The inbox
The inbox is every conversation with families, prospects and suppliers in one place, whether it arrived by email, by phone or through the website. It is also where you approve anything the agent has written.
If you only learn one screen in Lethra after the case record, learn this one.
How it is laid out
Section titled “How it is laid out”Conversations are in a list on the left, the full thread on the right.
The list is split into two sections, and the order is deliberate.
- Needs your approval sits at the top. These are drafts the agent has prepared and which are waiting on you. Nothing here has been sent.
- All conversations is everything else, most recent first.
If Needs your approval is empty, there is nothing waiting on you.
The badges
Section titled “The badges”| Badge | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Draft | The agent has written something. It has not gone anywhere. |
| Awaiting you | This thread is waiting on a decision from your side. |
| Sent | This message has gone out. |
Approving a draft
Section titled “Approving a draft”Open a conversation from Needs your approval and you get the whole thread, with the draft at the bottom. You have three choices.
Approve and send. The draft is right. It goes immediately.
Edit, then approve. Change the wording in place first. This is the normal case, and it is worth doing rather than discarding: correcting a draft takes seconds, and the agent learns your phrasing over time.
Discard. Wrong message, or a situation the agent has misread. It goes away and nothing is sent.
Take the extra few seconds on anything sensitive. The agent writes well, but it does not know that this particular family fell out last year.
Attachments
Section titled “Attachments”Drafts can carry attachments, and you can add or remove them before approving. Check what is attached on anything going to a family, especially where a document has been regenerated since the draft was first written.
Finding things
Section titled “Finding things”The search box at the top does two jobs. You can search for a conversation the ordinary way, and you can also ask about your conversations in plain language rather than guessing at keywords.
Below it are filters, in three groups.
Status
- All
- Pending approval, the same set as the section at the top of the list
- Needs reply, where the other side is waiting on you
Subject
- Leads, people who are not yet clients
- Cases, conversations attached to a case
- Vendors, suppliers
- Unattached, anything not yet linked to a case or a lead
Medium
- Calls
- Chat, from the website
Filters combine, so Cases plus Needs reply is every family waiting on an answer from you. That combination is a good morning habit.
Unattached is the one worth checking regularly. A conversation ends up there when Lethra could not work out which case it belongs to, usually because a family member wrote from an address that is not on the record. Attaching it puts the history back where it belongs.
Which mailbox a message sends from
Section titled “Which mailbox a message sends from”Every draft shows whether it will send from your Gmail or the agent mailbox before you approve it, and you can switch it for that message.
When you switch, Lethra offers to save it as a rule, so the agent makes the same choice for that kind of email in future. This is the main way the inbox gets quieter over time: correct it once, and it stops being a decision.
Replies come back to the mailbox the message went from, and Lethra reads the case-related ones so the case stays in sync either way.
A sensible routine
Section titled “A sensible routine”- Clear Needs your approval first. Those are families waiting on you.
- Filter to Cases and Needs reply and deal with anything the agent has not drafted for.
- Check Unattached and put stray conversations on their case.
Give the family their own view of the case: Sharing with the family.