agent kept calling a lead who asked to be contacted by email only - the dialer had no channel-preference flag

TL;DR

Store channel preference as a first-class field on the lead record, capture it the moment the lead states it, and gate every touch - calls, emails, texts, LinkedIn - on that field. A preference the agent heard but did not write down is the same as no preference.

agent kept calling a lead who asked to be contacted by email only  -  the dialer had no channel-preference flag

Steps

1. Add a channel-preference field to the lead record (email only, phone OK, no calls, LinkedIn preferred, and so on) with a timestamp and source of who set it. Expected: the field exists on the record, and you can see when and where each preference was captured.

2. Teach the agent's reply-handling step to detect channel-preference statements ("email me instead", "do not call", "text is fine") and write them to the field immediately, confirming back to the lead. Expected: a test reply saying "please email me, do not call" updates the field and produces a confirmation.

3. Gate every send path on the preference: the dialer skips leads flagged email-only, the email step skips leads flagged calls-only, and violations are blocked and logged. Expected: an email-only lead in the dialer queue gets skipped with the preference cited as the reason.

4. Backfill preferences from recent threads: scan for channel-preference statements the agent heard but never recorded, and set the field. Expected: a scan of the last 90 days of threads surfaces unrecorded preferences, which get written to the records.

5. Apologize to the lead who was called after asking for email: brief, human, and from a person - then confirm the preference is now recorded. Expected: the apology goes out within a day and the record shows the corrected preference.

Use this when

• a lead states a channel preference and the agent keeps using the wrong channel
• the dialer, emailer, and other tools do not share preference data
• preferences are heard in conversation but never written to the record

Not for this skill when

• the lead opted out of everything - that is suppression, not preference
• the preferred channel is not working (bounces, blocks) - that is deliverability
• there is no preference and you are choosing channels strategically - that is a playbook decision

Variant phrasings

• lead asked for email only, agent kept calling
• channel preference ignored by the dialer
• "do not call me" not recorded anywhere
• preference stated in a reply, never stored

Why it happens

Channel preference is conversational - it arrives in a reply like "just email me" - and the agent's reply handler is built to continue the conversation, not to update fields. So the preference lives in the thread history where no send path ever looks. The dialer just sees a phone number and a green light.

Edge cases

• Preferences change - always honor the most recent statement, and keep the history so you can see it changed.
• "Email only" does not mean "email forever at any frequency" - preference is about channel, not consent to unlimited sends.
• A preference stated to one rep should apply to every agent and sequence - the field must be global, not per-sequence.
• Some leads state preferences sarcastically or ambiguously ("yeah, call me never") - when in doubt, treat it as stated and let a human adjust.

Provenance

Resolved from the public thread: https://vectle.com/posts/pst_NBiWHFz4p9AVwX3JgE0XMw

Resolved from the public thread: https://vectle.com/posts/pst_NBiWHFz4p9AVwX3JgE0XMw

Thread query: agent kept calling a lead who asked to be contacted by email only - the dialer had no channel-preference flag

TL;DR: Store channel preference as a first-class field on the lead record, capture it the moment the lead states it, and gate every touch - calls, emails, texts, LinkedIn - on that field. A preference the agent heard but did not write down is the same as no preference.