A shared inbox is a great tool for a company. It reduces the time it takes to reply to emails and facilitates internal communication regarding external messages. There are many tools available to set up shared inboxes, including Loop Email. However, given its limitations, many managers are looking for Loop Email alternatives.
That being said, it’s important for teams to understand what they need for better collaboration. Which tools are lacking within the company and what features would close this gap.
If a company needs to use multiple programs and makeshift their functions to suit regular operations, it’s bad for productivity. Of course if you make a transition to a tool that works for your needs, you will incur extra costs. However these costs may be quickly outweighed by the productivity gains achieved with a better workflow.
What can a resource like Loop Email do for your company?
Loop Email is essentially a shared inbox software, developed to make your email-driven collaborative tasks easier. By accessing a team inbox along with your teammates you all get the same overview of the workload. This simplifies collaboration, making it faster and more effectively.
Shared inbox: what, why and where
A shared inbox is a setup that helps your organization reply to emails fast and keep a high volume of incoming messages organized. It’s main features are shared labels for categorization and the transparent assignment of emails to owners.
It is an invaluable tool for any team with an email-driven workflow, like customer support teams. When you are troubleshooting, you need to act quickly and efficiently, right? With a shared inbox a teammate can pick a reply on an email thread and act on it. This way your client’s ticket don’t go unattended for too long.
Why are companies switching from Loop Email?
Even though it’s a convenient tool, Loop Email lacks features. That could be the difference between minor improvements and a complete upgrade of your workflow for the better. User ratings on Capterra and G2, platforms that collect user reviews for business apps, show the downsides of Loop Email. Criticism ranges from “No integration with calendar” to “[needs to] provide an option to have that email completely removed from all views, rather than have to delete the same email multiple times”. On top of that, many competitors have very useful additional features. This is why companies are switching to other resources.
Limited interface on the shared inbox
While it’s possible with Gmail and other free email clients, Loop won’t let users customize the order their emails show up in. This is bad for user experience, since most organizations have a specific way to organize their inbox.
Additionally, you can’t view inboxes as Kanban boards, a valuable feature for email-driven work tasks. If your team relies on email for operations, they will need to have a quick overview of tasks, instead of going through the traditional inbox.
Synchronizing issues
Several users complained that it takes too long for emails to show up on this client. On the flip side, if you delete or archive a message from your own space, it won’t disappear from the shared inbox. This defeats the purpose of collaborative work. It will, instead, still show up to your colleagues, leading up to tasks being redone by accident.
No calendar integration
Having the ability to turn emails into meetings and set up chats is pretty relevant in today’s workflow. Since you can’t directly add things to your personal calendar through Loop, it’s lacking in that sense.
It has its own calendar feature, but it’s not integrated to most popular platforms (Google Calendar, iCal, Outlook). You’d need to check two different places to sort out your schedule.
No Android version
Emailing on the go? That’s a feature most businesses need, especially with global teams. People use their mobile devices to access important company files all the time. So it’s a disadvantage that Loop can’t be used on Android.
Loop Email’s client takes time for teams to adapt to
Quite simply, the amount of tools employees need to stay on top of is already too many. So much in fact that people nowadays are worried about the impact of context switching. Learning to navigate a completely new platform takes time away from other tasks.
4 best Loop Email competitors
Luckily, there are other tools that offer more adequate solutions to modern day communication and task management within organizations. Shared inboxes, calendar integration, delegation, automation and much more that you could take advantage of.
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Drag App
Drag App was created to turn your Gmail inbox into a digital workspace. It has all the regular shared inbox features, like: shared labels, email assignment, automations, templates and internal chat. But the shared inboxes can also be turned into Kanban boards where each email becomes a card. This helps your team visualize tasks and have a clear overview of the work in progress.
Drag’s functions can be used by multiple teams in your organization: marketing, CRM, customer support, operations, sales and human resources. This helps to integrate your coworkers without taking them away from their most important business tool, Gmail.
Pricing starts at $8 per user/month and you can try it for free.
Oh, and considering the tool just builds up on top of Gmail’s interface, it has the easiest learning curve.
Capterra rating: 4,4 stars
G2 rating: 4,4 stars
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Zendesk
A well-known customer support that can be a loop email alternative is Zendesk. This software was created to help teams find solutions to client’s problems. Starting at $19 per user/month, it helps create and automate tickets, all while being fully customizable.
Capterra rating: 4,4 stars
G2 rating: 4,3 stars
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Helpscout
Helpscout is a helpdesk software for companies that want easier and more optimized platforms for customer support. It has a built-in catalog system and customizable templates. The basic plan is $15 per user/month and gives you up to three mailboxes.
Capterra rating: 4,7 stars
G2 rating: 4,4 stars
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SEDNA
A shared inbox tool that promises to solve “the problem of over-reliance on traditional email systems” and reduce the influx and time dealing with new messages. Featuring chats, mobile access, version history and notifications, it can help you work together better. Pricing by demo requests.
Capterra rating: N/A
G2 rating: 3,5 stars
Conclusion
While there are multiple Loop Email alternatives across the board, Drag App is a key feature for your company. This is because it has both the task management and the email client capabilities. If you want to know more, read a client success story.
Looking for a Loop Email alternative? Just try Drag for free!
Drag turns Gmail into your Team’s Workspace. One single place to support customers, manage tasks and close deals, from the place teams love: Gmail. We are a Techstars-backed Company, trusted by 30,000 users around the World.
