the inbox
The shared team inbox
where AI does the first pass.
One shared inbox for support across all 7 channels: widget, in-app, email, SMS, WhatsApp, Messenger, and Instagram. The AI resolves what it can, your team handles the rest with routing rules, SLAs, canned responses, and an AI Copilot that drafts replies.
Seats from $19/mo: up to 3 on Starter, 10 on Pro, unlimited on Business. AI resolutions included with every seat.
ai copilot
Your team replies faster with a drafting partner
The Copilot reads the whole conversation and drafts a reply your agent can edit and send. One click improves, shortens, or warms up the tone. Canned responses live one slash away in the same composer.
- AI draft with confidence and rationale shown
- Improve, shorten, and friendlier rewrites
- Canned responses with the / shortcut
Hi Maya, I checked your export job and the failure was a timeout on our side. I have re-run it and the file is in your inbox. I also bumped your export limit so this will not recur.
AI draft · confidence high · edit before sending
two-way slack
Escalations land where your team already is
When the AI hands off, a thread opens in your Slack channel with the customer's context and recent messages. Reply in the thread and the customer sees it in the widget instantly. No tab switching, no copy-paste.
- Full context posted with every escalation
- Replies flow back to the customer in real time
- Approve or reject AI actions with buttons in Slack
#support-escalations
HelpYap Customer needs a refund past 30 days, opening a thread.
Maya On it, replying now.
Maya's reply appears in the customer's widget instantly.
slas + workflows
Deadlines that enforce themselves
Set first-response and resolution targets and the inbox tracks every conversation against them, warning before a breach. Workflow rules react automatically: tag it, change its status, surface it to the team.
- First response, resolution, and due-soon targets
- Up to 20 workflow rules per project
- Auto-close and smart auto-resolve keep the queue honest
SLA policy
Workflow: if SLA due soon → tag "urgent" + set needs_followup
How do conversations move through the inbox?
Every conversation carries one of five statuses that track it from AI handling through human handoff to resolved. The AI works each conversation first; when it escalates or a customer asks for a person, the conversation surfaces in the inbox as needing a human.
Filters let you slice the queue by status, channel, or assignee, so each agent sees exactly the conversations that need them and nothing else.
How does routing and assignment work?
Channel routing rules send conversations to the right team inbox automatically: billing email to the billing inbox, WhatsApp to the mobile team, and so on. Anything unmatched falls back to round-robin assignment so no conversation sits unowned.
You can also assign conversations manually at any time, and reassign with a click when someone is out.
- Team inboxes per function or channel
- Channel routing rules
- Round-robin fallback assignment
- Manual assignment and reassignment
How does the AI Copilot help agents reply faster?
The AI Copilot drafts a reply from the conversation and your knowledge base, then rewrites it on command: improve it, shorten it, or make it friendlier. Agents edit and send instead of writing from a blank box.
Canned responses cover the rest: type / in the composer to insert a saved reply. Plans include 10 canned responses on Starter, 50 on Pro, and 200 on Business.
Can my team collaborate inside a conversation?
Yes. Internal notes let teammates discuss a conversation without the customer seeing, tags keep the queue organized, and live typing indicators work in both directions so agents and customers see each other composing.
With the Slack integration on Pro and Business, escalations post to a Slack thread and replies in that thread go straight back to the customer.
How do SLAs and operating hours work?
SLA tracking covers first response time and resolution time, with due-soon warnings before a conversation breaches. Nothing slips because nobody was watching a timer.
Operating hours tell the widget and the AI when your team is actually available, so customers get honest expectations about human response times outside business hours.
What does the inbox automate for me?
Workflow rules, up to 20 per project, react to SLA breaches, due-soon warnings, and outside-hours arrivals by adding tags or changing status automatically. Auto-close cleans up stale conversations, and smart auto-resolve marks a conversation resolved when the AI sent the last message and the customer has been idle for 2 hours.
Follow-up emails go out automatically when a customer leaves mid-conversation, so escalations do not die just because someone closed the tab.
- Workflow rules, up to 20 per project
- Auto-close for stale conversations
- Smart auto-resolve: AI last message plus 2 hours idle
- Automatic follow-up emails
Can I work the inbox from the keyboard?
Yes. Cmd+K opens the command palette, j and k move through the conversation list, and / inserts canned responses in the composer. High-volume days do not require a mouse.
faq
Common questions
What is a shared inbox for customer support?
A shared inbox collects customer conversations from every channel into one queue a whole team works from, with assignment, statuses, and collaboration tools instead of a personal email account.
Which channels feed into the HelpYap inbox?
Seven channels: the chat widget, in-app messenger, email, SMS via Twilio, WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, and Instagram DMs. You reply to any of them from the same dashboard. Extra channels beyond widget, in-app, and email are available on Business.
Does HelpYap charge per seat?
Yes — a seat is a teammate in your inbox, from $19 per seat per month. What we never charge for is the AI: every seat includes its own pool of AI resolutions, so there is no $0.99-per-answer fee like per-resolution helpdesks.
What is smart auto-resolve?
When the AI sent the last message in a conversation and the customer has been idle for 2 hours, the conversation is automatically marked resolved, keeping the queue clean without a human clicking close.
Can agents reply from Slack instead of the dashboard?
Yes. On Pro and Business, escalations post to a Slack channel and any reply in the thread is delivered to the customer, two-way, in real time.
Try it on your own docs
Every plan starts with a 7-day free trial. No credit card required.