Working Your Conversations Inbox

The Conversations tab is where your team reviews every conversation your agents had — who replied, who didn't, what got booked, and what conversations need a person to reply.

Two things to know first

• You don't set the status. The chip on each row is UpSmith telling you where the thread stands — it isn't a field you pick. There's no Contacted, Resolved, or Done to choose. What you can change on a conversation: hide it, mark it booked, take over from the agent, and resolve an escalation.

• Hiding is how you close a thread. There's no Close or Archive button on a conversation. Hide drops it out of the list and out of every count — and if the customer texts again, or an agent escalates, the thread comes back on its own.

What the status chips mean

• Active — a live back-and-forth.

• No reply yet — the agent reached out and is waiting.

• Never replied — the agent reached out, the customer never answered.

• Did not start — the run never actually sent anything.

• Ended — the conversation is finished.

• Paused — the agent is being held and isn't sending.

You'll also see chips that aren't statuses: Booked, Booking requested, Escalated, Escalation resolved, AI paused (the agent is held — usually because someone on your team took over), DNC, and a solid amber Needs reply. An Ask Jenny thread shows an Ask Jenny chip in place of the rest.

Clearing a thread you're done with

1. Right-click the row in the list and choose Hide this conversation — or open the conversation and click Hide in the header.

2. It disappears from the list and stops counting toward anything.

A few things to know about hiding:

• It's for your whole company, not just you. Hiding takes the thread off everyone's list.

• Nothing is deleted. The conversation and its history are all still there.

• It comes back on its own if the customer sends a new message or an agent raises an escalation. You won't miss a live customer because someone hid the thread last week.

• To see what's hidden, click the Hidden chip next to the "Conversations" title. You can unhide from there.

Clearing a backlog

There's no multi-select today — hiding is one thread at a time. If you're sitting on a big pile, filter down first so you're only touching rows you actually mean to clear. A common one: set Status to Never replied, add a date range that ends a few weeks back, and work that list.

If bulk-clearing is something you'd do often, email support@upsmith.com and tell us — how often it comes up is what moves it up the list.

Finding what needs you

The filter row above the list is all multi-select, and it remembers your choices:

• Status — the chips above, plus Needs reply.

• Attention — Escalated, Resolved, or Normal. This is the fastest way to find everything waiting on a person.

• Handling — AI paused or Agent Handling.

• Agent, Source, Booked, Campaign.

Alongside them: a date range chip, a search box that covers name, message text, phone and agent, and a gear icon where you can pin the filters you use and hide the ones you don't.

There's no "assigned to me" filter. Assignment lives on the escalation, not on the conversation, so the inbox can't sort by it. To see who's got what, use the Workflow board — every card shows the assignee's avatar.

Why an agent hands a conversation to a person

While it handles a conversation, your agent watches for signs that a person should take it from here. The usual ones:

• A frustrated or upset customer.

• A complaint about a technician or about the service itself.

• A request outside what the agent is set up to do.

• The same issue raised again and again without getting resolved.

When it sees one, it flags the conversation as Escalated and your team is notified (see Who gets told when an agent escalates below). If you think an agent should have escalated and didn't, you don't have to wait for it — take the conversation over yourself, and send the thread to support@upsmith.com so we can look at why it didn't.

Escalations — resolve, reopen, archive

When an agent hands something to a person, a red banner appears at the top of the conversation with the reason and how long it's been open. Click Why to see what the agent saw.

• Resolve — you've handled it. You'll get a green confirmation: "Escalation resolved. {Agent} is handling this conversation again." There's an Undo link if you hit it by accident.

• Notes / assign — opens the escalation, where you can leave a note, assign it to a teammate, or reclassify why it was raised.

• Reopen — on an already-resolved escalation, from the green record at the top of the thread. Click Show details to see who closed it, how long it took, and any notes.

• Archive — clears it off the Workflow board. An escalation has to be resolved before it can be archived.

There's no "dismiss" — Resolve is the verb for "dealt with," whether you fixed something or decided nothing needed fixing. Leave a note if it's the second one.

On the Workflow board there's one bulk action: Archive Resolved. It clears every already-resolved escalation in your account at once, and asks you to confirm first. It doesn't resolve anything — it only tidies up what's already done.

Assigning an escalation to a teammate

Two ways:

• Right-click the row in the Conversations list → Assign the open escalation… → pick a teammate. This one assigns only.

• Open the escalation (via Notes / assign, or a card on the Workflow board) and use Assigned To. This is where you reassign or clear an assignment, and the only place that shows you who currently has it.

Assigning isn't just bookkeeping. An escalation nobody has claimed keeps climbing the follow-ups on your notification rule — more people are told, by email or text, as time passes. The moment someone is assigned, that ladder stops. Claiming it is how you tell the system it's handled.

