Crafting a better work experience

With over 2 billion active users per month, WhatsApp is the most popular messaging app in the world. Far more popular than Facebook Messenger which only has half the user base per month.

It’s no wonder you should be using WhatsApp as a communication channel for your company. However, it can be a hassle for your customer service team to manage your WhatsApp inbox using the WhatsApp web or WhatsApp Business app.

But luckily for you, you’re at the right place to remedy this situation.

This magic solution is called a WhatsApp shared inbox!

With it, you’ll be able to see all messages in one centralized inbox and easily manage them via assignment, labels, and collaboration.

Let’s explore what exactly a shared inbox for WhatsApp is, its benefits, and how to start using one.

What Is a WhatsApp Shared Inbox?

A WhatsApp shared inbox is like an inbox that can be accessed by everyone in a team and where they can check and respond to customer messages from that centralized place. It's super handy for improving customer service since your team can get back to people fast, even if they're not all working at the same time.

It's way better than having everyone manage their own WhatsApp convos because it keeps everything organized using assignments and labels. It also makes sure no one drops the ball on a customer request. Plus, it enables all team members to collaborate easily. It helps you keep your customers happy, and your company improves and maintains a good reputation.

What Are the Benefits of Using a WhatsApp Shared Inbox?

Just like an email shared inbox comes with many advantages, using a WhatsApp shared inbox can take your customer service to the next level and make your team more productive.

While the WhatsApp Business App can be a useful tool for small businesses, it has some significant limitations compared to a shared inbox. For example:

• It can only be connected to one device at a time
• It doesn't have any collaborative features
• It doesn't support multiple messaging channels

A WhatsApp shared inbox solves these problems by providing more advanced features and functionality for any business.

Here are some of the reasons why a shared inbox is a game-changer.

Improved Collaboration

By using a shared inbox, your team can chat internally, assign conversations to specific team members, use canned responses, and label conversations to keep them organized. This lets your team work together more effectively, reduce response times, and resolve issues faster. Plus it makes the job more enjoyable for all employees.

Better Customer Service

With a shared inbox, your team can respond to customer messages quickly and easily, no matter when they come in. Since WhatsApp conversations are accessible to all team members at any given moment, you can be sure that message will get a reply no matter if someone in the team is offline.

By using canned responses for frequently asked questions, you can provide faster and more consistent service. Additionally, a lot of tools like Missive, offer features like conversation merging that let you easily consolidate all the messages from a customer into one conversation no matter the channel used. It ensures that no customer conversations are ignored or forgotten.

Plus a shared inbox with labels and assignment lets you easily keep track of what’s going on and analyze your customer service performance. You’ll be able to better identify areas of improvement and optimize your strategies.

Consolidated Customer Interactions

A WhatsApp shared inbox enables you to consolidate all your customer communication channels into one inbox, making it easier for your team to keep track of customer conversations and reducing the need to switch between different tools and channels. By having one go-to solution for all your communication channels, you can save on time, and cost, freeing up more time and money for other important aspects of your business.

In summary, if you want to provide better customer service, simplify your communications, and improve collaboration, a WhatsApp shared inbox is the way to go.

How to Choose a WhatsApp Shared Inbox Provider?

Now that you are aware of all the benefits of a WhatsApp shared inbox tool for your business, are you considering using one? Choosing the right one is key.

To make an informed decision, consider these factors:

• Pricing: How much does it cost to use the tool? Are there any hidden fees or charges?
• Features: What features does the tool offer? Does it meet your specific needs and goals?
• Ease of use: How easy is it to set up and use the tool? Is it user-friendly and intuitive?
• Reviews: What do other users say about the tool? Are they satisfied with their experience?

Evaluating and trying your options carefully to ensure the tool meets your needs and goals will ensure that you can take advantage of all the benefits a WhatsApp shared inbox offers.

How to Create a WhatsApp Shared Inbox?

A WhatsApp shared inbox will let you manage all your conversations by connecting to your WhatsApp Business via an API.

Managing all your customer conversations with ease using Missive's WhatsApp shared inbox is easy. With the integration of Twilio's API for WhatsApp, you can import your WhatsApp number into Missive in just a few steps. This way, your team can start collaborating on all your customer conversations in a matter of seconds.

Here’s how to get started:

1. Create a Twilio account and set up their API for WhatsApp
2. Import your WhatsApp number into Missive by copying/pasting your Twilio account SID, authentication token, and WhatsApp number.

1. Update your WhatsApp number configuration in Twilio

That's it! You can now receive, send, and collaborate on your WhatsApp messages directly in Missive Team Inbox.

Best of all, the WhatsApp shared inbox can be easily accessed by all members of your team.

Try Missive for Your WhatsApp Shared Inbox

Having a shared inbox can be a huge benefit for your business and customer service.

If you’re looking for the best WhatsApp shared inbox provider for your business you should look no further than Missive. It has it all:

• Affordable pricing plans
• Robust set of features
• User-friendly interface

Missive is the perfect solution for managing all your customer conversations across multiple channels.

With Missive, you'll enjoy powerful yet simple tools that make it easy to collaborate with your entire team and keep everyone on the same page. Plus, with glowing reviews from our satisfied customers, you can be sure you are making the right choice.

Give it a try for free today!

Managing an inbox with multiple people has long been a difficult and tedious task that most people aren't even willing to take on. It’s easy to understand why dealing with shared emails without a unified, shared inbox is something people would want to avoid at all costs.

It makes filtering and classifying emails a pain as well as keeping track of who's responsible for what. And, with so many forwarding, it’s a pain to track and follow up on so many exchanges in an email thread.

If we are completely honest, we all know that forwarding shared emails to the personal email address of all team members isn’t the best way to work with shared aliases. However, as you probably know with the right tool, managing multiple email addresses is not a difficult task.

So let's explore what’s the advantage of having only one inbox.

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What is a Shared Inbox?

A shared inbox is like a group chat for emails. It’s an inbox that multiple can access to collaborate on shared aliases or any email address. It’s the perfect solution to let all team members work together when replying to emails and managing shared aliases emails.

In most shared inbox software, you can assign emails to different team members, add comments to messages, and keep track of which emails have been replied to or still need a response.

Shared inboxes can help any team in your business from customer support passing by sales, accounting, and HR. Having multiple team members collaborating to reply to customers’ questions or requests quickly and efficiently can be a real advantage for almost any business.

