Managing customer conversations

Depending on how you've configured the app, Shopify Inbox conversations are handled by your Inbox agent or by your staff. When you use the Inbox agent, you can review completed conversations in your Shopify admin. When your staff handle conversations directly, you can respond to customers from Shopify Inbox on desktop or mobile.

Inbox agent conversations

If you've turned on the Inbox agent, then the Inbox agent responds to customers automatically. You can review completed conversations from the Inbox page in your Shopify admin to monitor performance and customer feedback.

AI conversations can display topic tags such as Sales, Support, and Store Policies, based on what the Inbox agent did in the conversation. To change the facts that the Inbox agent uses in its answers, update your source information: product details, store policies, pages, or Knowledge Base. Editing or rating a response is feedback for future responses. It doesn't change your source information.

Inbox agent performance metrics

You can view Inbox agent performance metrics on the Overview page in Shopify Inbox. These metrics help you understand how your Inbox agent is performing, track engagement, identify trends, and measure the impact of your Inbox agent on sales. The Overview page reports:

• Assisted sessions: The number of chat sessions in which a customer interacted with the Inbox agent.
• Assisted orders: The number of orders placed by customers who interacted with the Inbox agent.
• Satisfaction rate: The percentage of rated responses that received positive feedback.
• Avg. response time: How quickly the Inbox agent responds to customer messages.

Note

Recent conversations might take some time to be reflected in your metrics.

Staff handoff

When a customer asks to speak with a person, or the Inbox agent determines that a conversation needs staff attention, the conversation can be handed off to your staff. The behavior depends on your availability and staff handoff settings:

• If staff handoff is available, then the conversation moves to the Unassigned folder in your Inbox, where your staff can pick it up. The conversation includes the AI's prior context. If you have Inbox notifications turned on, then you receive a notification when a conversation moves to your staff.
• If staff handoff isn't available, the customer receives your store's sender email address and can contact you by email. The Inbox agent can't send email on your behalf. The customer must initiate email contact.

You can configure your sender email in Settings > Notifications. To learn more, refer to setting up your email.

Staff conversations

If you manage conversations with your staff, you and your staff respond to customer messages directly from Shopify Inbox. You can reply to messages, share product links and discount codes, and send images or videos during a conversation.

If a customer adds or removes a product from their cart, then the event is displayed in the conversation. If the product name is fewer than 41 characters long, then the name of the product is included in the event description. The customer's cart subtotal and the quantities of the products in the cart are also displayed within the conversation header when there is an active cart.

Customer sign-in setting

Inbox includes a Require customer sign-in setting, which is turned off by default. When it's turned on, customers sign in with a Shop account before they can chat with your staff. Requiring sign-in adds friction for customers, so consider whether it's right for your store.

When the setting is off, customers can start chatting without signing in. However, personalized features (such as order lookups) are only available when the customer is signed in. If a customer asks the Inbox agent to review an order in a chat, the customer is prompted to sign in first.

Chat notifications

Both merchants and customers receive notifications for new messages in the online store chat. The following notifications occur when the chat conversation is minimized:

• A notification indicator is displayed over the chat widget for new messages.
• A notification indicator is displayed in the browser tab.
• A notification sound plays when the browser tab is open.

These notifications help ensure that both parties don't miss any messages in the conversation. The notifications can't be turned off.

Responding to a message from a customer

If the customer is actively on your store, then an Online indicator is displayed.

When the customer leaves your store, the Online indicator is no longer displayed. Instead, a message indicates that your reply is sent to the customer's email address, if the customer provided one or signed in.

Steps:

Desktop

1. In Shopify Inbox, click a conversation to open it.
2. Do either of the following, depending whether you're using AI-generated suggested replies:
   • Enter your message in the composer bar.
   • If a suggested reply generates, then review and edit the suggested reply for tone and accuracy. Editing a suggested reply provides feedback to improve future suggestions — it doesn't change the source information that the Inbox agent uses. To change facts, update the source information in your product details, policies, or pages.
3. Click Send.

