The short answer: keep Zillow’s and your CRM’s alerts on, and add one rule for the mail they never see. Tell alfred_ “text me when someone emails asking to buy, sell, or see a home.” The text comes a few minutes after the email. Reply to it; alfred_ sends your answer after you say yes.
The rest of this is the detail: what the lead tools already do well, which emails fall through, the exact words to set it up, and what the text exchange looks like when you’re standing in someone else’s kitchen.
What Zillow and Follow Up Boss already cover
The lead tools are fast on their own leads, and you should keep their alerts on. Zillow’s help center says that when you receive a new lead, “you will simultaneously receive an email, a push notification from the Premier Agent app, and a text notification” (Zillow Premier Agent help). Follow Up Boss sends “an email alert and also a text message” when you’re assigned a new lead, as long as your phone number is in My Settings (Follow Up Boss: New Lead Alerts).
Both work because the lead comes through a door they own. Follow Up Boss watches for the “new lead” alert emails that lead sources send and builds a contact from them (Follow Up Boss: Lead Flow). Its own troubleshooting page spells out the edges: if a lead is not from a supported provider, “we may be unable to process the lead,” and if the person is already in Follow Up Boss, “you will not receive a New Lead Alert” (Follow Up Boss: Leads stopped coming into FUB).
Now think about who emails you directly:
- A past client’s coworker who got your address from a group text: “Megan said you’re who to call about selling.”
- A past client whose lease is up and wants to buy. They’re already in your CRM, so no new-lead alert.
- An agent-to-agent or relocation referral sent from a person’s own address.
- Someone who copied your email off a yard sign.
None of them come through a lead source. They land in Gmail or Outlook next to forty other emails, and your phone treats them like the rest. The Gmail iPhone app notifies for the Primary tab by default, or for what Gmail itself decides is “High priority only” (Gmail Help). Outlook’s app can narrow notifications to “Favorite People Only” (Microsoft Support), which helps only for people you starred in advance, and a new referral isn’t one of them. Outlook’s old text-message notifications were discontinued (Microsoft Support), and forwarding mail to your carrier’s email-to-text address stopped working on AT&T on June 17, 2025 (AT&T).
The alfred_ way: one rule, then answer by text
Set the rule up once. At your desk, open chat in the alfred_ web app and type it, or text it to alfred_ from your phone:
Text me when someone emails asking to buy, sell, or see a home. Skip the alerts from Zillow and Follow Up Boss, they already text me.
alfred_ reads the rule back to you as one sentence, so you can check what it will watch for. On the desktop it’s listed under Settings, Email, Your rules.
Two refinements that matter in practice:
- Name the people you already know. A rule that names a sender is the sure thing. A rule about what an email is about is alfred_’s judgment after it reads the email. For your referral partners and your most active past clients, add them by address: “Also text me whenever jen.morales@example.com or anyone at yourrelocompany.com emails.”
- Cover the right inboxes. If past clients still write to your personal Gmail and new business goes to your brokerage Outlook, connect both (alfred_ takes up to six accounts) and say the rule covers both.
When a matching email arrives, you get a text a few minutes later saying who wrote and what they want. Say you’re between showings and it’s a buyer asking about the house at 14 Oak Street. Reply to that text:
Tell her I can show it Saturday at 11, and ask if she’s talking to a lender yet.
alfred_ writes the reply as an email from your own address and texts it back for you to check. Nothing sends until you say yes. On iMessage, a thumbs-up on the preview counts as a yes. Want a word changed? Say so, and it rewrites before anything goes out. The email leaves from your Gmail or Outlook, so it sits in your Sent folder like anything you’d send from the desk.
Once she confirms, text “put a showing at 14 Oak Street on my calendar Saturday at 11” and it’s on your calendar, with a reminder text 15 minutes before by default. The full list of what you can ask by text is in What you can ask via text, and the texting side of alfred_ is on the SMS page.
Where each step happens
- Desktop, once, at the office: connect Gmail or Outlook, write the rule in chat, and check it under Settings, Email, Your rules. Later, the whole thread, your reply included, is in your inbox.
- Text, on the road: the alert, your reply in plain words, the preview, your yes. Dictating the reply is fine.
- iPhone app, when you want the whole message: open the email and read it in full before you answer. If alfred_ already drafted a reply, it’s under the email with Edit and Send (how drafts work). The app lists your rules but doesn’t create them; do that on the desktop or by text.
If you’d rather see the general version of this setup, for clients and invoices as well as leads, it’s on Get a text when an important email arrives.
The honest caveat
It isn’t “the moment.” alfred_ checks new mail against your rules every few minutes, so expect the text 2 to 5 minutes after the email lands. That beats the three hours an email can sit unread during a listing appointment, but it isn’t a phone ringing.
And a rule about what an email is about is a judgment call. A one-line “are you around this weekend?” from someone you’ve never emailed may not read as a buying inquiry. Name your referral sources by address, and skim your inbox once when the showing ends.
