10 Follow Up Boss Power-User Tips Agents Often Overlook

Follow Up Boss (owned by Zillow Group) is a deep CRM — it can handle basic contact management, but the agents who outperform their peers have learned to use its more nuanced features. These ten tips focus on capabilities that exist inside FUB today but are consistently underused even by experienced users.

Tip 1: Use AND/OR logic in smart lists to build surgical contact segments

Most agents create smart lists with a single filter. Power users stack filters with AND/OR logic to create segments like "Stage = Active AND last inbound > 7 days AND source = Zillow AND price range > $500k" — a list that tells you exactly who to call Monday morning without any manual hunting.

To enable compound filters: open a smart list, click "Add Filter," and look for the logic toggle. Save the list and it auto-refreshes as contacts move in and out of the criteria. Build five or six of these and your daily workflow is essentially pre-loaded.

Tip 2: Trigger action plans with tags instead of just lead sources

Most agents only trigger action plans at the lead source level — "when a Zillow lead comes in, start plan X." But you can also trigger plans by adding a tag manually or automatically. This means you can create specialized plans for "sphere — 60-day check-in," "past client — anniversary," or "open house attendee" and fire them just by tagging a contact.

Practical setup: in FUB's admin → Action Plans, set the trigger to "Tag is added: [tag name]." Now any agent on the team can enroll any contact into a specialized sequence in two taps on mobile.

Tip 3: Build a "lost deal" re-engagement plan that runs for two years

When a transaction falls apart, most agents move the contact to "Closed — Lost" and mentally move on. Power users instead enroll the contact in a long-term re-engagement plan that touches them every 45–60 days with genuine value: a market update, a relevant listing, a neighborhood report. Real estate timelines are long and circumstances change — a deal that died in March can resurface in October.

Key: personalize the first message with a reference to what they were looking for ("I know the [neighborhood] search didn't work out — inventory just opened up there. Worth a look?"). Generic drip gets ignored.

Tip 4: Use FUB's calling notes field as a structured script prompter

Every call task in FUB allows a task note. Most agents leave it blank. Power users paste in a 3-bullet call guide: the contact's last known search criteria, the last thing they said, and a suggested opening line for this specific call. The mobile FUB app shows task notes before you dial — so every call starts with context instead of a blank stare at a contact card.

Tip 5: Segment your database by "Ace Tier" for instant daily prioritization

If you have Follow Up Ace active, every contact in your FUB database gets a free Ace Tier field (Hot / Warm / Cool / Cold / Dormant) updated nightly based on AI analysis of engagement signals. Build a smart list filtered to "Ace Tier = Hot" and you have a living, AI-ranked priority list — no manual scoring, no guesswork. (Verified: chat-app/shared/aceIntelligenceFieldsConfig.js line 36; nightly scoring: chat-app/utils/aiEngineRecipes.js.)

Pair this with the Ace Velocity Score field to catch contacts whose engagement is accelerating — they may not be "Hot" yet, but the trend says they are about to be.

Tip 6: Use bulk texting for sphere campaigns — with the right cadence

FUB supports bulk texting to smart list segments. Most agents either never use it or abuse it with too-frequent blasts. The power-user approach: send one market update text per quarter to your entire sphere segment, timed to a local market event — a rate change, a new development announcement, a seasonal buying pattern. These feel timely and add genuine value rather than noise.

Always use FUB merge fields ({{first_name}}, etc.) so the text opens personally. And always send from the individual agent's assigned number, not a generic team number, so replies land in the right inbox.

Tip 7: Set up "pond" management so no unrouted lead sits unworked

FUB's Ponds feature lets you hold leads in an unclaimed pool and let agents claim them on a first-come basis. The underused power-user move: create a pond with an automatic expiration — if no one claims a lead within 15 minutes, it escalates to a specific team lead or round-robins to the next available agent. This turns FUB into a natural speed-to-lead competition that agents actually enjoy.

Set a public leaderboard (FUB has a built-in one) tracking claims per agent per week. Friendly competition drives faster response more reliably than mandated policies.

Tip 8: Map every lead source's custom fields into FUB on the way in

When a lead arrives from Zillow, Realtor.com, or your IDX, it carries data — price range, bedrooms, zip code, timing. Most agents let that data get lost because their FUB integration isn't configured to capture it. Power users map every source field to a FUB custom field via the integration settings or a Zapier step.

Why it matters: smart list filters only work on data that's actually in FUB. If "price range" never lands, you can't build a "$700k+ buyer" smart list. Five minutes of field-mapping setup pays off across your entire contact database.

Tip 9: Use FUB's email open tracking to spot re-engaged dormant leads

FUB tracks email opens when you use its built-in email sending. Most agents never look at these signals. Power users build a smart list: "Stage = Long Nurture AND email opened in last 7 days." When a dormant contact opens three drip emails in a week, they are almost certainly back in the market — and calling them before they fill out another agent's form is entirely possible.

Combine this with the Ace Velocity Score from Follow Up Ace, which also catches this re-engagement pattern automatically and surfaces it in the FUB custom field without requiring you to build the smart list manually.

Tip 10: Connect Follow Up Ace's MCP server for AI-native CRM control

For agents using AI assistants like Claude or compatible tools, Follow Up Ace exposes a Model Context Protocol (MCP) server with 215 CRM tools. The one-URL connector for Claude is https://followupace.com/mcp; for ChatGPT SSE, https://followupace.com/api/mcp/sse/. (Verified: chat-app/routes/embed.js:4308-4309; tool count: mcp-server/src/index.ts:206,3818.) This is a Pro-plan feature that lets you query, update, and analyze your FUB database through natural language in your AI tool of choice — asking things like "which contacts haven't been called in 30 days?" and getting actionable answers instantly.

For a deeper look at the compliance tools built into this layer, see the Compliance page.

Which of these tips should you implement first?

Start with smart list logic (Tip 1) and field mapping (Tip 8) — they are the foundation everything else builds on. Then add AI scoring (Tip 5) for instant daily prioritization. Visit the Guides section for deeper walkthroughs on each of these workflows.