How is the info@ address managed?
The info@ address is managed as a shared mailbox that is the responsibility of the team, not a single person: it is visible who is looking at which email, access is granted individually per person, and replies go out under a single corporate identity. In this guide, we explain step by step why general addresses such as info@ become chaotic and how they are kept organized by the team in SmartMail.
Why does the info@ address become so chaotic so quickly?
Addresses such as info@, satis@ or destek@ are the company's shop window. The contact form on the website, the address next to the phone number in the catalogue, the business card handed out at a trade fair… Every first contact lands here. The problem is that in most companies this address belongs to "everyone but actually no one".
The typical picture is as follows: the mailbox password is shared among three or four people, and everyone has added the same account to the mail program on their own computer. As soon as an email is read, it appears as "read" for everyone; it is not known who read it or whether they replied. Two people reply to the same customer with different prices, or the opposite happens, and the email goes unanswered because everyone assumes someone else has written. When an employee leaves the job, the password is not changed, because changing it means setting everyone up again.
This clutter is not a technical fault but a lack of method. A shared mailbox can be organised with the right tool and a few simple rules.
How can multiple people use a shared mailbox safely?
The first requirement for shared use is that the shared password is eliminated. Each employee signs in with their own identity, and access to the mailbox is granted to them separately. This means that when a person leaves, only their access is closed; the mailbox, password and other employees are unaffected.
The second condition is that access stops being just "yes/no". A sales representative who needs to read and reply from the info@ mailbox does not need to be able to delete emails. An intern may only need to see the mailbox, not write from it. Without this distinction, even the smallest mistake becomes irreversible.
The third condition is visibility. Who is looking at an email, who added a note, who applied a label should be visible in the shared mailbox itself. Otherwise, coordination shifts to corridor conversations or a separate messaging group, and information is lost.
What rules should be set for info@?
A few written rules complement what the tool cannot do:
- Ownership rule. A person who starts replying to an email marks it visibly: a label, a team note, or drawing the relevant person's attention. The "I'm on it" information should stay within the mailbox.
- Response time rule. A target time is set for first-contact emails (for example, the same business day). Reminders are set for emails tied to a deadline.
- Forwarding rule. An email that arrives at info@ but concerns another department is handed over by drawing the relevant person's attention; keeping it in the shared mailbox instead of forwarding it and creating copies preserves traceability.
- Tone and signature rule. Every reply sent from the shared mailbox carries the same signature; a corporate signature is used instead of personal signatures.
- Cleanliness rule. Advertising and newsletter emails are kept separate so they do not overshadow first-contact emails.
What are the most common mistakes in managing info@?
Distributing the mailbox to personal email clients. When the same account is open on four computers, read receipts lose their meaning, an email deleted by one person disappears for everyone, and there is no record anywhere of who did what.
Handing over by forwarding the email. Every email forwarded with "Can you look at this?" creates a new copy outside the mailbox. When the actual reply is written from that copy, the shared mailbox never sees the end of the correspondence. Handover should be done by leaving the email in the mailbox and drawing the relevant person's attention to it.
Giving everyone every permission. For convenience, everyone is given full access; one day, emails deleted in bulk by mistake are requested back. Giving permissions according to role prevents such accidents from the start.
Leaving information in one person's memory. If only one employee knows that "this customer always pays late", when that person goes on leave the team makes the same mistake again. Such information should remain in the mailbox as a note attached to the sender or the company.
Not measuring. When average response time, the number of unanswered emails and newsletter volume are never monitored, the problem is noticed only when a customer complains.
How does SmartMail manage the info@ address?
In SmartMail, every corporate mailbox such as info@ is in a single dashboard. To add a mailbox, the address and display name are enough; the mailbox password is generated by the system and stored encrypted, and is not shared with employees. Employees sign in to the dashboard with their own identity and see only the mailboxes assigned to them. A person with more than one mailbox can use the view that combines them all in a single stream; each row shows which mailbox the email arrived in.
Access is granted with nine separate permissions per mailbox: viewing, writing, deleting, tagging, quarantine management, rerunning analysis, chatting about the email, writing notes and flagging. The deletion and quarantine management permissions, which are difficult to revoke, are disabled by default in a new assignment. The info@ mailbox can be assigned not only to a person but also to a department; a person joining the department automatically receives access, and when a person leaves, their access is removed automatically.
Coordination runs alongside the email. Team notes are not sent to the recipient; they can be attached not only to that email but also to the same sender address or the same company. The note "Ayşe is handling the conversation with this company" appears again in the next email from that company. When a teammate's attention is drawn, they receive a notification. In the email's history, who read, labelled and noted it and when is gathered in a single log.
Incoming emails are automatically separated by content type (first contact, invoice/payment, quote/tender, official, promotional, update); so first-contact emails do not get lost among newsletters. When a response time is set for an email, one hour before it expires a reminder is sent in the web dashboard and mobile app to everyone who can see the mailbox.
On the administrator side, every meaningful action is written to the audit log: opening a mailbox, granting access, changing a setting. The question "who opened access to info@" can be answered months later.
Steps to move the info@ mailbox to SmartMail
- Open the info@ mailbox in the admin console; entering the address and display name is all you need to do.
- Assign the mailbox to the relevant department or add people individually.
- Review the permissions for each person: give write permission to those who will read and reply, and tagging permission to the person who will edit. Enable delete permission only for the person who truly needs it.
- Define a corporate signature for the mailbox.
- Explain the ownership rule to the team: the person replying leaves a note or draws the relevant person's attention.
- Check for unanswered emails in the first week's mail history log and set a response time rule.