Conversations Overview: The 4 Columns

What you'll learn

Common Use Cases

Once you know your way around the four columns, here's what you can start doing right away.

📞

Missed-Call Text Back

Trigger a friendly "Sorry I missed your call" text the moment a call comes in, or send it manually when you're ready.

⚡

First-Response Automation

Set a Customer Replied trigger on a reply channel so leads get an instant "Got your message, will be in touch shortly."

🔁

Follow-Up Campaigns

After a conversation, add the contact to a tailored follow-up workflow, like a first-time home buyer or new seller sequence.

🚫

Spam Cleanup

Delete junk texts and DMs, or tag and set a contact to Do Not Disturb to stop the charges.

Key definitions

Terms worth knowing

One inbox where every message comes together, text, email, calls, Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and internal team chat, so you can reply from a single place.

The channel a contact replied from (call, text, email, chat widget, Facebook, Instagram, or SMS), used as the trigger for automated responses.

Archiving hides a conversation but keeps it, so you can pull it back later. Deleting removes it everywhere, including the contact record. Always archive.

"Respond quickly, in a timely manner. Have them get to know, like, and trust you because you've responded fast, whether it's automated or done by you in the unified inbox."

4 columns

What You'll See Inside

The Conversations view is organized into four columns, left to right. Tap a column to see what it does.

Filter & Navigate

Your far-left rail: My Inbox, Assigned to Me, Followed by Me, Team Inbox, Internal Chat, and any saved Views you've built. Use it to quickly narrow down which conversations you're looking at.

Conversation List

Contact previews, unread indicators, a Select All option, and bulk actions like mark read or unread, star, or delete spam. This is your scan-and-triage column.

The Conversation

The full thread lives here. Read and reply by text, email, call, Facebook, or Instagram, right on the channel the contact used to reach you.

Contact Details

Owner, followers, tags, fields, Do Not Disturb status, quick actions, and full activity history. Click the bold contact name to open the complete contact record.

Tips

Worth remembering

Never delete a conversation. Always archive so you can pull it back later from the contact record.
Set your sort to Latest for day-to-day work, and use Oldest on desktop to catch anything you missed.
Tag and set spam contacts to Do Not Disturb to block inbound SMS at the system level and stop the charges.
When building reply-channel automations, double-check the right channel is selected, then click Publish.
Keep workflows simple. A clean missed-call text-back beats an elaborate flow you can't troubleshoot.

Check yourself

Quick Knowledge Check

Four quick questions on this lesson. One attempt each, and the answer is revealed either way.

0 of 4 answered

Which column holds the full back-and-forth thread you read and reply from?

The channel a contact replied from, used to trigger automations, is called the ____ channel.

True or false: you should delete old conversations to keep your inbox tidy.

Which inbox filter shows only the conversations assigned to you personally?

Apply it

Try this with your favorite AI

⚡First-Response Message Builder

You are an expert copywriter who specializes in fast, natural-sounding first-reply messages for small businesses using text and email. Ask me clarifying questions first if anything below is unclear, then write your best draft. My business context: - What I do and who I serve: [describe your business and your typical customer in 1-3 sentences] - Tone I want: [warm / professional / friendly / casual / a mix] - Words or phrases I never want used: [list them, or write "none"] - Phrases or personality traits that are very "me" and should show up: [list them, or write "none"] Using that context, write four short, ready-to-send messages, one for each situation: 1. A missed call text back, sent the moment a call goes unanswered 2. A new lead who just replied to an ad or filled out a form 3. An after-hours auto-reply, sent outside business hours 4. A general "got your message" holding reply, used when I need a few minutes before responding personally For each of the four messages: - Keep text messages under 160 characters so they fit as a single SMS segment - Work the placeholder {{contact.first_name}} in naturally, not just tacked onto the front - End with exactly one clear next step, never more than one call to action - Avoid sounding robotic, apologetic, or overly formal. It should read like a real person on my team wrote it - After each message, add one line explaining why you wrote it that way, so I can adjust it later without losing what makes it work Finish by asking me: "Do any of these need to sound more casual, more formal, or shorter? Tell me which number and how, and I will revise it."

📁Snippet Library Starter

You are a customer communications consultant helping me build a starter snippet library, a small set of reusable text and email templates I can use over and over inside my CRM instead of retyping the same messages by hand. My business context: - What I do and who I serve: [describe your business and your typical customer in 1-3 sentences] - My tone: [warm / professional / friendly / casual] - The single biggest reason people contact me: [describe, for example asking about pricing, booking a service, or a support issue] Build me exactly 3 starter snippets, one for each situation: 1. A missed-call text back 2. A follow-up message to a lead who went quiet for a few days after initial contact 3. A review request sent after a job or service is completed For each snippet, give me: - A short, descriptive snippet name I could search for later (for example "Missed Call - General") - Whether it should be a TEXT message or an EMAIL - If it's an email, a subject line under 50 characters - The full message text, with {{contact.first_name}} used naturally, not just at the start - If it's a text message, keep the whole thing under 320 characters (2 SMS segments) so it stays affordable to send - One sentence explaining the intent behind the message, so I understand what job it's doing After the three snippets, suggest one folder name I could use to organize all three together inside my CRM's snippet library, and explain briefly why that grouping makes sense.