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Founder reviews and acts on customer submissions

Persona​

John Moelker, solo founder. Receives inbound submissions from multiple funnels: contact form on churchwiseai.com, demo requests on sermonwise.ai, outreach reply captures, PewSearch claim requests, FuneralWiseAI booking inquiries. Reviews them directly, decides which are high-signal, and either responds personally or hands off to an agent to draft a reply. Decision loop: scan submission, check Stripe state, read conversation history, decide (respond/convert/defer/spam) — all in under 2 minutes per submission.

Entry points​

  1. Submissions dashboard — https://churchwiseai.com/founder/[token]/submissions — filterable list of all inbound submissions.
  2. Morning brief action item — "3 new submissions need review" → link to submissions dashboard.
  3. Webhook trigger — New submission fires a row insert into the submissions queue; optional Slack notification (P2 feature).

Click-through flow​

Steps​

  1. Lands on the submissions dashboard — Filterable list: Date, Source (contact-form / outreach-reply / chatbot-escalation / pewsearch-claim / funeral-booking), Sender Name, Subject (first 50 chars), Status (new / responded / converted / deferred / spam). Default filter: Status = "new." Spam is pre-filtered from email_blocklist and keyword flagging; visible only with "Show spam" checkbox.

  2. Opens a submission to read full context — Slide-over panel: Sender name + email, date, source badge. Context section: prior submissions from this sender (with status), Stripe customer lookup by email (with link if exists), recent outreach emails sent to this sender (subject + date). Message body: full submission text. AI-generated intent summary. Action buttons: "Draft reply in Gmail" · "Create trial account" · "Defer" · "Mark spam."

  3. Reviews and decides — Reads message, checks context (repeat contact? already a customer?). Decision types:

    • Respond (70%): Contact form inquiry or outreach reply. Draft a personal Gmail response.
    • Convert to trial (20%): Church pastor asking for demo, strong positive signal. Create trial account, send magic link.
    • Defer (5%): Valid but not urgent. Follow-up in 3 days.
    • Spam (5%): Duplicate, blocklisted domain, or bad-faith inquiry.

  4. Responds via Gmail draft — "Draft reply in Gmail" opens Gmail tab pre-populated: To (sender), Subject (Re: [original] or "Thank you for reaching out"), Body (agent-written template by submission type). HEAR protocol tone: Hear the inquiry, Empathize, Advance (next step), Respond (practical offer). Founder edits if needed, sends. Submission status → responded, archived from "new" view.

  5. Converts a submission to a trial account — Confirmation dialog: "Create trial account for [Name] ([Church Name])? They'll receive a magic link with 14-day access to Starter." Founder confirms. POST /api/founder/submissions/[id]/convert-to-trial creates premium_churches row (plan='cwa_starter_both', status='trialing', trial_ends_at=now+14d), generates magic link, sends "Welcome to ChurchWiseAI Trial" email. Submission marked converted; founder receives confirmation link to new customer's dashboard.

  6. Defers or marks spam — Defer: date picker (default 3 days). Submission moves to "deferred" view; morning brief includes "deferred submissions due today" section. Spam: "Block all emails from [domain]?" choice (just this submission vs. block domain). Domain added to email_blocklist if blocked; future submissions from that domain auto-rejected.

Acceptance spec​

No external acceptance spec — internal operational routine. Governed by:

  • Database: customer_submissions table (source, sender_email, sender_name, subject, message_text, metadata, status, priority, created_at, converted_to_church_id)
  • Code files: churchwiseai-web/src/app/founder/[token]/submissions/page.tsx, churchwiseai-web/src/app/api/founder/submissions/ routes

Success criteria​

  1. All submissions queue in one place across all funnel sources.
  2. Context is instant — prior contact, Stripe state, campaign source without leaving the panel.
  3. Each submission takes under 2 minutes to triage.
  4. Spam and duplicates pre-filtered; founder rarely wastes time on noise.
  5. Converting to trial takes one click and a confirmation.
  6. Deferred submissions bubble back up in morning brief.

Known failure modes​

  • Duplicate submissions from same sender. Server-side dedup should flag: "Similar submission from [email] on [date] — [status]. Merge?" Founder can link or treat separately.

  • Spam flood. Add bulk-action checkbox: "Select all + Mark as spam" to clear queue quickly.

  • Gmail draft fails to open. Fallback: "Copy to clipboard" button with full draft text. Do not silently fail.

  • Trial account race condition. If founder double-clicks "Convert to trial," second click must show "Already converted on [date] → [link to account]" instead of creating a duplicate row.

  • Outreach reply capture misconfiguration. Monitor: alert if zero replies captured in a 24h window after campaign sends.