Following up with a client is a timing problem before it is a writing problem. Send the follow-up at the point where the client would expect to hear from you, say what you need and by when, and make replying easy.
The seven templates below cover the situations that come up on an account. The timing rules say when to send each, and the tracker at the end keeps you from losing what you are waiting on.
Follow up when the wait has passed the point you both expected. After a proposal, three working days. After a meeting, the same day. Waiting on an approval, the day after the agreed date. When they owe a deliverable, the day it was due. When you owe one, before it is late. After silence, two weeks. Before a renewal, 60 days out. Templates for each are below, and a tracker with owner and due date columns is at /tools/action-items-template.
How do you follow up with a client without being pushy?
Pushy is a follow-up with no new information and no reason attached. A follow-up that names the thing you are waiting on, why the date matters, and what happens next is a normal part of working together. The client is busy, your message slid down their inbox, and a reminder that saves them a search is a favor.
Three habits keep it that way. Follow up on the thread the original request lives in, so the context is one scroll away. Put the ask in the first sentence and the date in the second. And always give the client a way to answer in one line: a yes, a date, or the name of someone else to ask. Every template below has all three.
The timing rules
The right interval depends on what you are waiting for and who set the date. When the client set the date, follow up the day after it passes. When you set it, give it a working day's grace. When nobody set a date, that was the mistake, and the first follow-up should fix it by proposing one.
| Situation | First follow-up | Second follow-up | Then |
|---|---|---|---|
| After sending a proposal | Three working days | A week later | Ask for a decision date, then close the loop on that date |
| After a meeting | Same day, with notes and actions | At the first action's due date | Treat each action as its own follow-up |
| Waiting on an approval | The day after the agreed date | Three working days later, copying the next person up if that was agreed | Escalate through the path agreed at kickoff |
| Overdue deliverable from them | The day it was due | Two working days later, with what it blocks | Replan the dependent work in writing |
| Overdue deliverable from you | Before it is late, with a new date | On the new date, delivered or with a reason | Never a third |
| After silence | Two weeks of nothing on an active account | A month, with a reason to reconnect | A call |
| Before a renewal | 60 days out | 30 days out | The renewal conversation itself |
Seven client follow-up email templates
Each template is short on purpose. A client follow-up that runs past five sentences is making excuses. Replace the bracketed parts, keep the structure, and send it from the thread the request started in.
1. After a proposal
Three working days after sending. The job is to find out where the proposal sits and who else is reading it, without asking for a decision the client is not ready to make.
- Subject: Re: Proposal for [project], a quick check
- Hi Priya,
- Checking in on the proposal I sent Monday. Has it reached everyone who needs to see it, and is there anything in it I should expand on before you discuss it?
- If it helps, I can walk your team through the options in 20 minutes this week. Otherwise, let me know when you expect to decide and I'll leave you to it until then.
- Jordan
2. After a meeting
Same day. This one is a record as much as a follow-up: what was decided, who owns what, and the first dates. Writing it well means every later follow-up has something to point back to.
- Subject: Notes and next steps from this morning
- Hi Priya,
- Thanks for the time today. Here's what we agreed: we'll revise the scope to drop phase two and send the updated plan by Thursday (me). You'll confirm the budget line with finance by next Wednesday (you). The launch date stays at 14 November.
- Tell me if I've got anything wrong. Otherwise I'll be in touch Thursday with the plan.
- Jordan
3. Waiting on an approval
The day after the agreed date. Name the date you agreed, say what the approval unblocks, and offer the smallest possible way to grant it.
- Subject: Re: Draft for approval, due Tuesday
- Hi Priya,
- We agreed you'd approve the draft by Tuesday so we can hold the Friday send. I haven't seen it come through, so I wanted to check whether it's stuck with you or with someone else.
- If it's fine as it is, a one-word reply is enough and we'll proceed. If there are changes, send them over and I'll turn them around today.
- Jordan
4. An overdue deliverable from them
The day it was due. Be specific about what their delay blocks, because that is the information they need to prioritize, and propose a new date so the thread ends with one.
- Subject: Re: Brand assets, and the effect on the timeline
- Hi Marcus,
- The brand assets were due yesterday and we can't start the design round without them. Each day they're late moves the first review back a day.
- Could you send them by Thursday? If that's not possible, tell me a date that is and I'll replan around it and send you the revised timeline.
