Communication: customer calls, texts and email in one place

A customer calls about a quote, texts a photo of a leak the next morning, then emails to ask about payment. If calls, texts and email each live somewhere different, nobody sees the whole story, and the person who picks up has to go hunting.

Communication (in the main menu) puts it all in one place. The calls on the line right now are across the top. Below them is one conversation per phone number, with every text, call and team note in order, and one per customer email address. The customer's jobs and balance sit alongside, and starting a new job takes one click.

The red number next to Communication in the menu counts callers on the line plus conversations with something unread that are yours or nobody's. It updates on its own, on every page, so you'll see a ringing phone without refreshing.

When you'd use this

Answering the phone. See who's calling before you say hello, open their history, and book the job without leaving the screen.
Working customer texts and emails as a team. Claim a conversation so nobody else answers it, hand it to the right person, leave notes for each other.
Answering customer email without leaving Suprata. Read the customer's email next to their jobs and balance, and reply from your own address.
"Who called earlier?" The Calls view lists the last 30 days of calls both ways, searchable by number.

The screen

On the phone now (top left): every incoming call that's ringing or in progress, with a timer, and calls that ended in the last 10 minutes, so you can still act after hanging up. A caller who isn't a customer yet says so. Click one to open everything with that number.
All / Texts / Email / Calls: All shows text and email conversations together; Texts and Email narrow it to one; Calls is the recent calls list. The conversation tabs are Open, Unread, Mine, Unassigned and Done. If you can't see customer email, you'll just see Conversations and Calls.
The conversation: texts both ways, calls with that number, and your team's notes, in order. A recorded incoming call shows its transcript as a conversation, each line marked Caller or Team, so you can see who said what. Calls you place yourself show it as one paragraph. Reply by text or leave a note for the team from the box at the bottom. Quick replies fill in common answers.
The customer card (right): balance, next visit, open jobs, recently finished jobs and agreements, each one click away. Plus New job for the customer.

Your phone calls themselves work exactly as they always have. Communication only shows what your phone system records; it never changes how calls are answered or routed.

Peek: read a call while it's happening

Sometimes a manager needs to know what's being said on a call right now. A new hire is taking their first angry customer. A big quote is being talked through. A caller has asked for "whoever's in charge." Peek shows a live transcript of the call, a few seconds behind, without anyone joining the line.

Press Peek next to a call in On the phone now. The first time, a notice tells you what it costs (below). Tick Don't show this again once you know, and it won't ask you again on any computer.
A panel opens in the corner of the screen. What the Caller says appears on the left and what your Team says on the right, each line a moment after it's said. You can keep working in Communication while it's open.
It starts from the moment you press Peek. Anything said earlier on the call isn't included.
Press Stop when you've heard enough. When the call ends, the panel says so and keeps the transcript on screen until you close it. Nothing is saved after that. The call's usual recording and transcript, if your phone line makes them, are not affected.
Nobody on the call hears or sees anything. The call isn't connected to you, and you can't speak on it.

What it costs

Peek uses your phone minutes at double rate: 2 minutes for every minute it's open, on top of the minutes the call itself uses. A 4-minute peek uses 8 phone minutes. The panel counts the minutes as it goes. If two managers peek at the same call, they share one transcript and it's only charged once.

Because of that, Peek stops as soon as nobody's watching: when you press Stop, close the page or navigate away, or your computer goes to sleep. Switching to another tab doesn't stop it, so it keeps running and keeps costing minutes until you come back and press Stop. If your phone minutes have run out and can't be topped up, Peek won't start.

A word on consent

Most businesses already tell callers their call may be recorded, and Peek is covered by the same announcement. If your calls don't announce that, check the rules where you operate before using Peek.

Email

Where it comes from

Email reaches Communication from your team's own mailboxes. Each person connects theirs in their Email Settings (Administration → Team → Users). Every few minutes, the emails that went to or from a customer are copied in. Anything else, like vendors, newsletters or internal mail, stays out. Each customer email address gets its own conversation, linked to the customer automatically.

Who can read it

Not everyone sees every email, and that's on purpose. Each person's mailbox decides who else can read it. A shared service@ mailbox can be open to everyone who works customer email, while an owner's mailbox can be set to Only them. When a mailbox keeps a record, people who can't read it see a locked line instead, for example Private email received · Jane Smith's mailbox, so they know the customer has been in touch. How to set it up: Who can read whose email.

Reading

Each email shows as a card with its subject, who sent it and whose mailbox it came in to. The earlier messages quoted under a reply are folded away behind Show earlier messages, so you read what's new. Emails your business sent automatically, like invoices and reminders, appear too, marked Sent automatically, and Not delivered if they bounced.

