Postcards open the door. Phone calls walk the customer through it. PostKnock's call queue (Pro plan) automatically generates a list of follow-up calls for your front desk 3–5 days after each wave is delivered — right when the postcard is fresh in the recipient's mind. This guide explains how the queue works, how to configure it, and how to write scripts your team will actually use.
How the Call Queue Works
When you launch a campaign with calls enabled, PostKnock waits for Lob to confirm the postcards have been printed and mailed. Three to five business days later (configurable), each contact who received a card appears in the call queue with their name, phone number, the postcard they received, and the script for that wave.
Your front desk works the queue throughout the day. Each call has three possible outcomes: booked (the customer scheduled), follow-up needed (didn't reach them, leave voicemail, try again), or not interested (do not contact for this campaign). Outcomes are logged with one click and feed back into the campaign's reporting and the rest cycle.
If a contact has already responded (scanned the QR, called in, or been manually marked), they're automatically removed from the call queue. You never call someone who's already booked.
Setting Your Daily Call Cap
The daily call cap (Settings → Calls) controls how many calls land in your queue per business day. The cap exists because most front desks can handle 20–40 outbound recall calls per day on top of their normal incoming traffic — not 200. PostKnock spreads larger queues over multiple days so your team doesn't get buried.
Recommended caps by team size:
- 1 receptionist, single location: 15–20 calls/day.
- 2 receptionists or dedicated recall coordinator: 30–50 calls/day.
- Multi-location office with shared phone team: 50–100 calls/day.
If you have a large list and want it called within a tight time window (e.g., before a holiday close), you can temporarily raise the cap. The queue will refill faster but won't exceed your set limit on any given day.
Configuring Calling Hours
Calling hours determine when the queue is active and visible to your team. Calls placed outside business hours risk waking up customers and feel intrusive. PostKnock defaults to Monday–Friday, 9am–5pm in your local time zone, and you can adjust per location.
Best practices for calling windows:
- Avoid 8am–9am and 12pm–1pm. People are commuting or eating; pickup rates are lower.
- Late morning and mid-afternoon work best — 10am–noon and 2pm–4pm.
- Skip Mondays for non-urgent recall. Mondays are busy, and your office may also be playing catch-up.
- Respect federal regulation. Don't call before 8am or after 9pm in the recipient's time zone — PostKnock enforces this automatically based on the recipient's address.
Customizing Scripts Per Wave
Each wave in your campaign has its own call script. Wave 1 scripts are warmer ("we just sent you a card…"), wave 2 scripts reinforce ("we sent you another reminder this month and wanted to check in"), and wave 3 scripts add urgency ("our offer expires Friday and I wanted to make sure you didn't miss it"). PostKnock ships starter scripts for every playbook — you can edit them per campaign.
A good recall call script has four parts:
- Greeting + identification. "Hi, this is Jamie from Dr. Smith's office. Is this Sarah?"
- Reference the postcard. "We sent you a card last week about scheduling your overdue cleaning."
- Specific offer + next step. "We have a Thursday at 2pm or Friday morning if either works."
- Soft close + thank you. "I'll text you the confirmation. Thanks, Sarah!"
Variable tokens (first name, doctor name, last visit date, offer code) populate automatically inside the script panel during the call — no copy-pasting from a spreadsheet. Your team reads the script as personalized text on screen.
Logging Outcomes
Outcome logging is the data backbone of the call queue. After every call, the team picks an outcome from a short button list. The available outcomes are:
- Booked — appointment scheduled. Contact exits the campaign.
- Voicemail left — left a voicemail referencing the postcard. Returns to queue in 5–7 days for one retry.
- No answer / no voicemail — no message left. Returns sooner (1–2 days).
- Not interested — explicitly opted out. Removed from this and future campaigns until they re-engage.
- Wrong number — contact's phone is bad. Flagged on the contact record so you can update later.
- Already booked / had appointment — they were planning to come in. Marks them as responded.
Outcomes feed both the rest-cycle logic and your campaign reports. You'll see your team's call volume, contact rate, and book rate per wave on the dashboard, so you can spot what's working and where to coach.
Voicemail Handling
Roughly half of all attempted calls hit voicemail. Don't skip the voicemail — a 15-second message tied to the postcard increases response by 20–30%. The script panel includes a separate "voicemail script" field for each wave so your team doesn't have to improvise.
Effective voicemail script template:
"Hi Sarah, this is Jamie from Dr. Smith's office calling to follow up on the postcard we sent. We're calling because you're due for your cleaning and we'd love to get you back on the schedule. Give us a call at 555-0123 when you have a minute — we have a couple of openings this week. Thanks!"
Keep voicemails under 20 seconds. Reference the postcard. State the reason. Give the phone number twice (once is enough to forget). Don't pressure.
Free vs Pro
The call queue is a Pro-plan feature. The Free plan lets you launch postcard campaigns but does not generate call queues or scripts. If you're running recall, reactivation, or any campaign where the call follow-up doubles response, Pro is the obvious choice. See How PostKnock Pricing Works for the cost details.
For the broader case for adding calls to a postcard campaign, our patient recall best practices guide covers the response math — it's typically a 2–3x lift on the same postcard list.
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