Mobile

1. From the Shopify Inbox app, tap the conversation that you want to open.
2. Do either of the following, depending whether you're using AI-generated suggested replies:
   • Enter your message in the composer bar.
   • If a suggested reply generates, then review and edit the suggested reply for tone and accuracy. Editing a suggested reply provides feedback to improve future suggestions — it doesn't change the source information that the Inbox agent uses. To change facts, update the source information in your product details, policies, or pages.
3. Tap Send.

Send a link to a product in a conversation

You can share products that are available in your online store in Shopify Inbox. If you're having issues sharing products, then review the product for the following issues and solutions:

• Product is greyed out: The product isn't published to the Inbox sales channel. In your Shopify admin, go to Products, select the product, click Publishing > Manage sales channels, and verify that the product is available to the Inbox sales channel. Learn more about sales channel availability for products.
• Product has a yellow "Out of stock" badge: The product is out of stock. Update the product's inventory in your Shopify admin, or configure the product to allow overselling if needed. Learn more about adjusting inventory quantities.

Steps:

Desktop

1. From Shopify Inbox, click the conversation that you want to send a product link in.
2. Click the price tag icon to open a list of your store's products.
3. Enter a search term to locate the product that you want to send, and then click the product.
4. Type any additional information you want to send with the product link, and click Send.

Mobile

1. From the Shopify Inbox app, tap a conversation to open it.
2. Tap the price tag icon to open a list of your store's products.
3. Tap a product to select it, or enter a search term to locate a specific product and then tap to select it. You can select up to three products at a time.
4. Type any additional information you want to send with the product link, and then tap Share product.

Send a discount code in a conversation

You can share discount codes with your customer in Shopify Inbox. When a customer clicks the discount code, the discount code automatically applies to their cart. You need to create discount codes before you can share them.

Steps:

Desktop

1. From Shopify Inbox, click the conversation that you want to send a discount in.
2. Click the discount icon to open a list of your store's discount codes.
3. Click a discount code to select it, or enter a search term to find a specific discount and then click to select it. If the discount code is inactive, then an error message is displayed asking you to update the discount code.
4. Click Share discount to send the discount code to the customer.

Mobile

1. From the Shopify Inbox app, tap a conversation to open it.
2. Tap the discount icon to open a list of your store's discount codes.
3. Tap a discount to select it, or enter a search term to find a specific discount and then tap to select it. If the discount is invalid, then an error message is displayed asking you to update the code.
4. Tap Share discount to send the discount code to the customer.

The online chat session stores the discount code and it automatically applies to the customer's cart at checkout.

Send an image or video in a conversation

You can send images or videos to customers in Shopify Inbox.

The first time that you send an image from the Inbox iOS or Android app, you're prompted to give Shopify Inbox access to your photo library before you're able to send a file.

Steps:

Desktop

1. In Shopify Inbox, click a conversation to open it.
2. Click the image icon, and then select an image from your computer to send.
3. Click Send.

Mobile

1. In the Shopify Inbox app, tap a conversation to open it.
2. Tap the image icon and select picture from your device's photo library, or take a new photo.
3. Tap the image that you want to send to the customer.
4. Tap Send.

Conversation details

You can manage the details of a conversation from the desktop version of Shopify Inbox or from the mobile app. All conversation details are visible in the Shopify Inbox customer profile.

Change the status of a conversation

You can manage your conversations by changing their status. Conversations can have a status of either Open or Closed. You can change the status of a conversation from Open to Closed, or from Closed to Open.

Conversations can't be deleted.

Steps:

Desktop

1. From Shopify Inbox, click a conversation to open it.
2. Within the conversation window, take one of the following actions:

• To mark a conversation as Closed, click the checkmark icon.
• To mark a conversation as Open, click the circle.

Mobile

1. In the Shopify Inbox mobile app, tap a conversation to open it.
2. Tap … in the upper right corner of the app, and then tap Close conversation or Reopen conversation to set a new status.

You can also swipe right on a conversation to change the status from Closed to Open or Open to Closed.

Search for conversations

You can search for a conversation in Inbox by using the customer name, customer email, or a specific keyword. You can search for current conversations, or past conversations.

Steps:

Desktop

1. From Shopify Inbox, click the search icon in the top left of the screen.
2. Enter a search term, such as a keyword, customer name, email address, or order ID.
3. Click the relevant conversation.