Plus, many shared inbox software programs also make it easy for people from different teams to collaborate. This means smoother communication and better teamwork all around.

It also makes internal communication easier, as many shared inbox software programs allow people from different teams to collaborate.

What Are the Advantages of Having Only One Inbox?

Having just one inbox for all your emails comes with many benefits. Here are the most noticeable for your business.

1. Centralized Communication to Avoid Back & Forth

Having one unified shared inbox makes it easy to manage and respond to all incoming emails by grouping them all in one centralized tool. This can include your personal emails and the shared aliases of your business.

Having one centralized inbox eliminates the need to check multiple individual inboxes. It will also save you precious time and reduce the chances of missing important messages.

It also allows teams to collaborate and communicate without the need for constant back and forth between several apps. Plus, since everyone has access to the same messages and information, it makes prioritizing tasks and responding to urgent requests a lot easier.

Another big advantage is that you won’t have to dig through endless email chains or try to find that message you know exists but can’t remember where it is. With a shared inbox, everything is organized in one location, making it easy to keep track of conversations.

2. Better Access Control & Permissions

Having your team members use their own accounts to access an inbox that groups all incoming emails brings many benefits.  A shared inbox software is a great solution to improve your access control and gives you more options for granular permissions.

With a shared inbox, you can set up different levels of access and permissions for team members based on their roles and responsibilities. This helps to ensure that confidential information is only accessed by the right people in your business. At the same time, it also reduces the risk of data breaches and unauthorized access.

Most solutions, like Missive, will let you decide what permissions you give to every team member, which email address they can access, and if they can use it to send emails. This ensures information is only accessible to authorized team members.

3. Reduce Workload & Improve Collaboration

As John C. Maxwell said in his book:

Teamwork makes the dream work

And, let’s admit it, having only one shared inbox is one of the key ingredients to achieving that dream.

With a shared inbox, everyone on the team has access to the same messages, reducing the need for each person to manage their own individual inbox. It saves time and eliminates the risk of messages getting lost or overlooked in someone's personal inbox.

Team members can see which emails or messages have been replied to, which ones are already assigned to someone, and which ones haven’t been taken care of. This prevents multiple team members from responding to the same message.

Having a single unified inbox also promotes collaboration. Team members can work together more efficiently by responding to messages on time, delegating tasks, and prioritizing messages based on their urgency. It will help any team to help avoid duplicated efforts and ensures that every message receives a timely response.

4. Improve Your Customer Service

Managing multiple inboxes can be overwhelming and time-consuming for your customer service team. Not to mention that important customer inquiries can easily slip through the cracks if they're distributed across various individual inboxes. This is where a shared inbox comes in to save the day.

By using one, all customer inquiries are centralized and easily accessible to everyone on your team. This means no more digging through individual inboxes or worrying about missing an important message.

Another benefit of having one shared inbox is that it improves your team's ability to work together more efficiently. With everyone having access to the same inbox, your team can provide a better customer experience and avoid duplicating their efforts.

Plus, since the customer service team can easily share responsibility, team members are more likely to take ownership of customer inquiries and work together to provide the best possible service.

5. Increased Accountability & Transparency

Shared inboxes can be a game-changer for team communications. Not only does it make it easier to keep track of incoming messages, but it can also promote accountability and transparency within the team.

Think about it:

When everyone has access to the same inbox, it's much easier to ensure that every message gets the attention they deserve. You don't have to worry about whether or not someone received an email or if someone already responded to it. Instead, everyone can see what's in the inbox and who is responsible for responding to each message.

A shared inbox can also promote transparency within the team. Rather than relying on individual team members to forward or share information, everyone can see all incoming messages and responses. It can come in handy if someone on the team is on vacation or on sick leave.

It can also help to prevent misunderstandings and ensures that everyone aligns when it comes to important messages.

So, how does this actually play out in practice? Let's say you're working on a project with several other team members. You receive an email from a client with some questions about the project. Normally, you might forward that email to your team members and hope that they respond in a timely manner. But with a shared inbox, everyone can see the email and who is responsible for responding to it. This eliminates any confusion or ambiguity about who is taking care of what.

6. Grow as You Grow

As a company grows, it becomes increasingly important to have effective communication and collaboration tools in place. One tool that can help facilitate this is a shared inbox.

Having only one inbox to manage all emails can actually become more valuable as a company grows. As the number of team members increases, it can become more difficult to keep track of who is responsible for what messages. With a shared inbox, however, everyone can see what messages are coming in and who is taking care of them. It can help to avoid duplicated responses and ensure that all messages are being addressed in a timely manner.

With everyone using the same inbox, there is less room for miscommunication or confusion about who is responsible for what tasks.

In addition, as a company grows, it may become necessary to have different teams or departments. With a shared inbox, it's easy to create labels for different teams, so everyone can stay organized and focused on their specific responsibilities. This can help prevent information overload and ensure that everyone is on the same page.

How to Get Started with a Shared Inbox?

With a multitude of shared inbox solutions, it’s easier than never to choose a solution that will suit your needs. You should also make sure you these shared inbox best practices to make the most out of your unified inbox.

For example, by using a solution like Missive you can easily invite all of your team and give them access to only the team they need. From there, by using rules and labels your can easily improve make your business’ email workflow to be more efficient.

FAQ

What is the importance of a shared inbox?

A shared inbox lets many people use the same inbox together. It's useful for any team who has a minimum of messages. It helps communication and teamwork by avoiding duplicate work and saving time. It's also good for customer service because the team can work together and give better responses to customers. It helps keep track of customer interactions and can improve service.

What are the benefits of a team inbox?

Using a shared inbox has several benefits for teams. Firstly, it centralizes communication and eliminates the need to check multiple inboxes, saving time and reducing the chances of missing important messages. Secondly, it allows for better access control and permissions, promoting data security and privacy. Thirdly, it reduces workload and promotes collaboration, making it easier to prioritize tasks and respond to urgent requests. Fourthly, it improves customer service by centralizing inquiries and promoting collaboration. Fifthly, it increases accountability and transparency within teams. Lastly, choosing a flexible shared inbox solution allows easy scaling as your team grows.

What is the best way to use a shared mailbox?

