SupaDesk vs a shared Gmail or Outlook inbox
A shared mailbox costs nothing and everyone already knows how to use it. That is exactly why teams stay on it a year longer than they should.
When should a team move from a shared inbox to a help desk?
Usually when one of these starts happening: two people reply to the same customer, or nobody does; nobody can say how long customers wait; a customer's history is spread across several people's sent folders; a reply goes out that should have been checked; or a second team needs the same address but should not see everything in it. A shared mailbox has no concept of ownership, deadlines or permissions - a help desk is built around them.
- Shared inbox: free, familiar, no setup.
- Shared inbox: no owner, no status, no deadline per conversation.
- Shared inbox: everyone with access sees everything.
- SupaDesk: owner, status and SLA on every conversation.
- SupaDesk: replies still come from the same address.
- SupaDesk: approval, routing and reports a mailbox cannot provide.
Feature by feature
| Capability | SupaDesk | Shared mailbox |
|---|---|---|
| Cost | Per agent | Free |
| Replies from your own address | ||
| One owner per conversation | ||
| Waiting-on-customer status | Labels, by hand | |
| SLA deadlines on business hours | ||
| Routing and round-robin | Filters only | |
| Internal notes beside the conversation | Forwarded emails | |
| Visibility limited by department | ||
| Approval before a reply is sent | ||
| Customer portal | ||
| Response-time and workload reports | ||
| Auto-reply and bounce filtering |
Compiled from publicly available product documentation and pricing pages. Vendors change their products and plans - please verify anything that would change your decision.
Six signs the mailbox has stopped working
Double replies
Two agents answered the same customer, slightly differently, within ten minutes.
Silent drops
A customer chased after four days, and everybody had assumed somebody else replied.
No answer to "how long?"
Nobody can say what your average first response time is.
Forward chains
Internal discussion happens in FW: emails that sometimes get replied-all to the customer.
Everyone sees everything
HR, billing and sales share an address and therefore every message in it.
The reply that should not have gone
A promise, a figure or a tone that a second look would have caught.
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Questions people ask before they start
Keep the address. Lose the guesswork.
Start free for 14 days. No credit card and no setup fee - connect a mailbox and answer your first ticket the same afternoon.
Questions first? Email sales@supadesk.in or call +91 8585953085.