Automating Follow Up

For me, remembering to follow up is a hard thing. Sure, I can create a task or appointment, but those follow up appointments and tasks tend to get lost in the avalanche of actual meetings and urgent to-do items. Plus, following up is usually something that needs to be done at a certain time.

I use followup.cc (yes, that is the actual web address). It is a simple service that allows you to send, forward or copy an email to [time you want to followup]@followup.cc. When that time arrives, you get an email with the original email, reminding you to follow up. After all, what could be easier than sending an email? I use it to remember to follow up on phone conversations as well as emails that I have sent.

It is optimized to work with Gmail, but can work for any other email program as well. If you want to automatically set your reminder, you can just bcc the followup.cc email address on your original email. There are many different time and day formats it accepts, you can see all of them on their site.

To get started, you need to register on their site, them start using it. The free plan includes 20 reminders a month, but you can get more and Salesforce.com support with paid plans.

What is your trick for remembering to follow up? I’d love to hear from you in the comments.