The Inbox is a unified message center for all customer communications across SMS, email, Facebook Messenger, Instagram Direct Messages, the website chat widget, and the embeddable contact form.
Click Communications in the sidebar to open it.
The conversation list has three filter rows above the search box
- View: All, Mine, Unassigned
- Status: All, Open, Closed
- Channel: All, SMS, Email, Messenger, Chat, Form. (Instagram conversations show under All; there is no dedicated Instagram pill yet.)
Use the search box below the filters to search by customer name or message content.
Click a conversation to open the thread. From the thread view you can
- Assign or reassign the conversation with the assignee dropdown above the thread
- Reply with a message (sends back to the customer on the same channel)
- Switch the composer to Internal Note (staff-only, never sent to the customer)
- Insert a starred template with one click, or pick any template from the picker
- Close the conversation when resolved, or reopen it later
Assigning a conversation to a team member
The dropdown at the top of an open conversation (it reads "Unassigned" until you set it) hands ownership of that conversation to a specific employee. Pick a name to assign it, or choose Unassigned to clear it. Assigning has three effects:
- The conversation shows up under that person's "Mine" view (the View filter above the conversation list) and leaves the shared "Unassigned" queue.
- The assigned employee gets a notification that the conversation was handed to them. Assigning a conversation to yourself does not notify you.
- New incoming messages from that customer are routed to the assignee alone instead of alerting the whole team. Conversations that are still unassigned keep notifying all staff, so nothing is missed.
Assignment does not lock the conversation. Any staff member can still open and reply to any conversation. The first employee to reply to an unassigned conversation is automatically set as its assignee.
Inbound conversations from unknown contacts (someone messages or fills out the contact form but is not yet a customer record) land as Unknown Contact conversations. From the conversation panel, click + Add to Customers to convert them to a customer (and a lead, with the lead source set from the inbound channel). See the article on the leads view for how that affects the sales pipeline.
To start a brand-new outbound conversation, click the + New button at the top of the inbox and pick the customer and channel.
The notification bell in the top bar shows unread message counts. New incoming messages appear automatically.