Conversation is an interactive communication between two or more people. It is a thread of messages between customers and agents. It is important to track these messages to monitor and streamline the customer relationship journey of your business.

Converse Desk provides you an intuitive, easy-to-use interface. It features a familiar inbox style, making it simple for users to begin messaging with little or no training. The Converse Desk also features intelligence that guides users to effectively manage and respond to any volume of messaging conversations.

Converse Desk can now be accessed from within Zoho CRM using the Converse Desk Web Tab as well as from the SMS-Magic Web Portal.

You can send SMS and WhatsApp messages over Converse Desk. You can identify SMS and WhatsApp Conversations easily via the SMS and WhatsApp icons as seen in the screenshot below.

You can initiate a new conversation using an existing Zoho CRM customer record or type in a Number directly without adding the same in Zoho CRM.

To initiate a message with a customer, whose record is available in Zoho CRM, follow the below steps –

1. Select Zoho CRM Module to which the customer record belongs
2. Select the Phone field, the field which has the phone number/mobile number of the customer, in the selected Module
3. Type in your name in the Full Name field. (Customer suggestions are displayed while typing a name)
4. Select the Country Code (ISD Code) from the dropdown and type in the Number. For example, Select 1 for USA and type in 85********. (This is auto-populated if a Customer record is selected from existing Zoho CRM records)
5. Select Sender ID
6. Type in a Message or use pre-defined Templates to converse.  You can search from the available Conversation type templates for the selected Channel.
7. You can add Media files and Emoticons to your message
8. Click on the ’Send’ button

If you send a custom message or select a non-registered WhatsApp template, you can get an error in case the Customer Care Window of 24hours with that customer is closed.

My Inbox

All your conversations with at least one incoming message will appear in My Inbox.

For the Sender ID/s owned only by you, all the incoming messages will be shown in your Inbox.

In the case of Shared Sender ID, i.e., when a Sender ID is shared with one or more Standard Users, the incoming message will be added in the conversation from which the last message was sent using that Sender ID.

For messages coming from an unknown recipient for the first time, the messages will be synced to i.e. shown in the Admin user’s inbox. Other incoming messages will be shown in the inbox of the user who last sent an outgoing message or was assigned the conversation.

Sender ID Inbox

Along with the Inbox, where you see all your conversations in one place, we provide you with a Sender ID inboxes, filtered to show the conversations happening on a single Sender ID. You will see separate Sender ID inboxes for each Sender ID if you own/have access to more than one Sender ID.

Team Inbox

This feature enables the Admin user to view the Inbox of all the Standard users. This way, the Admin user is aware of all the customer conversations done by the agents (standard users).

All the Standard users who have a Portal license, their Inbox will be listed under Team Inbox. Admin Users can click on a Standard user’s Inbox to see the conversations done by that standard user.

A standard user cannot see the Team Inbox section in Converse Desk.

All the conversations initiated or replied to, by you, will appear in Sent Messages.

You can manage your conversations and take a few actions as per your need for one or more conversations.

Conversation Window

This is a chat interface to communicate easily with a customer. You can see the outgoing and the incoming messages in a selected conversation. Follow the below steps to open the conversation window for a conversation and start chatting.

• Click on the conversation in My Inbox/Sent Messages/Team Inbox you wish to view or send a message. You can identify the conversations with a particular customer by their name on the conversation and the module their record belongs to in Zoho CRM.
• You can view the outgoing and incoming messages in this conversation so far separated with Date and Time
• You can type in your message in the compose box, at the bottom of the Conversation Window and Send the message
• You can use Media files and Emoticons while composing the message
• You can use saved Message Templates of type Conversation. You can search from the available list of templates.
• You can see the status of the sent messages update on the window. The status can be interpreted as-
  • Single tick – Message Sent successfully
  • Double tick – Message Delivered
  • Blue Double tick (for WhatsApp) – Message Read by the recipient
  • Red Triangle Icon – Message not sent
  • Clock Icon – Message is queued. This can be because of the network traffic or when you try sending a message outside the set Business Hours.

Conversation over SMS Channel

For having a conversation with your customers via the SMS channel, you can send text or media messages over the SMS channel to your customer. 

Conversation over WhatsApp Channel

For conversing with your customers via WhatsApp channel, during an Active Customer Care Window, you can send text or media messages over WhatsApp to your customer. You can select WhatsApp registered or non-registered templates to send the messages.

In case, your Customer Care Window is closed, you will not be able to send a custom message. You can only send a WhatsApp registered template.

Search for Conversations

You can type in Name or Mobile Number to search a conversation in My Inbox and Sent Messages. Hit Enter or click on the Search Icon to begin the search.

Read/Unread Conversation/s

You can mark your conversations as Read/Unread in My Inbox and Sent Messages. Select one or more conversations to mark them as Read/Unread.

Admin Users can read the conversations in Team Inboxes without affecting the read status of the conversations for the Standard User’s Inbox.

Admin users can manually read/unread a conversation in the Team Inbox to change the status of the conversation in the Standard User’s Inbox. A confirmation dialog appears as shown below.

Assign Conversation/s

Admin Users can assign one or more conversations from My Inbox and from Inboxes of Standard users to any other standard user.

You can select the standard user you want to assign the conversation to from the dropdown in the Assign Conversation dialog box.

Once the conversation is assigned, it will be moved to the assigned user’s Inbox, thus transferring the ownership of the conversation to the assigned user.  The assigned conversation/s will be marked unread in the User’s Inbox so that the user can easily identify the new conversations in their Inbox. A notification of the assignment will also be visible to the standard user on the browser tab when Converse Desk is open.

Limitations:

• If a Zoho CRM record is newly created, it might not immediately show up in the Auto-Search while sending a message through New Message Window
• If a Zoho CRM record is updated, it will not get updated on Converse Desk
• If a Zoho CRM record is created/updated just a few minutes before you receive a message initiated by your customer, the Customer Record Lookup  in Zoho CRM will not be successful. This is because the latest update is not sent over by Zoho in API response immediately. These conversations will show the mobile number of the customer instead of their name.

Glossary:

• Customer Care Window –  A WhatsApp messaging session starts when a user sends your business a message and lasts for 24 hours in the most recently received messages window. This active window is the Customer Care Window. You can send regular text messages or media messages (i.e., any non-template messages) in this 24-hour active window.
• Registered WhatsApp Template – Registered WhatsApp Template messages are pre-approved message templates called MTMs for outbound notifications such as delivery alerts and appointment reminders. They cannot be used for marketing. You must use a WhatsApp Template Message if more than 24 hours have elapsed since the user last responded to you. Any other type of message will fail.