Are you overwhelmed by overflowing email inboxes and lagging responses? Is keeping everyone on your team accountable a difficult task? Many companies struggle with the limitations of standard email clients when responding to customer issues.
Switching between individual email accounts seems to work well for small teams, but it quickly becomes impractical as your business grows. When the email volume overwhelms a single point of contact, it’s time to switch to shared inbox software.
This blog explores shared inbox tools and their benefits. It then showcases some of the best shared inbox solutions available today.
A shared inbox is a common email address that multiple team members use to read and respond to emails collectively. It is used by businesses to manage communication with staff, customers, or other external parties more efficiently.
For example, a shared inbox might be used for customer service (support@example.com), sales inquiries (sales@example.com), or general information (info@example.com)
Shared inbox software is a platform that allows multiple users to send, receive, and manage messages from multiple communication channels.
With the right shared inbox software, customer service representatives can access a customer’s background information, work together to address customer inquiries and coordinate activities using a shared calendar.
Each shared inbox tool comes with its own set of features and may work differently. Following is a basic outline of how to implement a shared inbox.
You need to decide on the platform you will use for your shared inbox. This could be an email messaging platform like Gmail shared inbox or contact management software like BoldDesk.
An administrator then creates a new email address or group that your team will use to receive messages.
The admin invites team members to access the shared inbox and assigns roles and permissions based on what each team member needs to do.
For example, you can grant full access to managers and provide read-only access to members who only need to stay informed.
Email forwarding is then configured so that messages from multiple channels, such as email, chat, and social media, are sent to the designated email address. Agents with permissions for the shared inbox can view and reply to incoming messages in real time.
The admin can set up the shared inbox software to automatically assign specific requests to specific team members, based on their expertise or workload.
Managers can set up and keep an eye on metrics like first response times, message volume, and time to resolution to assess and improve the support team’s efficiency.
Additionally, managers can use a customer satisfaction score CSAT survey to track customer satisfaction levels after interacting with an agent.
The customer feedback will indicate how well the agent resolved the issue, their communication skills, and their overall helpfulness.
If you want a better way to handle email in your organization, take a look at these 12 team inbox tools that can boost your team’s email support.
BoldDesk’s shared inbox tool consolidates support requests from all communication channels, such as email, live chat, social media, and the mobile app, into a single platform to streamline customer communication.
BoldDesk’s shared inbox solution provides features such as roles and permissions, collision detectors, and task management that empower teams to:
| Agent-based plans | Team-based plans | Unlimited agents plans |
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Get in touch with us to schedule a 30-minute live demo and see how our shared inbox solution can best fulfill your requirements.
Free trial: Sign up for a 15-day trial; no credit card is required.
HubSpot provides a shared inbox tool that enables different departments to have a unified platform for handling all communications.
This software allows you to combine team emails, Facebook messages, live chat conversations, and chatbot interactions into a single hub where your team can see, manage, and respond to customer requests.
| Plan | Price |
| Free plan |
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| Starter plan |
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| Professional plan |
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| Enterprise plan |
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Free trial: 14 days
Apart from managing support tickets, Kayako also provides shared inbox software with built-in collaborative tools that allows teams to work together and track work progress.
The shared inbox tool integrates with other applications, enabling businesses to automate workflows and manage customer support requests.
| Pricing |
| Contact sales |
Help Scout provides shared inbox software that keeps all your customer service teams on the same page.
Team leads can manage shared emails, assign members to discussions, communicate with colleagues, and label conversations using the shared inbox solution.
| Plan | Price |
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| Standard |
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| Plus |
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| Pro |
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Free trial: 15 days
ProProfs Help Desk is a cloud-based shared inbox and customer support system that unifies all customer communication channels, requests, and queries into a single platform.
ProProfs offers internal notes, collision detection, and access controls. The ProProfs shared inbox software ensures team members work together without getting in each other’s way.
| Plan | Price |
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| Free plan |
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| Paid plan |
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Free trial: 15 days
Gmelius is an email collaboration platform that integrates into your current Gmail inbox, providing features to enhance email management and facilitate teamwork.
| Plan | Price |
| Growth |
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| Pro |
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Hiver is also shared inbox software for teams that use Gmail. Hiver enables agents to allocate, monitor, and reply to customer emails directly through the Gmail interface, without extra software or a separate dashboard.
| Plan | Price |
| Lite |
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| Pro |
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| Elite |
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Free trial: 7 days
Missive’s shared inbox software enables users to manage personal and shared email accounts, instant messaging, and social media accounts from a single platform.
Missive offers features like shared labels, task management, and integration with calendars and productivity tools.
| Plan | Price |
| Starter |
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| Productive |
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| Business |
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Just like Hiver, Drag is for teams that seek a visual and collaborative way to manage shared inboxes while leveraging existing Gmail functionalities.
Instead of a traditional list view, Drag uses Kanban boards that allow users to visually categorize, prioritize, and assign emails. It can also be used with other Google Workspace applications, such as Google Calendar and Google Groups.
| Plan | Price |
| Free |
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| Starter |
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| Plus |
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| Pro |
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Free trial: 7 days
Helpwise is customer service software that provides a shared inbox tool and many other features for running an effective customer support team.
