Gmail, Outlook, iCloud, and Yahoo are just a few of the platforms that have dominated the email space for years now, and until recently, they’ve been able to meet the needs of individuals and businesses. But as years have passed, working dynamics have shifted, teams are distributed, and more emails are being sent than ever before, those tools just don’t cut it for most businesses anymore.
Enter team email management software.
With traditional email providers, teams are fumbling around the inbox trying to figure out which emails need a response. They’re struggling to prioritize and respond in a timely manner, and they’re even missing emails altogether.
With team email management software, everyone is able to work out of a centralized shared inbox. The result: more effective teams and happier customers.
What is team email management software?
Team email management software is a tool used to sort, prioritize, and respond to emails more efficiently. Unlike traditional email tools such as Gmail or Outlook, team email management solutions are built specifically with collaboration in mind. That includes features to stay organized, manage workloads, and avoid confusion and duplicate work, such as message routing, tagging, shared drafts, and more.
How to choose the right email management software
Finding the right email management tool for your team will completely transform how they work. And to do so, there are several important factors to take into consideration:
Size of your business: Are you a small, mid-size, or enterprise business? If you’re a small business, you may want to start with something simple, but something that you can grow with. If you’re an enterprise, you may need more seats which will affect the overall price.
Type of communication: In today’s digital landscape, almost all teams in all industries rely on email in some capacity. Whether you’re in customer service for a hospitality company or sales for a manufacturing company, you’re communicating via email daily. However, those communications may look very different, so assess your team’s specific communication needs to help you find a solution that aligns with them.
Collaboration capabilities: Some email management tools lack core collaboration features that are needed for teams to work together efficiently. Look for a tool that provides features like internal notes, tagging, and shared drafts so your team can communicate and work together seamlessly without leaving the platform.
Integration with your existing tools: Choose a platform that can easily integrate to the tools your team is using day-to-day. By bringing information from all their essential tools into one place, they won’t waste time toggling between tools but will instead have all the information they need at a glance.
Automation capabilities: Automation essentially acts as another teammate. By leveraging workflow automation, you can automatically execute repetitive tasks — think categorizing, routing or assigning emails — so your team doesn’t have to. When they don’t have to worry about those operational tasks, they can focus on helping more customers.
Reporting and analytics: One major benefit of team email management solutions that isn’t available with the traditional platforms is detailed reporting and analytics. However, some offer more advanced capabilities than others. You’ll want a tool that offers both team and individual performance reporting so that you can optimize both individual and team performance for peak efficiency.
Top six team email management software solutions in 2024
Let’s take a look into the top six email management software solutions ⬇️
1. Front
Used by over 9,000 businesses, Front’s omnichannel inbox helps teams manage high-volumes of emails without sacrificing quality.
Front is not only a leading email management tool for teams of all different sizes and industries, but it’s also a complete customer service platform. With the help of real-time collaboration, AI-powered assistance, and more than 110 integrations, Front users respond to emails on average within two hours or less, compared to businesses using other team email management software that respond to emails within 12-24 hours.
With Gmail and Outlook, it’s easy for messages to slip through the cracks. Front ensures that doesn’t happen by providing teams with the tools they need to easily coordinate and communicate internally — features like:
Customizable workflows: With workflow automation, teams can automate repetitive tasks, route and auto-assign emails, and create custom actions. With Front’s customizable, no-code workflows, teams can easily design and set rules without the need of technical support.
Shared drafts: Shared drafts make it easy for teammates to work together to draft the perfect response before sending. Instead of writing a draft on your own or needing to forward a copy of the draft for feedback, teammates can edit a draft together and consolidate feedback in a clean, collaborative way. Need a specific teammate’s input? @mention anyone within internal comments to bring in the right people at the right time.
Collision detection: With traditional email tools, you’re left guessing who is working on what reply, leading to missed emails, duplicate replies, and slow responses. With Front’s real-time collision detection, teammates can see who is working on what message, so no email goes without a response.
