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SMS reactivation

The leads you wrote off are still reachable

Most of a sales database is people who once raised their hand and never heard back fast enough. This reopens those conversations by text, in any language, and hands your reps only the ones who answered.

The exchange beside this is the whole argument. It opens by saying it is an AI, gets told to go away, and books an appointment four messages later. Handling the objection is the demonstration — a friendly lead would prove nothing.

Reactivation thread

  1. Bakker Energy · AI assistant

    Hi Mark — I'm the AI assistant for Bakker Energy. You asked us about a heat pump for the house on Zuiderpark back in January. Are you still thinking about it, or did you sort it elsewhere?

  2. Lead

    Not interested

  3. Bakker Energy · AI assistant

    Understood — I'll close it off. Out of interest, was it the price or did the timing just not work? Helps us stop bothering people for the wrong reasons.

  4. Lead

    Price mostly. Quote was 14k and we'd just done the roof. Also nobody called me back for like 3 weeks so I assumed you weren't bothered

  5. Bakker Energy · AI assistant

    That's on us, and I'm sorry — three weeks is unacceptable. On the price: the ISDE subsidy went up in March, and for the model you were quoted it's now around €3,200 back. Doesn't make it cheap, but it's a different number than the one you walked away from.

  6. Lead

    Didn't know that. Is that guaranteed or one of those things where you apply and never hear back

  7. Bakker Energy · AI assistant

    Guaranteed if the install qualifies, and we file it for you. Want me to put 20 minutes in with Sanne to redo the numbers with the subsidy applied? No survey, no site visit — just the revised figure so you can decide.

  8. Lead

    Yeah ok. Thursday evening works, after 6

  9. Bakker Energy · AI assistant

    Booked — Thursday 18:30 with Sanne, she'll call this number. She'll have your January quote in front of her so you're not starting over. Reply STOP any time to opt out.

Representative example, not a customer transcript.

Read it again

Why each move is there

None of this is improvised. The sequence is designed, and the design is the part you are buying.

It introduces itself as an AI
Transparency in the first six words: what the AI Act asks for, delivered as part of saying hello rather than as a disclaimer bolted on afterwards. The message also names a specific property and month, because the difference between reactivation and spam is proof that you already know them.
It opens with rejection
A thread where the lead is friendly from the first reply proves nothing, and every visitor knows it. The demonstration is what happens after a no.
Accepts the no, asks one question
This is the move most human reps skip, and the reason the conversation survives. No pitch, no last-ditch offer — one genuine question with an honest reason for asking it.
The real objection surfaces, and it is two things
Price, and being ignored. The second one is the actual reason, and no CRM field would ever have captured it.
Apologises, then changes the facts
New information rather than persuasion. Conceding the weak part of your own argument is what buys credibility for the strong part.
The smallest possible ask
Twenty minutes, no survey, no site visit. The barrier is deliberately lower than a sales call.
The handover detail is what makes them show up
A named person, an exact time, and confirmation the rep will already have the old quote. The opt-out is present and is not the loudest thing in the message.

The problem

Acquisition keeps getting dearer. The database is already paid for.

Most businesses are sitting on thousands of contacts who once raised their hand and never converted, while the cost of acquiring the next one keeps climbing. The database has already been paid for.

Interest decays without fast follow-up, and a generic email blast does not re-open a conversation with someone who went quiet seven months ago. It gets filed with everything else.

The system

Starts from a spreadsheet

An AI-driven SMS system that holds a real conversation in any language, starting from a CSV you already have. No integration is needed to begin, and your CRM can be connected later once the thing has proved itself.

Replies and booked appointments route into your sales team's calendar. Your reps only speak to people who answered.

Revenue out of a database you have already paid for, and a sales team spending its time on conversations that are already open.

Best fit is a business generating 250 or more leads a week that wants to:

  • reactivate an old database that has gone cold
  • get more out of the marketing spend already committed
  • shorten a sales cycle that stalls between enquiry and appointment
  • collect documents without a person chasing them

Before it sends

A Dutch sales director thinks about the regulator first

That is the right instinct, so it gets answered before any numbers. This is how the work is done — not a guarantee, and not a substitute for your own legal advice.

The lawful basis is established before a campaign runs
Outbound SMS to old leads needs a lawful basis under GDPR and ePrivacy, and the soft opt-in for existing customer relationships is narrower than most people assume. Your list is assessed rather than assumed, per campaign, before anything sends. Where the answer turns on your own contracts or consent records, that is your legal advice to take, and I will say so rather than wave it through.
Recipients are told they are talking to an AI system
This is the EU AI Act's transparency obligation — Article 50 of Regulation (EU) 2024/1689, which has applied since August 2026. It requires that a person interacting directly with an AI system is able to know that they are. Here the disclosure sits in the opening message rather than a footer, which is a design choice rather than a concession: across 185 contacts on live campaigns, 30% replied at least once with the disclosure in front of them from the first message. What disclosure costs is not something I can tell you — that needs an undisclosed variant to compare against, and I have not run one. You can see the disclosure in the thread above.
Opt-outs are honoured immediately and permanently
A stop request ends the conversation on the spot and suppresses the contact across every future campaign, not just the current one.
Your data stays yours
Processing is under EU arrangements. Your contact data stays yours, and a full export is available on request — it takes a little setup rather than a button click today. The platform is licensed and operated rather than transferred, but nothing in your list is locked inside it.

How to buy it

Start with a paid pilot

€2,500–4,000

One segment, three to four weeks

One segment of your database, typically two to five thousand contacts, worked over three or four weeks. Nobody hands over a database on a twelve-month contract, and they should not have to.

The pilot produces your actual reply and booking rates on your own list. That is what the ongoing arrangement gets priced against, rather than an industry average that has nothing to do with your business.

Then an ongoing arrangement

Three parts: a one-off setup, a monthly platform fee that scales with volume, and a fee for each appointment that gets booked. The per-appointment figure is set against what a closed deal is worth to you, because the same number is trivial in one business and unaffordable in another.

You pay on the booked appointment, not the closed sale. The booking is what this system actually produces, and it is the part I can be held to. What happens in the meeting is decided by your rep, your offer and your price — so a share of closed revenue would bill you for work that is yours, and turn every invoice into an argument about attribution.

What you keep

Your data is yours. The platform is mine.

This is a product I license and operate, not a system I hand over. Your contact list, the conversations and the outcomes are your data. Ask for them and you get a full export — it takes a little setup rather than a button click, so give me some notice, but it is not conditional on anything and it is not a bargaining chip. The platform itself stays with me and is run for you.

That is the opposite of how bespoke system work is sold here, and the distinction is deliberate rather than accidental.

Next

Two things this becomes next

Speed to lead

The same system pointed at inbound enquiries instead of old ones, engaging within seconds of the form being submitted rather than the following morning.

Document collection

Identity documents and signed contracts collected over SMS, chased automatically, without a person doing the chasing.

No integration needed to start
A CSV export from whatever you already use. CRM connection is a later step, once it has proved itself.
Disclosure did not stop people replying
Across 185 contacts on live campaigns, 30% replied at least once. The disclosure is in the opening message of every thread, including the one above.

Start with a call

Bring one segment of a list you have written off. Three or four weeks later you will have your own reply and booking rates instead of somebody's case study.