Shopify inox app not sending email reply to offline customer

[J55ni]

Hello,

Has anyone else installed the shopify inbox chat app and encountered issues with offline customer email reply?.  It works fine when customer is on the website and active.

If the customer is not online its supposed to send your reply via email but this  is not happening unfortunately. Any ideas on how to fix this?

Regards,

J

[Imogen]

Hi, @J55ni.

Interesting situation here! The information that you have stated below is correct - when sending a reply to a customer that is not currently in the chat and on the store, the reply is meant to be sent as an email. This info can be found in our Customer Conversations help document.

I went ahead and tested Inbox in my own store just to see if I could get the same issue you are here. I did a few tests using a couple different emails and things appear to be working as they should be. I did notice that trying to get that reply email sent to an email associated with my store prevented it from arriving so make sure you’re using an email different from something connected to your store for testing.

I have a couple different troubleshooting ideas here for us to try:

• Is the email that you’re testing different from one being used for your store or account? If so, have you checked the spam folder for the test account? Sometimes if an email is being sent to a gmail account, it may end up in the “Spam” or “All Mail” folder so you’ll want to check there.
  
  
• Is the test email meant to be receiving replies a gmail account? Sometimes, Google’s email hosting has filters on their back-end that prevent some messages from arriving. Test some receiving emails with some email addresses that use a different host (like outlook or yahoo) as this may tell us if the reply email is only having issues with gmail accounts or different types of email accounts.
  
  
• You could try uninstalling and then reinstalling Shopify Inbox and then testing the functionality again. This may resolve things.

If you’ve tried everything here, and are still having issues then we’ll need to look into your account specifically, since I wasn’t able to replicate the issue on my end. If this ends up being the case, I recommend reaching out to our Live Support Team at this link so they can get you authenticated and take a deeper dive into what may be going on.

[J55ni]

Hi,

The emails I have tried it against are not connected to my store and I  have tried both gmail and outlook and still no email is sent to offline customers. 

I did delete and install it again and the same issue is happening which is unfortunate.

Have reached out to support for help. 

Its concerns me that potential customers wouldn't receive my reply and could cost sales. 

[Imogen]

Thanks the quick reply. Sounds like you've done much of the suggested troubleshooting already, which is great. I completely understand your concern about your potential customers not receiving your replies.

Since the issue seems to have persisted, reaching out to the Support Team is absolutely the best next step. We're unable to offer account specific help in the Community so the Support Team will be able to look into the issue in detail and even escalate you up to another team if needed.

Are you currently waiting to hear back from the Support Team about the issue?

[BurtonLiao]

I got this problem too, do you fixed it?

[fromjennifer]

Installed Shopify Inbox last night and I don't think my emails are being sent either. Hoping for an update on what to do. Currently in Shopify Chat with Support, but I don't think this person knows how to fix the issue.

[Imogen]

Hi there, @fromjennifer!

Interesting that your Inbox seems to be having the same issue. How did you notice that emails didn’t seem to be sending to customers? Were you doing some testing yourself or did you just happen to come across it? 

I see in your post that you said you were in a chat with our Support Team regarding the issue. Were they able to advise on what may have been going on?

[Imogen]

Hi, @BurtonLiao! 

Thanks for chiming in and letting us know you're also having this issue. I have a couple questions I want to ask so we can get some information cleared up:

• When did you first notice that this was happening?
• What sort of testing have you done to confirm that it's happening? Have you tested using emails that you have access to that aren't the same as the one connected to your store that would be sending the messages?
• Have you checked the junk/spam folders of the email inbox that should have been getting the messages? If you're using a gmail account, sometimes emails will land in your 'All Mail' folder so checking there would be a good idea. 
• Have you tested this using an email address from a different provider than gmail? Examples would be a @yahoo.com email address or a @outlook.com email address. 

I'll keep my eyes out for your reply so we can determine the next steps to take to get this resolved. 

[fromjennifer]

I tested it first on my own email to see how the system worked. I waited for an email overnight in case it took a while and during the night had a few people use the chat. So I replied to all of them, but my email never came. So I knew it wasn’t working for me. I sent them direct emails after that and they said they never got an email reply from the chat thread. In regards to Shopify support, they weren’t any help. We tried clearing cache and then un-installing and re-installing Shopify Inbox, but still don’t receive any emails when sending a reply to someone offline. They said it must be a glitch and forwarded the details to the technicians. There was no final solution and that was the end of it. I un-installed it again. I really wish it worked, looked like it would be nice. But I can’t use it if the emails are never reaching the customers.

[Imogen]

Thanks for that quick reply, @fromjennifer! 

I'm sorry to hear that the support team wasn't able to find quick solution for you here when it came to getting your Inbox emails sent where they needed to go. However, it's reassuring to know that the advisor you spoke to said they'd be passing things along to our technical team. Since you seemed really keen on trying Shopify Inbox, I want to suggest reaching out to the advisor you were speaking to, and ask them to provide you with any information the technical team may find while they investigate. There's a chance that they may find a solution that allows you to use Inbox as intended!

Did the advisor you were speaking with make any recommendations for other live chat applications that you could use in your store? There are several options in our App Store that could do for you what Inbox couldn't. I know that Tidio is a very popular third party option that many shops use so consider giving them a look.