The best way to use a shared mailbox is to establish clear guidelines and procedures for accessing and managing emails. Here are some tips:

1. Determine who needs access: Decide who needs access to the shared mailbox and provide them with the necessary permissions.
2. Establish communication guidelines: Define how emails should be categorized, prioritized, and assigned to team members.
3. Create a filing system: Set up folders to organize emails by category, date, or sender, to make it easier to locate important emails later.
4. Avoid duplication: Avoid duplicating efforts by checking the mailbox before responding to an email to see if someone else has already taken care of it.
5. Keep it tidy: Regularly review and archive old emails to keep the mailbox organized and easy to navigate.

Collaborating on shared emails is crucial for any business, especially when it comes to providing excellent customer service. Although it can be a challenging task, it is vital for building and growing a successful business.

A considerable number of small to medium-sized businesses (SMBs) rely on Gmail for their email needs. However, by default, Google's email client is not built to be a shared inbox and collaborate.

In this article, we'll explore how you can share your general inboxes with your team in Gmail, enabling you to work together more efficiently.

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Can You Have Shared Inboxes for Gmail?

The short answer is yes. You can have shared inboxes for Gmail by taking advantage of some of Google's features. As we’ll see below, there are four ways to share a mailbox in Gmail. They all come with some benefits and drawbacks that should be considered before choosing which solution will be used for your team.

How Does Gmail Shared Inbox Work?

To share a mailbox in Gmail you have four options. We will explore all of them with their benefits and drawbacks.

Share Credentials

This solution is by far the easiest and most obvious of them all. While sharing your login credentials may seem like a good idea at first, there are a lot of drawbacks to consider.

Firstly, there is a significant security risk that comes with sharing your login access to a Gmail account. It could potentially put your business at risk of attacks and information theft.

Moreover, you cannot give granular permissions to specific individuals who need access to the mailbox. This means that every person who has access to the login credentials can access all the settings and information in the mailbox, which can be problematic for your business.

Advantages:

• It is easy to set up.

Disadvantages:

• It poses a security risk.
• There is no granular access control.
• It does not facilitate collaboration.

Delegated Accounts

To avoid sharing login information you can delegate your Gmail account to anyone in your organization. This means that the delegates can receive and reply to emails that come into that inbox by using their own Gmail account.

There are some advantages to delegating your Gmail account. It's easy to use and set up, and it provides better security compared to sharing credentials.

However, there are also some disadvantages to delegating. For example, there are no collaboration features, and there's no email management for teams. Additionally, the recipient will be able to see that the email was sent by someone else.

Delegating a Gmail account can be a good solution if you want to avoid the security risk of sharing passwords. However, it's important to keep in mind that there's no collaboration, and the recipient can see who sent the email.

Google Groups

By creating a Google Group, you’ll have an easy way to give your team members access to a shared mailbox. There are three options available:

• Community forum
• Email distribution list
• Collaborative inbox

While the community forum might not be useful for sharing a mailbox with your team, the other two options might be a good fit. Let's take a closer look at them.

Email Distribution List

This is a good solution for teams that receive emails to general email addresses like billing@, info@, or marketing@. With the distribution list, every email received is forwarded to every group member, but it doesn't offer any collaboration features or allow team members to reply using the shared email address.

Collaborative Inbox

That's where the Collaborative Inbox comes in. It lets group members see all the emails received to a shared email address in their own Google Group account and provides basic collaboration features like assignments, labels, and "closed" status. It also offers better security since you won't need to share any credentials.

However, keep in mind that Google Collaborative Inbox doesn't allow back-and-forth conversations, merging of conversations, or saved shared response templates. Also, it doesn't have any chat or comment features.

To summarize, here are the advantages and disadvantages of using a collaborative inbox:

Advantages:

• Better collaboration features
• Better security over sharing credentials

Disadvantages:

• Two separate inboxes for personal and shared emails
• No chat or comments features

How Do I Create a Shared Inbox in Gmail?

We won't be diving into how to share your credentials with your team because, as we mentioned earlier, it's far from the most optimal solution, especially when it comes to sharing an inbox in Gmail. And let's face it, even if you're considering this route despite our advice against it, you probably don't need a step-by-step guide on how to share them.

But, if you're looking to set up a shared inbox for Gmail, we've got you covered. Here's how you can do it.

How to Set up Gmail Delegates?

Setting up Gmail delegates is actually pretty straightforward.

If you're part of an organization, just make sure your Google Workspace admin has given users permission to use email delegation. It’s also important to keep in mind that personal accounts are limited to 10 delegates, while organizations can have up to 1,000 delegates.

Here’s how to set up Gmail delegation:

1. Open your Gmail account (you can’t set up delegates in the Gmail app on iOS or Android) and go to the Settings menu ⚙️ in the top right corner.
2. Click on See all settings and select the Accounts and Imports tab.
3. Under the Grant access to your account section, click on the Add another account link.
4. Enter the email address of the person you want to delegate access to.
5. Click on the Next Step >> button and then click on the Send email to grant access button to send a delegation request to the delegate.

Gmail users with organizational emails can delegate access to a group with the same domain. Members outside of the group are not allowed to the delegated Gmail.

Once you’re done, your delegates will be able to access the shared inbox from the Gmail account dropdown menu.

How to Set up a Gmail Collaborative Inbox?

Creating a Collaborative Inbox list in Gmail is a little take a few more steps than adding delegates to an account.

1. You’ll first need to create a Google Group. To do so simply head to the Groups page and log in to your Google account.
2. From there, you’ll be able to create a new Group by clicking on the Create a group button.
3. Enter the details of your new group and click on next.

1. The following page lets you decide your privacy settings. You need to make sure that Who can post is set to Anyone on the web to be able to receive emails in this shared inbox. We recommend you choose the same setting as in the following screenshot so messages are only visible to your invited team members.

1. Next, click on your group and then on Group settings. From there, check Collaborative Inbox under the Enable additional Google Groups features section.

1. Click Save changes.

You now have a Collaborative Inbox that can be used as a shared inbox for your teams’ aliases.

Which Solution Should I Use as a Shared Inbox for Gmail?

As we've looked into different solutions to share a mailbox in Gmail, we've found that each option has its own pros and cons. However, there's one thing we can all agree on - never share your email account password, even if it seems like a convenient option. It's crucial for your business's security.

