# A prospect replies

A reply ends the cold stage whatever it says. The answer is classified, the sender is resolved to a Person rather than left as a string, and the record stops being a research object and becomes a conversation. Interest can open an opportunity; a refusal stops everything at the reply itself rather than at the next scheduled action.

- **Status:** Available
- **Audience:** both
- **In the app:** #/prospects, #/inbox, #/needs-you, #/pipeline
- **Last verified:** 2026-09-10
- **Canonical:** https://connectbyjbrh.com/docs/prospects/prospect-reply/

## A reply changes the kind of record

Before a reply, a prospect is a researched organisation with claims attached. After one it is a conversation with a human on the other end, and the parts of Connect that handle relationships take over from the parts that handle research.

1. **Identity resolution runs on the sender.** An Identity is one address on one channel resolving to a Person; if the reply comes from an address you already hold, this is somebody you know and the prospect merges into that relationship rather than sitting beside it.
2. **The thread is canonical.** The reply belongs to the conversation on the sending mailbox, so nothing is orphaned and the timeline reads in order.
3. **Research stops driving.** Freshness may still re-read the organisation, but the next action now comes from the reply, not from the research queue.
4. **Cold-path scheduling ends.** Any follow-up created by outreach is stopped or replaced by one whose reason is the reply.

## What the classification is for

Classification decides what happens next, not what to think. Four outcomes cover almost everything, and each has a different consequence for the record.

| The reply says | Effect on the cold path | What the record gains |
|---|---|---|
| Interested, or asks a question | Ends — this is now a conversation | A lifecycle stage, and often an opportunity |
| Not now, ask later | Ends; a dated follow-up with the reason replaces it | A commitment somebody else can inherit |
| No, and do not write again | Ends immediately, with a do-not-contact entry | A durable block that holds across channels |
| Wrong person, try someone else | Ends for this contact | A correction to the contact route, recorded with its origin |
| Something ambiguous | Ends anyway; a person decides | A Needs You item with the reply beside the record |

The last row is the honest one. An ambiguous answer is not resolved by guessing a class — uncertainty is a valid answer from a business agent, and the item goes to a person with the text in front of them. Guessing here is how a polite brush-off becomes a second message.

## What Connect may say back

The same rules that governed the first message govern the answer to a reply, with one addition: this is now an inbound conversation, which is a different path from outreach and carries different gates. The two are never merged.

- **Autonomy still applies.** `ask_before_send` on the channel means the reply to the reply waits for a person, exactly as the first message did.
- **Commercial terms are still refused.** A price, an SLA or a warranty that Knowledge does not support is escalated rather than improvised — the fact that a prospect asked directly does not create an answer.
- **Grounding still applies.** What Connect says is drawn from Knowledge and from the record, not from the confidence of the question.
- **A refusal is recorded.** Declining to answer is a decision and appears in the audit trail with the rule that produced it.

> **Careful** A prospect asking for a price is the most common moment a cold conversation stalls, and it is working as intended. The escalation is faster to act on than an improvised number is to retract.

## When it goes further

**An opportunity opens** — Interest can become a deal on the pipeline, carrying the fit reason with it so the pipeline can answer why this started. Values are held in minor units — see [Sales in Connect](/docs/sales/).
**A lifecycle stage moves** — The person moves through the stages a workspace uses, and the movement is a recorded event rather than a silent field change.
**A demo or a case follows** — Both are ordinary records from here on; nothing about the prospect's origin makes them special.
**Nothing follows** — A reply that ends the matter still ends it cleanly: the cold path stops, the reason is on the record, and the research is not repeated by the next run.

## Questions

### Does a reply have to be read by a person before anything stops?

No. Stopping does not wait for a human — a refusal takes effect at the reply. What may wait for a person is what Connect says back, which is governed by the channel's autonomy mode.

### The reply came from a colleague of the person I wrote to. What happens?

The sender is resolved on their own address, so they become their own Person within the same organisation. The conversation follows the human who actually replied rather than the one originally addressed.

### Can I see the research that produced the message they are replying to?

Yes — the prospect record, its claims and their sources stay attached through the conversation. That is what makes a reply like 'we stopped doing that last year' immediately actionable: you can see which claim it contradicts.

## Related

- [Stopping a cold sequence](https://connectbyjbrh.com/docs/prospects/cold-sequence-stop/)
- [First outreach](https://connectbyjbrh.com/docs/prospects/first-outreach/)
- [From prospect to opportunity](https://connectbyjbrh.com/docs/prospects/prospect-to-opportunity/)
- [Classifying a prospect's reply, end to end](https://connectbyjbrh.com/docs/workflows/reply-classification/)
- [Why uncertainty is a valid answer from a business agent](https://connectbyjbrh.com/research/uncertainty-is-an-answer/)
- [Relationships in Connect](https://connectbyjbrh.com/docs/relationships/)

## What this page is based on

- docs-source/sources/CHANNELS.md §4 — reply classification, opportunity or stop
- docs-source/sources/CHANNELS.md §5 and §6 — people, identity, journey and sales
- docs-source/sources/CHANNELS.md §6 — safe_sales refuses invented commercial terms