Managing customer relationships means staying on top of a lot of emails. More and more businesses are relying on G Suite and Gmail for their communication needs, and it’s not hard to see why. it’s secure, reliable, easy to use, and comes with a great set of productivity tools.
but when it comes to working together, it’s clear that gmail wasn’t built with team collaboration in mind. With endless forwards and ccs, inboxes quickly get cluttered and it’s hard to be sure who’s working on what. For customer-facing teams, this is a huge problem that leads to multiple replies, missed important messages, and ultimately angry customers.
This is why we always recommend the use of shared mailboxes to our customers. In this guide, we’ll explain how to create a shared mailbox, why teams use it, its benefits, limitations, and how to use Email Meter to gain greater visibility into your team’s productivity.
what is a shared mailbox?
A shared mailbox is an email inbox that multiple people can access to manage email. these are usually general addresses, such as sales@yourcompany.com or support@yourcompany.com.
They are great for teams that have to deal with a lot of customer queries. once configured, any member of the shared mailbox can reply to emails sent to that address, and their replies appear as if they were sent from the shared mailbox’s primary address. everyone can quickly see which emails have been answered and which have not.
Shared mailboxes do not have individual logins or passwords. users are invited to the mailbox and can access it with their own email account. if you’re using g suite, this means you’ll be able to access it with your own email login.
why do teams use shared inboxes?
every team is unique, but there are some general benefits all teams enjoy when using shared inboxes.
get more context
With individual addresses, each teammate can only see their own responses. if you want to share something with a co-worker, you have to forward the message, creating more clutter. With a shared inbox, important context isn’t trapped in individual inboxes, so everyone can learn from teammates’ responses.
avoid duplicate work
Let’s say a customer has a problem and sends an email to your support@yourcompany.com address. without a shared inbox, two reps start typing a response and end up sending two separate emails to the customer. oops! With a shared inbox, the first rep can add a label to the original message so everyone knows it’s being fixed and the rest of the team can get on with their other work.
handle customer inquiries faster
Customers want quick answers. With all messages arriving in one central inbox, you can ensure all queries are resolved as soon as a representative is available.
gaining visibility
Teams like sales or support spend a lot of time building customer relationships, but that work can easily go unnoticed if it sits in every employee’s inbox. having better visibility can help managers balance workload and see who is going the extra mile.
work in different time zones
Did one of your reps start a conversation right before your shift ended? It is not a problem. With a shared inbox, a teammate can see the entire conversation and pick up from there.
options available in g suite
There are different ways to share a mailbox between different members of a team.
share credentials
The easiest way is to simply share the same username and password with your team. this is the easiest solution, but it is not a best practice: sharing a password between different people is not at all secure. Also, Google may eventually block your account, since it doesn’t allow multiple people to access an email address at the same time.
google groups
google groups were originally created as a message board. As Google added new features, users found a way to make it work as an alternative to shared mailboxes. It’s still not an ideal setup, as the UI was never meant to be used as a mail client.
delegated mailboxes
This is the most comfortable and secure configuration, and the one we always recommend to our clients. gmail delegation allows you to share an entire mailbox with up to 25 people. Once set up, delegates can read and reply to emails, but cannot change their password or modify other g suite account settings. delegate accounts look and act exactly like a regular gmail account, so no additional training is required.
In addition, Google stores all activity related to the delegated mailbox, including which user did what. this means that third-party applications may use this information for further analysis.
how can i create a shared mailbox with g suite?
creating a delegate mailbox in g suite takes only a few minutes:
- create a new gmail account. this will be your shared inbox.
- add your teammates as “delegates” to the account by following these instructions.
Alternatively, you can follow this video tutorial from google.
what are the benefits of g suite shared mailboxes?
There are many options for managing email collaboratively, such as help desks or third-party tools. but your agents are already used to gmail, so… wouldn’t it make more sense to manage customer emails directly from gmail?
no training required
You don’t have to spend more time on training. the shared mailbox feels like your email client, so your team will be up and running in minutes. after all, it’s just an email!
You retain full control of permissions
Access and authentication to the shared mailbox can be fully controlled by your g suite administrator, so you can take advantage of all the built-in security and control features.
first level security
You have to be very careful about security when dealing with customer information. managing all communications in a g suite delegate mailbox means your emails never leave google’s servers.
integrations with third-party tools
g suite shared mailboxes can be easily integrated with the tools you already use: google drive, slack, salesforce, pipedrive and more. you don’t need to make big changes to the way you work.
prices do not increase with each user
In general, stand-alone helpdesks or shared inbox services charge per user. adding a new delegate to your g suite shared mailbox is free.
what are the limitations of shared mailboxes in g suite?
We believe that shared mailboxes are the best solution for customer service teams, but you need to be aware of some challenges and limitations. Fortunately, most of them can be resolved with a little help from third-party services.
lack of native analytics features
It is not possible to natively view statistics about your computer’s performance or generate custom reports with that information. Google still stores all activity related to the delegated mailbox, so you can use services like Email Meter to get email statistics. we’ll get to that!
limited visibility of individual work
Everyone can see the work done within the shared mailbox, but it’s not possible to see who did what, like who replied to an email or how long it took. this makes it difficult as a manager to see who is performing better and who needs help.
lack of collaboration features
gmail doesn’t have built-in features to communicate and share notes between agents, so any internal conversations must take place in a different app.
monitor work within a shared mailbox
Whether you manage a sales or support team, you probably have a key metric to measure success. this could be response time, conversations handled, or thread length. these metrics are clear indicators of your team’s productivity: they tell you how well you’re doing and where you could improve.
but these metrics remain a mystery unless you have a tool to measure them. By using Email Meter, you can easily monitor overall and individual performance in a shared inbox, including metrics like response time, replies, workload, and more.
average response time
How long does it take for your team to respond to customers and leads? Improving your response time starts with knowing how you’re currently doing, and then setting goals to improve.
team view
Get a clear view of your team and spot the best. you can select specific users to drill down into metrics like workload, first reply time, thread duration, and more.
busiest hours
When do you see spikes in workload? this can help you balance your team’s working hours to ensure that high-volume days and hours don’t end up impacting the customer experience.
that’s a wrapper! Now that you know more about shared mailboxes, do you think they’re right for your team? we’d love to hear about your current setup or what you’d like for your team – you can contact us at hello@emailmeter.com.