Omnichannel inbox for small business: one place for every chat
Short answer: an omnichannel inbox is one place where messages from every channel arrive, each conversation has an owner, and the history stays with the customer. In Mavibot this is the Dialogs section: WhatsApp, Instagram, Telegram, website chat, phone calls and every other connected channel appear in one list, each with its own channel icon. Every client has a card with an owner, tags, deals and tasks. The system can share conversations between operators automatically, and operator statistics show how fast the team replies. If one person writes from two channels, Mavibot shows two clients, and you can merge them into one.
When customers write on WhatsApp in the morning, on Instagram at lunch and in the website chat in the evening, somebody has to open each of those apps and remember who answered what. An inbox that collects all of it solves the switching. A shared inbox for the whole team solves the next problem, which is knowing whose turn it is. Some tools call this a unified inbox, others a team inbox, and the idea is the same.
What a team inbox should do
For a small business, we'd look for these in any tool:
- every channel you use appears in one list;
- each conversation has an owner;
- unanswered messages are easy to find;
- the history and your notes stay on the client card;
- a bot can answer first, and a person can take over;
- you can measure how quickly the team replies.
Dialogs: every channel in one list
Open the Dialogs section and you see conversations from all the channels connected to your project. Each conversation has an icon for its channel. A client who wrote from the website gets the online chat icon, a client from telephony gets a phone icon, and every messenger has its own.
The tabs at the top filter the list quickly:
- All shows every conversation.
- Unanswered shows clients with unread messages. A conversation stops being unread when a team member opens it.
- Mine shows the clients assigned to you.
- Others shows the clients assigned to colleagues.
- Free clients shows the clients nobody owns yet.
You can also build filters for more specific searches and save them for later. Bulk actions let you select several conversations and mark them as read or unread, add them to a list, tag them or block them. Deleting clients is irreversible, so Mavibot asks you to type "Confirm" first. If a WhatsApp or email channel is connected, there are buttons to start a new WhatsApp conversation or write an email from the same screen.
One customer in several channels
A person can write to you from WhatsApp today and from the website tomorrow. In Mavibot, these appear as two separate clients, each with its own channel icon. You can merge them into one client. After the merge, your replies go to the channel you linked the client to, so check which one you choose.
The client card: context before you reply
Click a client and the card opens next to the chat. It shows what you need before you answer:
- the client's name, which you can edit, and the Client ID;
- the owner, and a button to transfer the client to a colleague;
- the current stage in the funnel, which you can change from the card;
- tags and lists;
- comments, deals and tasks;
- system fields such as Source (the channel the client came from), Creation date and Last action.
Tags and lists can be created directly on the card, and you can filter the client list by them later.
Sharing the work between operators
Once several people answer messages, the question becomes who takes the next client. Mavibot can assign them for you. Go to Employees, then Automation, and switch on automatic customer allocation.
It works with operator statuses: Online (on shift), Break and Offline. Only operators with the Online status receive new clients. Operators set their status in their own account, and the status control is available on any page of the project.
Allocation works like this:
- Clients are shared equally between operators who are on shift. With 5 operators on shift and 55 clients, each gets 11.
- You choose whether allocation runs around the clock or only during your working hours, and which days are days off.
- Clients who write outside working hours become "night clients". At the start of the next working day they are shared between the operators who came on shift before it opened.
- An operator on a break doesn't get new clients, but clients already assigned to them stay with them.
- If an operator writes to a free client, that client is assigned to them automatically.
You can also share clients evenly over a time interval, for example every 10 minutes, so that one operator doesn't get a whole wave of messages at once. In the operator settings you decide whether operators see buttons to assign a client to themselves, transfer the client or give them up, and whether they see the "Awaiting response" and "Available clients" sections.
Bot first, person when needed
An omnichannel inbox doesn't mean a person answers every message. In Mavibot, the AI assistant can reply first, and you can join any conversation and answer yourself at any moment. That works for website visitors too: with Smart site, the conversation from a site section arrives in the same Dialogs list. For Telegram, you can also let a bot answer from your personal account.
For tasks that follow a conversation, such as a reminder or a call, the CRM can create them automatically when a deal changes stage. We describe that in our guide to CRM workflow automation with robots.
Measuring how fast the team replies
The Operators page in the analytics shows the work of each operator by day and by hour: how many dialogs they replied in, how many replies they sent and the average reply time. A line looks like "86 seconds / 5 replies / 2 dialogues".
The reply time is the gap between the client's message and the operator's answer, and the average takes every reply into account. In the documentation's example, an operator sent 5 replies in two dialogs that took 120, 30, 40, 60 and 180 seconds, so the average is 86 seconds. The statistics are counted only during the operator's working hours, which you set in the project.
What a team inbox needs and where it is in Mavibot
| What you need | Where it is in Mavibot |
|---|---|
| All channels in one list | Dialogs, with a channel icon on each conversation |
| An owner for each conversation | Owner on the client card, transfer to a colleague, automatic allocation |
| Finding unanswered messages | The Unanswered, Mine, Others and Free clients tabs, plus saved filters |
| History and notes | The client card: comments, tags, lists, deals, tasks |
| One customer, several channels | Merge two clients into one |
| Bot first, person second | The AI assistant replies, and an operator can join the conversation |
| Measuring the team | Operators analytics: dialogs, replies, average reply time |
When this is enough, and when it's too much
If one person answers a dozen messages a day, you probably don't need automatic allocation. Start with the tabs, tags and the client card, and switch the allocation on when a second operator joins. If you have a team working in shifts, allocation and operator statistics are where this pays off, because nobody has to decide by hand who takes the next client.
Try it with your own channels
Start free if you don't have a Mavibot project yet, connect the channels your customers use, and open Dialogs. For the CRM side, see Mavibot's CRM. If you're comparing tools more broadly, our guide to choosing helpdesk software covers the criteria.
Frequently asked questions
What is an omnichannel inbox?
An omnichannel inbox is one place where messages from all your channels arrive. Each conversation has an owner, and the history stays with the customer, so a team can answer without switching between apps.
Which channels can I see in Mavibot Dialogs?
All the channels connected to your project. Each conversation has an icon for its channel: an online chat icon for website visitors, a phone icon for telephony clients, and an icon for each messenger.
Can I merge a customer's chats from different channels?
Yes. If one person writes from two channels, Mavibot shows two clients, and you can merge them into one.
Where do my replies go after I merge two clients?
To the channel you linked the client to when you merged them.
How do I find unanswered messages?
Open the Unanswered tab in Dialogs. It shows clients with unread messages, and a conversation stops being unread once a team member opens it.
How does Mavibot share clients between operators?
Switch on automatic customer allocation in Employees, then Automation. Clients are shared equally between operators with the Online status, and you choose the working hours and days off.
Can the AI assistant and a person answer in the same chat?
Yes. The AI assistant can reply first, and you can join the conversation and answer yourself at any moment.
How can I measure how fast my team replies?
The Operators page in the analytics shows each operator's dialogs, replies and average reply time by day and by hour, counted during the operator's working hours.