Conversations

Compose one message and send it as a real reply on every selected conversation at once. Each reply goes out on the conversation's own channel, is delivered individually, and is logged on the thread — so use it only for known-affected segments, never for outreach.

Build a filter combination once, save it under a name, and switch to it any time with one click. Saved filters are personal — each user has their own.

Save your favorite filter combinations as named filter sets. Switch between 'my queue', 'team escalations', or 'untagged stale conversations' with one click — no rebuilding the filter every time.

Apply tags to a single conversation or many at once. Tags categorize what a conversation is about (refund, bug, billing) and unlock filtering, routing, and analytics.

Combine two or more conversations into one when a customer wrote in multiple times about the same issue. Open the primary conversation, launch the Merge dialog, and pick the others to fold in — messages, tags, and history consolidate into the survivor.

Flag a conversation to mark it for review — quality assessment, training material, follow-up. Flags are an Owner / Admin tool and appear as a red indicator on the conversation row.

Loop in a teammate, vendor, or external partner without the customer seeing it. Open the side conversations panel, choose Email or Slack, send the first message — replies route back into Atender.

Build a filter combination once, save it as a named view, and switch to it any time with one click. Views are personal — each user has their own.

Leave notes on a conversation that only your team can see. @mention a colleague to pull them in, or use !! to insert a snippet. Comments never go to the customer.

Common reasons a conversation seems missing — wrong tab, archived, merged, filter applied, or scope not granted — and how to find it.

Save your favorite filter combinations as named views. Switch between 'my queue', 'team escalations', 'untagged stale conversations' with one click — no rebuilding the filter every time.

When you open a conversation, the right side of the screen gives you everything you need without leaving the thread — contact details, AI suggestions, prior history, internal comments, side conversations, and tool docks.

Side conversations are private threads that live alongside the main conversation. Use them to loop in a colleague, escalate to engineering, or coordinate with an external vendor — all without the customer seeing it, unless you choose to CC them.

Every keyboard shortcut for the conversation list and conversation view. Memorize the four or five you'll use most (D, Z, T, A, Cmd-Shift-Enter) and your conversations-per-hour climbs significantly.

Every element you see on a conversation row in the inbox — avatars, tags, badges, indicators — and what each tells you. Use this when an icon or badge appears that you don't recognize.

Park a conversation until a specific time so it disappears from your Active inbox and reappears when you need it. Snoozes return when the timer expires OR the customer replies — whichever happens first — so you never miss a customer who writes back early.

Open the reply editor, write or insert a snippet, and send. Most conversations resolve on the first reply — Send and Close (Cmd+Shift+Enter) is the bread-and-butter shortcut to reply and mark Done in one action.

Mark Done when you've done your part — most replies should ride the Send and Close shortcut. If a customer replies to a Done conversation, it reopens automatically. You can also reopen manually.

Set how long Done conversations wait before auto-archiving. Default is a few days; tune shorter for chat-heavy teams and longer for email-heavy ones.

Select multiple conversations from the list and apply Done, Snooze, Archive, Assign, Tag, or Mass Reply across all of them in one step.

Assign a conversation to an agent, a team, or both. Routing rules typically handle this automatically — manual assignment is for edge cases (escalations, handoffs, specialist consults). Press A to open the assignment picker.

Archived is the true terminal state — locked, no replies, customer must start a new conversation if they reach out. Most archives happen automatically via the resolution timer; manual archive is reserved for spam or one-shot conversations you're certain are finished.

Common questions about why a conversation has both a status (Active/Snoozed/Done/Archived) AND an engagement state (Pending/Engaged) — and how to use them together.

Walk-through for the common reasons a conversation seems stuck — can't reply, missing from your list, won't update — and how to unstick each one.

The conversation list is Atender's main inbox — every customer interaction across email, chat, voice, SMS, WhatsApp, Messenger, Instagram lands here. One unified view, one workflow, no per-channel context switching.

Engagement state is the orthogonal axis to lifecycle status. Pending = ball in our court (needs reply). Engaged = ball in customer's court (we replied, waiting). It's deterministic — Atender computes it automatically — and it's what answers 'what should I work on next?'

Every conversation lives in one of four statuses — Active, Snoozed, Done, Archived — and flows between them through specific transitions. Done isn't terminal (customer replies reopen). Archived is. Master the lifecycle, master the inbox.

Conversation resolution is the timer that takes a Done conversation to Archived. It gives customers a window to come back and reopen, then locks the conversation when that window expires. Configurable per tenant — typically 1-3 days.