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CS Inbox

Overview

The CS Inbox is the full view of every support email you forward to Kiva Logic, in one place. Where the Customer Service Email feature files matched messages onto each customer's record, the CS Inbox shows everything, including mail that could not be matched to a customer yet (called orphans). Read a message, see who it is from, and attach an orphan to the right customer with a click.

It reads like a normal mail app: a list of conversations, and clicking one opens it full-screen with the customer's details in a People panel on the side.

Find it under Customers → CS Inbox. It is available once Customer Service Email is turned on (see that page to set up forwarding).

Primary Features

  • Whole inbox, not just matches: every forwarded message is here, including orphans that are not tied to a customer.
  • Views and search: the left rail has Inbox (open conversations), Waiting, Closed, Mine (assigned to you), Unmatched, and All, each with a live count. Search narrows the list by sender or subject. Clicking the CS Inbox title resets the view to All.
  • Waiting since: each list row shows how long the conversation has been sitting, in words: just now, 45 minutes, 6 hours, 4 days, 1 week ago, and a plain date such as Aug 12 once a thread is older than about a month. Hover the time to see the exact date and time of the newest message, labelled Waiting since.
  • Conversation status: every conversation is Open, Waiting, or Closed. Set it with the segmented control at the top of an open conversation, and the status shows as a coloured pill on each list row.
  • Assignment: pick an admin from the assignee dropdown at the top of a conversation, or leave it Unassigned. Assigned conversations show the assignee's name on the list row, and Mine shows only yours.
  • Bulk actions: hover a row's avatar to reveal a checkbox. Once one or more rows are ticked, a bulk bar covers the list head with Open, Waiting, Close, and Assign to..., so you can process several conversations at once.
  • Reading view: click a conversation to open it full-screen with a back button and previous/next arrows to move through the list. All but the newest message start collapsed to a one-line summary; click a message header to expand or collapse it.
  • People panel: matched conversations show the customer's name, customer number and status, email, phone, order count, last delivery date, and balance, with a link straight to their record.
  • Assign orphans: for an unmatched message, use Auto-match sender to re-check your customer list, or search by name or email and pick the right customer. The whole conversation attaches at once.
  • Reply from the inbox: open a conversation and click Reply (or Forward). The message thread is replaced by a full compose view: a rich-text editor with the original quoted below your typing, and Status and Assign to selectors in the footer. Your reply sends right away from your store address and is saved into the same conversation, so the whole back-and-forth stays together. The composer opens with your first name as the sign-off, and the message goes out "from" your first name (the sending address stays your store address). If the conversation is unassigned when you send, it is assigned to you.
  • Drafts that come back: what you type in the composer is saved as you go. Leave a conversation mid-reply and reopen it, and your saved draft opens straight away (or click Resume draft next to Reply). Drafts are kept per conversation and per admin, and the saved copy is cleared once the reply is sent.
  • New conversation: the New conversation button above the list starts a fresh outbound email to any address, whether or not it belongs to a customer on file. Fill in To, Subject, and the message, choose Status and Assign to in the footer, and click Send. Leave Assign to unset and the new conversation is assigned to you.
  • Suggest reply: Suggest reply in the People panel asks the AI assistant to read the conversation. If the customer is asking you to change something on their account, it proposes that action first (see Proposed actions below); otherwise it drafts a reply. Either way the result is grounded in what is actually possible for that customer right now, so it only offers things that can really be done, and the only web links it will ever share are the real self-service pages on your site (it is not allowed to invent a URL).
  • Proposed actions: when the customer is asking for something that can be done on their account, an amber Proposed action found! card appears at the top of the composer instead of a draft, and the reply editor and Send stay out of the way until you deal with it. The card names each suggested action and shows its settings as editable boxes, so you can adjust a date before approving. One email can need more than one action (skip this delivery and shift the schedule); they are numbered and run in order. Below the card the customer's email is shown in full for reference. Three buttons: Approve & draft reply runs the action(s) and then writes the reply from the real result, Just draft reply skips the action and writes a plain reply, and No, just let me reply dismisses the card and gives you the editor. Actions include skipping or restoring a delivery, shifting an every-other-week schedule so the next box comes a week sooner, and pausing or resuming a subscription. If an action is no longer possible by the time you approve it (the account changed, or there is nothing left to shift), the card says so and the reply is written honestly around the real outcome rather than promising something that did not happen.
  • One-click suggested action: when the AI's draft comes with a proposed make-good (for example "apply a $12.00 account credit" for a missing item), a green bar appears just above Send with the amount, the reason, and an Approve & apply button. It asks you to confirm, then applies the credit and shows the customer's new balance.
  • What the draft expects you to do: every AI draft is tagged just above Send so you can tell at a glance whether anything still needs doing. A green bar means a one-click action is ready to apply. An amber bar reading This reply promises an action means the reply talks about changing something on the account, but there is no one-click for it yet, so apply the change on the customer's page before you send (a self-service link is included where the AI shared one). A quiet grey bar reading No account action needed means the reply is purely an answer and there is nothing to apply.
  • Tools: the bottom of the People panel has a Tools expander. Click it to open the Quick account credit box: enter an amount and an optional note (the customer sees it) and click Apply credit. There is a cap on the amount that can be applied from here; larger credits go through the customer's record.
  • Previous conversations: the People panel lists the customer's other conversations, newest first, with a count. Click one to jump straight to it, or See all to open the full list.
  • Feedback to Kiva: the Feedback to Kiva button at the top of the page opens a box for a note about the inbox itself. On an AI draft, the thumbs-up, thumbs-down, and flag icons in the bar above the composer rate that draft: thumbs-up just logs it, while thumbs-down and flag ask for a comment and send the draft and its context along with it.
  • What's built, what's coming: the version badge next to the CS Inbox title opens a short list of what works today and what is planned next. The current build is marked v0.6 beta and carries an in-progress warning: poking around, generating drafts, and trying the actions is fine, but do not send a real customer reply from here yet.

