One inbox for every channel.
The question you missed was on an app nobody had open.
A shared inbox is a single queue that collects customer messages from every channel a business uses, so a team of people can answer from one place instead of passing phones around. Each customer gets one thread. Anyone on the team can see who is handling it, what was said before, and what still needs an answer.
- One thread per customer, across every connected channel
- Assign, snooze, and close without leaving the queue
- Internal notes and mentions that customers never see
- New messages appear without a refresh
How it works.
- 01
Connect a channel
Sign in with the account that owns the WhatsApp number, Instagram profile, Facebook Page or Telegram bot. The connection is stored against your workspace, not shared with anyone else.
- 02
Let messages land
Inbound messages are matched to a contact, attached to that contact's thread, and pushed to every open inbox in the workspace. Attachments, voice notes and replies to earlier messages come through with them.
- 03
Take ownership
Assign a thread to yourself or a teammate. The assignment is visible to everyone, so two people do not answer the same customer twice.
- 04
Close or snooze
Close a thread when it is done, or snooze it for a set number of hours. A snoozed thread comes back to the open queue by itself when the time is up.
One thread per customer
Messages are grouped by the person who sent them, not by the app they arrived from. When the same customer writes on a second channel, the history sits next to the new message.
- Contact profile, tags and custom fields beside the thread
- Past conversations and order records in the same panel
- The same phone number recognised across channels that share it
- Voice notes transcribed into the thread as text
Work it as a team
The queue is built for more than one person. Ownership, private notes and mentions keep everybody on the same thread without a side channel.
- Assign to anyone on your team, or leave a thread unassigned
- Internal notes marked team only, never sent to the customer
- Mention a teammate to notify them in the app and by email
- You can see when a teammate is already replying
Find the message you need
Filters narrow the queue by state and channel, and search runs over contact names and the text of messages themselves.
- Filter by status, assignee and channel
- Search message bodies, not only contact names
- Unread counts per thread and for the whole workspace
- Blocked contacts kept out of the working queue
Message actions that match the channel
Otobiz gives you what each platform actually supports, so an action you take here behaves the way it does in the customer's own app.
- React, edit, unsend and pin where the channel allows it
- Send-later replies re-checked against consent and the reply window before they go
- Read receipts sent back to the customer when you open a thread
- Macros that tag, note, assign and set status in one click
Comments and reviews in the same place
Public conversation lives beside private conversation. Facebook and Instagram comments and Google Business Profile reviews open as their own tabs in the inbox.
- Reply publicly or move a commenter into a private message
- Hide and unhide comments on your own posts
- Google reviews synced on a schedule with replies published back
What it does not do.
Tags belong to the contact, not to a single conversation.
Filters cover status, assignee, channel and search. There are no saved views.
Common questions
Which channels land in the shared inbox?
- WhatsApp, Instagram direct messages, Facebook Messenger and Telegram. Facebook and Instagram comments and Google Business Profile reviews appear as separate tabs in the same inbox.
Can several people work the same queue?
- Yes. Assignment, statuses, internal notes and mentions are built for a team, and a draft lock stops two people writing the same reply at once.
Do I need to refresh to see new messages?
- No. The inbox holds an open stream to the server and new messages appear as they arrive, with a slow poll as a backup if the stream drops.
What happens to a snoozed conversation?
- It leaves the open queue for the number of hours you choose and returns on its own when that time is up, so nothing depends on someone remembering.
Are internal notes ever sent to the customer?
- No. Notes are stored as internal messages and are never dispatched to a channel. They are visible only to members of your workspace.
Can I use it on my phone?
- The inbox is a responsive web app, so it works in a mobile browser. There is no separate native app.
What happens if the same customer writes on two channels?
- Where the two channels share something, such as a phone number, they are linked to one customer record. Where they do not, the two stay separate until someone merges the contacts.
Can I tag a conversation?
- Tags belong to the contact, so they follow the customer across every thread. Conversation state is carried by status, assignee and notes.
Does the AI have to be involved?
- No. The AI agent can be switched off for the whole workspace or for a single conversation, and the inbox works as a plain team inbox.
Every question in one place, answered once.