When trying to decide whether to delegate a Gmail account or use a Collaborative Inbox, there are a few factors to consider, such as:

• Team size
• Needed features
• Use case

For example, a delegated account can be a good option for a one-person team that doesn't need to collaborate with others. But for a team of a few people who need to work on the inbox simultaneously and collaborate on emails using features like shared labels, assignments, and status, a Collaborative Inbox is a better choice.

It's important to keep in mind that Gmail shared mailbox solutions do have their limitations, especially for larger teams or teams where collaboration is crucial, such as customer support teams or sales teams.

If you want to avoid having to adjust your workflow to fit the tool you're using, you might want to consider using a shared inbox software like Missive that can adapt to your workflow and make collaboration a breeze.

Missive: The Shared Inbox Software Made for Team Collaboration

Missive is a powerful shared inbox and collaborative email management software that can supercharge your team's productivity and efficiency. It's built with collaboration in mind to help your company to grow and thrive without any limitations. With its advanced rules that can be customized to your workflow, Missive is the ultimate solution for your customer service and sales teams.

One of the best things about Missive is the fact that it offers an all-in-one platform for managing all communication channels, including SMS, social media, and even WhatsApp. You won’t need to go back and forth between multiple apps and manage different inboxes for personal and team use. With Missive, everything is integrated into one unified inbox. Missive also lets you give granular permission to an individual team member.

Even better, Missive offers integrations with other tools you already use and love, such as Salesforce, Pipedrive, Grammarly, Zapier, Twilio, and Aircall. This means you can streamline your workflow and maximize your productivity without any extra effort.

Missive also offers advanced features including:

• Shared rules
• Assignments
• Chat and comments
• Shared labels
• Tasks
• Collaborative drafting
• Shared canned responses
• Calendar
• Mobile and desktop apps

While we can’t argue that Gmail is a great tool for personal emails, it’s hard to ignore the fact that it was not built for collaboration and shared inboxes.

FAQ

How do I create a shared inbox in Gmail?

You have two ways to create a shared inbox in Gmail. The first option is to add delegates to a Gmail account so they can manage emails in a certain inbox. The other option is to create a Collaborative Inbox in Google Groups to collaborate on a shared email alias.

Can you have shared inboxes for Gmail?

Yes, have shared inboxes for Gmail. A shared inbox allows multiple people to access and manage the same set of emails. This can be useful for teams or groups that need to collaborate on a specific set of emails. By setting up a Collaborative Inbox for your Gmail, everyone who needs access can easily view and respond to emails, making communication and collaboration more efficient.

How does shared mailbox work in Gmail?

A shared mailbox in Gmail allows multiple people to access and manage the same set of emails. When you set up a shared mailbox, all users who have access to it can read and reply to emails, mark them as read, and delete them. This is useful for teams or groups who need to collaborate on a specific email address, as it allows everyone to work together more efficiently.

In Gmail, a shared mailbox is set up by granting access to another Gmail user. This can be done by adding a delegate or using a Collaborative Inbox in Google Groups.

Should I use (or still use) a distribution list or a shared mailbox? We get asked this question a lot, and although some say that it depends on your business needs, I say most businesses should opt for a shared mailbox. Let me explain.

Let’s start with understanding what they are and how they differ.

What is a Distribution List?

A distribution list is a method using a single email address to send emails to multiple people at the same time. Using a maintained list of email addresses, you can send emails to all recipients without having to use CC or BCC to manually enter all the addresses.

Companies have been using distribution lists mostly as a hack. They want a group of people to receive emails sent to a particular email address, for example, a support team getting emails from support@company.com.

The original email is replicated and sent to all the members of the list. The lists can be managed easily to add or remove recipients.

It's great for sending out information, but not for collaborating seamlessly or coordinating a discussion.

Distribution lists were created in the early 1980s as a way to share news about certain subjects such as wine tasting.

What Are the Drawbacks of Distribution Lists?

Distribution groups sounds like a great solution, but what about replies? This is where it all goes south. You have no way of knowing who has answered which emails, or what they responded to. This leads to doubled responses, sending conflicting information, or simply not answering some messages at all.

This is where the second layer of hacking comes along. Businesses start developing intricate labeling systems to keep track of who's working on what.

I've heard about these labeling chaos situations countless times. Those systems work at first, but you cannot scale much with them.

Simply put, they were not designed to be used in a collaborative or team setting.

Distribution lists are great for sending information or content to a lot of people at once, like a newsletter or internal notifications for example, that don't require responses or open communication. They can be set up in Gmail or Microsoft Outlook, or into a marketing tool that will enable you to take advantage of segmentation.

What is a Shared Mailbox?

A shared mailbox is a mailbox that multiple team members can access simultaneously. Each member maintains a personal email account, but they all can "send as" and read messages from a particular email address.

Shared inboxes are a step up from a distribution list as they enable communication and collaboration around emails.

For example, Amy (amy@acme.com) and Lucy (lucy@acme.com) can receive and send messages from the shared mailbox address help@acme.com. They can reply using their personal accounts or use the shared address.

Users with access to the shared email inbox will be able to see and manage the mailbox from their personal account under their personal inbox. When an email is deleted from a shared inbox by a user, it will automatically be removed from the shared mailbox of all other users.

Contrary to distribution lists, most shared mailboxes offer collaborative features. For example:

• Ability to know who sent which email from a shared address
• Ability to assign messages to specific team members
• Ability to send canned responses or templates

A shared mailbox solves all the pain points presented by distribution lists.

• You promote accountability in the team.
• You stop sending conflicting information to customers.
• You add a notch of professionalism to your business belt by not responding twice or, even worse, not responding at all.

How to Set Up a Shared Mailbox?

Setting up a shared mailbox isn't complicated. Most email clients offer some sort of shared inbox functionalities, however, as we'll see later the tools to manage share mailboxes don't offer all the same functionalities.

To create a shared mailbox in Google Workspace, you can either delegate an account to team members or use a Collaborative Inbox within Google Groups. Both enable team members to have access to shared email aliases and reply to messages, however, Collaborative Inbox enables teammates to collaborate around emails.

If you're using Outlook, you can create a shared mailbox to give permission to team members to view, edit and send emails using share email aliases such as support@company.com. You should note that shared mailbox in OUtlook arn't avaible on mobile device.

