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Getting started with Hiver
If you talk to customers every day, keeping an eye on your inbox isn’t optional—it’s essential. Forwarded threads, endless CCs, and cluttered inboxes only slow things down.
There’s a simpler way to handle customer conversations. Hiver brings together all your service channels, such as support@yourcompany.com or billing@, your team, and customer context, into Gmail—no switching tabs—just fast, effortless service, all from your inbox.
Whether you’re setting things up for the first time or fine-tuning your workflows, this step-by-step guide will help you get the most out of Hiver’s powerful features.
Let’s walk you through the setup so you can hit the ground running.
This onboarding guide covers the steps to set up Hiver for Gmail. If you’re using Outlook and planning to implement Hiver for Outlook, please head over here.
Table of Contents
- Getting started with Hiver
- Working inside your inbox
- Automate your workflows
- Analyze your team’s performance
- Setting up Integrations
- Configuring Live Chat, Knowledge Base, and more as channels
- Getting help from Hiver
- Start using Hiver today
Step 1: Download the extension and authenticate your account
Hiver works right on top of your Gmail. Install the Chrome extension, head over to your Gmail account and follow the prompts to authenticate your account. You’ll be setting up your first Shared Inbox in minutes.
Step 2: Create your first Shared Inbox
The next step is to create a Shared Inbox—like support@ or info@—and connect it to your shared email account, whether it’s a Google Group or a regular user account. Follow the steps in the guided setup flow, and you’ll be up and running quickly.
Think of your Shared Inbox as an email account multiple team members can access and manage together. It’s ideal for teams that handle high volumes of emails—like support or billing. Messages sent to addresses like support@ or info@ are visible to everyone, so your team can collaborate, assign, and respond quickly—all in one place.
Step 3: Add your team to the Shared Inbox
Invite your teammates so you can assign emails, co-write replies, collaborate seamlessly, and ensure every conversation gets the attention it deserves.
Additional resources:
Working inside your inbox
Once emails start landing in your Shared Inbox, Hiver makes it easy to stay in control. You can assign emails, track their status, and collaborate with your team—so every customer gets a timely, well-crafted response. Here’s how:
1. Assignments
Have you ever had a “Wait, who’s handling this?” moment? Emails slip through the cracks, or worse—two people reply at once. With assignments, every email has a clear owner. Open the email, head to the Hiver panel on the right, and assign it to yourself or a teammate. Simple, clear, and no more guesswork.
2. Views
Views let you filter conversations based on what matters most—like unresolved issues or pending customer responses. Hiver includes the default views below:
- Unassigned – All new incoming emails land here, waiting to be picked up.
- Assigned – Emails that have been assigned to you or your teammates.
- Pending – Conversations that are in progress, often waiting for a customer’s reply.
- Team – A snapshot of your team’s workload—see who’s handling what.
- Closed – All resolved conversations live here for easy reference.
You can also create custom views by status or tag to stay laser-focused on what needs your attention.
3. Status
Hiver makes it easy to track the status of every email or customer conversation—whether it’s still open (“Open”), waiting on the customer (“Pending”), or fully resolved (“Closed”).
4. Notes
Got a customer query that needs input from different team members? There is no need to forward emails or switch to Slack or Teams. Just @mention a teammate (or even non-Hiver users) directly within the Notes section on the right panel. Notes stay private to your team, keeping internal chats organized and out of the customer’s view.
5. Tags
Use Tags to categorize emails—think “High Priority,” “Billing Issue,” or “Feature Request.” Tags add context so you can sort conversations by topic and quickly find them when needed. They also keep your inbox organized and lay the groundwork for reporting and workflows.
6. Shared Drafts
Need to collaborate with other agents to craft the perfect response? With Shared Drafts, multiple teammates can collaborate on a reply before hitting send. No more back-and-forth outside the inbox.
7. Conversation Follows & Collision Alerts
Avoid duplicate replies with real-time Collision Alerts that let you know when someone’s already responding. Use Conversation Follows to stay updated on important threads—even if you’re not the one replying.
8. Email Templates
Some customer queries, such as password resets, refund policies, or product questions, tend to repeat. Instead of typing out the same reply each time, Email Templates let your team create reusable responses that can be inserted into replies with just a click. Save time, respond faster, and keep your responses consistent and professional—every single time.
Automate your workflows
We all get too much email. Manually assigning, tracking, and replying to every message? Not a good use of your time. Hiver’s Automations takes the busywork off your plate, so your team can stay efficient while supporting customers. Here’s how:
1. Auto-responder
Customers don’t expect instant resolutions—but they do want to know their message was received. Automate acknowledgement of a customer’s query by sending an automated response like, “Thanks for reaching out! Our team is on it and will get back to you soon.” It’s a simple touch that builds trust from the get-go.
