The Limit of Standard Tools: Tools like Mailchimp or HubSpot Sequences are "dumb." They send Email 1, wait 3 days, send Email 2. If the prospect replies "I'm on vacation for 2 weeks," the tool stops... or worse, keeps emailing them.
To win in 2025, you need Response Detection Logic.
The Agent Wrapper
Instead of relying on the CRM's native sequencer, we wrap the inbound email webhook with an OpenAI layer.
- Step 1: New Email Reply Received (Webhook).
- Step 2: Parse Body Text.
- Step 3: Classify Intent (The "Smart" Part).
The Intent Classification Prompt
We classify every reply into one of 5 buckets using a lightweight model (GPT-3.5-Turbo or GPT-4o-mini is sufficient here).
Categories:
1. POSITIVE ("Let's book a call")
2. NEGATIVE ("Not interested, remove me")
3. OOO ("Automatic reply: Out of Office")
4. REFERRAL ("Talk to my CTO, Dave")
5. QUESTION ("Do you have SOC2?")
Output JSON: { "category": "OOO", "return_date": "2025-02-01" }
The Routing Logic
Once we have the category, the automation system (n8n) routes it:
- OOO: Pause sequence. Set "Resume Date" to return_date + 1 day.
- POSITIVE: Create High Priority Task in HubSpot + Slack Alert to Rep.
- NEGATIVE: Unsubscribe immediately.
- REFERRAL: Draft new email to the referred person causing context.
Automate your follow-ups.
I build this Smart Outreach System for B2B teams. It ensures no lead slips through the cracks because of a "dumb" sequencer.
ROI
Teams using Intent Detection typically see a 20-30% increase in meetings booked simply because they revive "dead" leads (OOO) and react instantly to "Positive" signals.