Missive Team inboxes are shared inboxes made for collaboration and assignment between team members. It is useful for teams who want a "triage" step that will clean up messages for all coworkers at once.

You can set it up easily by creating a team and giving it access to the email address you want to share.

Distribution List vs. Shared Inbox: Which One Should You Use?

If your goal is to collaborate in a team setting, 10 out of 10 times go for the shared mailbox option. On the other hand, if your only goal is to broadcast information and you're not expecting replies, go for the distribution list.

Businesses with customer support, sales, or any other customer-facing teams will benefit the most from using shared mailboxes, as it will enable better collaboration and make sure every team member are synchronized.

You can find very affordable ways to create distribution lists, whereas shared mailbox solutions tend to be a little more expensive. There's a reason for this; one was made with collaboration in mind, and the other is mostly a message forwarder.

Which Shared Mailbox Tool Should I Use?

If you are looking for the best shared inbox software for your team emails, I suggest having a look at our guide.

As always, there are plenty of collaboration tool solutions out there (google shared inbox). But they are not all created equally.

Depending on your needs, some features and functionalities might be more important than others, but being able to collaborate around shared emails is the most crucial aspect of a shared inbox tool.

Basic solutions like Outlook or Gmail simply don't compete with a robust tool like Missive. Sure they offer basic collaboration functionalities like labels and assignments, but with them, you won't be able to chat with coworkers inside an email conversation or compose an email collaboratively.

Considering a shared inbox tool with more advanced features can help your business offer better customer service.

No matter what tool you decide to use in the end, following shared inbox best practices will help your team collaborate seamlessly and augment productivity.

Trying a Better Solution

Missive is much more than a simple shared inbox medium; it's a team inbox and chat app that empowers teams to collaborate around email and other channels of communication like SMS, WhatsApp, Twitter, Messenger, and live chat.

It can be used in various scenarios in all areas of a business.

In addition to the shared inbox experience, you will also get access to these great features:

• Internal chat
• Live drafting
• Tasks and assignments
• Shared calendars
• Rules
• Canned responses

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Book a demo to see how Missive can help your business.

Are you wondering how to manage a shared mailbox so it stops being a daunting task?Between keeping track of customer conversations, managing team member schedules, and responding to messages, there's a lot to juggle and even more to keep organized.

One way to streamline the process and make things run smoothly is to set up a shared inbox. But having a shared mailbox isn't all it takes to optimize efficiency.

By following these shared mailbox best practices, you can better manage your team's time, keep everyone on the same page, and provide top-notch customer service. Adopting these best practices early will also ensure that your company can easily scale without running into problems.

What Is a Shared Mailbox?

A shared mailbox is a mailbox that multiple team members can access to view and, unlike distribution lists, send emails from the same email address.

This type of mailbox is often used by sales and customer support teams but can be beneficial for any team that needs to manage email communications.

8 Shared Mailbox Best Practices to Use in Your Workflow

From recording your processes and creating systems of accountability to leveraging automation and making security a priority, following these tips for managing a shared inbox will help you be more efficient.

1. Record Your Processes

Have you ever been on a team where everyone seems to be doing things differently? Maybe one person responds to customer inquiries right away while another waits a few hours. Maybe one person CC's the whole team on every email while another only CC's relevant team members.

This can lead to confusion, frustration, and subpar customer service.

It's essential to have your processes documented. That way, everyone on your team follows the same best practices and procedures. It'll also make it easier to onboard new team members without training them on everything from scratch.

To record your workflow, you can use tools like Google Drive Docs, Notion, Guru, and more. All you need to do is lay out the steps that need to be taken for each type of customer request.

For example, let's say you're setting up a process for responding to customer complaints. Your process might look something like this:

1. Acknowledge the complaint and apologize for the inconvenience.
2. Attempt to resolve the issue.
3. If the issue can't be resolved, offer a refund or other compensation.
4. Follow up with the customer to make sure they're satisfied with the resolution.

You can then share your processes with all of your team members whenever you need to. For example, suppose you're onboarding a new customer support agent.

2. Create Systems of Accountability

The worst thing that can happen in customer support is an email going unanswered. Unfortunately, it's all too easy for emails to fall through the cracks, especially when you're dealing with a high volume of inquiries.

Thanks to shared work mailboxes, you can create systems of accountability to ensure every customer request is handled promptly and professionally and that each team member is doing their fair share of work.

Decide who will be responsible for checking and responding to messages in the mailbox. It's usually best to have one primary person who checks and responds to messages, with others only checking the mailbox periodically. This will help to avoid duplicate responses and ensure that messages are dealt with in a timely manner.

3. Make Security a Priority

Using a regular inbox as a shared mailbox for a shared email address account is a very risky and insecure practice.

Giving your team access to shared emails by sharing an alias credential, in Gmail or Outlook, for example, is a huge security risk that can lead to many problems down the road ranging from information leaks to hacking.

Apart from security concerns, many pitfalls come with sharing passwords.

What happens when someone on your team leaves the company and you have to change the password? You have to go through the pain of changing it for everyone on your team. And if you forget to do that, you’re back at square one with a security risk on your hands.

Luckily, with team email management software that prioritize sharing and collaboration, like Missive, you can give team members access to a collaborative mailbox through their own accounts without sharing passwords.

Even with these tools, it’s best to stick to these best practices: don’t store passwords in unsecured locations like a post-it note, don’t log in to the mailbox from unsecured Wi-Fi networks, and use multi-factor authentication.

4. Organize Emails Using Labels

A shared inbox can quickly become a cluttered mess if emails aren't properly organized. This is where labels (tags that you can apply to emails) come in.

You can use labels to categorize emails in any way you see fit. For example, you could create a label for all customer requests that need follow-ups. Or you could create labels for each stage of the customer journey (e.g., "new customer," "subscriber," "loyal customer," etc.).

Not only do labels make it easy to find specific emails, but they also help your different teams keep track of the work that needs to be done.

For example, if there are several requests labeled "follow-up," the team knows that those need to be dealt with as soon as possible.

5. Use Canned Responses for Faster, Uniform Replies

Let's face it, not all team members are gifted writers. And when you're dealing with a shared mailbox, you can't afford to have team members spending hours crafting the perfect response to each customer's email.