Taking over from the agent, and handing it back

At the bottom of a conversation the agent is handling, you'll see a status line and one button:

1. Click Take over.

2. Optionally pick a reason — Taking over manually, Customer asked for a human, and so on. You can skip it.

3. Confirm with Disable AI. The agent goes quiet and the reply box appears. Write your message and hit Send (or ⌘/Ctrl + Enter).

The row now shows an amber AI paused chip, and the thread matches the AI paused handling filter. When you're finished, click Hand back to {Agent} and the agent picks it up again immediately.

While you're in control, nobody else is watching that thread for you. If the customer replies, the row gets a Needs reply chip.

Photos and videos customers send

Pictures of the unit, a video of the noise it's making, a photo of the model plate — those show up inline in the thread and play right there. You don't need to open anything else.

• Photos and videos both work. Video gets a player with normal controls. There's no download button on it by design — it plays in the thread and stays there.

• Some phone formats won't play. Carriers send a few older video and audio formats browsers can't decode. You'll see "Customer sent a video that can't be played here." or "Customer sent an audio clip that can't be played here."

• Anything that isn't a photo, video or audio clip isn't opened. A PDF or a contact card shows as "Customer sent an attachment (PDF) that can't be opened here." and there's no link to open it — ask the customer to send it another way.

Who gets told when an agent escalates

Two things happen. First, your team is told straight away. Who hears is set by your notification rules: everyone named by a live rule for Conversation needs support is told, by the channels and timing that rule sets. A rule can cover every agent or be narrowed to one, and when several rules cover the same escalation, everyone they name is told. Second, if nobody claims it, the rule's follow-ups pull more people in after the waits you set.

Both live on the rule. Open Notifications, then Rules, and edit the rule under Notify, Send by and If nobody claims it. Only admins can change a rule. See Notifications — Who Gets Told What.

If your rules aren't sending yet. If the Receivers tab says Rules aren’t sending for this organization yet. The old notification settings still decide who’s told., the first message still goes to whoever your old notification settings name. You can no longer see or change those yourself, and no follow-ups go out. Email support@upsmith.com and we'll switch your routing over to your rules. The same happens when no live rule covers Conversation needs support: the old settings decide who's told, and nobody is pulled in later.

Assigning the escalation stops the delayed steps. So does resolving it.

Common questions

How do I mark a conversation as contacted? There's no Contacted status — the agent already reached out, and the status chip reflects what happened. If you're using it to mean "I'm done with this row," Hide is the tool.

Can I close a batch of conversations at once? Not today. Hiding is one at a time. Filter the list down first so you're working a short list rather than the whole inbox, and let support@upsmith.com know you want it.

A customer said to check back later — do I mark it resolved or something else? If there's an escalation on the thread, Resolve it and put what they said in the note ("call back after the 15th"). There's no separate outcome field on the conversation itself, so the note is where that detail lives for your team. Your agent also records deferrals like this on its own, so it isn't lost when you resolve.

How do I see just the escalations assigned to me? There's no such filter in Conversations. Use the Workflow board — the avatar on each card shows who has it.

Does an escalation stop the agent from replying? Sometimes. For the serious ones — an emergency, an angry customer, a wrong number, a request for a different person, a death in the family — the agent goes quiet on its own and waits for you. For the rest, it keeps replying while the thread is flagged. The status line at the bottom of the conversation always tells you which situation you're in.

I hid something by mistake. Click the Hidden chip next to the Conversations title and unhide it.

Does hiding delete the conversation? No. Nothing is deleted, and the thread returns by itself if the customer writes again.

A message shows a red "Not delivered" line. The provider refused it, and the line says why:

• "Not delivered — the customer closed this request on Yelp, so Yelp didn’t accept the reply" — there's nothing to retry; the thread is closed on their side. See Yelp for why the agent also goes quiet on these.

• "Not delivered — Google Local Services isn’t letting UpSmith reply for this account" — reconnect the integration. See Google Local Service Ads.

• "Not delivered — Thumbtack didn’t accept the reply" — Thumbtack turned it away.

A bare "Not delivered" with no reason means we don't have one from the provider — send the conversation to support@upsmith.com.

A Yelp conversation shows Paused and nobody paused it. Two usual reasons. The customer closed their request on Yelp, and we stopped the agent so a follow-up doesn't fire into a dead thread. Or someone on your team replied inside Yelp by hand, and the agent stood down for them — it stays that way until someone clicks Hand back to {Agent}. The Yelp article covers both.

Where to go next

• Notifications — Who Gets Told What — who hears about an escalation, and the ladder that pulls more people in

• Configuring When and How Your Agents Reach Out — controlling what starts a conversation

• Who Can See What — adding the teammates you want to assign work to