Businesses will always strive to find a way to increase revenue and profit margins. One of the most common ways to achieve this is by determining how a business can decrease its running costs. There are a lot of ways to reduce your running costs especially when you’re using Google Workspace for your business. Additionally, it’s not always about getting the cheapest product out there, sometimes, you just need to know the right configuration that fits your business and will save you money. In this article, Onsite Helper will show you how you can use the Google Groups Collaborative Inbox to save money.
Google Groups Collaborative Inbox
More often than not, businesses will have a shared or a common email address that a group of people can use. Common examples of these email addresses are “sales@”, “info@”, “contact@”, and more. You see most of these email addresses on websites. If that email is not of a name, chances are that it’s managed by a group.
With Google Workspace, having an extra account for emails like that can cost a business (on the higher end) $540 per year per account ($45 per month). What if we told you that you can instead save that money and have the same system anyway?
That’s where the Google Groups Collaborative Inbox truly helps.
Google Workspace has a lot of features very beneficial for mid-level businesses. As part of our commitment to the Google Workspace ecosystem, we have specifically developed a comprehensive Google Workspace security audit that works for every IT system. Run an audit today and get the best out of Google Workspace by clicking here.
Google Workspace has a lot of features very beneficial for mid-level businesses. As part of our commitment to the Google Workspace ecosystem, we have specifically developed a comprehensive Google Workspace security audit that works for every IT system. Run an audit today and get the best out of Google Workspace by clicking here.
How does it work?
With a Collaborative Inbox, emails that are sent to info@ or support@ are properly distributed and tracked. Further, you can see who has taken responsibility for which email, work with your team for a particular task, and properly track the status for each task. Basically, with the right permissions, you are able to:
- Take a conversation to respond to
- Assign responsibility for a conversation to another group member
- Mark conversations/tasks as “complete”, “duplicate”, or “no action needed”
- Search for conversations according to resolution status
- Search for conversations according to its assignee
How can I get started?
1. Create a Group
- Sign in to your Google Groups account
- Click “Create Group” in the upper-left corner
- Enter the necessary information and click “Create Group”
- Add members that you want to be a part of the group
2. Enable Conversation History
Before you can turn on the Google Groups Collaborative Inbox features, you need to enable the Conversation History. To do this:
- Click the name of the group
- Click “Group settings”
- Go to “Posting policies”
- Turn on Conversation History
3. Enable Collaborative Inbox
To enable the Collaborative Inbox of your Google Group, go back to the Group settings. Then, under “Enable additional Google Groups feature”, click “Collaborative Inbox”.
Once you’ve done that, you’ve successfully created a Google Groups Collaborative Inbox. Now, you just need to assign permissions to your members.
4. Assign permissions
Each permission allows you to do a different task. To properly utilise the Collaborative Inbox, you need to assign the right permissions to the right people. This is what you’re able to do with each Collaborative Inbox-specific permission:
Who can moderate metadata
- Take a conversation
- Assign or unassign a conversation
- Mark a conversation as “completed”
Who can moderate content
- Mark a conversation as “duplicate”
- Mark a conversation as “no action needed”
Assigning and resolving a collaborative inbox conversation
If you have the right permissions, you can assign conversations to yourself or other members of the group. To do this:
- Select one or multiple conversations by checking the box next to the name
- Assign it to yourself by clicking “Take”
- Assign it to a group member by clicking “Assign” and enter the assignee’s email address. You can also add a note if you want to.
- You can also unassign a conversation by clicking “Drop”
To resolve a conversation:
- Choose one or more conversations to resolve
- At the top, you can choose to mark the conversation/s as complete, no action needed, or duplicate.
Mark the conversation as complete once the actions items related to the conversation is finished. If there’s nothing that needs to be done about the conversation, mark it as no action needed. Mark conversations as a duplicate if a conversation raising the same concern is already present. Doing so will lock the conversation so that you can perform any actions on it.
Utilising the Google Groups Collaborative Inbox is that easy. Save your business a lot of money by making use of this Google Groups feature instead of paying for another account.
Collaboration among team members is one of the most important aspects of a business. It solves problems and it ushers to more innovation and success. It also fosters good communication and relationship among team members as they reach the organisation’s goals.
Effortless collaboration to maximise productivity is what we aim for all our clients here at Onsite Helper. Reach the paramount success you deserve with us, talk to one of our team members now!
