Overview

Once more than one person works the inbox, you need a shared way to say "I've got this" and "we're done with this thread." Conversations gives you three lightweight controls that handle exactly that. This lesson covers all three and the workflow they enable.

Status: Open or Closed

Every conversation is either Open or Closed.

• Open — needs attention or could need attention
• Closed — done, archived from the active queue, but still searchable and re-openable

There is no third "in progress" or "waiting on guest" state. We deliberately keep this simple. Open is your queue; Closed is everything else.

Closing a conversation doesn't delete it. It just removes it from your default Open view. Re-open it any time by changing status — or by guest reply, which automatically re-opens a closed conversation.

When you're ready to close after replying, the composer's Send and Close option sends your message and closes the conversation in one step. Send and Next sends and jumps straight to the next open conversation — useful when you're working through a queue. Both are available from the dropdown next to the Send button.

Assignment

Assignment answers "who owns this conversation right now?"

• Assigned to me — your personal queue
• Assigned to a teammate — their queue
• Unassigned — anyone can pick it up

To assign:

• From the conversation — click the assignee dropdown at the top of the middle pane and pick a teammate (or yourself)
• From the list — most teams use the "Assign to me" quick action when they pick up a thread
• From bulk select — select multiple conversations in the list and assign them all at once

Assignment is advisory, not exclusive. Anyone can still open and reply to an assigned conversation — there's no lock. But the assignee is the de-facto owner, and presence indicators help avoid stepping on each other in real time.

A typical pattern: triage agent assigns by topic; specialist agent does the work.

Labels

Labels are custom tags your team defines and applies to conversations. Common uses:

• "VIP" for high-value guests
• "Refund discussion" for legal/financial threads
• "Pet stay" for stays with detected pets
• "Group booking" for high-value or complex stays

Labels are visible on the conversation list and in the right-hand panel. They're filterable, so you can build saved views like "all VIP open conversations" or "all refund discussions assigned to me."

Add or remove labels:

• From the conversation header, click the labels area and pick from your team's defined labels
• In bulk from the list view by selecting multiple conversations

Labels can also be applied automatically by Rules — for example, "if intent = Complaint, add label 'Needs supervisor review'" — covered in Rules for Conversations.

Bulk actions

Select multiple conversations from the list (checkboxes appear on hover). The actions that support bulk are:

• Mark read / unread
• Star / unstar
• Change status (Open / Closed)
• Add or remove labels
• Assign / unassign

Bulk is the right tool for cleanup ("close everything with no reply needed from the last 14 days") and for routing ("assign all unassigned VIP threads to the senior team").

A workflow that scales

The pattern that holds up across team sizes:

1. Filter to "Unassigned + Open"
2. Triage: glance at the channel, sentiment, and intent; assign to the right person
3. Reply (or hand off): assignee handles it, or it routes to the right specialist
4. Close when done — use Send and Close for a one-step send-and-close, or close manually

Add labels as a second-pass classification when something needs to be findable later (e.g., "Refund 2026-Q2"). Don't try to label everything — labels lose value when they're applied to too much.

Up next

Working as a Team — collaboration features that make the inbox a team sport: internal notes, mentions, and presence.