Inbox 2.0 quick start guide - for admins

In Inbox 2.0, agents send and receive messages through shared social network and messaging accounts, collectively referred to as channels. As an admin, you can manage your agents’ access to channels, as well as their entire workspace environment. Read this guide to get started as an admin.

Before proceeding with setup, make sure you’ve added all the channels you want your agents to have access to in Inbox 2.0. To add Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn, see Add a social account to Hootsuite. To add WhatsApp and Inbox 2.0 Messenger, reach out to your Hootsuite customer account manager.

You’ll also want to set up teams and add members to your organization.

Then, to help your agents work as efficiently as possible, follow these three overall steps to get started:

1. Set up workspace essentials
2. Configure automation and prioritization
3. Configure engagement options

1. Set up workspace essentials

You can manage settings for business and agent working hours, as well as settings for language, contact management, conversation topics, and virtual agents.

Add away states for agents

The first thing you should do is set up away-state options and business hours. Away state refers to an agent’s availability to work on conversations in the queue during their scheduled work hours. Reviewing away state data can provide valuable insight into agent productivity.

1. Go to Inbox 2.0, select Admin settings, expand Agent workspace, and then select Away states.
2. On the Away states page, select Add away state.
3. Enter a name for a new away state choice you want to offer agents, and then select Save.

To learn more, see Manage away states in Inbox 2.0.

Set business hours

Business hours are the hours that agents are scheduled to be available in each channel.

1. In Inbox 2.0, select Admin settings, expand Channels and business hours, and then select Business hours.
2. On the Business hours page, select Add business hours.
3. Enter a name, and then select a time zone and business hours for each day. You can add multiple shifts per day.
4. Under Apply to channels, select the channels you want to apply these business hours to, and then select Save.

To learn more, see Manage business hours.

Enable language detection

Inbox 2.0 supports more than 60 languages. Incoming messages are automatically detected and added to the person’s contact attributes. Agents can also choose a language manually.

Language detection is disabled by default. You can enable it and choose which languages to detect automatically by using the following steps. For the best experience, we recommend selecting 10 languages or fewer.

1. In Inbox 2.0, select Admin settings, expand Routing and automation, and then select Language detection.
2. Use the toggle to turn language detection on, select the languages you want, and then select Add.

For more information, see Manage language detection.

Manage contact attributes

Agents see everything you want them to know about contacts based on the contact attributes shown on the Contact tab, to the right of the conversation view. This information helps agents provide personalized responses and build stronger relationships. You can decide which contact attributes agents see on the Contact tab, and in what order.

1. In Inbox 2.0, select Admin settings, expand Agent workspace, and then select Contact attributes.
2. Select Add attribute to add a new field.
3. Optional:
   • Select Reorder to organize attributes by dragging.
   • Use the toggle to enable or disable any individual attribute.

To learn more, see Add and manage contact attributes.

Manage contact groups

If you want to prioritize or group contacts based on a certain contact attribute, you can segment them into a contact group. For example, you might want to group contacts by language or geographical location, or prioritize them into groups such as influencers (contacts with a certain number of tweets or followers) or status such as “Premier members.”

1. In Inbox 2.0, select Admin settings, expand Routing and automation, and then select Contact groups.
2. Select Add contact group.
3. Choose a group name, and then set a rule by selecting a contact attribute definition, an operator, and a custom variable.

To learn more, see Work with contact groups.

Add topics and tags to conversations

Agents can add topics and tags to conversations manually or automatically to help with routing, prioritization, and reporting on a conversation level. Admins first need to create these topics and tags.

To create topics, follow these steps:

1. In Inbox 2.0, select Admin settings, expand Routing and automation, and then select Topics.
2. Select Add topic to add items relevant to your service operation. We recommend adding items that match the structure within other aspects of your business, such as your website structure, IVR menu, or FAQ topics.

For more information, see Create and manage Inbox 2.0 topics.

To create tags, open Hootsuite, and follow these steps:

1. Go to My profile, and then select Manage accounts and teams.
2. Select Tags in the organization to view the active tags.
3. Select Create New Tag.
4. Enter a tag name and description (optional), and then select Create.

Set up virtual agents

To help relieve agents of repetitive tasks and information collection, you can create virtual agents. Auto responders use pre-written scripts to communicate with contacts, and custom virtual agents can connect to chatbot platforms.

Add auto responders

Auto responders are scripts that ask pre-written questions. Certain answers can be stored as contact attributes the first time they’re answered.

1. In Inbox 2.0, select Admin settings, expand Virtual agents, and then select Auto responders.
2. Select Add auto responder.
3. Give the auto responder a name, specify when it should be activated (Inception or Delegation), and build your auto responder scripts with statements and questions.
4. Select Save.

To learn more, see Use auto responders in Inbox 2.0.

Add custom virtual agents

You can connect a bot platform to Inbox 2.0 by adding a custom virtual agent. These agents can respond to messages, resolve conversations, apply topics, and set contact attributes.

1. In Inbox 2.0, select Admin settings, expand Virtual agents, and then select Custom virtual agent.
2. Select Add custom virtual agent.
3. Fill out the fields to add and connect your bot to Inbox 2.0.

