Wait step
Automation mechanicsAlso called: delay step, timer, wait until
A wait step pauses a contact's run inside an automation until a condition is met — a duration elapsing, a clock time arriving, a date field coming due, an appointment approaching, or an event happening — then continues from where it left off.
Waits are what make an automation a sequence rather than a burst. They are also where the subtle bugs live, because a wait encodes an assumption about time and time is where assumptions go wrong: timezones, weekends, rescheduled meetings, dates that never arrive.
The most useful distinction is between waiting for a duration and waiting for an event. A duration wait is a promise that the run resumes; an event wait may never resume, which is why every event wait needs a timeout and somewhere to go when it expires.
Waiting until a date held on the contact is the pattern behind renewals, birthdays and expiry reminders — and the one that needs a fallback most, because the field is often empty on the contacts you care about.
How it works in FrazzleCRM
- ✓Wait modes: a duration, until a specific datetime, until a given day and time, relative to a date field on the contact, relative to an appointment, or until an event occurs.
- ✓Duration waits accept an optional window, so a three-day wait can resume only on weekdays between 09:00 and 17:00.
- ✓Date-field and datetime waits take a fallback — continue, exit, or jump to a named step — for contacts whose date is missing or already past.
- ✓Event waits carry a timeout with its own target, and every wait can run in the company timezone or the contact's own.
Where teams get this wrong
An appointment wait whose direction is left unset is the classic silent failure: reminders fire at the appointment instead of before it. Whenever a control shows a default without storing it, confirm what the engine reads when the value is blank.
Common questions
What is the difference between wait and drip?
A wait holds one contact for a period. Drip mode holds a queue of contacts and releases them in batches — a throughput control rather than a per-contact delay.
Do waits respect business hours?
They can. A window on the wait resumes it only inside the days and hours you choose, and a send window on the automation additionally queues messages to the next open slot.
See it on a real map
Free templates where this shows up as an actual node. Clone one and the diagram runs as the automation.
Appointment No-Show Killer
Confirmation, two SMS reminders, and an automatic reschedule email for no-shows.
E-commerceAbandoned Cart Recovery
A 3-email rescue sequence with escalating urgency and a discount closer.
EventsTrade Show Lead Follow-Up
Work the badge scans within 48 hours, while they still remember your booth.
Related terms
Send window
A send window restricts the days and hours during which an automation may send, holding messages that come due outside it until the next open slot — so a sequence started at midnight does not text anybody at midnight.
Drip campaign
A drip campaign delivers a pre-written series of messages on a fixed schedule after a contact enters it, so everyone receives the same messages in the same order relative to their own start date rather than on a shared calendar date.
Goal
A goal is a step that represents the outcome an automation is trying to produce. Contacts anywhere upstream jump straight to it the moment the goal's event happens, skipping whatever remained in between.
No-show
A no-show is a booked appointment the contact never attends. No-show rate is the share of booked appointments lost this way, and for most service businesses it is the single largest recoverable leak between a lead and revenue.
Or browse all 24 terms — grouped by what part of the funnel they belong to.
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