Know about a new message even when the panel is closed
Email notifications tell your team a customer is waiting, and tell your customer you have replied. Both are switched on from one place.
You cannot sit in the panel all day, and neither can your customers. This page explains who receives an email, when it is sent, and the cases where no email goes out at all.
Step by step
Switch on agent emails
Go to Settings > Notifications > Agent email notifications and enable it. This is what tells your team that a customer has written in while nobody was watching the panel.
Switch on user emails
Go to Settings > Notifications > User email notifications and enable it. Your customer then hears about your reply even after they have closed the chat.
Set the email template
Every notification email is built from the template at Settings > Notifications > Email template. The template must include the {content} merge field, because that is where the message itself is placed.
Decide whether admins are emailed
If your administrators do not want notification emails, enable Settings > Notifications > Do not send notifications to admins.
Send yourself a test
Use Settings > Notifications > Send an agent email notification and Send a user email notification to check that mail arrives and the template looks right.
Consider the scheduled option
If you would rather receive one tidy summary than an alert as things happen, turn on Settings > Notifications > Email notifications via cron job. The email then contains the whole conversation and is sent only once.
Settings reference
| Setting | What it does |
|---|---|
| Agent email notifications | Emails your agents and admins when a customer writes in. |
| User email notifications | Emails the customer when they are offline and a reply arrives. |
| Email template | The wrapper used for every notification email; it must contain the {content} merge field. |
| Do not send notifications to admins | Stops notification emails reaching administrators. |
| Send an agent email notification | Sends a test agent notification so you can confirm delivery. |
| Send a user email notification | Sends a test user notification so you can confirm delivery. |
| Email notifications via cron job | Sends notifications on a schedule instead, as a single email containing the whole conversation. |
Good to know
Only offline agents are emailed
If an agent or admin is online in the panel, no email is sent to them. The assumption is that they can already see the message.
One email, not one per message
Only a single email goes out. Later messages in the same conversation do not trigger another one, so the inbox stays quiet.
Who receives the first email
On a customer's first message, the email goes to the offline agents and admins of that department, or to those with no department. If the conversation is assigned to one agent, only that agent is emailed.
After the first email
Anything that follows goes only to the last agent in the conversation, not back to the whole department.
Customers only hear about it when away
Users are emailed only when they are offline, and only once per burst of messages.
The chatbot can silence emails
With AI human takeover switched on, no emails are sent when the chatbot knows the answer. Nobody needs alerting to a question that has already been handled.
Common questions
Why did I not get an email about a new message?
Will I get an email for every message a customer sends?
Can I stop my administrators receiving these emails?
My chatbot answered the question and no email arrived. Is that a fault?
Can I receive one email with the full conversation instead of an alert?
How do I check that notification emails are working?
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