A shared inbox can be an asset for all sorts of teams, but it’s also not something you can implement effectively without thinking about how it’s managed.
If you’re struggling to realize the potential of a shared inbox, read on for some tips on where you might be going wrong, and what tools and strategies could transform your experience of using it.
Choose the right software for the job
You don’t need to face your shared inbox struggles alone, as with the right program to hand, many of the aspects of management can be streamlined and even outright automated.
The latest shared inbox software solutions enable you to make sure all sorts of employee and customer communications are unified, putting everything through the same interface and thus ensuring ease of access as well as consistency of approach across the team.
If you’re using more than one tool already, it’s probably worth steering clear of the potential for fragmentation and instead migrating to a one-stop software setup instead.
Encourage employee compliance
Another factor which can diminish the effectiveness of a shared inbox is if not all team members are on the same page with regards to how it should be used.
For example, if customer emails are coming into the inbox, but then discussions regarding solutions to the problems raised are taking place between colleagues on a totally different platform, there’s a greater likelihood that mistakes will be made and information mislaid.
The answer is to set out best practices for harnessing the shared inbox and for internal communication more generally, then make sure that team members are aware of these and also given the encouragement to stick to them.
Implement accountability
Another foible that lots of businesses stumble into when using shared inboxes is that if all inbound emails come to the same pool, then it’s harder for individual employees to feel accountable for dealing with them.
The answer is to adopt a degree of compartmentalization, perhaps by sectioning off folders which are then assigned to team members based on their availability within a given window of time. If you have customers in a different time zone, for example, this could be instrumental in ensuring that their emails aren’t overlooked.
Embrace templates
From an efficiency perspective, being able to provide templates on which team members can base their emails is worthwhile. It’s also a good idea in a shared inbox scenario, since it means that there will be consistency to the responses that customers receive, no matter which employee is actually responsible at that particular point in time.
In addition to putting together templates, you should aim to thoroughly document all of the best practices and processes that you forge when wrangling your shared inbox. The less ambiguity there is, the easier it will be for all parties involved.
Don’t forget about security
It’s easy to put convenience at the top of the agenda when it comes to using a shared inbox. However, this should not come at the expense of security, since even small slip-ups could lead to serious data loss incidents.
There are a few options for bolstering shared inbox security, the first of which is to make sure that employees are required to use their own unique passwords to access it, rather than a single shared password, and that these are also changed regularly, rather than left in place for months or even years.
You should also set parameters for where shared inboxes can be accessed from, if managing remote teams. The use of public Wi-Fi hotspots, for example, should be discouraged in this context.
With all this in mind, you should be primed to put together a fresh approach to shared inbox management in your business.
