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Boost Your Team Email Collaboration With These 10 Tips
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by
Reem Abouemera
June 3, 2022
· Updated on
Email collaboration is vital for teams in today's business world. Without it, important tasks can slip through the cracks, and opportunities can be missed.
Most businesses aren't using email to its full potential, especially among small businesses.
Whether you're already using a shared inbox software or simply need to find a way to manage team communication more effectively, here are 10 simple ways to boost email collaboration within your team.
Quickly put, email collaboration is a practice where team members cooperate on emails, generally from a shared inbox, to share the workload.
Most shared inboxes are used for companies' shared aliases like support@ or info@ to enable teams to work together on emails. This can involve sharing information and updates, discussing ideas and decisions, and providing feedback and support to each other.
Some tools, with features such as commenting, collaborative writing, and sharing options, also make it possible to collaborate on personal emails.
Having a good system of email collaboration comes with a lot of advantages for your business whether big or small. Some of you might think that your small team doesn't need it since you only have a few team members, but chances are they are responsible for multiple aspects of the business and will certainly need to collaborate on emails with a coworker at some point.
A good can help teams to streamline communication and improve the efficiency and effectiveness of their work processes.
By collaborating on emails, teams can work together efficiently even if they are not in the same location. And since all team members have access to the same information and can see each other's contributions, transparency and accountability are also increased.
Collaborating on emails brings a lot of benefits to your team, however, if you're using a tool like Gmail to manage your personal and team emails at work there are some downsides you should know about.
Gmail isn't great for team collaboration and can do more harm than good. The main drawbacks are:
Using software made for email collaboration like Missive can solve these problems and make sure that your company benefits from all the advantages of collaborating on emails.
Having a process in place is key when it comes to email collaboration. Every team member should understand their role and managers need systems to maintain accountability.
That means that you should always be clear about who needs to do what by when.
For example, if you need someone to review a document, include specific instructions on what you'd like them to do and make it clear that they're responsible for completing the task. Deadlines should also be included whenever possible.
In Gmail, you could establish a streamlined process through the support of external documentation and SOPs so that your team knows exactly how to collaborate on email.
You could also make use of Google's "Tasks" app to keep track of deadlines and individual responsibilities. The problem with adding comments and notes to Gmail this way is that it’s still based on the individual and doesn’t lend itself well to collaborative work.
That’s where email clients like Missive, a tool built with collaboration features as a first principle, can be a game changer.
In Missive, you can do this by assigning emails or tasks to teams or individuals with a few mouse clicks (or keyboard shortcuts like ⇧ ⌘ K ), eliminating the need to CC or BCC anyone.
The email will automatically be added to the assignee’s inbox.
If you need functionality for due dates or additional data to be tracked, you can send tasks directly from Missive to popular project management apps like Asana, Trello, Todoist, and ClickUp.
When you share an email account, it's difficult to keep track of who's responsible for what. Important messages easily get lost in the shuffle.
Instead, each team member should have their email account that they or can access. That way, everyone has a clear record of who’s responsible for what and who completed it.
But that doesn't mean that you can't still share information–you just need to do it more smartly. A collaborative email tool like Missive makes it easy to share emails and other information without actually sharing email accounts.
With Missive, you can add other team members to a shared team inbox so everyone can easily view and respond to messages together while simultaneously maintaining the integrity of their email accounts.
You can even chat with each other right from the app so that you can quickly discuss important details and cut down on the back-and-forth context switching in other tools like Slack.
Missive gives you the best of both worlds: everyone's inbox remains segregated, yet still shareable for collaboration and accountability purposes.
When you need to pass along an email to another team member, it's tempting to just hit the forward button. However, that's not always the best course of action for email management.
Think about it: you're still on the hook when you forward an email thread.
If there's a problem with the task or questions to be answered for a customer, the email will have to go through you instead of the customer support team member who's responsible for the task, so you’re still the support POC for that task.
Instead of forwarding an email, delegate it.
Replying to someone with your delegate CC’ed is one way of doing things, but the problem is it’s common for your delegate to still have questions and need clarification. And when they do, an unruly chain of back-and-forth emails ensues.
Delegating through Gmail can be challenging because the only way to do it is through shared Google Workspace accounts or Google Groups.
Google’s collaborative inbox provides a central place for your team to communicate, and share documents, calendar events, and more.
But it still doesn’t solve the problem of having to forward emails back and forth whenever you need to discuss the context of an email with a coworker in the email itself.
Using chat is an option, but still requires you to add a bunch of contexts.
When you delegate things in Missive, you can use comments and chat to include specific instructions on what needs to be done—reducing the back and forth and confusion and improving workflow efficiency.
