How to configure a "No response received" branch in conditional

In Flows, you can automate workflows involving customer interactions. While Flows is not primarily designed for conversational workflows (we recommend using AI Employees for advanced conversational handling), you can still handle scenarios where a customer does not respond to your message.

This article explains how to configure a conditional branch for “No Response Received” after sending a message in your flow.

Why Configure a No-Response Branch?

When you send a message and wait for a response, there’s always a possibility that the customer does not reply within the expected time. To avoid your flow getting stuck or leaving the customer unattended, you can create a branch that handles timeouts gracefully—such as:

• Sending a follow-up message and jump back to the wait for response.

• Closing the conversation

How It Works

• You use a Wait for Conversation Message step to pause until a customer responds.

• If no response is received within the configured time, the step times out and returns an error.

• You can capture this timeout scenario using a Conditional step and check for the error variable.

Step-by-Step Guide

1. Add a Wait for Conversation Message Step

• Insert the Wait for Conversation Message step after your initial message.

• Configure the wait duration (e.g., 1 minute, 5 minutes, etc.).

• Enable the timeout behavior so that the step returns an error when the time expires.

2. Add a Conditional Step

• Drag a Conditional step immediately after the Wait for Conversation Message step.

• This will help you check whether the response was received or the wait timed out.

3. Configure the No-Response Branch

Conditionals in Flows execute in order of priority (from top to bottom or left to right). So, make sure your first branch handles the no-response case.

Option A: Use Error from Timeout

1. In the first branch of the Conditional, set the condition:

   • Select the variable from your Wait for Conversation Message step.

   • Instead of checking for the actual message text, check the error property. You can do so by letting the wait for response step timeout by clicking run test and waiting for the stipulated timeout time. For this case, we recommend configuring a 1minute timeout just for the building the flow purpose.

2. The variable path looks like this:

   Copy

   steps.waitForConversationEvent_<stepID>.error.error

   Here:

   • waitForConversationEvent_<stepID> refers to your wait step (e.g., waitForConversationEvent_ksjx).

   • .error.error checks for the timeout error.

3. Set the condition to check if this error is present.

4. In this branch, configure your fallback action (send follow-up, close flow, etc.).

Option B: Modify Variable Reference Manually

If you already have a condition checking the message text:

1. Open the variable selector for the response by just clicking on the variable.

2. Edit the reference from:

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   steps.waitForConversationEvent_<stepID>.event.message.body.text.text

   to:

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   steps.waitForConversationEvent_<stepID>.error.error

3. Save the changes.

Understanding the Variables

• steps.waitForConversationEvent_<stepID> → Refers to your specific wait step.

• event.message.body.text.text → Path to the actual message text received.

• error.error → Path to the timeout error message when no response is received.

Example Setup

1. Branch 1: Condition → steps.waitForConversationEvent_ksjx.error.error is present Action → Send follow-up message: “Looks like you’re busy. Need help later?”

2. Branch 2: Condition → steps.waitForConversationEvent_ksjx.event.message.body.text.text contains "Yes" Action → Continue the conversation.