Inbox

Inbox is a lead capture and customer communication tool.

Your business can centralize customer messaging with integrations to Facebook, email, and more – and upgrade to get SMS, and an AI-powered web chat widget.

Why is Inbox important?

Small businesses can use Inbox to consolidate customer communication from many different sources into a single place where the entire team can collaborate on providing fast, effective responses, capture leads, and service.

What inbox features are included?

Every account comes with these messaging integrations in Inbox:

• Email – Inbox allows your team to send and receive emails with leads and customers via Inbox from a shared email address. When your business gets a new lead from web chat or a form, and that lead provides an email address as a way to contact them, anyone on your team can reply via email to that customer from your centralized Inbox, without needing to open a separate email client.

• Facebook Pages – Connect to a Facebook page to communicate with customers on Facebook. Available worldwide.

• Instagram – Connect to an Instagram Business account to message with customers through Instagram. Available worldwide.

• Website Form lead capture – Install a form on the business’s website to capture the contact details of a lead and respond using SMS or email.

• Multi-Location Inbox – For users with access to Multi-location, conversations can be managed across many locations using Inbox in Multi-Location.

• Team shared Inbox – Everyone at the business can view and participate in customer conversations, collaborating on delivering a good customer experience, so they're not tied up with just one person, on their personal phones.

Inbox Upgrade – What's included?

The following features are enabled by upgrading your plan.

• AI-assisted website chat lead capture – Businesses can install a web chat widget on their website, where an AI assistant will get a website visitor's name and phone number or email, so the business can follow up via SMS. Available worldwide, for any website. AI can respond in over 40 languages, including English, Spanish, French, German, Italian, Turkish, Polish, Ukrainian, Russian, Japanese, Chinese and more.

• SMS Messaging – US and Canada-based businesses will be automatically assigned a local SMS number when Inbox is activated. Businesses get unlimited* one-by-one SMS messaging. Includes A2P 10DLC Registration for SMS message deliverability on US Carriers. Available for US and Canada-based businesses only, at this time. *Some carriers limit the number of sent messages to numbers on their network per day to 2000-3000.

How to set up Inbox

Inbox is available to all users. Get started by connecting your business’s messaging apps, installing your chat widget and lead contact form on your website, registering your SMS number, and setting up optional email forwarding.

• Connect your messaging apps

  • Connect Google Business Profile
  • Connect Facebook Page
  • Connect Instagram

• Set up your SMS number (US and Canada only)

  • US-based businesses must register their SMS number and wait for approval.
  • Canada-based businesses can use SMS immediately.

• Get leads from your website

  • Install the web chat widget on your website
  • Install contact forms on your website

• Optional: Set up email forwarding

How to connect your business messaging networks to Inbox

• Go to Administration > Inbox Settings.
• Connect any business accounts for Google Business Profile, Facebook, and Instagram by going through the workflows to connect.
• Make sure to turn on messaging once an account has been connected.

These integrations are shared across multiple features, so if you’ve already connected any previously, you’ll see them connected here, but you may need to reconnect to grant additional messaging permissions.

How to set up SMS

SMS is available to users of Inbox in the US and Canada on certain plans. Canada-based businesses can use SMS immediately. US-based businesses must first register their number before they can use it.

How to install your web chat widget

Users of Inbox can install a web chat widget with AI-assisted lead capture on their websites. Installation is simple by adding a snippet of code or activating a WordPress plugin.

Install the contact form on your website or ad landing pages

You can also install a contact form on your website. When website visitors fill out the form, it will create a new conversation in Inbox and create a contact in your CRM.

How to set up email forwarding (optional)

By default, you can send and receive emails from Inbox using an assigned Inbox email address. If you choose, you can also receive all emails sent to any email address you own inside Inbox by setting up forwarding. For example, maybe you’ve published a public email address, or you’re using other tools to capture new leads at your owned email address, team@yourcompany.com. By setting up forwarding, any email sent to that address can appear inside of Inbox as well, so all leads are centralized in your CRM, and your whole team can manage these messages.

How to send a message using Inbox

You can send outbound messages to contacts using Email and SMS (US and Canada-based businesses). You can also reply to inbound messages from Facebook and Instagram.

FAQ's

Q: What phone number is used to send out messages?
Your business is assigned an available SMS number based on your address, using the nearest available area code. You can share this number with customers and will receive text and MMS messages sent to it. Calls cannot be received at this number at this time.

Q: How many messages can I send to my customers?
With Inbox, you can send and receive unlimited* one-by-one SMS messages to customers, while noting that each carrier has some limitations on the number of messages sent and received per day. For example, up to 2,000 SMS segments and MMS can be sent per day to customers on T-Mobile.

Q: What messaging automations are available for Inbox?
A: Automations include triggers when a message is received and actions to send an SMS or email. You can build powerful automated workflows for your business with the Automations system, along with all the integrations available.

Q: Is there a per-use cost for the AI-assisted web chat?
There's no per-use cost for AI in Inbox. Unlimited AI responses from the AI-assisted web chat lead capture are included.