Key concepts
The handful of nouns that everything in Reply First is built around.
Learn these six terms and the rest of the product reads itself. Each links to a fuller explanation.
Lead
A person who contacted you. One lead per person per agent, matched by phone or email. Every lead carries a qualification stage and a structured profile. See Leads & qualification.
Conversation
The message thread with a lead on one channel. Conversations belong to a lead and inherit its owner. A lead can have more than one (e.g. WhatsApp and web).
The qualifier agent
The multi-step AI run that fires on each inbound message: reply → extract profile → update qualification → hand off if needed. It uses your listings, knowledge base, and voice. See The qualifier agent.
Qualification stage
Where a lead sits in your funnel:
new → qualifying → qualified → meeting_booked → nurture → not_qualified → closed
The agent moves leads between stages as it learns more. closed is the only stage your CRM can set through the API.
Handoff
An AI-requested human takeover — because the lead is high-value, asked for a person, or the agent isn't confident. Handoffs notify you in Slack and pause the AI on that conversation until you release it. See Handoffs & escalation.
Knowledge wiki
Your org's pages of facts — process, pricing, market, compliance — injected into every agent prompt. It's the biggest lever you have on answer quality. See Knowledge wiki.
Ownership
Every lead, conversation, and message belongs to one agent (the teammate whose number produced it). Teammates see only their own leads unless they opt into a shared inbox. See Ownership & sharing.