Communications: client email replies

How a reply arrives

Each member has their own reply address, like name.agency@notifications.salescontrol.app; the agency has one for emails without a closer. It is the reply address (Reply-To) of the emails SalesControl sends to clients, so the client just presses Reply. You read (and copy) yours in Settings, under Your address for client replies: it is created with the first email you send to a client.

• The reply is saved in the client’s conversation and forwarded to your inbox, attachments included, from “Client name via SalesControl”.
• The Communications menu item shows a badge with the number of conversations to read. The badge is personal: when a colleague opens the conversation, yours stays on until you open it.
• A push notification arrives too, “New email from …” with the message subject: it is the Email received type in Notifications, on by default for the conversation’s closer.
• In the lead record and in the client record (History tab) the Email card lists the conversations with that contact, with the message count and the unread dot: one tap opens the conversation.
• Automatic replies (out of office, “I got your email”) are saved but not forwarded, so two auto-responders never write to each other forever.
• A received email never changes the lead’s status: decisions stay yours.

The Communications page

On the left, the list of conversations, newest first: contact name, subject, the start of the last message, the date and a dot when there is something new. Admins and sales managers also see each conversation’s closer. At the top you find the search (by name, address or subject) and the Unread filter.

On the right, the conversation in time order:

• our emails on the right, on a soft orange background: those sent by SalesControl (“Contract sent”, “Appointment confirmed”…), with Show text to re-read them — you always know what the client is replying to — and the closer’s replies;
• the client’s messages on the left, in a bordered box; for all of them sender, date, time and attachment names (the files are in your inbox);
• the quoted text of replies (“On … wrote”) folded away: open it with Show quoted text.

If a contract was sent to the contact, the Contract box (on the right above Tracking on a computer, above the messages on a phone) shows the template name and the countdown — days, hours, minutes, seconds — to the offer’s expiry, highlighted in the last 24 hours; once the offer has expired it reads “Offer expired on …”, once signed “Signed on …”. A cancelled contract is not shown.

Only the text of an email is shown, never its layout: an email cannot run anything inside SalesControl. Links stay clickable.

On a phone, list and conversation are two screens: tap a conversation to open it and Conversations to go back to the list.

Red labels

Replying from your inbox

You reply from your own inbox, not from the app. Two equivalent ways:

• press Reply on the forwarded email you received;
• or, in Communications, press Reply from your inbox: your email program opens already addressed to the conversation.

Either way the reply goes through SalesControl: the client receives it from “Your name — Agency” and it stays in the conversation as a sent message. Two rules:

• only the conversation’s closer can reply this way, from the mailbox they sign in to SalesControl with (for agency conversations, the admin). Everyone else sees the line “… replies from their own inbox”;
• if you email the client from your inbox outside the thread (a new email to their personal address), that part does not go through SalesControl and does not show up here.

«To match»

When someone SalesControl does not recognize writes in — a stranger, or a client from an address other than the one on file — the message is still forwarded to the closer (nothing is lost) and appears at the top of the list in the To match group:

• Link opens a search across the agency’s leads and clients, by name or email. Once you pick the contact, the conversation moves to the normal list with their name, and from then on emails from that address go to their conversation;
• Ignore removes it from the list.

Messages that clearly fail the sender check (spam) are neither saved nor forwarded.

Open tracking

Every email that goes to the client — SalesControl’s own and the closer’s replies — carries an invisible image that tells us when it is opened. In the list, next to conversations where the last message is ours:

• grey crossed-out eye with “—”: the last email has not been opened yet;
• blue eye with the time since the last open: “12m” (minutes), “16h” (hours), “14d” (days), then months. Hover the eye to read the exact date and time.

When the last message is from the client there is no eye: the unread dot is what counts.

Inside the conversation, the Tracking panel (on the right on a computer, below the messages on a phone) shows “Seen 16h ago” or “Not opened yet”, how many times the last message was opened, the total opens and the list of opens, newest first, with device (computer or phone), city and date. It updates by itself.

The IP address of whoever opens is never saved; the city is the network’s estimate. Tracking is on by default and the admin can turn it off in Settings › Notifications: from then on emails go out without the image, and the eye and the panel disappear. Tracking opens processes the recipient’s data: the agency declares it in its own privacy notice.

Contract openings are a different thing: they are counted on the signing link, not on the email, they are recorded even with tracking off and they also carry the reading time. You find them in the opening history.

The AI note, on request

At the top of the conversation there is the Update notes from this conversation button. The AI reads the new messages and writes one note in the contact’s record, with the same structure as call notes, as a draft to review: you confirm or correct it from the record with Review, like call drafts. The AI never changes the lead’s status by itself.

• The note is a summary you publish in the record: everyone on the team who can see the record sees it.
• In the record the draft carries the AI draft — from email label and the Review button; once reviewed it keeps the From email label.
• Only messages with a verified sender that were not held go in.
• A second click with no new messages creates no duplicates: you see “No new messages to summarize”.
• Without the agency’s AI keys you see “The agency’s AI keys are missing”; admins get a Configure link.
• A “To match” conversation must first be linked to a lead or a client.

Who sees what

A conversation’s closer is fixed when it starts: if the lead later moves to another closer, conversations already open stay with whoever had them. Conversations follow the lead: if the lead is deleted (and did not become a client), they go too.