Guide to Klaviyo Inbox

You will learn

Find out about Inbox in Klaviyo, which allows you to answer customer questions and provide support. Inbox includes both SMS and web chat tickets. 

With Inbox, also called two-way messaging, it’s easy to provide support to customers, building trust and loyalty along the way. 

Use cases for Inbox

The main purpose of Inbox is to offer support to customers. This is good for businesses:

• With a dedicated support team. 
• Looking to offer support, either for the first time or during peak seasons. 
• Wanting to support via either SMS or web chat. 

Key terms

• Inbox
  Where your chats with customers are displayed. The inbox shows all messages sent between you and the customer via either text or web chat. 
• Ticket
  Also called a chat, conversation, or support message, a ticket is a 1-on-1 communication between your brand and a customer. 
• Message thread
  List of messages exchanged between you and a customer. The message thread in Klaviyo displays messages from flows, campaigns, SMS keywords and their responses, as well as support messages. 
• Inbound message
  Any message sent to your brand. For instance, if one of your SMS subscribers texts “HELP,” that is an inbound message. 
• Outbound message
  Any message that your brand sends, including flows, campaigns, keyword responses, etc.

How Klaviyo Inbox works

A new ticket appears in the Inbox tab when someone either:

• Sends a message via web chat. 
• Texts your phone number and does not include a keyword. 

You can reply back to anyone via web chat; however, for SMS, that person must be an SMS marketing or transactional subscriber. 

You cannot: 

• Open a ticket with a customer: they must message you first.
• SMS-only restrictions:
  • Text anyone who isn’t currently consented to SMS (either marketing or transactional). 
  • Use Inbox with a branded sender ID (also called alphanumeric sender ID), as this type of number cannot receive inbound text messages. 

Number of tickets per profile

In addition, messages come from different channels (1 SMS and 1 web chat), these will appear as separate tickets. 

With SMS, messages always appear in a single message thread, even if the ticket is closed and then reopened at a later date. 

Each web chat session creates a distinct ticket. Once closed, a web chat ticket cannot be reopened. When someone writes in again, a new ticket is created. This means that the same customer may have multiple tickets.

Navigating through the Inbox tab

To view your messages in the Inbox: 

1. Select Inbox in the left-hand sidebar. 
2. Review the inbox for any inbound chats.
   • A blue dot indicates a new message.
     

See messages and profile information

Once you click into a chat, you can:

• View the last 50 messages between you and the profile, including any flow, campaign, and auto-responder messages that you sent
• See information about the profile, including: 
  • Whether they’re a subscriber. 
  • Location, if available. 
  • Recent activity. 
  • Recent orders (Shopify only).
    

Inbound images and videos (i.e., media the subscriber sent to you) do not appear in the message thread; however, you can see any images you send to the customer. 

View recent activity

Within a chat, clicking the Activity button on the right shows a list of recent events. You can filter this activity based on the metric you want to see.

This can help you see what the subscriber has done recently. For instance, did they recently subscribe? Did they receive a flow or campaign message, or did it fail or bounce? This can help inform your conversation. 

If you need more information than what’s shown, you can also go to that subscriber’s profile. There, you can get more details about a specific event

Check recent orders (Shopify only)

If Shopify is your ecommerce platform, you can also see someone’s recent purchases. 

After you click Orders, you can view details about that customer’s purchases, including what products they ordered, how much it cost, and more. 

Chat statuses  

A chat can have 1 of 3 statuses:

• Open
  Indicates that a chat is ongoing, such as when you haven’t responded or are waiting for the customer to reply. 
• Snoozed
  Used to temporarily hide a chat and remind you of it later today, tomorrow, or in 1 week. 
• Closed (also called archived)
  Indicates that a chat is complete and you no longer want to see it in your inbox. Closed  SMS chats can be reopened, either from within Klaviyo or by the profile sending another message. Closed web chats cannot be re-opened.

In addition, a chat shows as either read or unread. The unread indicator appears as a blue dot next to that conversation. 

Learn how to change the status of a chat. 

Blocking a profile

If you no longer want to receive messages from a profile, you can block them. 

Once you block a profile: 

• Klaviyo closes the chat from this profile.
• You will no longer be notified about new messages from this profile. 

Key settings for Inbox

There are a few key settings for Inbox, but their availability depends on the channel. 