Clear communication can dramatically boost team collaboration.
Here’s a useful model to apply when you need to convey an idea, respond to a question, delegate a task, or provide details around a situation in written communication.
Lead with the point of your communication (called the BLUF principle), followed by the details structured using the SCQA framework coined by McKinsey consultant Barbara Minto.
SCQA stands for Situation, Complication, Question, and Answer.
Here's how it all works together:
A collection of excellent examples of this style of writing in different contexts can be found in this article over good business writing by Leonardo Fed.
When you use this framework across your communication channels, you can be sure that your emails are clear and concise. Plus, you'll avoid misunderstandings and save everyone's time.
Centralization means having one place where all your team's email communication is stored—a central hub where your whole team can see all the emails sent and received by the team. Think of it as a group email but with separate emails for each person.
There are a few different ways you can do this.
One option is to use an email client like Microsoft Outlook or Gmail. Another option is to use a project management tool like Asana or Trello. But, each of these requires sacrifice in terms of collaboration or context-switching to make them work.
The easiest way to centralize email amongst a team is to use a collaborative email client like Missive.
With Missive, each user has a mailbox for their account but the admin can also set up a shared mailbox (such as a team account) that all users can access and respond from. That way, everyone can see the same emails and there's no need to forward messages or CC everyone.
You can also manage communication from channels other than emails like WhatsApp, SMS (via Twilio), and social media channels like Instagram and Facebook Messenger.
The benefit of using a centralized system is that it makes it easier for the entire team to stay up-to-date on the latest email conversations in their mailboxes in a single place.
Plus, it's easier to search for old emails when you need to reference them. And the best part is that emails can be broken down into smaller tasks or projects, making it easier to stay organized and encouraging teamwork.
When you're sending emails to clients or customers, it's important to be consistent. That means using the same language, tone, and format for all your communications.
One way to ensure consistency is to use shared email templates. These are email templates that can be accessed and used by anyone on your team.
Not only do shared email templates save you time, but they also help to ensure that your team is always on the same page. Plus, they can be customized to fit your brand's voice and style.
If you're using Gmail, for example, you'd have one of your team members develop a template following email etiquette for customer service. Then, you'd copy them to a shared repository (be that Google Docs, Notion, Guru, or similar.). Your team members can then add that template to their canned responses.
Great–but what happens when the template changes in the repository? Unfortunately, you'd have to inform your team members to update the template in their canned responses.
A better solution is to use a tool like Missive, which, when any user generates a template, stores that template in the repository and makes it available to everyone on the team. Plus, when someone updates a template, that change is pushed to everyone's account automatically. That eliminates the need for manual updates!
If your team is constantly sending emails to the same people, it makes sense to create a shared book of contacts. This way, everyone will have access to the same contact information and you won't have to waste time searching for an email address every time you need it.
A shared book of contacts can be stored in a central location, like your email client, a CRM, or in a Google Sheet/Excel document stored in Google Drive or Dropbox that your team has access to.
However, adding contacts to a sheet and manually updating is laborious and a possible point of failure for many teams.
Missive has a built-in shared contact book that supports syncing with Office 365 and Google accounts. They also have options to sync data with other contact tools using no-code tools like Zapier and Make or by building your own custom integration with the Missive API.
When you add or update a contact in Missive, that change is immediately reflected for everyone on your team.
If you're using Gmail, you can take advantage of filters and labels to segment and organize emails to find later.
For example, you could create a label called "Webinar Launch", which has a filter that includes all the emails sent and received by people on your marketing team that include specific keywords related to your campaign.
But the problem is that labels aren't shared across workspace accounts and must be set up manually.
This is made easier in Missive where you can share labels and filters with your team.
Shared filters and labels make sorting and organizing emails a breeze and ensure that everyone is on the same page. They also save you time that could've been spent setting up labels and filters manually.
It’s 2022. There's no reason to waste time on tasks that can be automated. You don't have to
You can set up auto-responses, snooze emails, and even create rules to automate email filing.
For example, in Missive, you can create a contact group in which you add spammers and use automation to automatically trash them the moment they hit your email inbox. Goodbye everyone out there with high-quality backlinks to sell. 👋
Imagine using built-in shortcuts to quickly insert a template or emoji into your email without having to leave your inbox. Or, setting up auto-responses so you can reply to common questions without having to type out the same message over and over again. Better yet, how about snoozing an email until a later time or date so you can focus on what's most important right now?
Automation can save you a lot of time and headaches, so it's worth considering if you're looking for ways to improve your team's email collaboration and internal communication without putting in a lot of extra work.