AI tagging [open beta]: Front’s AI tagging automatically categorizes and tags emails to make them easier to organize, search, and report on. When the inbox is properly organized, teammates can divide and conquer, assign work accordingly, and boost productivity without losing the human touch.
AI Summarize: AI Summarize enables teams to quickly gather context on long conversations with the click of a button. As teammates pass off emails, they don’t have to waste time getting caught up — they can read a few bullet points about the conversation instead so they stay up-to-date in a fraction of the time.
Detailed analytics: With Front’s detailed reporting and analytics, teams are able to track both team and individual performance, identify top-priority areas of improvement, and create plans to increase efficiency over time.
Front G2 rating: 4.7 / 5
Free trial available
Starter: $19/seat/mo
Growth: $59/seat/mo
Scale: $99/seat/mo
Premier: $229/seat/mo
Read more about how Front compares with other email providers.
Help Scout
Help Scout is a simple, easy-to-use email management tool used by small to midsize businesses. With a shared inbox, canned responses, collaboration tools, and new AI-powered features, Help Scout is a popular choice for those looking for a team inbox with collaborative features.
While its simplicity makes it easy to get started, users may find that Help Scout is too simple, lacking advanced capabilities like powerful automation and detailed analytics.
Key features:
Shared inbox
Collaboration tools
Workflow automation and AI
Integrations
Help Scout G2 rating: 4.4 / 5
Pricing:
Free trial available
Standard: $22/user/month
Plus: $44/user/month
Pro: (Annual only) $65/user/month
Zendesk
Zendesk is an email management tool best-suited for enterprise companies. Zendesk offers omnichannel support, including major social platforms like Facebook and Instagram, so customers can reach teams from various communication channels and teams can centralize customer communications.
Built more like a ticketing system than an inbox, Zendesk may lack some of the collaborative features teams are looking for and is best for simple customer queries where agents work independently and little collaboration between team members is needed.
Key features:
Omnichannel inbox
Integrations
AI and automation
Message routing and intelligence
Zendesk G2 rating: 4.3 / 5
Pricing:
Basic support team: $19/agent/month
Basic support professional: $55/agent/month
Basic support enterprise: $115/agent/month
Hiver
With its quick setup time and user-friendly interface, Hiver is a great email management tool for teams looking to centralize communication, simplify workflows, and enhance collaboration. However, Hiver is a little different from others on the list as it’s built to work on top of your inbox, like Gmail or Outlook.
While it does help streamline email communications with features like shared inboxes, email notes, and email task assignment, Hiver does lack omnichannel support for those looking for a tool to manage all customer emails.
Key features:
Email assignment
Internal discussions
AI and automation
Integrations
Hiver G2 rating: 4.6 / 5
Pricing:
Lite: $24/user/month
Pro: $59/user/month
Elite: $99/user/month
Sanebox
Sanebox is an email management software designed to save teams from having to spend time doing manual work so they can focus on responding to emails. Sanebox works with every major email service such as Gmail, Microsoft 365, iCloud, and Yahoo, making it a flexible option for teams.
With Sanebox teams can automatically sort, block, and delete incoming emails, but if you’re looking for a team inbox that offers advanced collaboration features like shared drafts, collision detection, or automatically summarizing long threads, Sanebox may not be for you.
Key features:
Email Deep Clean
Auto-sorting and deleting
Reminders
Do Not Disturb
Sanebox G2 rating: 4.9 / 5
Pricing:
Snack: $4.92 per month for one email account + two features
Lunch: $8.25 per month for two email accounts + six features
Dinner: $24.92 per month for four email accounts + all features
End inbox chaos and collaborate seamlessly with Front
Everyone (aka your team and your customers) is happier when your team can work together better. And with the right team email management solution in place, they can do just that.
Front combines essential email management features with impactful automation and AI to streamline inbox management without sacrificing high-quality service and personalization. With Front’s team email management tool, your team can work better, work faster, and create happier customers.
Written by Jordan Vanden Heuvel
Originally Published: 4 June 2024