Inbox quick start guide - for agents

As an Inbox 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 how to work with conversations and service-level agreements (SLAs) in the queue, and take a brief tour through the agent workspace.

Set your availability

Set your notification preferences

Find and work with your conversations

In Inbox, 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.

At the top of your Inbox, you'll see your New and Pending queues.

• New - These are the conversations that need attention. They are either new or awaiting a reply. When you reply to a conversation, it moves from this queue to the Pending queue. As soon as a contact replies, the conversation moves back to this queue.
• Pending - Conversations waiting for the contact to reply. You can select Conversation state actions at the top of the reply area, and then select Move to pending to move a conversation to the Pending queue. You might do this if you're waiting for more information or need to do additional work.
  

On the left side, you'll see conversations by status.

You have the following status options:

• All conversations - All unresolved conversations in an organization.
• Not assigned to an agent - Your organization's unresolved, unassigned conversations.
• Assigned to me - If you're a member of a team, this shows unresolved conversations assigned to you.
• Assigned to my teams - Unresolved conversations assigned to your teams. You may be a member of multiple teams. If that's the case you'll see all of those conversations in this queue.
• Resolved - Conversations that have ended because they were resolved either by an agent or automation, and require no further action. This queue shows all resolved conversations from the last three months. You can select Resolve at the top of the reply area to move a conversation to the Resolved queue once you've resolved a contact's issue or answered their questions.

You can also filter your inbox and save filtered inbox views. See the following:

• Filter and sort your queues
• Create a custom inbox

The conversation view is where most of your work takes place, and where you see a conversation's history. Each message within a conversation includes the type of message (private message, Facebook post, X direct message, comment on Instagram dark post, and more), a link to the social network for public messages, the message sender, and a timestamp. Use the reply area at the bottom of the conversation to select your message type and the account you want to use to reply, and then enter your reply to the contact. You will see inbound reactions in your Inbox for messages from Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp. Learn how to work with conversations in Inbox.

Interact with messages

Select Message actions next to a message to show options such as Reply, Quote, and Repost. To react to the message, select Add reaction below the message. Your options depend on the social network the message is from and the permissions you have in Inbox.

For each social network and message type, you have the following options:

• Facebook - Like and hide inbound public messages
• Instagram - Hide inbound public messages, love private messages
• LinkedIn - Like, celebrate, support, love, insightful, and funny mentions and comments.
• X - Follow. Like, quote, and repost inbound public messages
• TikTok - Love and hide inbound comments on owned videos
• Google Business Profile - reply, add text, assign topics, and analyze sentiment.

Get to know your customers

When a customer messages your team in Inbox, you can view key contact details, like their language preference, email address, account number, and more. These details help you personalize responses and build stronger relationships with customers. Learn more about working with contact details and adding internal notes about a contact for other agents to read.

Add internal notes to a message

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

Assign conversations to another agent or team

Assign conversations to other agents or teams, or take a conversation from another agent. Select Unassigned (or the assigned agent or team) at the top of the reply area, and search for or select the agent or team. The assigned agent or team receives a notification letting them know they're assigned to a message. Learn more about assignments.

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.

Up next: Work with conversations in Inbox