From a shared inbox to real request tracking

The limits of a shared inbox

A support@ address read by the whole team works while requests are few. After that, the same questions keep coming back:

• who is handling this message?
• has someone already replied, and with what words?
• where does last week’s request stand?
• what internal information was exchanged outside the thread?

A shared inbox keeps no owner, no status and no common history. Everyone rebuilds them from memory, and a request can go unanswered without anyone noticing.

One request, one record

In Tikivio, every new incoming message becomes a request with:

• a unique reference, repeated in the conversation;
• one of six statuses: New, In progress, Waiting for requester, Waiting internally, Resolved and Closed;
• an assigned agent and a team, which you choose;
• a complete history: messages, status changes, assignments.

You keep your address

You do not change your support address: Tikivio fetches your existing mailbox over IMAP and sends replies through your SMTP server. Until SMTP sending is enabled on a mailbox, no reply and no acknowledgement goes out by email; once sending is enabled, these emails are retried by hand from the Outbound queue page.

• Fetching runs every 5 minutes, read-only: no message is deleted, moved or marked as read in your mailbox.
• Replies from the people you help are attached to the right request automatically.
• A reply from an unrecognised sender is not attached blindly: it opens a separate request, flagged in the To review queue, where an agent attaches, keeps or ignores it.
• Acknowledgements and replies carry a short Tikivio notice below their footer: the “Powered by Tikivio…” line during the trial and on paid plans, a short presentation of Tikivio on the Free plan.

The tutorial Connect your support mailbox to Tikivio walks through the setup, screen by screen.

Working together without stepping on each other’s toes

• Internal notes: they stay within the team and are never visible to the requester.
• Mentions: type @ followed by a colleague’s name to notify them.
• Canned responses: your frequent answers, ready to insert.
• Drafts: a reply you started is saved and found again later.

Response targets and escalations

You set response targets per priority, counted in business hours, and several escalation levels (named N1, N2, N3… by default; you can rename them). These features are included in every plan.

The 10-step switchover checklist

1. List the support addresses to connect (support@, contact@…).
2. Get the IMAP and SMTP settings from your email provider.
3. Create an app password dedicated to Tikivio if your provider offers one.
4. Invite your agents and create your teams.
5. Connect the mailbox and tick “Ignore the messages already in the fetched folder”: otherwise every message already there becomes a request and its sender receives an acknowledgement. Then test the IMAP and SMTP connections.
6. Write your first canned responses.
7. Set your response targets per priority and your business hours.
8. Decide who watches new requests and assigns them to an agent or a team: Tikivio notifies no one when they arrive.
9. Tell the team: replies now go out from Tikivio, no longer from the mailbox.
10. After a week, review the To review queue and adjust your settings.

What Tikivio does not do

• Mailboxes that require an OAuth sign-in, such as Microsoft 365 mailboxes that refuse passwords, are not supported yet: you need a password or an app password.
• No alert is sent when a new request arrives or is assigned, except for a reply from an unrecognised sender, flagged in the To review queue. By default, only the response-target rules notify you when a request runs late: first reply overdue, resolution time 80% elapsed, then resolution overdue.
• No live chat, no knowledge base, no mobile app.

You can try Tikivio for 14 days, with no credit card.