To learn more, see Use custom virtual agents with Inbox 2.0.

2. Configure automation and prioritization

You can use the automation, prioritization, auto-resolve, and skill set tools to help your agents manage their queues smoothly and efficiently.

Add automation rules

Automation rules take certain automatic actions based on the contents of conversations. These actions include applying tags and topics and resolving conversations.

1. In Inbox 2.0, select Admin settings, expand Routing and automation, and then select Automation.
2. Select Add automation.
3. Enter message contents and actions to take.
4. Select the channels and conversation types you want to apply the automation to.
5. Select Save.

To learn more, see Create and manage automations.

Prioritize conversations

You can prioritize conversations in the queue based on topics, contact groups, and channels. The more a conversation is matched with a prioritized topic, contact group, or channel, the higher it gets placed in the queue.

1. In Inbox 2.0, select Admin settings, expand Routing and automation, and then select Prioritization.
2. Choose any of the following options:
   • Find and select topics that are high priority, and then select Add as prioritized topic.
   • Find and select contact groups that are high priority, and then select Add as prioritized contact group.
   • Select Add channel, and then select a channel and conversation type to add as high priority.

To learn more, see Prioritize Inbox 2.0 conversations.

Bulk resolve conversations

You can resolve multiple conversations in the New and Pending queues at once. This can be useful for clearing out a sudden influx of conversations, or when first getting started with your inbox.

1. In the New or Pending queue of a channel, select the three dots icon, and then choose Bulk resolve.
   
   
   
   
2. Under Resolve older than, enter a timeframe, such as older than 2 days.
3. The timeframe is based on the newest message since it was resolved.
4. If resolve reasons are enabled, select an option from the list.
5. Select Resolve.

An audit trail shows who bulk resolved a conversation, when the action was performed, and the selected resolve reason.

Set boomerang and auto-resolve preferences

The boomerang and auto-resolve conversations features help keep the queue manageable and uncluttered. The boomerang option moves conversations in the Pending queue back to the New queue after a time period that you set. The auto-resolve feature resolves all new and pending conversations after 30 days by default; you can shorten this time period, and you can also add resolve reasons.

You can find these features in Admin settings by expanding Queue and selecting Preferences.

For more information, see Set Inbox 2.0 queue preferences.

Add and apply skill sets

Creating skill sets lets you streamline conversations by sending them to the agent or team best able to handle them. Agents receive conversations that match their specific skills in their queue, resulting in decreased resolution time, improved efficiency, and higher customer satisfaction.

1. In Inbox 2.0, select Admin settings, expand Routing and automation, and then select Skill sets.
2. Select Add skill set.
3. Enter a name for your skill set.
4. Create a rule or rules for your skill set. To combine multiple sets of rules using the and and or operators, select Add filter group.
5. In the new grouping created below the previous set of rules, you can add additional rules.
6. Select Save.

For more information, see Manage skill set routing.

3. Configure engagement options

You can enhance the engagement experience for both agents and contacts by offering flexible, convenient saved replies, maintaining SLAs for performance monitoring, and reviewing CSAT surveys for opportunities to improve customer satisfaction.

Create a saved replies collection

The Saved replies tab stores pre-written responses that agents can send to contacts. Any agent can add a personal collection of responses, or use responses from collections that have been shared with channels or teams. To add a shared collection, do the following:

1. In Inbox 2.0, select Admin settings, expand Agent workspace, and then select Saved replies.
2. Select Add new and choose Collection.
3. Enter a name for the collection, select any channels or teams you want to share it with, and then select Save.

After creating a collection, add snippets (sometimes called “canned responses”) and articles to your collections. To add a new snippet, select Add new and choose Snippet.

For more information, see Manage saved replies in Inbox 2.0.

Add an SLA

Service-level agreements (SLAs) are agreed-upon measures of the response times that your support team delivers to your customers. You can define SLA targets to help you and your agents monitor your service-level performance and goals.

1. In Inbox 2.0, select Admin settings, expand Queue, and then select SLA policies.
2. Select Add SLA.

Add a CSAT survey

You can create customer satisfaction (CSAT) surveys that ask users for feedback as soon as conversations are resolved. You can create surveys across all channels and in multiple languages. You can also create different versions of a survey for different channels.

1. In Inbox 2.0, select Admin settings, expand Virtual agents, select CSAT surveys, and then select Add CSAT survey.
2. Enter a name for the survey, and then do the following:
   • Enter the percentage of contacts you want to survey.
   • Choose whether to send the survey immediately after closing a conversation, or after a certain period of time. Then, to avoid sending the survey multiple times to the same user, select how frequently to send the survey.
   • Optionally, set a minimum message length sent to a contact to trigger a survey. You might not want to send a survey if an agent (human or virtual) response was very short.
   • Optionally, select to send a survey only if it’s available in the contact’s language.
3. Select any of the default survey questions and options provided for you, and edit any of the fields or settings as you like.
4. Finish creating your survey selecting the toggles to enable it on one or more channels, and then select Save.

For more information, see Create and send CSAT surveys.