Mobile

1. From the Shopify Inbox mobile app, tap the search bar.
2. Enter a search term, such as a keyword, customer name, email address, or order ID.
3. Tap the relevant conversation.

Tip

You can quickly access your recently searched conversations in the recently searched and recently viewed results in the search.

Manage conversation assignment

You can assign a chat conversation to a staff member who has the online store chat permission.

After you assign a staff member to a conversation, only that staff member receives message notifications for that conversation. If you want all staff members to receive message notifications for a conversation, then unassign the staff member from the conversation.

Steps:

Desktop

1. From Shopify Inbox, click a conversation to open it.
2. Click the Assign staff button in the conversation header.
3. In the Manage staff assignment window, take one of the following actions:

• To assign a staff member to the conversation, click the staff member that you want assign to the conversation, and then click Assign.
• To unassign a staff member from the conversation, click Unassign.

Mobile

1. From the Shopify Inbox mobile app, tap a conversation to open it.
2. Tap the … button.
3. Take one of the following actions:

• To assign a staff member to the conversation, tap Assign, and then in the Assign Staff window, tap the staff member that you want to assign.
• To unassign a staff member from a conversation, tap Assigned to <staff member>, and then tap Unassign.

You can also swipe right on a conversation to Assign or Unassign staff from a conversation.

If a staff member's name isn't listed on the Assign Staff screen, then the staff member might not have the required permissions for online store chat. To learn more, refer to online store chat permissions.

Access the customer profile

You can access a customer's profile from any open or closed conversation in the Shopify Inbox web or mobile app. The customer profile displays details about the customer, such as whether they're a new or returning customer, their location and time zone, and any relevant order details. You can also leave notes on the customer profile that are visible to only your staff.

Steps:

Desktop

1. From Shopify Inbox, click a conversation to open it.
2. In the conversation header, click the Customer name.

Mobile

1. From the Shopify Inbox mobile app, tap a conversation.
2. Tap …, and then tap View customer profile.

Blocked senders and conversations

If a conversation is detected as spam, or if you've blocked a sender, then those conversations are automatically filtered as Blocked in Shopify Inbox. You can unblock a sender to move a conversation to your Open Inbox conversations.

Block a sender

You can block a sender from sending you messages on Inbox. After you block a sender, the conversation is displayed in the Blocked filter in Shopify Inbox. You can unblock a sender to remove the conversation from the Blocked filter.

Steps:

1. From Shopify Inbox, click a conversation to open it.
2. In the conversation header, click the Block sender icon.
3. Click Block sender.

Unblock a sender

After you unblock a sender, the conversation with that sender is displayed in your Open conversations in Inbox.

Steps:

1. From Shopify Inbox, in the Filters section, click Blocked.
2. Click the conversation with the sender that you want to unblock.
3. Click the Unblock sender icon.

Message topic labels

Note

Inbox conversation automatic topic labels are only available in English.

For conversation topic labels to automatically apply to conversations in the mobile app, ensure that your Shopify Inbox app is version 5.12.1 or later.

To help you manage and prioritize your customer messages, Shopify Inbox automatically labels the conversation with a topic. Each message sent by a customer is analyzed by a machine learning system, and if there's high confidence that it matches a topic, then the appropriate label automatically applies. The conversation list displays up to two topic labels per conversation.

Refer to the following table for a list of the possible topic labels for customer conversations:

Possible message classification topic labels for Shopify Inbox.

Topic Label	Messages related to
Checkout	Payments or placing a new order.
Edit orders	Canceling or changing an order.
Order status	Order confirmation, order status, and payment balance.
Pricing/Discounts	Discounts, applying discounts, or promo codes.
Product details	Color, size, quantity, weight, volume, stock and inventory, customization requests, or requests for product photos or videos.
Product interest	General product inquiries or interest.
Returns/Delivered orders	Issues with orders received, refunds, and returns for orders received.
Shipping	Pickup in store or shipping costs.
Store info	Contact info such as phone number, location, store hours, general return policy, and marketing requests.
Wholesale	Wholesale inquiries.