Finally, one of the best ways to boost email collaboration for teams is to write collaboratively. Instead of sending individual emails back and forth, you can use a tool like Google Docs or Dropbox Paper to write and edit your emails together in real time.
Writing collaboratively has several benefits.
However, doing the writing anywhere else other than your email client can introduce needless work for you and your team. You have to write, copy, paste, and then send, right?
With tools like Missive, you can write your emails collaboratively right from your inbox. That means you can avoid the extra steps and still take advantage of all the benefits of collaborative writing. Just write and send using Missive's Live Edit feature!
Collaboration doesn't have to be a pain. By following these simple tips, you can boost email collaboration for your team and make everyone's life a little easier.
Whether you’re using ancient email clients like Gmail or collaboration software like Missive, you can find ways to eliminate wasteful manual labor and stay focused on what matters.
Start a free trial and give Missive a try. Your team will thank you for it.
November 29, 2024
Google Collaborative Inbox: Why Your Teams Won't Like It
Google's Collaborative Inbox offers a way to manage shared email addresses, but it has some flaws.
At its core, email was designed to be addressed to a single individual, just like regular mail.
But with more and more businesses starting to increase their online presence, catch-all email addresses (info@, sales@, support@) began to increase. And with no way to efficiently distribute the workload of these catch-all addresses, email quickly became a burden. To resolve the problem, it wasn't uncommon to see people use the oldest hack in the book:
Sharing individual account passwords.
It might have worked very early on when online security was not a big thing for most organizations. But email providers, like Gmail, quickly started dissuading this practice by temporarily locking people's accounts when detecting multiple sign-ins to the same account. As an alternative, Google offers Google Groups and its Collaborative Inbox.
But what is it exactly? And is it the solution you’re looking for? Let's find out!
Google Collaborative Inbox is a free feature of Google Groups available to businesses using Google Workspace (also known as G Suite). It can be used by teams to manage shared email accounts that are meant to be shared mailboxes, such as support@ or info@.
While not a complete shared inbox software solution, it offers more robust features than Gmail when it comes to email collaboration.
To simplify things, Google Collaborative Inbox is a shared email folder that members of a group can access through their own accounts.
The idea is that group members can access a shared email address securely. All members can email everyone in the group and can also allow external emails. They can assign conversations to different group members, mark the progress, create labels, and filter them.
It’s the simple evolution of a distribution list, allowing teams to somewhat collaborate around a shared mailbox.
Google Collaborative Inbox allows teams using Google Workspace to access a basic shared mailbox without the need of other software.
It can be used to manage email addresses that need to be accessed by a group of people. The benefits of using Collaborative Inbox come mostly from the collaborative nature of the feature and not the tool itself.
Here are the benefits of a having a shared mailbox with collaboration functionalities:
Google Collaborative Inbox sounds great, but according to its users, the solution is complex to use yet limited in its features.
Your customer support and sales teams will certainly be the most impacted. Here are the most important ones:
The UI is unfamiliar and doesn’t integrate into the Gmail inbox. So your team will have to shuffle between the two apps. It also means that you can't manage all your email from one place.
You cannot easily discuss an issue with a coworker in the context of an email. Nor can emails truly be delegated. You need to either forward emails, which will generate more emails, or use the built-in chat, but you will need to describe the problem since your message won't be in context.
Replies to customers are sent from the individual's account, not the group email address, so you always need to remember also to send them to the group address. Otherwise, teammates will no longer see that email. And if the customer forgets to "reply-all", the email will never show up in the group's inbox. Emails can easily fall through the cracks.
If an email has been assigned to someone, other people won't see if others are already working on it, not until the reply is sent. This may lead to double responses, wasted time for your team, slower response time, and customers getting a negative impression of your organization.
There's no simple way for a manager to monitor emails from their team. Filtering is also a bit rudimentary, so important things might get easily overlooked.
You also need to switch between Gmail and the Google Groups UI to be on top of things. This also means that emails sent to the group address can't be read on mobile devices, because they cannot be accessed through a Gmail account or any other app.
Creating automation rules that help your team triage emails faster is impossible. Everything needs to be done manually, which can lead to mistakes.
You can't centralize your team's communications. As we all know, customers nowadays contact organizations through various channels, like, Messenger, Instagram, SMS, etc.
To wrap things up, we could say that using Google's Collaborative Inbox is far from the right tool for the job. Lost emails, unclear ownership, unintuitive UI... Here's where Missive might prove to be an excellent weapon to keep in your arsenal.
You want to give Google Group Collaborative Inbox a shot?