Canned responses (also known as email templates) are a lifesaver in this situation. They allow team members to quickly respond to frequently asked questions with pre-written replies that can be easily customized for each customer.

Not only do these templates shorten response times, but they also ensure that all team members are replying to similar requests in the same way. This is important for maintaining a consistent brand voice and providing a positive customer experience.

6. Go for Inbox Zero

The Inbox zero method is the holy grail of email management, and it's something that every team should strive for. But what is inbox zero, exactly?

Inbox zero is the practice of keeping your inbox empty (or as close to empty as possible) at all times. That means handling each email as it comes in and either taking action, delegating it, or filing it away for later.

The goal of inbox zero is to minimize the time you spend managing your inbox and maximize the time you spend doing work. And while it may seem like a daunting task, it's achievable with a little bit of effort and organization.

The best practices we cover will help you achieve inbox zero, but there are a few other things you can do.

You can set up email filters to automatically sort your email into different folders. That way, you can easily find the email you're looking for without having to search through your entire inbox.

You can also set up rules to automatically delete certain types of emails, such as spam or emails from mailing lists. This will help keep your inbox clean and make it easier to find the email that's actually important.

7. Leverage Automation

Shared mailboxes often end up filled with a lot of emails and it can be a tedious and time-consuming task to manage. Luckily many shared mailbox management apps come with some form of automation built-in so your team can focus on more important things.

For example, you can set up an automated message to be sent to customers when their request comes in. This way, they know that their message has been received and that someone is working on a solution.

You can also automate the assignment of requests to specific team members. For instance, you could set up a rule so that all messages from customers in a particular region are automatically assigned to the team member responsible for that region.

8. Eliminate Forwarding and Copying With Comments and Chat

If you're not using a shared inbox software, chances are you're relying on forwarding and copying (CC'ing) emails to keep team members in the loop. But there's a better way.

Microsoft Outlook shared mailbox or Google Gmail shared inbox don’t offer built-in ways to communicate around emails with your teammates. Their solutions keep you reliant on forwarding emails to coworkers to collaborate.

This exposes you to accidentally sending internal information to the wrong people. The other way to communicate is to leave Gmail to discuss an issue in Slack, and come back to Gmail, however, you’ll lose all context around the email.

Shared inbox software often let you add a comment to email conversations. For example, If you're onboarding a new team member, you can leave a comment on an email thread with all the relevant information they need to know to answer the customer's inquiry.

Shared Mailbox Are Not All Created Equal

Gmail and Office 365 shared mailbox were perfect for the early days of email, but they're not designed for modern team collaboration. Today, there's no reason to spend hours managing your email when there are tools that can do it for you.

If you want to take your customer support to the next level, you need a dedicated shared inbox tool. Modern shared inbox software has a lot to offer, from increased productivity and better customer satisfaction to features like canned responses, email delegation, accountability systems, and more.

Missive is a tool designed specifically for today's customer support teams. With Missive, you can easily collaborate with team members, take action on customer requests, and provide a better overall customer experience. Unlock the power of your customer support team today with Missive!

<div class="align-center p-top"><a class="row button button-medium" href="https://mail.missiveapp.com/#signup">Try Missive for free</a></div>

Wouldn't it be wonderful if managing emails within your team wasn't a hassle? Do you wish you could manage your shared email accounts and collaborate as a team seamlessly while maintaining accountability?

Well you're not alone, many growing companies ask these questions every day.

While using a couple of Gmail or Outlook email addresses might be manageable when your business is small, it becomes a lot harder as your business starts to gain some size.

When the volume of requests becomes unmanageable for one person, it's time to stop using an email client that hasn't been designed for this type of collaborative work and start looking for a shared inbox tool. These software are built to make email handling and collaboration efficient.

In this article, we'll dive into shared inboxes and explore why you should be using one and give your the list of the ten best shared inbox software available today.

Let's dive in!

What Is a Team Email?

A team email, or shared email alias, is a single email address that multiple team members can access and use to communicate with customers or external collaborators.

It makes communication more efficient within your team and also provides a single, consistent point of contact for anyone reaching out to a business.  the best way to access team emails is by using a shared inbox where multiple coworkers can access and manage emails together.

What Is a Shared Inbox?

A shared inbox is an email inbox that can be accessed by multiple coworkers at the same time. Each user maintains their personal account, but they all can send, read, and manage messages from particular shared mailboxes.

For example, John (john@acme.com) and Lucy (lucy@acme.com) can both receive, send and manage emails from the shared address help@acme.com.

Unlike standard business emails, shared inboxes don't have their own ID and password to log into them. To access them, you'll need permission that is granted by an administrator.

Following shared mailbox best practices will ensure you make the most of team collaboration.

How Does a Shared Inbox Work?

The general process among shared inbox tools is roughly the same: You select an email address, share it with a team and now multiple users can access the catch-all email account. But the real power behind shared inboxes lies in the ability to distribute and categorize emails among a team properly. This is the added value that differentiates shared inbox software.

For example, with Missive, any email address can be made into a shared account. Here's how it works:

Should You Use Shared Inboxes?

Operating shared email aliases with 1 or 2 people without a shared inbox tool can be relatively straightforward, however, it is a totally different story when you start to scale your business.

Problems start to arise when a team of people needs to collaborate together on a shared mailbox. If you have experience situations where conversations slipped into the cracks and were forgotten, duplicated responses were sent, or follow-up email messages were addressed to the wrong person, you certainly need shared inbox software to help you manage shared emails.

Customer service, sales and support teams can benefit from a collaborative inbox tool making all shared information accessible in one centralized inbox. Teams can then implement effective workflows so they can be more productive as a squad. Better collaboration between team members will also help decrease the response time and improve customer experience.

Benefits of Using a Shared Inbox

Having a shared inbox comes with many benefits. The most obvious ones are the collaborative advantages it brings. Teams that need to manage incoming emails will be the ones who will experience the most of it.

There are many reasons why you would want to use a shared inbox tool to manage shared emails in your business. Here are some key ones:

• Quickly scale the number of requests you can receive not by creating new points of contact but by distributing a centralized email account (help@acme) to multiple coworkers.
• Maintain ownership of who answers what from the centralized email account.
• Stop responding twice to the same email. This often happens with distribution lists that forward emails to different accounts.
• Follow proper security protocols. Sharing passwords is a terrible security practice.
• Communicate more efficiently in your team by sharing information about every customer request and response. Most tools we'll explore later on also let you and your coworkers chat directly in the app saving you time and keeping everything in context.

