When several people answer info@, choose a system that lets them see the conversation and who is handling it. A Microsoft shared mailbox can suit a team working in Outlook. A Google Groups Collaborative Inbox can suit a Workspace team that needs assignment and completion controls. Forwarding copies to everyone is better suited to notifications than coordinated customer replies.
Start with a simple question: if a colleague is absent tomorrow, can someone else find the customer’s message, the reply and the promised next step? That is the workflow to establish before publishing the address on a new website.
Choose between an alias, distribution and a shared record
For one person, info@ can be an additional address delivering to their existing business mailbox. There may be no need for a team system yet. Check that they can reply using the intended address and keep the correspondence under business control.
A distribution or forwarding arrangement sends copies to recipients. It can work well for an announcement everyone needs to receive. For an enquiry requiring action, each person’s inbox can quickly contain a different part of the conversation. Someone may reply privately while colleagues still think the request is waiting.
A shared mailbox gives authorised staff access to a common mailbox. A collaborative inbox adds a workflow such as assigning and completing conversations. These are related approaches, but the controls differ between products. Choose on the tasks your team needs rather than assuming that anything called “shared” handles ownership automatically. Our business email hosting guide compares the underlying mailbox and productivity plans.
Once you need internal notes, deadlines, escalation or a reliable assignment queue across many enquiries, compare a helpdesk or CRM workflow as well. A small shared inbox can be sufficient for a modest volume if the team follows an agreed routine.
Microsoft shared mailboxes: individual access and a common address
In Microsoft 365, staff access a shared mailbox through their own accounts. Microsoft’s shared-mailbox guidance requires each accessing user to have a licensed Exchange Online mailbox. The shared mailbox itself can hold up to 50 GB without a separate licence; larger capacity and some advanced features need additional licensing.
Ask the administrator to grant the right reading and sending permissions. “Send As” and “Send on Behalf” produce different sender identities, so agree which customers should see. Microsoft says the shared account is not intended for direct sign-in; staff should not circulate a password for info@.
Check sent messages explicitly. Microsoft documents situations where replies are saved in the sender’s own Sent Items rather than the shared mailbox. Have the administrator configure the appropriate sent-copy behaviour, then test it in the actual Outlook versions and devices your staff use.
A common inbox still needs an ownership convention. An unread marker is a poor substitute: a colleague can open a message simply to check what it concerns. Agree how the team records who is dealing with it, what is waiting on the customer and what has been completed.
Google Groups: assign and complete conversations
For a team already using Workspace, a Google Groups Collaborative Inbox provides a way to take or assign conversations and mark them complete. Google requires conversation history to be enabled and suitable permissions for those actions.
Distinguish receiving a copy in Gmail from managing the conversation in the group. If staff only reply to copies without using the agreed group workflow, assignment and completion can be left out of date. Demonstrate one full enquiry to the team, including where to find work assigned to them.
Configure who can send enquiries into the group, who can view its history and who may post as the group. Allowing a customer to contact the address should not make the customer correspondence publicly readable. Review the actual settings for the business account instead of copying a public discussion-group configuration.
Google’s assignment instructions show how responsibility can move between members. Choose this route when those controls suit the team’s working habits; an Outlook-based team may find the Microsoft mailbox model a more straightforward fit.
A workable routine for a three-person business
Imagine a small business with an owner, an administrator and a colleague who handles technical questions. Their enquiry routine could work like this:
- Receive: the administrator checks new enquiries during agreed hours and records an owner for each one.
- Reply: that owner responds from the business address. The reply is visible in the shared record.
- Wait: if a quote needs information, record what is outstanding and when it will be checked again.
- Cover: before an absence, reassign open conversations and make the next step clear.
- Complete: mark the enquiry finished only when the promised action has been taken.
The software should make that routine easy enough to follow on a busy day. Test a new message, a handover and a customer returning to an older thread. If staff need a separate spreadsheet just to know who owns every enquiry, consider whether the inbox tool has reached its limits.
Decide how internal discussion happens. A private note or separate colleague conversation must not accidentally become a reply to the customer. Use a clear rule and demonstrate it with harmless test content before staff handle real enquiries.
Check access, cover and the website connection
Give each person their own account and the access needed for their role. Keep recovery and administration under the business’s control. When someone leaves, remove their membership and check forwarding rules and connected devices as part of the departure process; changing one password may not address every route.
Before the shared address becomes the destination for your website, check these points:
- An outside customer can send a new message and receive a reply showing the intended business identity.
- A second authorised colleague can see that reply and identify the next action.
- A cover person can find open work without the absent colleague’s password.
- Unapproved people cannot browse customer conversations.
- A website-form submission reaches the shared address and its Reply-To sends the response to the customer.
- The business knows who handles account recovery, renewal and changes to membership.
If the form displays success but the enquiry is missing, use the contact-form troubleshooting guide. Changing the inbox workflow will not repair a form that never sends correctly.
Keep a working email service when you move a website unless there is a separate reason to replace it. The hosting and email migration guide helps define that scope. For a new website in Formby, Freshfield or L37, include the enquiry workflow in your project brief so the form and the people answering it are planned together.
Microsoft and Google documentation checked 16 October 2026. Confirm the licences, permissions and client behaviour for the exact service before setup.