Here’s how to (relatively) easily turn on the collaborative inbox features in Google Groups:
Managing the workflow of a Collaborative Inbox inside Google Groups can be done in a few different ways. Depending on the permissions you gave to each team member they can use Google Groups features to manage the shared folder of email.
You can assign a conversation to any group member including yourself to manage messages and responsibilities. Conversations can be sorted based on their assignment status.
You can mark a conversation as complete, no action required, or as a duplicate. Right next to the subject will be the status of the conversation.
You can organize your Collaborative Inbox by using labels on related conversations. Labels can be used in conversations no matter their assignment and resolution status.
Your best option when looking for an alternative to Google Groups’ Collaborative Inbox is dedicated email collaboration software for business.
While you have multiple options (refer to our top shared inbox software), we believe that this short list of alternatives are the ones that will check all the boxes to make your team love shared email.
Missive is a real collaborative inbox. It features team inboxes and chats that empower teams to collaborate not only around email but other channels of communication like SMS, WhatsApp, Messenger, Instagram, and live chat.
Missive was built with collaboration in mind.
The Team Inbox lets you collaborate with team members and assign them to conversation. It is useful for teams who want a "triage" step that will clean up messages for all coworkers at once.
It lets you communicate with coworkers right inside an email thread. You can also @mention a colleague and start a conversation, all without leaving the email in question.
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.
Price: Price: Free for up to 2 shared accounts. Starting at $15/month for more.
Gmelius is a good alternative for users that want to keep on using Gmail. Gmelius is a Gmail add-on that brings shared inboxes directly to the web app. It comes with features like chats with your coworkers in an email thread, adding labels, and assigning team members to an email.
Gmelius also offer Kanban-style board for project management directly in Gmail.
Price: Start at $15/month
Hiver is another solutions that is used on top of Gmail. This Chrome extension enables you to collaborate and manage your shared inbox in your existing Gmail account. It offers the standard shared mailbox 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.
Price: Starting at $19/month.
Helpwise is a good alternative to Google Group Collaborative Inbox. It offers a shared inbox similar to Missive, with a way collaborate on a shared alias with a focus on shared accounts like SMS, social media, and live chat.
It also lets you add an assignee to a conversation, tag emails, and chat with your coworkers.
Price: Free for 1 shared account. Starting at $15/month for more.
Help Scout is primarily a helpdesk software, but it can double a good shared inbox solution with features like live chat, and a knowledge base.
With it, you can manage shared emails, group emails together using labels, assign people to a conversation, chat with teammates, and tag conversations.
Price: Starting at $25/month.
Don't get me wrong. Gmail is a great email client for individuals. But when it comes to shared inboxes and team collaboration, Missive helps your team keep their eyes on the ball and move toward inbox zero.
Google Collaborative Inbox is a free feature of Google Groups that lets businesses using Google Workspace manage shared email addresses like support@ or info@ as a team.
A Collaborative Inbox is a feature of Google Groups that enables teams to collaborate on shared emails like info@. It acts as a shared folder where all emails from a shared alias go. It offers bare bones and basic shared inbox features.
Shared inboxes allow multiple coworkers to access email simultaneously. While each user maintains a personal account, their shared mailboxes can be accessed and managed by all.
December 22, 2022
Gmail Delegation: Why It Might Not Be for You
Thinking about Gmail delegation? Check the possible cons and risks first. This article looks at Gmail...
Do you find yourself overwhelmed by the sheer volume of emails you receive each day? Are you struggling to keep up with the demands of your inbox?
You are not alone!
It can be easy to fall behind on your emails.
Some of you might be looking for a way to have their assistant manage their emails and calendar for them to finally achieve inbox zero.
Fortunately for you, there is a way to make it easier using email delegation. Google introduced Gmail delegation a little over a decade ago to help its users manage multiple email accounts and stay on top of their inboxes.
In this blog post, we will explore how to use Gmail delegation and why it might not be the best solution for you.
Email delegation is the process of delegating access to your email account to another person. This allows the delegate to access your inbox, reply to emails, and manage your emails on your behalf. It is a great way to save time and resources, as it allows someone else to handle your emails while you focus on other tasks.
This can be useful in a number of different situations. For example, if you are going on vacation and want someone else to be able to handle your email while you are away, you can delegate access to your account to that person.
To delegate access to your email account, you will need to set up a delegate relationship in your email client. This typically involves providing the email address of the person you want to delegate access to and granting them specific permissions.
Once the delegate relationship is set up, the delegate will be able to access your email account and perform certain actions. This may include reading and responding to emails, managing your calendar and schedule, and sending emails on your behalf.
