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Playbooks & Automation

Dormant Revival playbook

Use this guide when customers have a valid prolonged-inactivity stage signal and you want to evaluate a careful win-back attempt.

Dormant Revival is a win-back playbook. It helps Hellotext identify customers who have not purchased, visited, clicked, replied, or otherwise engaged for a longer period, then send a relevant reactivation message when the customer is still eligible to hear from you.

A stage signal does not confirm a send or global future exclusion. It sits between Soft Reactivation, which addresses the initial-inactivity stage, and Sunset Saver, which requires a valid churn-risk signal.

Availability can vary by account and rollout status. If the card appears as on request or disabled, confirm availability with your Hellotext team before planning a launch.

What Dormant Revival does

Dormant Revival helps bring back customers who have gone quiet for longer than a normal buying pause.

It can:

  • Evaluate customers with a valid prolonged-inactivity signal and check whether qualifying activity resumed after that signal.
  • Use customer history, product context, catalog data, channel eligibility, and offer rules before a message is sent.
  • Suggest products, collections, or offers that are relevant to the customer’s past behavior.
  • Generate personalized message examples that adapt per customer.
  • Let your team give Playground feedback on examples so Hellotext learns what fits the business.
  • Follow existing eCommerce offer rules, use AI-driven discounts up to an approved maximum percentage, or send without discounts.
  • Evaluate available channel routes according to permission, destination, readiness, and sending rules, without a lowest-cost or ROI guarantee.
  • Skip customers when the customer reactivated, bought recently, entered another active playbook, opted out, cannot be reached, or lacks enough product context.

The exact configuration can vary by account, connected store, catalog quality, channel, templates, and rollout status.

When to use it

Use Dormant Revival when a customer has been inactive for longer than the Soft Reactivation window but is not yet in a last-attempt moment.

It is a good fit when:

  • The customer has a valid prolonged-inactivity signal; counting months since any message is insufficient.
  • The customer previously bought, visited, clicked, replied, or showed enough interest to justify a win-back message.
  • Soft Reactivation did not apply, did not reactivate the customer, or the customer is already past that recent-inactivity moment.
  • The business has a relevant reason to reach out, such as a product update, new collection, recommendation, or approved offer.
  • The goal is to recover the customer relationship without sending repeated generic campaigns.

For the initial-inactivity stage, consider Soft Reactivation. For the churn-risk stage, consider Sunset Saver.

For product-specific moments, use the more specific playbook: Replenishment Driver for consumable reorder timing, Cross-Sell Driver for related products after purchase, and AI Cart Saver for abandoned cart or checkout moments.

What it needs before launch

Before enabling Dormant Revival, confirm the setup it depends on.

Check that:

  • Your store or data source sends purchase history and customer activity to Hellotext.
  • Customer profiles include reliable identifiers, channel consent, and historical behavior.
  • Product names, images, prices, stock, and links are current.
  • The products or collections you want to use are appropriate for win-back messages.
  • The audience you want to reach is identifiable and eligible for the selected channel.
  • Purchase, browse, click, reply, unsubscribe, opt-out, and recent reactivation signals are available enough for Hellotext to avoid irrelevant sends.
  • If discounts are allowed, eCommerce offer rules and any maximum AI discount percentage are approved before launch.
  • Product cards, product links, or rich messages work in the channels you plan to use.

For setup validation, use Verify your data and signals after setup. For custom tracking, use Tracking events.

After launch, use the automatically generated reports to review sends, clicks, purchases, attributed revenue, opt-outs, replies, and skipped opportunities.

What you can configure

Open Playbooks, click Explore playbooks, and choose Dormant Revival.

The available cards can vary, but the proposed setup focuses on:

  • Outgoing channels: where Hellotext can send or continue the reactivation message.
  • Audience: which audience or segment can receive the playbook.
  • Products: which products, collections, categories, or groups can be used in the message.
  • Discount strategy: whether the playbook follows existing eCommerce offer rules, can use AI-driven discounts up to a maximum percentage, or sends without discounts.
  • Tone or Playground feedback: how generated examples should learn what fits your business.

Keep automatic channel selection unless you have a clear reason to limit the playbook. Dormant Revival depends on whether the customer can still be reached in a channel where the message makes sense. Selection depends on eligible routes and sending checks; it does not guarantee the cheapest channel or a particular ROI.

If you need a custom conversational agent with its own instructions, knowledge, and handoff rules, use Custom Agent. If you need a fully controlled sequence of steps, use a custom journey.

How Hellotext chooses the moment

Dormant Revival should start from a meaningful inactivity signal, not from a broad static blast.

Hellotext can use signals like:

  • A valid prolonged-inactivity signal, its source, and the customer’s qualifying activity.
  • Prior purchase history, product categories, customer value, and historical engagement.
  • Products previously bought, browsed, clicked, or recommended.
  • Whether the customer already reactivated through another playbook, campaign, or reply.
  • Whether another playbook owns the current moment, such as cart recovery, replenishment, cross-sell, support, or Soft Reactivation.
  • Product availability, price, stock, links, and discount rules.
  • Channel eligibility, consent, and recent communication history.

