Email is at the core of how many decisions are made inside of businesses these days, and of course, it is important that users within your company all have their own mailboxes that they can use to do their jobs. However, there are a good deal of issues that can arise when all of the information held in emails is split between individual senders and recipients, which can make it difficult for other team members to research past conversations and to collaborate on tasks.

Shared inbox software offers a way to get around these issues, by allowing important email to be stored in one location that is accessible to everyone in a given group. Shared mailboxes can be copied in on important email threads so that the contents can be archived there for everyone to see, and users can also add content from their own mailboxes to the shared inbox when it is relevant to other people.

So, what are the main reasons why shared inbox software for teams is such a good idea?

Reduces Issues When Staff Are Unavailable

If a member of your team was the one dealing with an important client, and they have left the company or are simply off on vacation or sick when the client next contacts you, this can cause some embarrassing problems. All of the records of what was discussed and any agreements or promises made with that client are in that user’s private mailbox, and nobody on your team has access. Even if you set up mail forwarding for their account, that won’t help you access mails they have archived from old conversations. With a shared inbox, however, the staff member could have made sure all of the important emails had been placed where the rest of the team can easily search for and access them, removing the issue.

Archive More Than Just Email

Another reason to consider shared inbox software is that you can use it to share more than just email, in an easily accessible and easy to search manner. Transcripts of important phone calls are another good example of something where information given to one person may be useful to the whole team. Check out Threads, which is a great software solution for shared inboxes that offers sophisticated search functions as well as the ability to record and store phone transcripts, attachments and other types of business critical data.

Makes Staffing More Dynamic

When important information is accessible to everyone in a group, it makes it a lot easier to add in new people and have them have instant access to everything they need. If you are expanding, or you use temporary staff, having a shared inbox in use will make it far easier to get people up to speed.

As you can see, a shared mailbox may not sound like a major thing, but it is one that can definitely save a lot of time and hassle once you have it in place, and have staff using it to grant access to important mail and data.