Centralizing Customer Messages
The Help Desk functions by consolidating messages from various customer-facing channels into a single, organized view.
Email Integration: By connecting an existing email address (e.g., via forwarding from a provider like Gmail), all incoming customer emails are converted into manageable conversations within the Inbox.
Live Chat Integration: Conversations initiated through the Live Chat widget on your website are automatically routed to the Help Desk, appearing alongside email conversations
Key Functionalities
The Help Desk provides several features to help teams manage and resolve customer conversations efficiently:
Conversations can be assigned to the most appropriate team member for ownership and resolution. Furthermore, the Teams functionality allows you to organize your Help Desk into functional groups, such as "Support," "Sales," or "Billing," enabling collective visibility and shared responsibility for specific inquiry types.
Teammates can add private notes or comments to a conversation to discuss strategy or provide context without the customer seeing the message.
Within internal notes, team members or entire Teams can be mentioned using the @ symbol to draw their attention to a specific conversation or request their input.
All conversations, regardless of whether they originated from email or live chat, are tracked and managed within a single panel.
Understanding and managing Teams
The introduction of Teams enhances the Help Desk by allowing for more granular organization based on roles or departments. This structure ensures that conversations are routed to the right group of experts.
Key features:
Admins and Account Owners maintain full visibility of all Teams. Standard Members see only the Teams to which they are assigned, keeping their workspace focused and uncluttered.
Each Team is represented as a separate channel within the Help Desk. These channels display the number of open conversations currently assigned to that specific group.
Mentioning a Team in a note notifies all its members simultaneously. Such conversations are then conveniently located in each member's "Shared with me" folder.
To manage these groups, navigate to Settings → Organization → Teams. From this interface, authorized users can create new Teams, edit descriptions, and manage memberships. When inviting new teammates, you also have the option to assign them to specific Teams immediately during the invitation process.
Interacting with the Help Desk Interface
To begin using the Help Desk:
Connect Your Email: Set up forwarding from your customer support email address to ensure messages appear directly in the Inbox.
Add Live Chat: Copy and paste the provided script onto your website to embed the Live Chat widget.
Configure Your Teams: Establish your functional groups in the organization settings to begin routing conversations to specialized departments.
Start Collaborating: Once a conversation appears, you can assign it to a teammate and use internal notes to coordinate the response.
Managing Conversation Status
The Help Desk allows you to manage the status of conversations using two primary actions: Close/Open and Snooze/Unsnooze. These actions help organize your workload and determine where a conversation appears in the interface.
1. Closing and Reopening Conversations
Close: Marks a conversation as resolved or complete. Closed conversations are removed from the main open list.
Open: Reopens a closed conversation, moving it back to the open list for further action.
Location: When a conversation is closed, it is moved to the "Closed" tab. This tab is available for both Unassigned conversations and for conversations assigned to individual team members.
2. Snoozing and Unsnoozing Conversations
Snooze: Temporarily hides a conversation from the main open list. This is useful for messages that do not require immediate attention but need to be revisited later.
Unsnooze: Returns a snoozed conversation to the open list.
Restriction: Conversations that are already closed cannot be snoozed.
Location: When a conversation is snoozed, it is moved to the "Snoozed" tab. This view is available for both Unassigned conversations and for conversations assigned to individual team members.