Email delegation can be a useful tool for managing your email and ensuring that important tasks are taken care of even when you are unable to do so yourself.
It is important to remember, however, that delegation should be used with caution and only granted to people you trust.
Gmail Delegation is a feature offered in both the public and the Google Workspace version that allows you to give someone else (a Gmail delegate) access to your Gmail account.
This person can:
However, they can’t:
A delegated Gmail account allows you to give another person access to your Gmail account, while a Collaborative Inbox is a shared email account that multiple people can access and use to manage email communications.
A delegated account can be useful if you need someone else to manage your email while you are unavailable or if you want to share your Gmail account with someone else like an assistant.
Google Groups’ Collaborative Inbox, on the other hand, is a shared email account that is set up specifically to allow multiple people to access and manage email communications. A collaborative inbox is often used by teams or organizations to manage customer service inquiries or other shared communications. Multiple people can access a shared mailbox to see and respond to emails sent to the alias.
Email delegation has several benefits. These advantages include:
To summarize delegating emails can save you time, as you no longer have to manage your emails on your own. Additionally, email delegation can help to ensure that important emails are not missed or forgotten.
However, email delegation should be handled carefully and that access is only given to people you can trust. Make sure that expectations and rules for delegates are clear.
It is important to remember that email delegation is not the best solution for shared inboxes. A shared inbox tool is more suitable for your team to collaborate on shared aliases.
Setting up Gmail delegates can be done in only a few simple steps.
If your account is part of an organization, you'll first need to make sure that the Google Workspace admin has turned on email delegation for users.
Here’s how to set up Gmail delegation:
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.
To access a Gmail delegated account, you need to be given delegated access by the owner of the account. Here's how to do it:
Once the delegated account is loaded, you’ll be able to manage the Gmail account exactly like you would with your account.
To remove delegate access in Gmail, follow these steps:
The removed delegate will no longer have access to your account and won’t be able to view or send emails from it.
There are several reasons why Gmail delegation may not be the best tool for delegating emails. A tool like Missive might be the best solution for your needs.
Here are the main limitations when using Gmail delegates.
When a delegate sends an email from the owner's account, the recipient will see that it was sent by the delegate and not the owner. This can be confusing and may not be suitable in all cases.
In Missive, emails sent by delegates aren’t different from an email sent by yourself. The recipient won’t be able to know if the email was sent by you or someone else on your behalf.
To delegate access to your Google calendar and Google contacts in addition to your emails, you need to grant delegate access to each of these separately. This can be inconvenient and time-consuming.
With Missive, you can share your calendar automatically so the person assisting you can create, respond and manage your events. Contacts contained in a contact book can also be shared with others. You can have multiple contact books if you want to keep some contacts private.
With Gmail delegation, you can only grant delegates the same level of access to all people. You cannot have multiple levels of delegates to manage their permissions like sending and deleting emails on your behalf.
When you grant the delegate access to your Gmail account, you are giving the delegate access to all of your emails. It is not possible to share only specific emails or folders with a delegate.
Missive makes it easy to manage the permissions you give to a delegate. You can give delegate access to certain emails or folders while keeping other emails and folders private. Additionally, you can easily revoke access to emails and folders whenever you need to. This makes it easy to manage and control your emails and folders, even when delegating access to others.
Gmail delegation is only available to users of Google Workspace (previously known as G Suite) or Gmail. If you are not using Google Workspace, you will not be able to use this feature. Additionally, you can also only add a delegate within your organization or with a Gmail address if you're not part of one. If you need to delegate tasks to someone outside of your organization or to someone who is not using Gmail, Gmail delegation is not an option.
With Missive you can share your inbox with anyone, there are no restrictions on the email provider you’re using or if the delegates have the same email domain as you.
Gmail delegation does not offer any built-in collaboration features. You and your delegate will not be able to work on emails together in real time. If you need to collaborate with your delegate on emails or other tasks, you will need to use another tool.
With Missive, you can chat with your delegates directly in an email conversation and even collaborate on drafts.
Overall, while Gmail delegation can be a useful feature in certain cases, it may not be the best tool for delegating emails depending on your needs and requirements.
Missive makes it easy and safe to delegate emails. You can decide who to delegate to, what access to give, and what actions are allowed - without having to share passwords.
Explore our ultimate guide to email delegation with Missive to learn how to get started.
Email delegation is a great way to manage multiple email accounts and stay on top of your inbox. You can save time and resources by delegating access to another person while ensuring that important emails are not missed or forgotten. So, if you are looking for a way to manage your emails more efficiently, email delegation may be just what you need.
