The customer inbox

BlastoClean has always sent the messages it writes itself: quotes, reminders, receipts, portal links. The messages your company actually needs to send went out of somebody's own phone and their own Gmail: "we're running an hour late", "the side gate was locked", "thank you, see you next month". The office never saw them, and the customer's history in BlastoClean had holes in it exactly where the conversation was.

The inbox closes that. It is part of the Starter, Pro and Business plans. On Starter it holds email; texts join it on Pro and Business, the plans that text.

Where it is

Messages in the web app, and Messages in the mobile app. Conversations are listed newest first, with three filters:

• All: every conversation.
• Unread: what nobody has opened yet.
• Unknown senders: threads not attached to a customer, which in practice means a text from a number nobody recognizes (Pro and Business).

On the web, choosing a conversation records it in the page address. A selected thread must be available in the loaded list; a link is not a guarantee that any older conversation is fetched directly. Native opens a known customer’s thread from their record and uses a reply sheet for unknown senders; it does not restore conversation selection from a web inbox link.

What a conversation holds

One thread per customer, holding both directions and, on Pro and Business, both channels: what BlastoClean sent automatically, what your team typed, and what the customer replied: newest at the top, so what was said last is the first thing you read. The same thread appears on the customer's own page, so you can answer from wherever you were already looking, and the box to write in sits above the history rather than below it.

Answering

The composer offers three destinations, and the difference between them is a question about who reads it:

• Email: the default, because it costs nothing and needs only an address.
• Text, on the Pro and Business plans. Every reason a text might be refused (no consent on that number, quiet hours, a landline) is shown before you send rather than after. See Text messages and consent.
• Internal note: kept on the thread, never sent to anybody outside your company.

Open a thread and the box is already set the way the conversation was going: the channel the customer last used, and their subject line carried over so an emailed answer files under the message it answers.

Where replies come back to

Every customer-facing email BlastoClean sends for you now carries a reply address that belongs to the conversation rather than to whoever pressed send. When your customer answers a quote, a reminder or a receipt, the answer lands in the thread where the rest of the office can see it, including when they answer from a different address than the one you wrote to.

The colleague who wrote last is still emailed the reply as well, so nothing that used to reach a person's own mailbox stops reaching it. If your company sends through its own mailbox, see Your own mailbox and calendar.

Threads that are not a customer yet

A text from an unknown number is a real person waiting on a real answer, and it has no customer record to hang off. Those threads sit in the inbox like any other, can be answered there, and are attached to a customer once you work out who wrote.

If you can edit customers, the Texts from numbers we do not recognize card on the Customers page lists them. Each row has Attach, to put the thread on a customer you pick, and Dismiss, for a thread that belongs to nobody, such as a wrong number. Dismiss asks first, with Dismiss this conversation? and “It will leave this list and not be attached to any customer. If that number texts or calls again, it comes back here.” The mobile app dismisses at once instead, with Undo on “Conversation dismissed. If that number texts or calls again, it comes back here.” The dismissal is sent only if you let that message close without pressing Undo.

A dismissed thread leaves Messages, the counts and the unread badge. It can no longer be answered or attached. A new text, call or voicemail from that number brings it back. If a newer message arrived after you opened the list, or someone else already handled the thread, the dismissal is refused with That could not be dismissed. It may have been handled, or a new message may have arrived. and the list reloads so you can look again.

Claiming a thread

Assign a conversation to yourself or to a colleague so two people do not each answer half of it. Assignment is a claim, not a restriction: anyone whose role and locations cover the customer can still read and reply.

Attachments

A customer can reply with photographs: the leak under the sink, the gate that was padlocked. Up to ten files of up to 8 MB each arrive in the thread with their message and download from the same page.

A suggested reply

Ask for a draft and one is written from the thread and from that customer's actual upcoming visits, so it can give the real date rather than a vague promise. It lands in the box for you to edit or delete; nothing is sent, and every consent and quiet-hours rule still applies to the send you make afterwards. A draft spends an AI credit. Review and edit the suggestion, then press Send yourself. If you start typing, change channel or close the box while a draft is loading, the draft never replaces your work or sends anything. See AI assists.

Before your first draft, you are asked to accept the AI notice. The request includes your company name, a few recent messages and a short summary of upcoming visits, and messages can contain personal details. If you would rather not, decline and write your reply yourself. Each person accepts the notice for themselves.

Suggested actions

In the web app on Pro and Business, the inbox can also turn a customer's message into a ready change for you to approve. Nothing happens until a person approves it, and nothing is sent to the customer:

• Suggested visit moves: "Can you come Thursday instead?" becomes a proposed new time for one visit.
• Suggested instructions for today: "Please skip the guest room" becomes a short note for today's crew.
• Suggested quote drafts: a quote request becomes an empty quote draft with notes on what the customer asked for.

When a suggestion is ready, the person who asked for it gets an email with a link to review it. See Emails to review inbox suggestions.

Calls and voicemail in the inbox

On Pro and Business, calls to your business number appear in the customer's thread, with the call status, the caller's number and how long it lasted. A missed call can leave a voicemail: it arrives unread with a player, a transcript and a suggested reply you can text back. Native versions with calls support can play recordings and read transcripts too. Calls from unknown numbers wait with the other unknown senders until your office matches them to a customer. See Calls and voicemail to set it up.

A call does not give permission to text that number.

It is filed like everything else

A message somebody types is an ordinary record in the same place as every reminder and receipt. It shows on the customer's timeline, in the email and text delivery log, and in your export. There is no second place anybody has to remember to look.

Conversations are not part of the global search yet. Global search covers customers, properties, quotes and visits. Reach a thread from the inbox or from the customer.

New replies also raise a notification for the people whose role covers the customer.

Read older conversations

Use the page controls in Messages to reach older conversations on web or mobile. Changing All, Unread or Unknown senders starts at the first page. On the web, paging keeps an unsent reply draft; choosing another account or location changes the access context. Browser Back exits Messages rather than stepping through every inbox page. If the list fails to load, use Retry rather than treating it as an empty inbox.