Our info@ phase: the good, the bad, the chaotic

After the CSR inbox scare, we created one front door for clients: info@foresighti.com. 

We even wrote it into our SOP back in 2024: All agents must use info@foresighti.com when communicating with a customer because: 

• We service accounts as a team 
• We encourage customers to send requests to the main inbox 
• We have email templates set up there 
• If someone is absent, anyone can assist without messy forwards 

On paper, it looked clean. And the benefits were real: 

• If someone was out sick or on PTO, clients weren’t stuck waiting. 

• If a client called in, anyone could pull up the email chain. 

• Service started to feel like a true team sport. 

But then the cracks showed up. 

• Some people opened emails, marked them read, and never acted. 

• Others accidentally archived emails. 

• Nobody knew if someone else was already working on the same request.

It was messy to say the least. 

Meanwhile, the meetings told the same story. Looking back at notes, I saw people explaining how overwhelming the info inbox was, teammates reminding each other “don’t do this” or “remember to do that,” and constant clarifications on routing and documentation. It worked in theory, but in practice the workload was messy and exhausting. 

We tried to tame it. We created folders inside info@ with each person’s name. The idea was simple: drag an email from the main inbox into their folder, so all they had to do was check their assigned inbox. It worked, but only because our operations manager could route everything correctly. She knew every corner of the agency. 

We trained others to step in, but it never stuck. Only our operations manager could keep the system running smoothly. 

And that’s when it hit me: having one person route emails meant our operations could collapse if she was out sick. We were one person away from chaos. 

So yes, the shared inbox gave us visibility. But it came with manual distribution, constant reminders, and plenty of chaos. Not the best iteration of a shared inbox. 

That’s when I knew: we needed something built for teams, not a personal email app. 

👉 Next week, I’ll share how we finally solved it by moving from Outlook to our new shared inbox tool.