- Jordan
5. An overdue deliverable from you
Before it is late. A client who hears about a delay from you, ahead of the date, has a small problem. A client who notices it themselves has a trust problem. State the new date and what you are doing about it, without a paragraph of reasons.
- Subject: Re: Monthly report, new date
- Hi Priya,
- The report is going to be a day late. The analytics export failed this morning and the rerun finishes tonight, so you'll have it tomorrow by noon.
- Sorry for the slip. If tomorrow causes a problem on your side, tell me and I'll send the sections that are ready now.
- Jordan
6. After silence
Two weeks of nothing on an account that is usually active. Bring something, ask one question, and make it easy to say the account is fine.
- Subject: Two things since we last spoke
- Hi Priya,
- It's been a couple of weeks since the last update, so two things. The second campaign is live and the first week's numbers are attached. And the integration you asked about in August is now possible on our side.
- Is there anything on your end that's changed or that you need from us? If all's well, no need to reply beyond a thumbs up.
- Jordan
7. Before a renewal
Sixty days out. The renewal follow-up opens the conversation early enough to fix what needs fixing. Ask about their plans, name what you would change, and set the meeting.
- Subject: Planning for next year
- Hi Priya,
- The agreement runs to 31 January, so I'd like to talk about next year while there's time to shape it. From our side, two things we'd propose changing: moving the reporting to quarterly and adding the second region you mentioned in the spring.
- Could we take 45 minutes in the next two weeks? I'll bring a one-page summary of the year so far, including the two things we got wrong.
- Jordan
Subject lines for a client follow-up
Reply in the original thread whenever there is one. The subject line stays as it was, the client sees the history, and the follow-up does not look like a new request. When you need a fresh subject, these shapes work because they say what the email is about.
- Re: [original subject], a quick check
- [Deliverable], due [day]
- Notes and next steps from [meeting]
- [Deliverable], new date
- Two things since we last spoke
- Planning for [next year or next quarter]
- Anything you need from us on [project]?
Avoid 'Following up' and 'Checking in' on their own, which say nothing, and avoid anything that reads like a sales sequence. The client knows you from their own inbox. For cold outreach, where there is no relationship yet, the rules differ. The post on follow-up emails after no response covers that case.
How to track what you are waiting on
Follow-ups fail because nobody can see the list. The request went out from one person's inbox, the date lived in their head, and the day it passed looked like every other day. A tracker is a list of what you are waiting on, from whom, since when, and when you will follow up if nothing arrives.
| Column | What goes in it | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Waiting on | The thing, in a few words | Approval of the May draft |
| From | The person, and their company | Priya, Northwind |
| Asked on | The date you sent the request | 3 Oct |
| Due | The date agreed, or the one you proposed | 7 Oct |
| Follow up on | Due plus one working day | 8 Oct |
| Blocks | What cannot start until this arrives | Friday send |
Review it every morning, which takes two minutes, and send the follow-ups whose date is today. When the item arrives, delete the row. The action items tracker keeps the same kind of list, with owner, due date and status columns, and downloads as CSV.
Gmail and Outlook each have a one-person version. In Gmail, open Settings, See all settings, General, Nudges, and tick Suggest emails to follow up on; it surfaces sent mail that has had no reply. In Outlook, flag the sent message with Follow Up and Add Reminder (the menu wording differs between classic and new Outlook). Both help one person. Neither shows the team what the account is waiting on.
Following up from a shared inbox
We build Sektra, a shared inbox that syncs with Gmail, Outlook, IMAP and WhatsApp Business, and the tracker above is what it maintains for you. Action items are the reminders, watches and jobs you set in plain language. A reminder cancels itself when the client replies, so 'remind me Thursday if Priya hasn't approved the draft' goes away the moment the approval lands.
A silence watch on an account, with a day count you choose, tells you the day they go quiet past it. The morning digest lists what you owe and who owes you. Its waiting-on list holds every thread where the client owes a reply and nothing has arrived for three or more days.
Because the memory layer, Sektra's record per client, extracts commitments in both directions from the threads, the due dates come from the mail itself. Nobody retypes them. When you do send the follow-up, Lens, the panel beside the thread, shows what else is open with that client, so one email can carry two asks.
Account management teams run their waiting-on list this way. The earlier post on tracking commitments in email explains how the extraction works, and the product page has the rest.
The client who hears from you on the day the date passes learns that your dates mean something, including the ones you set for yourself.