Before sending, Hellotext can also consider:

  • Whether the inactivity signal is tied to a reachable customer profile.
  • Whether the message has a relevant product, offer, or reason to reach out.
  • Whether the customer recently bought, replied, unsubscribed, or opted out.
  • Whether the profile can receive a message in an eligible channel.
  • Whether the opportunity passes applicable admission, frequency, and sending rules.
  • Whether another active playbook is a better fit.
  • Whether timing, frequency, quiet hours, templates, or channel rules allow the send.

For the broader decision model, see How Hellotext decides whether a playbook can send.

How it works with nearby playbooks

Use the customer moment to decide the owner.

Customer moment Better fit
Customer meets the initial-inactivity stage criteria Soft Reactivation
Customer meets the prolonged-inactivity stage criteria Dormant Revival
Customer meets the churn-risk stage criteria Sunset Saver
Customer may need to reorder a consumable product Replenishment Driver
Customer recently bought and may want a related product Cross-Sell Driver
Customer abandoned a cart or checkout AI Cart Saver or Cart Saver route
You want to send a planned one-time message to a selected audience Campaigns

Dormant Revival can coexist with other playbooks when each one owns a different moment. It should not compete with a more specific signal, and it should stop trying to win back a customer who already returned, replied, opted out, or entered another active flow.

Review messages in the Playground

Dormant Revival can generate personalized examples from customer history, product context, audience, channel, tone, and offer rules. You usually do not need to write every message by hand.

Use the Playground to review examples before launch. Mark the examples you like and the examples you do not like, so Hellotext can learn the style, wording, product choices, and level of urgency that fit your business.

When reviewing examples, look for:

  • Whether the message gives a respectful reason to come back.
  • Whether the product, collection, or offer is relevant to the customer’s history.
  • Whether the tone feels warm and intentional, not desperate or repetitive.
  • Whether discounts follow the approved strategy.
  • Whether the copy avoids assumptions about why the customer left.
  • Whether replies can continue naturally in the channel or reach the Inbox when needed.

The more realistic the examples are, the better the system can adapt messages to your store.

How to test it

Test with a small, realistic path before enabling it broadly.

Use test customer profiles that have channel consent, then:

  • Identify a profile with history and a valid prolonged-inactivity signal.
  • Confirm the profile has historical and recent activity visible in Hellotext.
  • Confirm the audience includes the test profile.
  • Confirm the products or collections used by the playbook have correct images, prices, stock, variants, and links.
  • Generate or simulate message examples in the Playground.
  • Mark examples you like and examples you do not like.
  • Test a customer who recently reactivated and should not receive Dormant Revival.
  • Review a profile with a valid initial-stage signal, corresponding to Soft Reactivation.
  • Review a profile with a valid churn-risk signal, corresponding to Sunset Saver.
  • Test a customer who is not eligible for the channel.
  • Review product links, discounts, and attribution.
  • Send a realistic reply and confirm it reaches the right teammate or team if handoff is available.

If tracking is custom, confirm that purchase events, product-interest events, click events, reply events, timestamps, and customer identifiers match what Hellotext expects.

Why it may not send

Dormant Revival being enabled does not mean every inactive customer receives a message.

The playbook may wait, skip, stop, or let another playbook act when:

  • Customer activity is missing, delayed, or not tied to a usable customer profile.
  • The signal corresponds to the initial stage of Soft Reactivation.
  • The signal corresponds to the churn-risk stage of Sunset Saver.
  • The customer recently bought, clicked, replied, or entered another active playbook.
  • No relevant product, collection, offer, or message angle can be found.
  • Products are unavailable, out of stock, missing prices, missing images, or missing usable links.
  • The profile cannot be reached in an eligible channel.
  • The customer unsubscribed, opted out, or is otherwise not eligible.
  • The opportunity does not pass applicable admission or sending checks.
  • Timing, frequency, quiet hours, templates, or channel rules prevent the send.
  • The channel, sender, template, link, or message format is not ready.
  • Another active playbook is a better fit.

For a step-by-step diagnosis, use Troubleshoot a playbook that did not trigger or send.

What to review after launch

During the first days, review:

  • Which customers created eligible Dormant Revival moments.
  • Which messages were sent, skipped, delayed, clicked, replied to, or purchased from.
  • Whether product choices felt relevant to the customer’s history.
  • Whether links, images, prices, variants, and stock were correct.
  • Purchases, attributed revenue, opt-outs, replies, and failed messages.
  • Whether discounts improved reactivation or only reduced margin.
  • Whether Dormant Revival overlaps with Soft Reactivation, Sunset Saver, Replenishment Driver, Cross-Sell Driver, AI Cart Saver, support playbooks, or campaigns.

Tune one thing at a time: audience, product scope, product logic, tone, Playground feedback, discount strategy, channel, or handoff path.

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