Gmail Add-On Boosts Support Features

The Shared Inbox add-on for Google Apps Business accounts is designed to provide improved help desk and customer support ticket features for businesses using Gmail as their main communications platform.

Jim Rapoza, Contributor

May 12, 2011

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Web-based email and productivity solutions such as Gmail and Google Apps have become a welcome option for companies, especially small businesses, who can easily ramp up with email and communications with no upfront cost. However, businesses may find that additional business capabilities are not often easy to add to these systems. While not as robust and feature rich as some of the support and service solutions designed for systems such as Microsoft Exchange, Shared Inbox for Gmail does provide a good base system for organizations to handle support questions and other customer communications and make sure that these requests are assigned to proper staff and addressed in a timely manner.

For many SMBs, a big enterprise email program like Microsoft Exchange is overkill. That's why many have turned to Google Apps for business applications and specifically to Gmail as their main email and communications tool. Yet, while Google Gmail is an effective tool for many types of common email tasks, there are a lot of other business tasks it doesn't do, such as help desk and service tickets and some forms of business collaboration. Third-party developers are stepping up to fill the void with add-ons and modules. One useful tool is for Google Apps is Shared Inbox for Gmail, which adds improved help desk and customer support ticket features to Gmail.

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About the Author

Jim Rapoza

Contributor

Jim Rapoza is Senior Research Analyst at the Aberdeen Group and Editorial Director for Tech Pro Essentials. For over 20 years he has been using, testing, and writing about the newest technologies in software, enterprise hardware, and the Internet. He previously served as the director of an award-winning technology testing lab based in Massachusetts and California. Rapoza is also the winner of five awards of excellence in technology journalism, and co-chaired a summit on technology industry security practices. He is a frequent speaker at technology conferences and expositions and has been regularly interviewed as a technology expert by national and local media outlets including CNN, ABC, NPR, and the Associated Press.

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