Let the Front Desk answer e-mail and web chat

On e-mail and your website's chat, the Front Desk (AI) follows each team's AI mode (e-mail, web chat). It answers from your published knowledge and records, writes drafts for your team, or stays off, and it hands the conversation to your team when a person is needed. On WhatsApp the Front Desk follows Front desk settings instead (see choose how the Front Desk answers).

Before you start

• You need the right Set up the inbox (teams, channels, deadlines).
• Set up the web chat or a team's inbound e-mail address first.
• Give the Front Desk something to answer from: manage what the Front Desk knows.

Steps

1. Open Inbox → Inbox settings.
2. Under Teams, find the team that answers the web chat or the e-mail address.
3. Pick its AI mode (e-mail, web chat):
   • off: the Front Desk does not answer; your team does.
   • drafts for a person to send: the Front Desk writes an AI draft on the conversation; a person sends or discards it.
   • answers simple questions or answers within its limits: the Front Desk answers the customer itself, from your published knowledge and records, within the limits of your published set-up, and hands the rest to the team. A customer who asks for a person goes straight to the team.
4. Select Save.

What you see in the Inbox

• Conversations where the Front Desk works show the bar The AI front desk works here with its mode, and its messages are marked AI.
• In draft mode, read the AI draft, change it if needed and select Send, or Discard it.
• To answer yourself, select Take over. The Front Desk stays quiet until someone selects Return to the assistant. See take and give back a hand-off.

Good to know

• Several messages, one answer. When a customer sends a few messages in a row, the Front Desk waits a moment and answers them together.
• Daily limit on AI e-mail replies. The Front Desk sends up to 200 AI e-mail replies a day (your organisation's local day). After that, new e-mails go to your team, and managers get one notice that day: "the Front Desk reached today's limit of e-mail replies, so new e-mails go to your team". The usual short acknowledgement still goes to the customer.
• Automatic acknowledgements. When an e-mail goes to the team, the customer gets one short acknowledgement, marked as an automatic reply. Each conversation gets at most one a day, and each address at most three a day. Out-of-office mail and newsletters are never answered.
• Unverified sender. An e-mail that arrives without a passing sender check (SPF, DKIM or DMARC) never joins an earlier conversation, even when its subject matches. It opens a new conversation marked Unverified sender. Do not share account or order details until you know who wrote.
• A "yes" counts only when it is new. A booking or an order goes ahead only on the customer's own new message; a "yes" quoted from an older e-mail is never taken as a confirmation.
• AI credits. Replies the Front Desk sends count toward your AI credits. See AI credits for the Front Desk.
• Receiving e-mail at a team address is in early access; see receive customer e-mail.