Helpwise assigns individual team members passwords, has real-time chat functionality and task assignment, and ensures everyone’s on the same page with communication features.
| Plan | Price |
| Standard |
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| Premium |
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| Advanced |
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Free trial: 7 days
Front is a shared inbox solution that manages your accounts in one place to save time and optimize communication processes.
Front provides a central inbox for all the consumer communications that happen across social media, live chat, SMS, and email. An additional useful feature is collective email editing.
| Plan | Price |
| Starter |
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| Growth |
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| Scale |
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| Premier |
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Free trial: 7 days
Groove is a shared inbox tool for customer support teams offering a unified inbox, ticket management, and customer engagement features.
| Plan | Price |
| Standard |
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| Plus |
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| Pro |
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Free trial: 7 days
Here’s a summarized comparison of the best shared inbox tools on the market today.
| Ticketing tool & key features | Pricing plan |
BoldDesk
| $12/agent/month |
HubSpot
| $15/2 users/month |
Kayako
| Contact Kayako |
Help Scout
| $20/user/month |
ProProfs Help Desk
| $19.99/user/month |
Gmelius
| $24/month |
Hiver
| $15/user/month |
Missive
| $14/user/month |
Drag
| $8/user/month |
Helpwise
| $12/user/month |
Front
| $19/user/month |
Groove
| $26/user/month |
As you look for the right shared inbox solution for your business, certain features should be on your must-have list.
This feature automatically distributes incoming emails to specific team members or departments for quick responses and resolution. This distribution is based on predefined rules or criteria like the email’s content, sender, subject line, or keywords.
This feature reduces the need for manual sorting and delegation, enabling a more organized and streamlined workflow within teams.
Collision occurs when two customer support agents unknowingly reply to the same email request and potentially provide conflicting information. Good shared inbox software can detect such collisions and prevent you from replying multiple times to the same email.
Additionally, businesses can use a service recovery approach to rectify a service failure, appease dissatisfied customers, and regain their trust by implementing a solution to resolve the issue and make the customer satisfied again.
Shared inbox software consolidates email messages into a single platform, making it easier for multiple users to work together in managing and responding to them.
They utilize tools like multiple-user access, tags and categories, internal notes, and shared email templates that make team collaboration easy.
Shared inbox software integrates with other productivity tools, such as task management solutions or help desk software. This streamlines workflows and ensures seamless communication with external contacts.
Shared inbox solutions often have analytics tools that offer insight into various aspects of their use, such as:
These insights can help managers identify trends, allocate resources more efficiently, set performance benchmarks, and confirm accountability among team members.
Here are some aspects to consider when choosing a shared inbox solution.
Look for a tool with an intuitive interface that is easy to set up. A straightforward setup process and user-friendly UI will ensure a smooth transition for your team.
Ensure that the shared inbox tool works seamlessly with your current email provider for a hassle-free experience.
Evaluate the cost of the shared inbox tool with your team’s size and future growth in mind. Some tools offer tiered pricing, so choose one that best fits your budget.
Look for shared inbox software that provides reports on metrics to help managers monitor team performance and enhance your customer service processes.
Determine if the software provides added features that might benefit your team beyond shared inboxes. Such features may include SLA setup and reminders, collision detection, knowledge base software, shared labels, and integrations—all in one package.
Deploying a shared inbox in your organization can reap many advantages.
77% of customers want customer support staff to collaborate so they don’t have to repeat themselves when seeking help – Khoros.
A shared inbox software allows your team members to work together in handling customer inquiries and pursuing sales leads. This collaborative effort ensures that customers receive comprehensive and timely solutions.
With a shared inbox, managers can set ticket routing and service-level agreement rules and track ticket progress, resolution rates, and worklog reports.
This helps in:
Unlike ordinary email providers, shared inbox solutions help categorize and prioritize customer communications to reduce clutter and confusion. This enables team leads to organize conversations by issue type or urgency, decide how to assign them, and follow up on them easily.
This makes it easier to manage the support workflow and ensures that no message ever slips through the cracks.
Getting a ticket to the right agent the first time cuts down on the time spent transferring it among agents or departments. It also eliminates the possibility of agents picking only the tickets they prefer to handle, which can often lead to more complex tickets being neglected.
With a shared inbox, your customer service team acts as one, providing faster, more consistent support. Implementing a customer focus strategy enables team members to identify customer trends and tailor their approach for a truly customer-centric experience.
In addition, features such as automated workflows and canned responses ensure that common questions are handled promptly and consistently. Furthermore, the integrated analytics in shared inboxes allow team leads to monitor response times and workload distribution, to help optimize team performance and further reduce customer wait times. .
When all chats and ticket conversations are stored in one place, less experienced team members can learn from how their colleagues handle certain situations. This can be a valuable training tool and can help maintain high quality of service.
While email remains a crucial communication tool, relying on individual email clients for customer service can lead to inefficiencies and missed opportunities. Don’t let chaotic inboxes hinder your communication with customers.
We hope the information we’ve provided will guide you in choosing the perfect shared inbox solution to transform how you communicate, coordinate, and collaborate at work. Is there a tool we might have missed? Feel free to comment below.
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