Missing Document Follow-Up

A noticeable share of applications waiting on a missing document and reaching the deadline incomplete, plus support tickets asking which document is missing, is the signal for this journey. Launch only once the application state lists the missing documents and the real deadline, upload and acceptance are separate events, and email, push and SMS consent are held separately. Define the manual route at the deadline (support, pause or close) before launch. If documents are uploaded but stall in review, or the upload step fails, fix that first; a reminder would only ask for the same file again.

Incremental document completion vs control

What matters is how many more applications in the reminded group reach complete documents by the deadline than in the control group; an uploaded file or an opened message is not completion on its own.

How it is counted: Among all applications assigned at entry to either group, the share whose required documents all reach the completion state you defined in advance (for example, accepted) within the same follow-up window; the two groups' difference is the journey's effect. The denominator does not move with delivery or clicks.

Also track

• Upload rateOf all assigned applications, the share where the missing document has been uploaded but acceptance is still pending; track it as the intermediate step, not as completion.
• Completion per touchTrack completions after the email, the push and the SMS separately; if the SMS adds no completions, revisit that touch.
• Manual handoff rateHow many applications reach the deadline with documents still missing and go to manual follow-up, as a share of all assigned; if that share is not lower in the journey group than in the control group, the reminders have not lightened the support team's load.
• Opt-outs, complaints and support contactsWatch SMS complaints, push opt-outs, email unsubscribes and support contacts saying the document was already uploaded; the last one shows upload and acceptance states are being confused.

• Trigger and entryDetecting a missing document on an application or process starts the journey; the scope is that one application's document requirement. Hold out a random control group of applications that gets no reminders but still falls under the same manual follow-up rule at the deadline; every other application is in the journey group.
• Who must not enterApplications whose documents are complete or accepted do not enter; one application never runs two flows at once, and another application's gaps are never carried into this record. Applications without a clearly identified missing document and deadline stay out, and a document already uploaded and under review is not asked for again.
• Timing and channelsAn email naming the missing documents, upload instructions and deadline goes first; after 2 to 3 days a check follows, and a push if anything is missing. The next wait is 3 to 5 days or until the deadline, never past it; if still missing and SMS is permitted, a final SMS goes out.
• Exit and handoffThe arrival of all required documents stops the journey, and queued reminders are cancelled. It waits until the deadline; if a document is still missing then, the application is not closed silently but handed to the defined manual follow-up: support, pause or close. The only exit is completed documents; the process continues from there.
• Frequency and consentAn application gets at most three reminders (email, push and SMS), each sent only with that channel's consent. Each message asks only for what is genuinely missing or rejected, never the whole list. The team taking the manual follow-up should see the still-missing documents and the rule that decides between support, pause and close.

1. 1Completed applications in the journey group have to outnumber those in the control group; otherwise the reminders only moved up people who would have sent their documents anyway, and more opens or uploads cannot stand in for that. Do not widen the journey while the manual handoff rate stays flat.
2. 2Treat the result as specific to these three touches, the 2 to 3 and 3 to 5 day waits and the deadline-bound structure. If an application handed to manual follow-up is completed later, record that as the support team's outcome and leave it out of the journey's completion rate.
3. 3When completion rates sit close together, the sample size calculator shows how many applications each arm needs for the gap you care about at your current completion rate; spread that over the applications entering each day to see how long the test must run. Long deadlines stretch the follow-up window too, so do not decide early.