When you add reply buttons to a message in your Journey, you unlock three powerful advanced settings that help you get and collect more responses from your customers:
Store a customer response - Save a customer's answer when they click one of your reply buttons.
Follow-up reminder – Automatically re-engage customers who haven't responded after a set time.
Mandatory reply buttons – Ensure customers respond using your reply buttons, not free text.
This article walks you through how to set up both settings, step by step.
Before you start
Make sure you have already:
Created a Journey in charles
Added a Send Message node to your Journey
Added at least one Reply Button to that message
💡 Not sure how to do this yet? Check out our article: How to create a Journey and add reply buttons.
Step 1: Open Advanced Settings
In your Journey, click on the Send Message node that contains your reply buttons.
On the left side, the node will open up and it'll have it's own menu.
Click on the gear to open Advanced Settings.
You will now see three toggle options.
Step 2: Store Customer Response
Use this setting if you want to save a customer's response based on a button they click. To get to know more on how to store customer responses, please read this article.
How to set it up:
Switch on the toggle "Store customer response".
Choose the 2nd option: "Store in a custom property" if you need to save a response provided by clicking a button.
Select a custom property in which you'd like to save this answer. (If you don't have this custom property prepared, open Settings -> Custom Properties, create a new one.)
Step 3: Set up a Follow-Up Reminder
Use this setting if you want to automatically send a reminder to customers who have not clicked any of your reply buttons after a certain amount of time.
You may also use this option when you'd like to proceed further with a flow, even if there is no response from a customer.
How to set it up:
Switch on the toggle "Follow up if the customer has not responded".
Define how long charles should wait before sending the reminder (e.g., 24 hours, 3 days).
A new reply button will automatically appear in your message node — this is the button your reminder message will be linked to.
Connect a new message node to that button and write your reminder message (e.g., "Hey, we noticed you haven't responded yet — we'd love to hear from you! 👇").
💡 Tip: Keep your reminder message short, friendly, and to the point. One follow-up is usually enough to re-engage customers without feeling pushy.
Step 4: Make Reply Buttons Mandatory
Use this setting if you want to make sure customers respond by clicking one of your reply buttons — not by typing their own free-text message.
How to set it up:
Switch on the toggle "Answering using the reply buttons is mandatory".
Write a fallback message — this is the message customers will receive if they type a free-text response instead of clicking a button (e.g., "Please use one of the reply buttons below to continue. 👇").
Set the number of retries — this defines how many times charles will send the fallback message before the flow stops. Once the retry limit is reached, the Journey will end for that customer.
💡 Tip: We recommend setting 2–3 retries. This gives customers enough chances to respond correctly without the flow running indefinitely.