In addition to these direct benefits, you can expect additional improvement in your customer interactions like customer service and sales. By having one centralized point of contact it is easier for your customer to get the help they need and for your team to make sure their inquiries are replied to.

The 10 Best Shared Inbox Software

Missive

Recommended for teams that want the best-shared inbox for productive team collaboration.

Missive is much more than a simple shared inbox tool, it's a team inbox and chat app that empowers teams to collaborate not only around email but other channels of communication like SMS, WhatsApp, Instagram, Messenger, and live chat.

Missive can be used with your personal email address as well as with your shared accounts, making it the perfect solution for an all-in-one small business collaboration software.

The Team Inbox is a shared inbox made for collaboration and assignment between team members. It is useful for teams who want a "triage" step that will clean up messages for all coworkers at once.

It offers two roles:

• Active members receive notifications for new messages. They see conversations listed in the Team Inboxes mailbox in addition to the team inbox.
• Observers do not receive notifications and see conversations listed in the team inbox only. This is perfect for managers who want to monitor the work being done but don’t want to be flooded with notifications.

By adding this layer of roles, you can easily manage a shared inbox right from the start. This makes it easier to know who is working on what, and it adds transparency and accountability to all employees.

Missive shared inbox can be used in a variety of scenarios in all areas of a business like customer support or sales for example. Missive can even replace your help desk.

Some other features are a great addition to the shared inboxes to help you and your teams collaborate seamlessly and be more productive.

• Internal chat: Communicate with coworkers inside emails, this proves effective when you need help with a difficult question or need to verify some information. Simply @mention a colleague and start a conversation, all without leaving the email in question.

• Live drafting: It lets you collaborate on crafting an email with one or multiple coworkers, live. This feature also enables everyone to see who’s working on a particular case in real time. So no more double replies to customer emails.

• Tasks and assignments: Some issues cannot be resolved immediately, so you can create tasks or to-do lists inside emails to keep track of what needs to be done. These tasks can also be assigned to other coworkers. Collaboration at its finest.

• Shared calendars: With Missive Calendar, you can quickly reply and schedule meetings, and video calls, get reminders about upcoming activities, and more. As with all Missive features, Calendar was conceived with teamwork in mind. Sharing events or entire calendar accounts is easy!

• Rules: With Missive, you can create sets of rules that automate actions; these can save time and spare support employees from doing repetitive tasks. For example, all refund-related emails can be automatically assigned to the Finance team or a specific employee.

• Canned responses: They will let you write and reply to emails faster with pre-written snippets. Templates are especially useful when you end up replying to the same questions over and over again.

Price: Free for up to 2 shared accounts. Starting at $15/month for more.

Google Collaborative Inbox

Recommended for small teams that need a basic shared inbox solution in Gmail.

Google Collaborative Inbox is a good option for small teams that want to use Gmail for shared inbox management. It's a feature of Google Groups for Business that enables members of a group to manage conversations with each other. Collaborative Inbox gives users basic functionalities like assigning a person to a conversation and marking conversations as resolved.

While more powerful than the next solution on the list, Outlook, it is not nearly as powerful as Missive or other solutions on the list.

Price: Free for Google Workspace users

Outlook Shared Mailbox

Recommended for small teams that need a basic shared inbox solution in Outlook.

Outlook shared mailbox is a good option for small teams already using Outlook as their email client. It offers basic shared inbox functionalities like shared access to company mailboxes and user permissions. It works by creating a shared email folder in which you can invite members.

However, Outlook shared inbox comes with some drawbacks. For instance, it only works with Microsoft 365 emails. In addition, it isn't built for scale since Microsoft doesn't recommend it for shared inboxes with more than 25 people due to risks of failure.

Price: Free for Exchange Online service users.

Front

Recommended for enterprise businesses with a big budget.

Front offers a shared inbox to manage shared aliases like support@acme.com. Similar to Missive, you can also manage SMS, social media, and live chat on their platform.

It also offers features such as internal comments and more advanced functionalities like CRM and analytics on its highest-tier plan.

Price: Staring at $38/month on a yearly contract.

Helpwise

Recommended for teams that want a simple platform to manage social media messages.

Helpwise is a shared inbox similar to Missive and Front. It offers a way to collaborate on a shared mailbox with a focus on shared accounts like SMS, social media, and live chat.

Functionalities like assigning a person to a conversation, tagging, and chatting with your coworkers are also offered.

Price: Free for 1 shared account. Starting at $15/month for more.

Help Scout

Recommended for teams that want to share an inbox, live chat, and knowledge base in one tool.

Help Scout is a platform that offers a shared inbox, live chat, and a knowledge base. With their shared inbox feature, you can manage shared emails, assign people to a conversation, chat with teammates, and tag conversations.

Price: Starting at $25/month.

Hiver

Recommended for teams that want to use Gmail to manage shared mailboxes.

Hiver is a Chrome extension that enables you to collaborate and manage your shared inbox in Gmail. It offers the standard shared inbox functionalities such as assigning people to a conversation and tagging emails and comments privately in a discussion. Hiver also comes with features like task automation and analytics.

However, you'll need to be a Gmail user to take advantage of Hiver.

Price: Starting at $19/month.

Gmelius

Recommended for teams that want to use Gmail and want project management features all in one place.

Gmailius is a Gmail add-on that brings shared inboxes directly to the Gmail platform. It comes with features like chats with your coworkers in an email thread, adding labels, and assigning team members to an email.

Gmailius also offer Kanban-style board for project management directly in Gmail.

Price: Start at $15/month

Helpmonks

Recommended for teams that want an all-in-one marketing tool.

Helpmonks offers shared inboxes for team emails with functionalities like assigning a person to an email, tagging conversations, and private notes that you can send to your coworkers. You also have the option to host their solution on your own server.

They also offer a marketing platform that includes a CRM, an email marketing platform, and a live chat.

Price: Starting at $29/month.

HubSpot

Recommended for teams that already use HubSpot and need more basic shared inboxes.

HubSpot offers a shared inbox tool as a part of its CRM solution. You can connect team mailboxes, Facebook Messenger, live chat, and even use their chatbot builder to a shared inbox where team members can manage, view, and reply to messages.

