Will a Shared Inbox Boost My Team's Email Productivity?

Successful teamwork thrives on effective collaboration. Managing emails, as we know, can often feel like a mammoth task. But have no fear; we might have some tips that can completely change how your team collaborates on email. Spoiler alert! It's all about shared email management.

Before we dive into the subject, let's clarify some commonly used terms to help us see the big picture. I am talking about shared mailboxes and shared inboxes.

A shared mailbox is a standard email account that different team members can access and manage smoothly. This helps streamline collaboration, promote effective communication, maintain team cohesion, and many other buzzwords I won't bother you with now. It's like having a common room where everyone can drop in, pick up, and respond to emails without any missed communication. Everyone with sufficient rights can make a shared mailbox in Outlook, Gmail, or almost any other common email tool.

Let's add a little more power to that. ?? An even better solution exists - shared inboxes! These incredible tools provide advanced features and capabilities that can take collaboration to an entirely different level.

In the shared inboxes space, there is no abundance of tools that lets you and your team collaborate on email or even chat, WhatsApp, and other channels, if you will. (Multi-channel). Front, Missive, Trengo, Freshdesk, Helpmonks, and Helpscout are some of those tools. They all build a tool toward a specific use case, so please do your homework to ensure you fit in that case before buying.

As with any powerful tool, they come with their own shortcomings.

Let's acknowledge that sometimes, communication slips through the cracks despite everyone's best efforts. Even when the whole team can look in the inbox and all colored labels are in place, there is just too much going on. Well, that's when it's time to play your trump card on email collaboration. Hello to a breed of tools mixing shared inbox and task (project) management! ??

By combining a shared inbox and task management, you and your team must get used to a slightly different way of processing email. Instead of labeling emails and dragging them into client folders, you can convert them into tasks. You can then process these tasks in a very organized and visually pleasing way by using Kanban, which involves columns where you can drag tasks in the form of cards from one status to another.

Let's have a closer look at some players in this field: DragApp, Gmelius, and RogerRoger. All three are powerful tools that merge the functionality of shared inboxes and task management. But again, every tool is tailored for a specific use case.

DragApp is a plugin for Gmail, transforming it into a neat and organized kanban. It allows your team to manage emails, create tasks, and monitor customer support. Development is rapid but bound to the functionality of Gmail itself.

Gmelius is another tool that is exclusively designed for Gmail. However, it offers more advanced features than Drag, making it slightly complex to use, too. You can save valuable work hours with automation tools like shared email templates and sequences.

RogerRoger offers shared inbox and task management features but takes a slightly different approach. RogerRoger is not living inside your default email client. It's a cloud-based tool that brings some pretty strong benefits. Connectivity to Microsoft Outlook, for instance.

That's it for now.

So, will a shared inbox boost your team's email Productivity? Yes, it will. Effectively managing email with your team boils down to choosing the right tools - shared mailboxes, shared inboxes, or a blend of both with task management. Each tool has distinctive features designed for specific use cases, although they initially look the same. The trick lies in understanding these features and aligning them with your team's needs to enhance productivity.

Yet, making this choice might seem scary, especially with so many options available. Feel free to reach out to us if you feel unsure or overwhelmed. With a bit of guidance, making the right choice is easy peasy ?? squeezy.

What's next...

Well, here’s a first for me - an article on LinkedIn! We've picked up some really valuable insights throughout our journey to help teams boost their email productivity. It only seems right to share, so stay tuned - I have a lot more in store.

Take Care!

#EmailCollaboration #ProductivityHacks #Teamwork #RogerRoger