Niraj Ranjan Rout, Negosentro.com | Hiver is a Gmail-based tool that turns your inbox into a powerful helpdesk. It helps small teams manage customer support and sales right from their Gmail inbox.
Many small businesses use email for customer support and sales collaboration. It is cost-effective, and doesn’t require too much time for onboarding. But, the constant forwarding of emails and the lack of automation options will make it difficult for you and your team to keep track of things.
Being a small business, you simply cannot afford this.
The best way to resolve such a situation is to adopt a simple helpdesk tool that will not get in the way of your day-to-day tasks. This is where Hiver comes in. It works inside the existing Gmail design, adding small buttons and menus where necessary. This makes onboarding a lot easier, as a majority of users are already familiar with Gmail and its design.
Let’s explore some of the key features of Hiver:
Shared mailbox
This feature will enable teams to manage shared email accounts like support@abc.com or sales@abc.com in a better manner. Admins or team leads will be able to assign tasks to their teammates individually, and see tasks that are unassigned, complete and that are pending – making tracking and accountability a lot easier.
There is also an option to access reports/analytics for your Shared Mailboxes. It will help you understand how your team is doing, your email volumes and areas for improvement.
Shared Labels
Gmail already has an inbuilt label feature, though it is a neat feature, these labels are not shareable. But, once you’ve installed Hiver, you will be able to share these labels with fellow Gmail users.
For example, you have a Gmail label called FeatureX_queries where you have collected all your customer queries and feedback related to a newly launched product feature called X. You have been handling it for a while now, but now you wish to delegate it to your customer service team. All you have to do is install Hiver, and make these labels shareable. In a matter of few clicks, all the future and past communications under that label will automatically be shared with them.
Shared Notes
Shared Notes is primarily for internal communication. This feature will enable you to add small notes alongside email threads and they will get automatically shared with other users with whom the email is shared with through Shared Labels or Shared Mailbox.
If you want a user to be notified when you add a note, add ‘@username’ or ‘@all’ to the note. There is also a search option available for notes.
Collision detection
If you have used a shared email account for customer support, you might have faced instances where two of your teammates are replying to the same email at the same time. This can be a little embarrassing. It shows that your organization is not consistent or lacks coordination. Fortunately, Hiver’s collision detection solves this problem by showing a notification if someone else is already replying or has replied to the email recently.
Other features include:
- Shared email templates – you will be able to create and add templates to your emails in a matter of few clicks. These templates can also be shared with your teammates.
- Email Snooze/Reminder – this feature lets you schedule an email to come back to the top of your inbox at a later time.
- Shared Drafts – lets you share Gmail drafts with your team-mates who are using the same Shared Mailbox.
- Send later – This feature lets you schedule an email to be sent at a future time and date.
Pricing
Conclusion
Hiver is primarily focused on reducing leakages, confusion, and overlaps, thereby improving your team’s productivity rapidly. Unlike other helpdesk tools, Hiver is easy to setup and use, as you won’t have to and fro between the tool and the inbox. If you are looking to do customer support and sales right from your Gmail inbox, Hiver is the way to go.
Note: Niraj is the Co-Founder/CEO of Hiver
