Inbox 2.0 quick start guide - for agents

As an Inbox 2.0 agent, you manage your workflow and handle conversations all from one central location. In this guide, you’ll find out how to set your availability, learn about asynchronous conversations and service-level agreements (SLAs) in the queue, and take a brief tour through the rest of the agent workspace.

Set your availability

When you first sign in, you can set your availability as Available or Away. When you’re available, you’ll get the first conversation waiting in the New queue. Not ready to start handling the queue? Change your status to Away (you may have other choices, depending on your organization’s settings).

To change your default availability preference, follow these steps:

1. Under Inbox 2.0 Settings, select Personal Preferences.
2. On the General tab, under Default availability, select a status, and then select Save.

The next time you sign in, this will be your default status.

Understand asynchronous conversations

In Inbox 2.0, you engage with all your contacts from one streamlined queue that consists of conversations in different states. There’s no need for you and a contact to constantly be engaged in a conversation—instead, conversations happen asynchronously.

Each conversation workflow consists of three states, which correspond with the three queues:

• New - The conversation is either new or has a new reply from the contact and needs follow-up.
• Pending - The conversation is waiting for the contact to follow up.
• Resolved - The conversation has ended and requires no further action.

The New queue is the only queue that needs your consistent attention. Here’s why:

• Conversations from all channels you have access to appear in the New queue.
• Conversations that were previously in the Pending queue automatically move back to the New queue when a contact gets back to you.

Watch for SLA breaches

A service-level agreement, or SLA, is an agreed-upon measure of the response times of your team. When you don't answer a conversation by the time specified in your SLA, it’s considered “breached.” The queue displays colored icons​​ to warn you of upcoming breaches. Gray and orange icons show the time left before you breach the SLA, and red icon shows how long a breached conversation is overdue.

Learn more about the SLA status.

Explore the conversation view

The conversation view is the main area of Inbox 2.0 where most of your work takes place, and where you see a conversation's history.

The header at the top of every conversation includes labels for topics, contact groups, the state of the conversation, and the channel name. You can add a topic manually or set automated topics.

Each message within a conversation includes the type of message (private message, Facebook post, Twitter direct message, comment on Instagram dark post, etc.), a link to the social network for public messages, the message sender, and a timestamp.

Interact with messages

Select a message in the New queue and move your mouse to the right of the message to show a menu of options to interact with it, such as Reply, Quote, Like, and Retweet. The options adjust to the type of message and social network.

Show or hide audit trails

Audit trails show the actions performed on a conversation, who performed the action, and the time of the action.

You can show or hide audit trails by using the check box at the top of the conversation view. Select Conversation view, and then select or clear the Audit trails check box.

Add internal conversation notes

You can add internal notes to messages in a conversation by selecting Add note. These highlighted notes include your name and a timestamp. You can edit or delete them at any time.

Respond to conversations

The Reply box is where conversations take place.

The active channel identifier highlights the account you’re using to reply.

Assign conversations

If you want to assign the conversation to another agent, you can search or scroll for their name. The assigned agent receives a notification that they're assigned to a message.

To learn more, read Assign a message.

Change message status

• Pending – Select Pending when you're waiting for more information from a contact or if you need to do additional work. The conversation moves to the Pending queue.
  
• Resolved – Select Resolve when you resolve a contact’s issue or answered their questions. The conversation moves to the Resolved queue.
  

Set a boomerang

When a conversation requires follow-up later, you can use a boomerang to move it back into the New queue after a chosen period of time. Select the clock next to Pending.

You can also add a quick note or reminder about why you set the boomerang.

For more information about boomerangs, see Manage conversations in Inbox 2.0.

Use contact attributes

The Contact tab is located to the right of the conversation view, and contains contact attributes. These attributes are contextual details about a contact, such as email address, first and last name, account ID, etc. Agents or system automations populate these attributes automatically. You can read, enter, and store information on this tab during or after conversations to help you:

• Understand who you’re talking to
• Easily spot VIPs
• Update relevant customer information
  

To learn more, see Review and edit contact information.

Use saved replies

Save time replying to contacts by using pre-written responses. Select Add saved reply in the reply box and choose responses from your team’s collections or create your own personal collection of responses. When you select a saved reply from a collection, it appears in the reply box, ready for you to send or make edits as needed.

Learn how to use saved replies.