We are excited to release Inbox Messaging on the platform. Your team will be able to send and receive messages with client accounts and Vendors from within Partner Center. This is an exciting development for businesses of all sizes and will allow your company greater flexibility when communicating with clients.
Watch a walkthrough video:
Why use Inbox to chat with your clients
Communicating with accounts is crucial for channel partners. Through Inbox, you can easily chat with clients, keep track of conversations, and improve team communication. In addition, by keeping your clients up-to-date, Inbox ensures you're providing the best service possible.
Today, emails are the most common form of communication for businesses. However, managing client communications via email can be challenging, particularly for large teams. Email threads can become unwieldy, context and details can be missed, and if someone wasn't cc'd, they have no visibility into the conversation until it's forwarded.
Inbox messages combat this with open shared channels, that everyone on your team can participate in and see the context and history. This way, anyone can pick up the chat, and ensure your clients get fast, top-tier service even if someone is out sick, or leaves your company.
In addition, Inbox offers a great way to engage Vendors directly for sales and support for products available in the marketplace.
How does it work?
The Inbox tab contains an option for you to compose a "New Message." Once clicked on the call to action, a pop-up menu appears with a list of accounts to choose from. Once selected, a message menu appears to compose and send your first message. After that, all users of an account will automatically receive an email notification that contains the new message, and a button that brings them to their Inbox in your branded portal, Business App – driving customer engagement with your brand.
SMB-to-Partner Messaging: In Business App, the 'contact us' button allows your clients to initiate and send a message to your team, through Inbox in the platform. Make sure your notifications are enabled in Partner Center, so you don’t miss a chat. See the instructions below on “How to enable notifications.”
Partner-to-Vendor Chat:
Vendors and partners can now communicate directly with each other using Inbox. Vendors can now efficiently provide after-sales support for their products, saving you time! In addition, this new feature allows vendors to reach out to new resellers (Channel Partners) to see if they have any questions regarding the product or service and support needed for activating accounts.
If a Vendor has enabled chat Support, partners can click “Contact Us” on the Product Vendor Details page, and a new conversation will be started with the Vendor.
How to Enable Inbox Notifications
Enabling notifications in Partner Center for Inbox will keep you on top of communication and prevent you from missing important messages. You can enable them via the "bell icon" in the partner center and click settings. Please ensure that you've enabled both "All events" and Only my events"
What are the Benefits?
- Improved client relationships: It is challenging to meet clients' communication needs. Slow response times and missing emails can lead to friction that damages relationships. With Inbox, you have access to all threaded conversations in one place. These conversations reveal all messages from one customer to the next and keep track of interactions.
- Team Collaboration: With Inbox, all conversations are linked to relevant orders and projects. Our centralized hub gives everyone on your team visibility into what you're working on so they can be up-to-date wherever they need it on our platforms. In addition, more than one employee can log in to answer customers' inquiries.
- Transparency in messaging: Inbox values transparency in relationships between channel partners and their clients. Successful relationships are built upon trust, achieved through honest and open communication. It's why we created a platform that allows partners to keep clients informed of all details, no matter how small. Inbox gives agencies the tools they need to build successful client relationships, whether it's updated on a project or invoice status.
- Enhances Brand Image: Channel partners can provide their customers with the highest communication and customer service level through Inbox. It can also function as a single point of truth for communication since it removes distractions from emails.
Current release limitations
- SMS not yet supported in Partner Center: Messaging in Inbox in Partner Center is strictly In-platform chat for this initial beta release. Additional communication channels will be made available in the future.
- Media and file sharing is not yet supported in Inbox: Messaging in Inbox in Partner Center is just text-based messages at this time. However, additional types of media file-sharing will be available in the future.
- Market branding is not yet supported: Channel partners with differently branded markets should not use Inbox at this time because Inbox only supports the branding of the partner, not of markets.
How to disable SMB-to-Partner Chat
If you want to disable chat functionality from the Business App to prevent your clients from communicating with you via Inbox, you can do so in Partner Center > Administration > Customize > Business App settings > and uncheck “Customers can start conversations with you”. You can set this independently for each market if you have multiple markets.
What is the best way to use in-platform chat?
- Improve customer support with conversations: 70 percent of customers expect conversational customer care when conducting business with companies, according to the CX Trends Report 2022. The conversational approach views customer interactions as part of a longer, ongoing relationship rather than a one-off transaction.
- Keep your entire team in the loop: A shared team Inbox means everyone on your team has all the context. So even if someone goes on holiday or leaves your company, communication history is documented in a centralized place for anyone to pick up where they left off.
- Streamline your messaging style: Emails and letters often follow a specific format, but In-platform chat doesn't. Chat is considered an informal channel for personal, natural conversations. As a result, it is crucial to stick to one idea per paragraph to avoid overwhelming customers with information.
- Speed up response time: Changing user behavior can be challenging. However, with Inbox, you can offer to provide immediate answers to customer inquiries by using this channel as the one source of truth to keep customers informed.
Inbox is an essential tool for improving client relationships. Keeping all threaded conversations in one place gives you a clear view of all messages from one customer to the next. This allows you to track interactions and respond quickly, preventing damage to your relationship with clients. Start using Inbox today and see the difference it makes in your communication!