Emergency Client Response

The monitoring trigger is identical to Play One's email logging workflow - a Gmail or Outlook polling trigger, checking every 5 minutes. The key difference is the contact lookup logic. This workflow only activates when the sender is on your explicitly defined VIP list. Create a dedicated field in your CRM to mark VIP contacts (a checkbox field labeled "VIP Client" works well). In the contact lookup step, after verifying the sender is a known contact, check the VIP field. If it's not set, exit the workflow silently - Play One handles the standard logging. If the VIP field is set, continue to urgency evaluation. Also connect any other channels your VIP clients use to reach you: direct phone calls (via Retell or a call logging tool), client portal messages, or direct messages in Slack or Teams if you have shared channels with clients.

After confirming the sender is a VIP contact, pass the full message to an AI urgency evaluation. The AI uses your calibration examples to distinguish between urgent situations requiring immediate response and routine communications that can wait for normal business hours. The urgency evaluation must be well-calibrated - if the AI flags every message as urgent, the system becomes noisy and the escalation mechanism loses its meaning. Test against your calibration examples (at least 20 messages: 10 truly urgent, 10 routine). Aim for less than 10% false positive rate before going live. If the AI marks the message as non-urgent, route it to Play One's standard logging flow. No acknowledgment is sent for non-urgent messages - sending one would create the impression that everything gets an immediate response, which is unsustainable.

You are evaluating an inbound client message to determine whether it requires an immediate, urgent response from the firm.

Client information: {{contact_name}}, {{company_name}}
Relationship tier: VIP
Message received: {{message_content}}
Time received: {{timestamp}}

Urgency calibration examples:
Urgent examples: {{urgent_examples}}
Non-urgent examples: {{non_urgent_examples}}

Evaluate whether this message represents a situation that would typically require a response within the next 2 hours if received during business hours, or within 30 minutes if received outside business hours.

Return ONLY a JSON object:
{
  "is_urgent": true or false,
  "urgency_level": "critical" (needs response in <30 min) | "high" (needs response in <2 hours) | "routine" (can wait for business hours),
  "urgency_reason": "One sentence explaining why this is or isn't urgent",
  "key_issue": "If urgent: the specific thing the client needs addressed",
  "suggested_acknowledgment_tone": "calm_and_confident" | "empathetic_and_urgent" | "informational"
}

For messages flagged as urgent, generate a personalized acknowledgment immediately. This is not a generic autoresponder - it's a specific message that shows the client's message was read and understood. Pull the CRM context for this client: what matters to them, recent interactions, any ongoing issues. Pass the message content, CRM context, and the urgency assessment to the acknowledgment generation prompt. Send the acknowledgment from the primary partner's email address within 3 minutes of the message arriving. Simultaneously, send a push notification to the primary partner's phone via your configured mobile channel: the client's name, the key issue identified, and a link to the original message. Log the acknowledgment send, the notification send, and the full urgency assessment as a CRM activity on the client record.

You are writing an urgent client acknowledgment on behalf of a senior partner at a professional services firm. This is a VIP client who has sent an urgent message.

Client: {{contact_name}} at {{company_name}}
The client's message: {{client_message}}
Key issue identified: {{key_issue}}
Urgency level: {{urgency_level}}
Partner name: {{partner_name}}

Write an acknowledgment that:
1. Opens with a direct acknowledgment of the specific situation (not "Thank you for your email")
2. Demonstrates that the message was read and the issue is understood
3. States that {{partner_name}} will be in contact within [time frame appropriate to urgency level: 30 min for critical, 2 hours for high, next business morning for routine]
4. If urgency_level is critical: include a direct line or mobile number to call if they need immediate voice contact
5. Is 3-5 sentences maximum - this is an acknowledgment, not a response
6. Sounds like {{partner_name}} typed it personally, not an automated system

Return ONLY the email body text. Subject line is handled separately.

After sending the acknowledgment, start the escalation timer. If the primary partner confirms receipt (via reply to the notification or by responding to the client) within the configured window, the escalation is cancelled and the workflow logs the confirmation. If no confirmation is received within the window, the escalation fires: a notification goes to the named backup partner with full context (the original message, the acknowledgment sent, the time elapsed since acknowledgment, and the client's history). The backup partner receives the same mobile notification the primary partner did, with an added note: "[Primary partner] hasn't confirmed receipt. VIP escalation - please respond within 15 minutes." Log every step of the escalation sequence as a CRM activity. After the situation is resolved, send a debrief notification to both partners: what was escalated, who handled it, what was communicated, and when the situation was resolved. This debrief becomes the basis for the case review if the partner wants to follow up.