Common Use Cases

Read your support mail

  1. Go to Customers → CS Inbox.
  2. Click any row to open the conversation.
  3. Use the up/down arrows at the top right to move to the previous or next conversation, or Inbox to go back to the list.

Find mail that was not matched to a customer

  1. Click the Unmatched filter.
  2. Open a message. The People panel shows it is not matched yet, along with the sender address.

Attach an orphan to a customer

  1. Open the unmatched message.
  2. In the People panel, click Auto-match sender to re-check whether the address is now on file.
  3. If there is still no match, type a name or email in the search box and click the correct customer. The conversation is filed onto their record and shows on their timeline.

Jump to the customer's record

Open a matched conversation and click View customer in the People panel.

Answer a support email

  1. Open the conversation and click Reply.
  2. The compose view opens with the original message quoted below your cursor. Type your answer above it.
  3. Set Status (it defaults to Closed) and, if you like, Assign to in the footer.
  4. Click Send. The reply goes out immediately to whoever sent the message, and is added to the conversation so you can see it alongside their email.

Sort several conversations at once

  1. Hover a row's avatar and tick the checkbox. Tick as many conversations as you need.
  2. A bulk bar appears over the list head. Click Open, Waiting, or Close to set the status of all of them, or pick a name from Assign to... to hand them to an admin (or Unassign).
  3. A short confirmation appears at the corner of the screen when the change lands.

Start a new conversation

  1. Click New conversation above the list.
  2. Fill in To, Subject, and your message.
  3. Choose Status (defaults to Waiting) and Assign to, then click Send. The conversation is created and appears in the list.

Let the AI draft a reply

  1. Open the conversation and click Suggest reply in the People panel.
  2. The draft opens in the compose view above the quoted original, with the detected intent shown in the bar at the top. Read it, change whatever you like, then click Send.
  3. If the AI proposes a make-good, the green bar above Send offers it as a one-click action (see Apply a credit the AI suggests).
  4. If the draft is wrong or off, use the thumbs-down or flag icons in the bar to tell Kiva Logic what was wrong.
  5. If the customer was asking for a change instead of an answer, you get the amber proposed-action card rather than a draft; see Approve an action the AI proposes.

Approve an action the AI proposes

  1. Open the conversation and click Suggest reply in the People panel.
  2. If the customer is asking for something that can be done on their account, the amber card lists the action (or actions) with their settings in editable boxes. Adjust any value you want changed.
  3. Click Approve & draft reply. The action runs, the card reports what actually happened, and the editor opens with a reply written from the real result. Read it and click Send.
  4. If you would rather handle it yourself, click No, just let me reply; or click Just draft reply to have the AI write the reply without running anything.

Pick up an unfinished reply

  1. Open the conversation. If you left a draft here, a Resume draft button sits next to Reply.
  2. Click Resume draft. The composer opens with your saved text, plus the AI's intent and suggested action if the draft came from Suggest reply.
  3. Finish the reply and click Send. The saved draft is cleared once it goes out.

Apply a credit the AI suggests

  1. Open a conversation from a matched customer and click Suggest reply.
  2. If the AI proposes a credit, the green bar above Send names the amount and the reason.
  3. Click Approve & apply and confirm. The credit lands on the customer's account and the new balance is shown.

Credit a customer's account

  1. Open a conversation from a matched customer.
  2. At the bottom of the People panel, click Tools to open the Quick account credit box.
  3. Enter the amount and a note (the customer sees the note), then click Apply credit. The balance in the People panel updates straight away.

