Reward, Release, Respond — The Stoked Dispatch, March 2026
Welcome to the March edition of The Stoked Dispatch — where the features get bigger and the dad jokes get worse.
I told the team we needed a waiver system. They signed off on it immediately.
March was a month of making your advocacy program more structured without making it more complicated. Three headline features, a pile of quick hits, and some serious infrastructure work under the hood. If February was the month Stoked graduated to “critical infrastructure,” March is the month it got a corner office.
Let’s get into it.
Headline Features
Waivers
If your advocates are hosting test rides, demos, or meetups, you’ve probably been handling liability waivers with… a PDF? A clipboard? A prayer?
Stoked now has a built-in waiver system that collects signed liability releases from prospects before conversations go live. It’s legally rigorous, mobile-friendly, and completely integrated into the conversation flow.
How it works:
- Admins create waiver templates in Settings — write the agreement text (with merge variables for personalization), add custom fields for anything you need to collect (driver’s license number, emergency contact, medical conditions), and preview the full signing experience before publishing
- When a prospect responds to an introduction, they’re walked through a two-step signing flow: fill in their information, then review the fully rendered agreement and type their legal name to sign
- The conversation automatically activates once all required waivers are signed — no admin intervention needed
The legal details matter: Every signed waiver creates a permanent, tamper-proof record — the exact agreement text they saw, their typed signature, IP address, browser info, and timestamp. Template versioning means if you update your waiver next month, every previously signed copy is preserved exactly as-is. Compliant with the ESIGN Act and UETA.
Why it matters: For communities facilitating in-person interactions — test rides, demos, home tours — liability protection isn’t optional. But bolting on a third-party e-signature tool means another login, another tab, another place where prospects drop off. Stoked’s waivers are part of the conversation initiation, so prospects sign before they chat, and admins can see every signed waiver from the same dashboard where they manage everything else.
Available on Pro (1 template) and Enterprise (5 templates).
Reward Activities
Let’s be honest — “reward your advocates” has always been part of the pitch, but the how was limited to rewarding conversations. What about the advocate who hosted a test ride at a local event? Or posted an unboxing video? Or referred three friends to the program?
The new reward activities system changes the game. Admins define activity definitions — the things advocates can do to earn rewards — and advocates submit requests when they’ve done them.
How it works for admins:
- Navigate to a wallet configuration and create activity definitions — name, description, reward amount, and whether it requires approval or auto-approves
- Toggle visibility: should advocates see this on their rewards page? Can they request it themselves? Should it appear as a quick-reward button on the wallet page?
- When advocates submit requests, they land in your inbox. Approve or reject with one click — or use Submit and Approve to credit the wallet instantly
How it works for advocates:
- Visit the Rewards page to see available activities with amounts and approval status
- Click Request, add optional notes and link a conversation if relevant
- Track request status — pending, approved, or rejected with reason
Why it matters: Before this, the only way to reward advocates was tied to conversations. But advocacy isn’t just conversations — it’s test rides, social posts, event attendance, referrals, and a hundred other things that build your brand. Activity definitions let you reward all of it, with the same wallet system and the same tracking.
Auto-approve for the routine stuff. Manual approval for the big-ticket rewards. Quick-reward buttons for when you just want to say “thanks” with one click. The system flexes to however your program works.
Canned Responses with Slash Commands
What’s the difference between a canned response and a dad? The canned response actually has good delivery.
Here’s a scenario every community admin knows: your top advocate gets asked the same three questions by every prospect. “What’s the range?” “Does it fit in a standard garage?” “How long did shipping take?” And every time, they type out the same answer from scratch.
Not anymore. With canned responses, you create pre-written message templates that advocates insert with a simple slash command. Type /range in the message box, hit Enter, and the full answer drops in — personalized with merge variables and ready to send.
How it works:
- Admins create responses in Settings > Canned Responses — give it a name, write the content, and a slash command is auto-generated (or customize your own)
- Advocates type
/followed by the command name, or click the lightning bolt button to browse the full list - The message appears pre-filled with merge variables already rendered — prospect name, advocate name, community name, and even custom field values like coupon codes or product models
- Review, edit if needed, send. Done.
Why it matters: Consistency and speed are force multipliers. Your best advocate’s answer to “what’s the range?” is probably great. Canned responses let every advocate give that great answer without the cognitive load of composing it fresh each time. And because merge variables personalize each response automatically, it never feels robotic.
Available on all tiers: Basic gets 2 responses, Pro gets 5, and Enterprise gets 25. Advocates can read more here.
Quick Hits
Dark Mode
The people asked. We delivered. Full dark mode support across the admin interface and community site. Your retinas can thank us later.
Passwordless Email Auth
Community admins can now log in with just their email — click a magic link, you’re in. No password to forget, no “reset my password” tickets, no friction.
Auto-Close Inactive Conversations
Conversations that go quiet now close themselves. Configure the number of days of inactivity, and Stoked handles the rest. Your “active conversations” count finally means something.
Soft-Delete for Advocates
Accidentally deleted an advocate and lost their conversation history? Never again. Advocates are now soft-deleted — archived and recoverable instead of gone forever. A safety net for the “oh no” moments.
Conversation Export
Need to pull your conversation data into a spreadsheet? CSV export is here. Download your conversation history for reporting, analysis, or just peace of mind.
Interactive Widget Embed Configurator
Setting up your embed code just got visual. The new interactive configurator lets you preview your widget and copy the code — no more guessing whether you picked the right options.
Community Branding on Auth Pages
Your logo and brand name now appear on login and signup pages. Small detail, big polish. Your advocates see your brand from the very first screen.
Duplicate Advocate Detection
When a new application comes in, Stoked now checks for matching advocates already in your system — by email, phone, or name. Catches duplicates before they become a data cleanup project.
Under the Hood
March was also an infrastructure month. We overhauled our background job system for better reliability and visibility into what’s happening behind the scenes. We added database connection pooling so Stoked handles traffic spikes without breaking a sweat. And we rolled out a suite of production safety nets — automated health checks, rate limiting per community, database performance monitoring, and migration safeguards that catch dangerous changes before they ever hit production.
We also completed a full migration of our view layer to a faster, more modern rendering system. Pages load quicker. Features ship faster. Everyone wins.
The theme? Boring infrastructure that prevents exciting incidents. Exactly how we like it.
Looking Back, Looking Forward
Five months of Dispatches. Five months of shipping. Here’s the arc:
In November, we gave you a dashboard that tells you something. In December, we gave you one inbox to rule them all. In January, we made your community site actually findable. In February, we added the power tools. And now in March — rewards, waivers, and canned responses that make your advocacy program run like a real program.
The through-line hasn’t changed: We’re building Stoked into the operating system for brand advocacy. Every month, the gap between “I have a few passionate customers” and “I have a systematic advocacy program that drives revenue” gets smaller.
April’s going to be fun. We’ve got some things in the works that I genuinely can’t wait to show you.
As always — feedback, feature requests, or a dad joke that’ll make me groan? stoked-help@stokedhq.com.
More from The Stoked Dispatch:
- This One Goes to Eleven — The Stoked Dispatch, February 2026
- Find Your People (Faster) — The Stoked Dispatch, January 2026
- One Inbox to Rule Them All — The Stoked Dispatch, December 2025
- See the Big Picture (Literally) — The Stoked Dispatch, November 2025
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