Replying

You can reply from Communication if your own outgoing email is set up (the SMTP tab of your Email Settings). The reply goes out from your address, so the customer sees it from you, it normally lands in the same thread in their email app, and the email you answered is quoted underneath.

The reply box answers the newest email from the customer. Press Reply on an older one to answer that instead, or New email instead to start fresh.
In email, Enter makes a new line. Press Ctrl+Enter (or Cmd+Enter on a Mac) or Send email to send.
The customer's answer goes to your mailbox. If your mailbox is connected, it shows up here a few minutes later.
If your outgoing email isn't set up, the box tells you, and Open in your email app starts the reply in your usual email program instead.

Note for team works in email conversations too. Notes are never sent to the customer.

One customer, several conversations

A customer who texts and emails has a conversation for each. The customer card lists them under Other conversations, along with their other numbers and addresses, so you can jump from their email to their texts in one click, or start an email to them from a text conversation.

When the number isn't on file

People call from their work phone, their spouse's phone, or a new number. When Communication can't match the number, the card asks Who is this?

Search by whatever they tell you: name, company, email, street, account number, or another phone number. It also searches the people listed on each account.
Pick them. This is them links the conversation to them. + New job links them and opens a new job in one go.
Leave Save this number on the customer I pick ticked, and the number is added to their account, so next time they call, you'll see their name. It only goes into an empty phone slot; it never replaces a number already there. In an email conversation the same box saves the email address, but only if the customer has no email address yet.

If they're genuinely new, use New customer, or New customer and job to go straight on to booking.

Starting a new job

Click New job for… on the customer card, or + New job on a search result. The usual New Job form opens over the page with the customer already filled in. Add the summary, job type and appointment as you normally would. When you save it, you're taken to the new job. Close the panel to go back to the call without saving.

Working conversations as a team

Claim a conversation to make it yours. It moves to your Mine tab, and everyone else sees it's handled. Release puts it back in Unassigned if you can't finish it.
Take over a colleague's conversation if they're out. You'll be asked to confirm, and they get a notification.
Give it to someone with the dropdown next to Claim.
See who else is on it. If a colleague has the same conversation open, a strip under the name says Fred Smith is also looking at this conversation, or Fred Smith is typing a reply in yellow. The list shows it too.
Mark it Done when it's handled. If the customer texts again, it comes back on its own.

Opening a conversation marks its texts read for the whole team. That's deliberate: "read" means someone has seen it.

Setting it up

Communication is included with every plan that has calling and texting.

Who can use it. Anyone with the Dispatch permission can use it, the same people who took calls before. To let someone answer texts without dispatching, give their role Use the Text Inbox. Sending texts also needs Send SMS, and starting jobs needs Job View / Edit.
Quick replies. Add your most common answers under Quick Replies in the admin menu.
Peek. Super admins can peek straight away. For anyone else, give Peek at live calls to their role on the Roles screen, usually owners and office managers only. They also need to be able to use Communication.
Email. For each person who works customer email, open their Email Settings under Administration → Team → Users. Connect their mailbox on the IMAP tab, their outgoing email on the SMTP tab (so they can reply from here), and choose who else can read their emails on the Who sees it tab. To see customer email at all, a role needs View Personal Email Communications (their own mailbox) or View All Email Communications.

Calls you've booked for a set time are now in the Work Queue, where they rise to the top 15 minutes before they're due.

Common mistakes

Answering without claiming. Two people reply with different answers. Claim first: one click, and everyone can see it's handled.
Not saving the number. If you link a caller but untick Save this number, they'll be a stranger again next time.
Leaving conversations open forever. Mark them Done. Open should be your to-do list, not an archive.
Holding conversations you can't get to. Heading out with something unfinished? Release it.
Long quick replies. A text over about 160 characters is sent as two and costs twice as much.
Replying from your personal phone. The customer gets your cell number and nobody else can see the conversation. Reply from Communication.
Leaving a shared mailbox on the standard setting. People who can only see their own email won't see service@'s conversations. Set a shared mailbox to Everyone who can view customer email.
Replying to email without your outgoing email set up. The reply box can't send, so people reply from their own email app and the team only sees it once their mailbox catches up. Set up the SMTP tab for everyone who answers customers.
Pressing Enter to send an email. In email, Enter is a new line. Use Ctrl+Enter or the Send email button.
Leaving Peek open "just in case." It's charged at double rate the whole time it's open. Peek when you need to know what's happening, then press Stop.
Giving Peek to everyone. It costs minutes and it's a manager's tool. Keep Peek at live calls to the few people who need it.