Troubleshooting

  • A message is in the Unmatched list. The sender's address is not on file for any customer. Add the address to a customer (as a secondary email) and use Auto-match sender, or search and pick the customer directly.
  • The inbox says the feature is off. The CS Inbox needs Customer Service Email turned on. Open that settings page, turn it on, and set up forwarding.
  • A conversation is empty or missing messages. Only mail forwarded to your Kiva address after the feature was turned on appears here. Confirm your forwarding rule points at the exact address on the settings page.
  • The Reply button does nothing. It only appears once a conversation is open; click a message in the list first. Reply swaps the message thread for the compose view, with Send in the footer.
  • A reply went out before you were finished. Send sends immediately, there is no delayed-send or undo. The message is sent from your store's address and copied into the conversation.
  • A conversation disappeared from Inbox after I replied. The compose footer's Status defaults to Closed, so sending usually files the conversation under Closed. Set it to Waiting or Open before sending to keep it in view.
  • The bulk bar will not do anything. It only appears once at least one row is ticked. Hover the avatar on the left of a row and click the checkbox.
  • A credit is refused because the amount is too large. The one-click box and the AI's suggested credit are both capped to catch typos. Apply the larger credit from the customer's record instead.
  • I cannot find the Quick account credit box. It sits inside the Tools expander at the bottom of the People panel; click Tools to open it.
  • I closed a half-written reply and thought it was lost. It is not. Reopen the conversation and click Resume draft next to Reply.
  • Resume draft is not there. There is no saved draft for this conversation by you. Drafts are per admin, so a colleague's unsent draft will not appear for you.
  • How long are replies kept? Replies sent from the CS Inbox are archived long-term and are not removed by the normal email cleanup, so the conversation history stays complete.

Recent Updates

  • 2026-09-18 (latest): Suggest reply now proposes the account action first when the customer is asking for something to be done, and only writes the reply after you approve and run it, so the reply is written from what really happened rather than a guess. The composer shows the amber proposed-action card on its own (no editor or Send until you approve, skip, or dismiss it), one email can carry several numbered actions with editable settings that run in order, and the customer's email is shown in full below the card for reference. Added shift an every-other-week schedule a week sooner as an action (it only shifts when that actually moves the next delivery earlier, and weekly or fixed-biweekly routes are left alone). A saved draft now opens automatically when you open a conversation, and replying to or starting an unassigned conversation assigns it to you. Replies also state the delivery day rather than a vague "week of", and an action that has become impossible says so plainly instead of the reply promising it.
  • 2026-09-16: AI drafts are now honest about what they can do. The assistant is handed the account actions that are genuinely possible for that customer and a fixed list of your real self-service pages, so its draft only promises what can actually be done and only shares links that exist. Every draft is tagged just above Send: green for a one-click action that is ready, amber for This reply promises an action (apply it on the customer's page before sending), and grey for No account action needed. List rows now show a Waiting since age in plain words (6 hours, 4 days, 1 week ago, then a date), with the exact date and time on hover. The version badge reads v0.6 beta and its panel opens with a warning not to send real customer replies from the inbox yet.
  • 2026-09-16 (later): Draft autosave and recall: your in-progress reply is saved as you type, and a Resume draft button beside Reply brings back the full text along with the AI's intent and suggested action. AI drafts open with a status bar at the top showing the detected intent and thumbs-up / thumbs-down / flag rating icons, and when the AI proposes a make-good it appears as a green Approve & apply bar just above Send. Quick account credit moved into a new Tools expander at the bottom of the People panel, which also lists the customer's Previous conversations (with a See all modal). Replying now signs off with your first name and the message goes out "from" your first name. Feedback to Kiva opens a proper feedback box rather than a prompt, and the version badge next to the title shows what is built and what is planned. Replies sent from the CS Inbox are archived long-term instead of ageing out with the email cleanup.
  • 2026-09-16: Big inbox upgrade. The filter rail is now Inbox, Waiting, Closed, Mine, Unmatched, and All, and conversations carry an Open/Waiting/Closed status you set from the top of the reading view (the old All / Unmatched / Matched filters are gone). You can assign a conversation to an admin and filter to just your own. List rows show a status pill and the assignee. Hover a row's avatar to tick it and use the new bulk bar (Open, Waiting, Close, Assign to...). Added a New conversation composer for starting outbound mail to any address, Suggest reply for an AI draft you review before sending, a Quick account credit box, and a Feedback to Kiva button. The reply composer is now a full view with a rich-text editor above a Status / Assign to footer, and older messages in a thread collapse to one line (click a header to expand).
  • 2026-09-14: Replying now sends for real. Previously the Reply button was a preview; it now emails the sender straight away from your store address and files the reply into the same conversation so the thread stays in one place. Also corrected this page: the filters are All / Unmatched / Matched only (there is no direction filter).
  • 2026-09-12: New page. The CS Inbox lists every forwarded support email (including unmatched orphans), with filters, search, a full reading view, a People panel, and one-click assignment of orphans to customers.