit criteria, and mutual interests into a structured referral briefing dossier, highlighting relevant talking points and potential objections.
Draft a tailored introductory response in Gmail for the assigned commercial owner, acknowledging the referrer's relationship bridge and proposing a concrete, low-friction next step.
Approval. Present the referral briefing dossier, CRM status verification, and proposed response draft to the commercial owner for explicit review; if approved, proceed to verified delivery; if edits are requested, revise the message and re-seek sign-off; if declined, withhold the note and route the case to an explicit declined disposition.
Upon commercial owner approval, deliver the response message via Gmail and update Attio or folk with the referral relationship and timeline notes. Inspect the exact existing sent message and targeted CRM state before any retry; never resend an already delivered note if a subsequent CRM write fails. If inspection or API confirmation is unavailable, hold the run and alert the owner with exact message and record identifiers for manual reconciliation.
Fictional example: A strategic partner introduces the Head of Operations at a logistics firm via an email thread. The agent checks folk and identifies that the firm had an inbound inquiry six months prior that stalled due to lack of an ERP integration. The agent drafts a tailored response acknowledging the partner introduction, noting recent native ERP connector releases, and presents the draft and prior ticket notes to the commercial owner. The owner reviews the draft, adjusts the proposed meeting availability, approves transmission, and the agent verifies the sent email in Gmail and updates folk with the active referral stage.
Monitor the referral thread for prospect response within the configured waiting period; if a positive response arrives, transition the case to confirmed outcome, whereas if the prospect declines or remains unresponsive after follow-up, prompt the commercial owner for an explicit archive disposition or closing note rather than leaving the case unclosed.
Record final case disposition, linking verified message IDs, CRM record updates, and owner decisions; cases with unverified writes, refused introductions, or unresponsive prospects require an explicit commercial owner disposition before closing the run.

Where your team decides

Referral qualification and account fit verification
Pipeline collision and deal ownership conflict resolution
Approval of tailored email copy and proposed scheduling link
Determination of next steps if the referred prospect does not reply

Example systems

Configure connections and permitted actions during setup.

Attio
folk
Gmail

Checks to adapt

Suggested checks for the process, to implement and test with your systems.

Thread context capture
Extracts referrer, prospect, and relationship history from inbound email threads and introduction messages.
Pipeline collision check
Scans CRM records and active opportunities to detect duplicate accounts or existing commercial ownership.
Referral dossier builder
Aggregates contact data, company fit indicators, and prior touchpoints into a unified decision briefing.
Draft response generator
Composes personalized, context-aware follow-up email copy referencing the mutual connection and tailored value proposition.
Delivery and audit logger
Verifies outbound email transmission via provider read-back, inspects existing states before retries, and synchronizes relationship activity into CRM records.