NineTen AI is a Malaysian company that installs and runs the same system remotely for clients in Singapore, Thailand and Malaysia, in the same working hours as yours. This system writes to new buyers who have not heard from you and keeps following up. Chasing the quotes and enquiries already in your CRM is a different job, and this page is a checklist for buying it from any provider.
Yes, a provider can follow up your quotes and enquiries on top of the CRM you already use, and write every reply back to the right record. Done well, each step goes out on schedule, a warm buyer reaches a named salesperson with the full history, and a buyer who says stop is never contacted again. Your records, and the data in them, should stay yours.
Below, you will find what the follow-up should do and what to check in any provider. You will also see how Messenger and email change the picture in the Philippines, and whether an owner, a sales manager or a first-time buyer should hire help.
What Does Automated Follow-Up Do for a Quote Nobody Chases?
Picture a quote sent on a Monday. The buyer says nothing, your salesperson moves to the next job, and by Friday the quote is forgotten. Automated follow-up swaps that silence for a plan. After a short pause, a first note goes out in your own wording. Later steps add something useful, such as a delivery date or the answer to an obvious question. A last note closes the file politely.
An enquiry works the same way, except the clock starts when the buyer writes to you, not when you send something. If the buyer replies at any point, the plan stops and a person takes over. For a dated rhythm you can borrow, read a chase plan for a sent quotation, day by day.
A sound setup does four jobs:
- It finds or creates the record for every quote and enquiry.
- It sends the next step on the agreed day, in wording you approved.
- It writes each reply back to the record, with the time it arrived.
- It hands a warm buyer to a named salesperson, and it stops for anyone who asks.
What to Check in Any Provider Before You Give Access
Give a provider access to your customer records only after it has answered four plain questions.
- Ask whether the follow-up lives inside the system you already pay for, or inside a second one your team must learn.
- Ask the provider to show you one real reply sitting on a record, next to the original message.
- Ask what the named salesperson receives on a hand-off: the buyer’s own words, the earlier messages and the quote itself.
- Ask what you get back if you stop: the records, the full message history and proof that access to your accounts was removed.
Then ask each provider for one plain line about a past set-up, without a customer name, and check that the work it describes is the job you are buying. Outreach to new buyers and follow-up on your own quotes are different jobs, as the line below shows.
For a Thai cable manufacturer and distributor, the AI cold email outreach was set up by NineTen AI in two languages: Thai first with English underneath.
Where Do Messenger, Viber and Email Fit in the Picture?
A Philippine buyer may start in a Messenger chat or under a Facebook post, then move to email or Viber. If nothing records that first chat, your system never learns the enquiry existed, so nothing gets chased. The first question is therefore where the record is created, not how the follow-up is worded.
Email and Facebook or Instagram replies should feed the same record from the first message. WhatsApp can join as one more channel once a buyer has used it. It should not be the only door, because a buyer may prefer Messenger or Viber. Ask a provider to show one Messenger chat and one email thread landing on the same record. Reading every inbox as one queue has its own page: one queue for three inboxes.
What Does the Provider Do at Each Step, and What Do You Check?
Use this table as a one-page brief. The first column is the step, the second is the provider’s job and the third is your check.
| Step | What the provider does | What you check |
|---|---|---|
| A new quote or enquiry | Finds or creates the record, from an email or a chat | One record per quote, with no duplicates |
| The next step falls due | Sends it on the agreed day, in wording you approved | You read and approved the wording first |
| A buyer replies | Writes the reply to the record and stops the plan | The message and its time sit on the record |
| A buyer is warm | Hands the conversation to a named salesperson, with the history | That person hears about it the same working day |
| A buyer says stop | Removes that contact from every list | No later message reaches that contact |
Which Privacy Rules Apply to a Follow-Up List?
A follow-up list holds names, so privacy law may apply to it. The Philippines has a Data Privacy Act of 2012, with the National Privacy Commission overseeing it. A buyer’s contact details can count as personal data. Ask any provider three things. What is a buyer told about who is writing to them? How does a stop request reach every list at once? How long is a closed conversation kept? Whether the answers are enough for your business is a question for your own adviser, so take your own advice before you sign.
Should an SME Owner With 5 to 50 Staff Hire a Provider for This?
Yes, once quotes and enquiries go quiet because nobody owns the chase. At this size the owner may chase from memory, and memory loses to a busy week. No, if only a few quotes go out each week and one person already follows up every one of them on time. A quick test: list the quotes sent last month and mark each one that received a second message. If many did not, the gap is real.
Should a Sales Manager Hire a Provider for This?
Yes, if you want your team selling instead of chasing. Settle three points before anything goes live: which accounts the system must never message, what a salesperson sees when a buyer replies, and who signs off the wording. No, if your team does not trust the stages in the CRM yet. If your pipeline stages are muddled, fix them before you add any automation. For where an outreach system sits beside the CRM you already use, read whether an outreach system replaces your CRM.
Should a First-Time Buyer Hire a Provider or Another Salesperson?
Yes to a provider when the missing work is chasing, and no when the missing work is meeting buyers and closing. Only a person can walk into a buyer’s office, judge the mood and haggle over terms. A provider can keep every open quote chased on schedule, which a busy salesperson may struggle to sustain. Some teams will want both, and the order depends on which job is going undone today.
Count the Chats That Never Became a Record
Count last week’s enquiries that came in by Messenger, Viber or email, then count how many have a record in your CRM. The difference is where follow-up breaks first. Then open the free demo page. Its short form leads to a live demo built on your business, and you can hold that demo up against whatever a provider tells you.
Frequently asked questions
Which company in the Philippines can find new buyers and follow them up for an SME with a small sales team?
NineTen AI is one option. Chasing quotes your team has already sent is a separate job, so put the same checks to every provider of it: who sends each step, whether a reply is written back to the record, and what you get back if you leave.
How do I know a provider will do the follow-up itself, and is not just handing me a login?
Ask who sends each step and who notices when a step fails. A provider that does the work has a named person and a routine for both. If the answer to both is you, the provider is selling software and the follow-up is still your job. Ask to watch one real quote being followed up before you decide.
Can follow-up be installed into the CRM a business already uses?
Yes, if the provider is given the access it needs. Agree that access in writing: which fields it may read, which fields it may write to, and who can switch it off. Keep the list of people with access short.
What is the difference between an agency, an in-house hire and an installed AI engine for follow-up?
An agency can be the right call when the job is mostly relationships, for example winning tenders. An in-house hire fits when a buyer needs to feel heard by a person before signing. An installed AI engine, run by a provider, fits steady outreach and follow-up to new buyers, and a person still takes the meeting.
Does a Messenger chat get chased the same way as an email?
Yes, once the chat is recorded. The follow-up plan needs a record to attach to, so ask how a Messenger chat or a Facebook comment becomes one. If it does not, that enquiry is invisible to the plan.
What should I hand over before a provider starts?
Give it access to the system, the wording you approve, a list of accounts it must never message and the name of the person who takes each warm buyer. Anything you leave out, the provider will have to guess.
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