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Assign and route conversations

Updated 1 min read
On this page/ The conversation lifecycle

Every conversation should have exactly one owner. Assigning conversations makes it clear who replies next, and stops two people answering the same customer.

The conversation lifecycle

A diagram of four states, New, Open, Waiting and Closed, with arrows between them and a dashed arrow from Closed back to Open when the customer replies
Conversations move through four states
State What it means Who acts next
New Just arrived, nobody owns it yet Whoever triages the inbox
Open Assigned to a person or team The assignee
Waiting Snoozed until the customer replies or a date passes The customer
Closed Resolved Nobody, until the customer writes again

Assign a conversation

  • Open the conversation and select the Assignee field, or press A.
  • Pick a teammate, or a team to let anyone on it take it.
  • To take it yourself, press I.

Route automatically

Assigning by hand works for small teams. Once you get more than a few dozen conversations a day, let rules do it. See Guides for automations.

Round robin vs. load balancing

Round robin hands conversations out in turn. Load balancing gives the next one to whoever has the fewest open conversations. Both skip people marked away.

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