2. Rule-based assignment
A well-organized inbox means that every email reaches the right person. With Rule-Based Assignment, teams can set up rules to automatically route emails based on the sender info, CRM ownership, subject, or content.
For example:
- Emails with “technical issue” in the subject go straight to the IT team.
- Messages from customers are assigned to respective account managers as per CRM ownership.
- All emails with a “refund” tag are routed to the finance team.
You can also set up custom triggers and conditions—like keywords, sender domains, or specific timeframes—to tailor the automation to your team’s needs.
3. Categorize conversations
Easily automate the process of categorizing your emails by adding tags. They can be added based on email content or subject line. Combined with rule-based assignments, this ensures the right people handle the right emails without manual sorting.
4. Service level agreements (SLAs)
Your customers are reaching out across every channel, and your team’s working hard to keep up. But how do you make sure every customer query gets a timely response? SLAs enable you to set clear response and resolution time targets. You can even set up proactive alerts to notify your team before a breach happens.
Additional resources:
- Setting up automations
- Different types of automations
- Set up an Auto-responder
- Creating SLA policies
Analyze your team’s performance
Get a clear view of your team’s performance with key metrics like response times, conversation volume, customer feedback, and trending topics—all in one place.
Hiver Analytics comes with ready-to-use reports right out of the box. You can also build custom dashboards to track all the key metrics that matter—everything you need, all in one view.
- Conversations Report: Measure response times, track overall conversation volume, and drill down by topics like “billing” or “refund” to uncover trends and insights.
- Users Report: Get a clear picture of every team member’s workload and response times to optimize overall performance.
- CSAT Report: Measure overall customer sentiment and feedback across conversations.
- SLA Report: Monitor compliance and violations across response and resolution times to uncover what’s slipping through and fix it before it happens again.
Additional resources:
Setting up Integrations
Responding to a customer query isn’t always straightforward. You often need to look up details (like order history, customer info, or more) in your billing systems, ERP, and CRMs. Maybe you even need to create a follow-up task in ClickUp, Asana, or Jira. This is where the endless tab-switching begins– before you know it, you spend more time hunting down information than helping the customer.
Hiver makes this easier by bringing customer data from your favorite tools into your inbox. No more jumping between tabs—just all the context you need right where the conversation is happening.
Here’s how teams use Hiver’s Integrations:
- Check and update order history in Stripe or Shopify
- View and update customer details in HubSpot, Salesforce, or NetSuite
- Create and manage tasks in ClickUp, Asana, and 100+ other apps
- Automate tags, routing and more based on data in 3rd party apps
Check out all our integrations here. Don’t see the tool you use? No worries—just reach out, and we’ll explore how we can help build it for you.
Additional resources:
Configuring Live Chat, Knowledge Base, and more as channels
Your customers are everywhere and they expect the same consistent, high-quality support experience— whether it’s email, chat, phone, or WhatsApp. But supporting multiple channels shouldn’t mean juggling various tools. With Hiver, you can unify conversations across all channels—right inside your inbox—so your team can respond faster without endless tab switching.
Here’s how Hiver brings it all together:
- Live Chat – Engage website visitors in real time and automate resolutions with Chatbots and AI.
- Knowledge Base – Empower customers to find answers on their own, anytime.
- Phone – Offer seamless voice support through our Aircall integration without ever leaving your inbox.
- WhatsApp – Bring WhatsApp conversations into your inbox for quicker and more organized responses.
- Customer Portal – Give your customers a custom-branded portal where they can log and track requests—reducing follow-ups and keeping communication clear and transparent.
One inbox. Every channel. Happier customers.
Additional resources:
- Setting up Live Chat
- Set up your WhatsApp inbox
- Setting up your Knowledge Base
- Guide: Setting up a Voice inbox
- How to set up a Customer Portal in Hiver
Getting help from Hiver
1. Get 24/7 live support
Do you have a question or need help? You can get instant support by speaking live to one of our support agents. Just head over here to initiate a chat.
Prefer email? Contact us anytime at support@hiverhq.com—we’re always here to help!
2. Live onboarding sessions
Every week we host live online product walkthroughs (or demos) where you can see how Hiver works. You can learn all about the platform, note down best practices, and have your questions answered in real time. You can register by following the link here.
3. Hiver Community
Connect with other Hiver users, share insights, and stay updated on new features. Join our community here.
4. Help Center
Our Help Docs are the best place to get instant answers. The library has everything—product tutorials, step-by-step instructions, and deep dives into our features and capabilities. Explore now.
Start using Hiver today
- Collaborate with ease
- Manage high email volume
- Leverage AI for stellar service
