Overview
Plain's Customer Inbox gives your customers a clear and consistent way to create, track, and manage their support requests, regardless of how they contacted you (Slack, email, chat, etc.). You can choose whether customers see only their own requests or all requests from their company.
The Customer Inbox is fully integrated with Plain, so any new request goes straight into your team's support queue.
Enabling the Customer Inbox
Make sure you've enabled Email as a customer channel – this is required in order to use the Customer Inbox.
To turn on Customer Inbox:
Go to your Help Center settings in Plain.
Toggle on Customer Inbox.
Select your preferred visibility option under "Thread visibility":
Only their own requests (default)
Requests from others in the same tenant
All company requests
Click Save.
Once enabled, customers will see a "Your requests" section in the sidebar of your Help Center.
Logging in to view requests
Customers log in using a 6-digit code sent to their email. Once authenticated, they'll see a list of their open support requests, organized by status.
Clicking on a request shows key details like:
Priority
Status
Date created
They can also use the info icon on any thread for a quick summary.
Controlling request visibility
You control what each customer sees. You can configure thread visibility under Help Center → Customer Inbox → Thread visibility.
Visibility options:
Only their own threads (default)
Threads from anyone in their tenant
Threads from anyone in their company
This ensures the right level of access and privacy for different types of customers.
How thread statuses appear to customers
Plain uses detailed internal statuses to help your team manage work—but customers see a simplified version of these in the Customer Inbox. Here's how they map:
| Internal status (your view) | Customer-visible status |
|---|---|
| Needs First Response | In progress |
| Investigating | In progress |
| Close the Loop | In progress |
| Paused for Later (snoozed) | In progress |
| Waiting for Customer | Waiting for you |
| Done | Done |
In short, customers only ever see three statuses: In progress, Waiting for you, and Done. Any internal state where the ball is in your team's court—regardless of how it's classified internally—shows as "In progress". When you're waiting on a reply from the customer, it shows as "Waiting for you". Once the thread is resolved, it shows as "Done".