To access these settings: 

1. Navigate to the Inbox tab. 
2. Click the gear icon.
   
3. These settings are spread across 3 tabs:
   • General
   • Inbound messages
   • Quick responses
      

General

Support email address (web chat only)

Providing a support email address allows Klaviyo to send follow-up emails to customers who go offline during a web chat. You can choose the sending and reply-to addresses for these emails. 

Recommended: use an email address that includes your domain name (e.g., support@yourbusiness.com). This helps prevent your messages from being marked as spam by inbox providers.

Click to expand the sections below for more context on the support email address setting.

Automatically shorten links (SMS only)

This setting, which is on by default, automatically shortens any link in your outbound messages. Shortening links is beneficial because it: 

• Uses fewer characters in any outbound SMS messages. 
• Allows revenue to be attributed within Klaviyo. 

Recommendation: keep this setting turned on.

Learn about the different types of shortened link that are available. 

Unread conversation notification (SMS and web chat)

This setting, when enabled, displays a red badge on the Inbox tab in Klaviyo's main navigation menu to indicate the number of unread web chat and SMS tickets. The count reflects the number of profiles with unread messages, not the total number of unread messages.

Recommendation: leave this setting turned on so you can monitor the number of messages coming in.

Inbound messages

Auto-responder (SMS only)

Your auto-responder is an automatic reply when someone texts your number and doesn’t use a recognized subscribe or compliance keyword (such as STOP, JOIN, or HELP). 

Recommendations: 

• For those who want to use Inbox for support:
  • Change the auto-responder to send only to non-consented profiles. 
  • Update the message to be something like: “{{Organization prefix}}: We are unable to respond as you have not consented to receive SMS. For help, reach us at {{email}}.” 
• For those who don’t want to use Inbox for support: 
  • No change is needed, as the default is to send this message to all profiles: "{{Organization prefix}}: This inbox is not being monitored. For help reach us at {{Default sender email address}}. Msg & data rates may apply & frequency may vary. Reply STOP to opt out."

Alternatively, you do have the option to turn the auto-responder off. This is not recommended as it means that non-consented profiles will not receive a reply (in SMS tickets, you can only send SMS to subscribers).

Email notifications about new messages (SMS and web chat)

If you want to be notified when someone sends you a new message via SMS or web chat, you can turn on email notifications. You must set at least 1 recipient; however, you can add any number of email addresses.

• Recommendation: turn on this setting if you plan to use Inbox to provide customer support; otherwise, leave this setting off (default). 

Quick responses (SMS only)

Quick responses allow you to create and store responses you can use in your SMS tickets. On the Quick responses tab, you can search through your existing quick responses or add a new one. 

Office hours and welcome message (web chat only)

Note that these settings are configured within your web chat settings in Klaviyo, not Inbox settings.

In Customer Hub, you can set both your: 

• Welcome message (i.e., what sends once someone initiates a web chat)
• Office hours, which allow you to set different responses depending on the time of day or day of the week. 

Learn more about web chat. 

Filters for Inbox

You can filter your tickets by: 

• Status (open, closed, or snoozed)
• Unread vs. read 
• Responses attributed to certain campaigns or flows (SMS only)

Replying to subscribers

1. Click into the ticket that you want to respond to.
2. Click into the text box below the message history and create your response. 
   • If it’s an SMS message, please note that you can only reply to SMS subscribers. Otherwise, the response field is grayed out. 

In your message, you can include images, GIFs, emojis, and coupons just like you can in any other SMS. You can also send multiple messages in a row

Best practices for two-way messaging

2 important things to remember when using two-way messaging are:

• Respond quickly
• Check recipient’s local time (if not responding immediately)

Respond to messages quickly

People expect a quick response when they text, much faster than when they send you an email or fill out a customer support form. Thus, ensure that you have the resources to reply quickly and meet demand.

When it comes to SMS support, quicker response times are key. Aim to text back within the hour, and make sure that you are responding to all incoming messages. 

Check recipient’s local time (if not responding immediately)

If someone texts you outside of your regular support hours, make sure you check their timezone before texting back. 

If a profile’s location is available, you can see this by clicking the name or number within the ticket. Then, look up the timezone for that location. 

Avoid sending during the following hours in the recipient’s local time:

• Before 8 a.m.  
• After 8 p.m.  

Additional resources

• How to change the status of a ticket
• Writing SMS and MMS copy
• Understanding how Klaviyo billing works