Price: Free with HubSpot branding. Starting at $50/month without.

How to Manage a Shared Inbox?

Using a shared inbox that centralizes all your emails in one tool is a great way to manage incoming communications and be more efficient as a team. To fully benefit from a team inbox, it's important to handle it with care. Here are some tips to help you manage your shared inbox and make the most of it:

• Define roles and responsibilities: Take advantage of assignments to assign emails to specific team members. This way, everyone knows who's responsible for what, and you have accountability in the team.
• Increase collaboration: Shared inbox software allows you to add labels, comments, and sometimes chat within email conversations. Using these features will encourage collaboration and help team members work more efficiently.
• Create guidelines: Having well-established guidelines on how to manage the shared inbox workflow will help everyone on the team. From procedures on how to assign different types of emails to setting response time standards, and implementing a categorization system using labels, you can save time and improve everyone's productivity. You should also ensure messages are prioritized based on their importance or urgency.
• Use canned responses: A shared inbox enables multiple team members to collaborate on emails, but it also means that maintaining consistency in replies can be challenging. Using canned responses for frequently asked questions will help your team save time and ensure accurate and consistent responses across the board.
• Set up rules: Rules are a great way to automate some actions like labeling emails, assigning them to a team member, or automatically replying to them. Using rules can take your team's productivity to the next level and make sure that your workflow is respected.
• Keep updating and improving your workflow: As time goes on and your team starts experimenting with a shared inbox, keep updating and optimizing your workflow to fit your team's needs. There is no one-size-fits-all way to manage a shared inbox.

Switching to a Shared Inbox Tool for More Productivity

At Missive, we are advocates for all things that help teams to share and collaborate more effectively. A shared inbox is a great way to have all your team emails in one place, making them easier to find, manage, and respond to.

In the end, it's up to you to decide if a shared inbox software is the right tool for your team and if so, which of the top shared inboxes is the best fit.

Interested in learning more about how Missive can help your business?  Attend one of our webinars.

Texting has been around for almost 30 years. It is the most popular form of communication in the entire world. It's hard to estimate, but some sources say between 4.2 and 5 billion people around the world have access to SMS messages. Compared to 3.9 billion email users and 2 billion WhatsApp users.

Not only that, but it's also one of the most effective tools of communication. According to TechJury, SMS messages have:

• 90% open rate.
• 90% of SMS are read within 3 minutes.
• 98% of US smartphone users text regularly.
• 80% of people use text messaging for business.
• SMS open rates are nearly 5 times that of email.
• 6 in every 10 consumers tend to have a positive impression of companies that contact them via text messages.

I think it is safe to say that texting is a big deal.

Ok, but what's an SMS shared inbox?

An SMS inbox is like an email inbox. It's a place where texts from one or multiple phone numbers are received, stored, and managed. An SMS shared inbox adds a layer of collaboration to the inbox concept. This means SMS from a single number can be seen and assigned to multiple people who access them from their own devices with their own accounts.

But do I need this for my business?

Most likely yes. Just reread the bullet points above. Texting is widely adopted and liked by people. Whether you're an ecommerce, work in sales, or rent camera equipment, customers will inevitably contact you and you will also need to contact them.

SMS can be used in a passive way, by letting customers send questions, ask to fix issues, give feedback -- in order words, for customer support. But you can also proactively engage with them by using SMS as a new channel to distribute marketing content. According to the previously mentioned source, SMS marketing campaigns perform 7 times better than email marketing campaigns.

But imagine receiving dozens or even hundreds of texts per day from customers. You need something more robust than a flimsy shared inbox. In order to successfully leverage this new channel of communication, you need to be able to categorize messages, distribute workload, share information, etc.

I suggest you have a look at our shared mailbox best practices article to learn more about the best ways to efficiently manage a shared inbox.

Missive: The SMS shared inbox tool

Missive is a team inbox and chat app that helps businesses stay on top of all their communication channels in a single app. All while enabling collaboration between coworkers. In Missive you can receive emails, Instagram DMs, WhatsApp messages, SMS, and more! SMS can be received and sent via Twilio, Dialpad, or SignalWire SMS.

One of the best features is the ability to collaborate inside SMS. For example, if a customer sends a text message, and you don't know how to respond, you can @mention another team member and instantly give them access and ask for help.

You can also create team inboxes and assign certain SMS to specialized teams. Maybe a customer has a sales question. Then you can assign it to the Sales team manually or through automated rules.

And you know how there's are always some questions that come through every day, multiple times per day...? With Missive's canned responses, you can quickly respond to popular SMS questions in seconds!

Pro tipUse the shortcut: Shift + Command + O to quickly open the responses popup

Nice! How do I set up SMS?

Twilio

Step 1

Create a free Twilio account and buy a Twilio phone number.

Twilio's Console site allows users to quickly search for and provision phone numbers for your company. You can filter phone numbers based on location, phone number type, capabilities, and more from their Console.

Here's an in-depth guide to the phone number purchasing process. Or, if you prefer, you can also do a third-party phone number porting to Twilio.

You will be able to consult your number(s) in the Phone Numbers option under the Super Network category, which can be accessed by clicking on the sidebar's 3-dotted button.

Step 2

In the Twilio console, go to your dashboard and copy these two critical numbers: the Account SID and the Auth Token.

Step 3

Open Missive and go to Accounts > Add Account > SMS powered by Twilio

Select whether this SMS account will be shared with a team, like the Support team or if it will be a personal one.

Enter the Account SID, the Auth Token, and your Twilio Phone Number.

Step 4

Start engaging with customers via texts!

Dialpad

Step 1

In Missive, open your settings, click Integrations > Add integration > Dialpad then follow the instructions.

Step 2

Configure the Dialpad SMS inbox and Dialpad call logs by openning your settings, Accounts > Add account > Dialpad then follow the instructions.

SignalWire SMS

Step 1

Create a SignalWire account and get a SignalWire phone number.

Step 2

In your SignalWire dashboard copy these fields Project ID, Space Url and API Token, plus your phone number.

Step 3

Open Missive and go to Accounts > Add Account > SMS powered by SignalWire

Select whether this SMS account will be shared with a team, like the Support team or if it will be a personal one.

Enter the Space URL, the Project ID, the API token, and your SignalWire Phone Number.