Overview
The Inbox feature within Housecall Pro allows you to access all of your messages in one place. You can access messages from your customers and your team members on iOS, Android, and the HCP web browser to make sure you and your team never miss a beat!
Our HCP Inbox chat features allow you to create new messages, start group chats with your team and customers, and send Images, videos, gifs, and file attachments. These features allow you to improve customer service, and get a better understanding of what the customer's issue is.
This unified chat system allows you to run your day-to-day business operations through three workspaces:
Customers - Take customer service to the next level by communicating with your customers over SMS. Point of contact, Office Staff, and Field Techs will be auto-added to all customer chats to ensure that customer communication is transparent to everyone on your team.
Employees - Easily manage communication with your team to effectively quarterback internal operations. You can start conversations with one of your team members or add as many team members as you'd like!
Community - Chat with peers and other Pros outside of your organization. In addition, if you get a customer referral, they will show up in this workspace for you to accept or decline.
Please Note:
Technicians will only be added to a customer chat if they are assigned to a job for that customer. Techs will be removed automatically from customer channels once the job is completed, deleted, or canceled.
If you do not want an employee to chat with customers, you can toggle off the 'Allow user to chat with customers' permissions under employee settings.
Inbox on the HCP Web Browser
Your Inbox is the central hub for all customer and employee communications. From this one location, you can easily access and manage messages with customers and employees to review or send messages. You also have the ability to control which employees are involved in chat threads. In this section, we'll go over how to access and manage these features.
Customer Messages in the Inbox
To access and manage your Inbox messages with your customers:
First, navigate to your Inbox by clicking 'Inbox' on your HCP navigation bar at the top of your screen.
Next, select 'Customers' from the menu on the left of your Inbox page.
To send a new message to a customer, click the blue pencil icon located at the top-right of your message thread (toward the middle of your screen).
To navigate to a customer's profile from the Inbox, select an existing message thread for the customer whose profile you'd like to access, then click on the customer's name at the top of the chat thread.
Once you click on the customer's name at the top, a dropdown will appear with the 'Customer profile' and 'Members' options.
Click on the 'Customer profile' option to be directed to their profile.
Please Note: Text Messaging must be activated on your account to access the 'Customers' Inbox in your account.
Member Management
The 'Members' feature allows you to view, remove, and add employees in a message thread at your discretion. Employees included in a message thread will receive push notifications from any customer's reply to the thread.
To view and manage members in a chat thread:
First, navigate to your Inbox by selecting 'Inbox' from your HCP navigation bar at the top of your screen.
Next, select a channel (Customers or Employees), then select a chat thread.
From there, click on the members' names above to add or remove employees from the thread (this will be highlighted in blue when you hover over it).
The 'Add or remove user' window will pop up where you can add employees to the chat, or remove them.
To add an employee to the chat, simply type in and click on their name, or select their name from the list.
To remove an employee from the chat, click on the 'X' icon to the right of their name.
Please Note:
If you remove someone from a chat, the only way they will be added back is if you manually add them.
Multiple customers cannot be grouped in a conversation - only employees.
Admin and Office Staff employees can still access the message threads even if they are not included as members to the chat, but they will not receive push notifications on the mobile app if they are not added as members.
Field techs can only view threads when they are included as a member.
Enable Desktop Notifications
Desktop notifications are available to show when someone sends you a message. Clicking on the notification will take you directly to their chat.
Please note: Housecall Pro works best with Google Chrome. We recommend using the Chrome browser for the best results.
To enable desktop notifications:
First, open the Google Chrome browser on your computer.
Next, click the 3 vertical dots in the top right corner of your browser, then select 'Settings' from the dropdown menu. You will be redirected to the Settings page.
Select 'Privacy and security' from the menu on the left, then select 'Site settings.'
Scroll down and select 'Notifications.'
Under 'Default behavior,' click the radio button to select the option, 'Sites can ask to send notifications.'
To turn on notifications for Housecall Pro, scroll down to 'Customized behaviors' and click the 'Add' button next to 'Allowed to send notifications.'
Enter "housecallpro.com" in the 'Add a site' pop-up window, then click on the blue 'Add' button, and you're all set!
Video walkthrough:
Inbox on Mobile
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Advanced Inbox Features (Web and Mobile)
The following advanced Inbox features are available on both the HCP web portal and the HCP mobile app.
Archive Chat Threads (Web)
To archive chat threads in your Inbox via the HCP Web Portal:
Navigate to your HCP Inbox by clicking 'Inbox' in your Housecall Pro navigation bar, then select a Channel ('Customers' or 'Employees').
Select a chat thread that you would like to archive and click on the 3 vertical dots toward the top right corner of your screen.
Next, select 'Archive chat' from the drop-down, and a dialogue box will pop up to confirm whether you would like to archive the chat.
Click the 'Archive' button to confirm.
Archive Chat Threads (Mobile)
To archive messages/chats in your Inbox via the HCP Mobile App:
Tap on the 'Inbox' icon in your navigation bar at the bottom of your screen, then select the 'Customers' channel.
From there, tap on a message thread and swipe left on the chat that you wish to archive.
Archived chats will be hidden from your list of chats with customers. However, all data will be preserved.
Chat threads can be unarchived by starting a new chat with the customer (all previous data will be restored as well).
Chats will also automatically unarchive themselves when the customer sends you a message.
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Navigate to a Customer Profile
The Inbox allows you to go to the customer profile directly from a chat.
To do this, click on the customer profile icon (icon located next to messages the customer sends in the thread). You will then be directed to their customer profile.
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Internal Note
The Internal Note feature allows you to send messages within the Customers channel that are only viewable by your team. The customer will not be able to see these messages.
If a message is in yellow, that signifies that the customer cannot see that message.
Activity Feed
You can see any event that occurs regarding a customer's profile such as a job that is scheduled, completed, or paid. These activity updates are viewable right within your chat with the customer.
The activity feed tells you what those events are, when they happen, and who's involved.
This will provide you a holistic audit trail of everything that has happened on that customer's profile.
@Mentions
With the @Mentions feature, you can mention employees within their channel. Anyone outside the channel will have to be added to the channel first.
You can tag specific employees in your messages, for both normal messages and internal notes.
You can distinguish mentions because they will be highlighted
Emoji Reactions
You can react to employee messages (normal messages and internal notes) with emojis in your Housecall Pro Inbox channels!
Please note that you cannot react to customer messages; you will only be able to react to employee messages.
In your Housecall Pro Inbox, navigate to a channel and select a message thread. You'll see a smiley face with a plus (+) icon. Clicking on that icon will bring up a panel of emojis.
You can choose your emoji from there, or you can click on the additional smiley face with the (+) icon and a broader selection of reaction emojis will pop up. 😁
Inbox Features Available on Mobile Only
Turn Off Chat Notifications and Mark All Messages as Read
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Having trouble finding what you need?
For further assistance, please reach out to our Chat Support team
via the Blue Chat Bubble in your Housecall Pro account, or
contact our Phone Support team at (858) 842-5746.