Connect a sales inbox
Route inbound sales email into the Sales Inbox with an SLA and an assignee, the same way a support channel feeds tickets.
A sales email channel does for inbound sales what a support channel does for tickets: mail forwarded to its inbound address becomes items in the Sales Inbox, each with an SLA, an assignee, and links to the contact and account. Replies go out from the channel.
Before you start: the same as for a support inbox: a role with Manage integrations, admin access to the mailbox you will forward, and ideally a verified sending domain.
Everything is under Settings → Sales → Email Channels.
Create the channel
Click Add Sales Email Channel:
- Channel Name, such as "Sales Inquiries".
- From Email, such as
sales@yourcompany.com. Until verified, replies go out from the inbound address. - Display Name, such as "Acme Sales Team".
- Default Assigned To: the person new items go to when the assignment mode is fixed.
- Email Signature, optional.
The form ends with a note worth reading: "SLA, automation, and AI settings are managed in their own tabs above." Unlike a support channel, none of that is in the form.
Click Create Channel, then forward your sales mailbox to the Inbound Address exactly as described for the support inbox, and verify the From address the same way.
Set the rules per channel
- SLA & Automation: Default SLA for a first reply, Follow-up Reminder, and Escalate Unassigned After. Sales SLAs typically run shorter than support: an inbound lead that waits four hours is a lead that emailed a competitor.
- AI Settings: whether the AI drafts or sends replies for this channel. For sales, draft mode is the sensible default; the rep should own the first reply.
- Defaults: priority is inherited from the channel and edited there. The Assignment Mode card decides who gets each new item: Fixed Person, Round Robin, Load Balanced, or Account-Based, which assigns to the account owner and falls back to round robin. Pick the agents in the pool.
- Templates and Quarantine work exactly as they do for support.
What a sales item carries
When mail arrives, ClientSphere matches the sender to an existing contact or lead and shows both on the item. The Account link is usually the one worth setting by hand, so the conversation shows up on the customer's record. Reps do that from the inbox; see Work the sales inbox.
When it goes wrong
The failure modes are the same as for a support inbox: nothing arriving means forwarding is not confirmed at the provider or mail is in Quarantine; replies from a long generated address mean the From address is not yet verified; and items landing in Unassigned mean the assignment mode is fixed with no default person.
Next
Working hours, SLAs and assignment, which sets the hours every SLA clock runs on.