Change or pause my automatic emails
A journey isn't a contract - it's a draft you happen to have switched on. Everything about it stays changeable, and the only question is how much ceremony a change deserves.
Words: change them freely. Every step is editable in Contacts. Press Edit on the step, or tell Bernard "make the thank-you warmer". New wording applies from the next send onwards.
Timing and structure: approved, like the first time. Move the check-in from one week to two, add the review ask, drop a step - Bernard shows you the updated plan and waits for your yes. That's the same promise every journey makes: what sends and when is never a surprise (see How do automatic emails work?).
Pause: the honest off-switch. Pausing stops sends immediately. One honest detail worth knowing: a brief pause picks up where things left off, but a longer one lets mid-journey people go rather than emailing them absurdly late - when you resume, the journey applies cleanly to new people from that moment. Nobody gets a "welcome to the course!" six weeks after enrolling.
And the parts you never need to manage: unsubscribes and refunds stop a journey for that person instantly, the four-email maximum is hard, and who can be emailed at all is decided by the rules in Who actually receives my automatic emails? - not by anything you can mis-set.
The prompt
“Show me the [journey, e.g. new student] journey as it stands, then change [what you want different, e.g. the check-in to two weeks in, or the wording of the thank-you].”
Press Copy, then paste it into your AI and fill in the [bracketed] parts. First time? Connect your AI to bernard first - a one-time setup in bernard → your site → Use your own AI.
Questions people ask
- Can I rewrite an email after the journey is on?
- Yes, any time - every step's subject and words are editable in Contacts, or just tell Bernard what to change. New wording applies to everyone who hasn't received that step yet; emails already sent are sent.
- Can I change the timing or add a step while it's running?
- Timing and structure changes go through Bernard: he'll show you the updated plan - what will send and when - for approval before it takes effect, same as when you first set it up. Words you can edit freely; the schedule earns a fresh look.
- What does pausing do?
- The journey stops sending, immediately. Resume soon after and things pick up; pause for longer and anyone who was mid-journey is let go rather than emailed late - resuming then applies to new buyers or students from that moment. Bernard never sends a 'day 2' email on day 40.
- Do I approve changes the same way as the first setup?
- Structural ones, yes - the plain summary of what sends and when comes back for your yes. Pure wording edits are yours to make directly; you already approved that the step exists.
- What stops a journey without me doing anything?
- For any one person: unsubscribing, a refund, or reaching the end of the series - no journey sends more than four emails. For everyone at once: your pause switch.
- How do I know a journey is actually working?
- Each configured journey shows a quiet outcome line - '12 sent · 2 stopped early' - right on its card, so you can see at a glance whether emails are going out; near your sign-up list, a line like 'X of Y sign-ups have confirmed' shows how many of the people who joined have actually pressed the confirm button. Both appear in Contacts once there's enough activity to be worth showing.