Meet Twin Cities Auto Glass

If you’ve ever cracked a windshield while driving around the Twin Cities in Minnesota, you’ve probably heard of Twin Cities Auto Glass.

They’ve been around for more than a decade, specializing in windshield replacements and repairs for personal vehicles, dealership cars, and even handling tricky factory recalls. They’re a vibrant and growing business—starting with just a tiny crew of four technicians and two office staff, and now up to over 35 staff members across office and field roles.

But with growth came a not-so-welcome surprise: email chaos. More staff meant more messages, more shared inboxes, and more potential for confusion.

The Email Challenge

When you’re dealing with multiple insurance agents, car dealerships, and a fleet of mobile technicians, you can guess how quickly the emails start stacking up. Early on, Twin Cities Auto Glass got by using a single email address—for all inbound communications. But as the business picked up speed, so did the headaches:

1. Shared Inbox Overload
   Everyone needed to see incoming leads and claims, but that often meant multiple people responding to the same message. Duplicate answers, anyone?
2. Difficulty Tracking Conversations
   A dealership might email about a test-drive mishap, an insurance agent might shoot over a fax-turned-PDF with a VIN number, and the next thing you know, they’re all buried under random internal chat threads.
3. No Visibility into Who’s Doing What
   Owners and sales reps wanted to know how many leads the Customer Service Reps (CSRs) had on their plate, or which customers were waiting on a callback. Without a clear assignment system, it was “first come, first served”—or sometimes “first come, first confusion.”

Trying Other Solutions (a. k. a. Bumps in the Road)

Before landing on Missive, Twin Cities Auto Glass tried a handful of popular shared inbox and ticketing systems. Think of it like test-driving a few cars before you settle on the one you’ll trust for your daily commute.

Front

They started with Front, which worked well—until the team passed the 10-user mark. Suddenly, the pricing jumped higher than a Minnesota lake freeze in January.

Unable to find a middle ground between 10 seats and the next plan tier, they had to look elsewhere.

Google Groups & Outlook

In an attempt to keep everything on brand with Gmail and Google Workspace, they fiddled with Google Groups. But it didn’t bring inbound replies back into the shared inbox the way they needed, so messages ended up hidden in personal threads. Outlook seemed a viable contender (“So many companies use it!”), but Reddit told Hannah otherwise with plenty of warnings on how complicated it could get. That deterred them from seriously pursuing it.

Sorted

Not to be confused with “sort it,” Sorted is a ticketing-style system that overlays Gmail. It looked promising: the team could track leads on a shared board, move messages into columns, and theoretically keep everything neatly organized. Unfortunately, the honeymoon phase was short-lived:

1. Private vs. Public Mix-Ups
   Emails intended to be private (like those “Hey Boss, we have a problem” forwards) often stayed accessible to the entire team, creating awkward situations.
2. Clumsy Search Function
   Searching for past correspondence became a game of “choose the right board” or “are you in open, closed, or archived?” The system was so fragmented that finding anything was a chore.
3. Mysteriously Disappearing Emails
   The deal-breaker came when four emails vanished from the board altogether. Even though they still existed in the Gmail back end, employees without direct access to the main account couldn’t see them. No one had time to “CSI” a missing-email case every other day.

The Search for a New Ride

On a fateful Wednesday, Hannah’s frustration peaked. She Googled around, combed Reddit for user feedback on shared inbox solutions, and discovered a name she hadn’t come across during her earlier searches: Missive.

After scanning Missive’s website, reading a few reviews, and noticing it offered an iOS and Android app (critical for the off-site sales team), she signed up for a trial. She quickly invited Ashley, one of the key office leads, to test out the collaborative email experience.

“We were a little nervous, because we’d only just switched the entire company a few months before. But I told my boss, ‘We can’t keep losing emails. Let’s switch as soon as possible, or risk future headaches.’” – Hannah

First Impressions: “Where Have You Been All Our Lives?”

Within a few hours, Hannah knew Missive was a keeper. It checked the boxes she and the team had been missing with Sorted, plus it offered the features they’d loved in Front—without the huge jump in user costs.

1. Team Inbox & Personal Inbox Under One Roof
   The CSRs thrive in a single, shared inbox for handling leads and insurance claims. Meanwhile, individual staffers can still keep their personal email separate but in the same app. No more toggling between Gmail tabs!
2. Clear Access & Commenting
   Want to add a private note to a conversation without showing the entire chain to everyone? Easy. Need to highlight a message for the parts department? Just @mention them in a comment. No more email forwarding fiascos.
3. Simple & Powerful Search
   Whether you search for an attachment, an email address, or a keyword, you can find it across all inboxes in Missive. No more detective work to figure out if something’s in “Board 1 – Open” or “Board 7 – Archived.”
4. Mobile Apps for the Sales Team
   The owners and sales reps love to keep tabs on leads and quotes, but aren’t always behind a computer. With Missive’s mobile app, they can watch threads and be notified of important updates on the go.
5. Analytics & Visibility
   Missive’s built-in analytics show how many emails each CSR is handling, who might be overloaded, and how quickly the team is responding to inbound requests. Ownership can see real data on the email volume and workload.

The Switch: Moving the Whole Crew Over

A mere three days after discovering Missive, Twin Cities Auto Glass had everyone in the office—from the nine dedicated CSRs to the parts department—up and running. For a short overlap, they used Sorted and Missive simultaneously, just to ensure no incoming email slipped through the cracks. But within a week, they’d canceled most of their Sorted subscriptions and never looked back.

“I told the CSRs, ‘Yes, we’re switching again. Sorry for the whiplash—imagine it’s like a back-seat-of-a-tow-truck kind of ride!’ But once they saw how intuitive Missive was, they got on board quickly.” – Hannah

Results: An End to Email Mayhem

Now that Twin Cities Auto Glass has a stable, robust shared inbox platform, they can focus on what they do best: replacing windshields and saving vehicles from cracked-glass chaos.

• Faster Response Times
  The CSRs see new leads instantly and can assign or comment on them without confusion.
• Fewer Mistakes & No More Lost Emails
  No more guessing who responded to which dealership or if someone “accidentally” deleted a customer thread.
• Improved Transparency & Accountability
  Management can see how busy each rep is, identify bottlenecks, and balance the workflow.
• Less Stress, More Confidence
  Hannah can sleep better at night knowing there won’t be any 3 a. m. messages about disappearing emails.

Looking Ahead

No more “missing email” mysteries, no more accidental oversharing, and no more “I thought you replied, so I never replied” nightmares. Twin Cities Auto Glass is now excited to explore the rest of Missive’s features—like tags, templated replies, integrations, and deeper analytics.

“We know we’re only scratching the surface of what Missive can do for us. It already feels like we got an upgrade from a compact car to a fully-loaded SUV—and we’re loving it.” – Hannah

Final Thoughts

As a bustling local business, Twin Cities Auto Glass needed a reliable shared inbox solution that was affordable, user-friendly, and more flexible than ticketing software. Missive delivered on all fronts (pun intended). If you’re a growing team juggling inbound requests, leads, or just too many scattered emails, take it from Hannah: sometimes the right tool is out there—you just have to dig a little deeper on Reddit!