Sidechat is available on the Mixmax Small Business plan and above. For more details, see our pricing page.
Currently, Mixmax Sidechat is not supported for Outlook-based users. To learn more about the Mixmax integration with Outlook, check out How to use Outlook with Mixmax.
With Sidechat, you can directly collaborate with your team on all your customer conversations in the email, where you have the full context.
Why use Sidechat?
Most of your customer conversations take place over email, yet it's tough to collaborate with your team on these conversations. This slows down deals, puts renewals at risk, and often creates confusion.
Gone are the days of endless forwards or BCCs, taking repeated email screenshots and posting them in Slack.
With Sidechat:
You move customer conversations forward, get instant feedback where needed, and close deals and renewals faster when everyone is always in the loop.
If you manage a team, stay on top of all customer conversations and provide targeted coaching and real-time feedback.
To start collaborating, @-mention your colleagues in Sidechat, or hit the Manage collaborators button and add them there.
Using Sidechat
You can find Sidechat in the Mixmax Sidebar.
While in the Inbox view in Gmail, the Sidechat tab will display a list of conversations where you've been added as a collaborator. Clicking on a conversation in the list view will open Sidechat and bring you to the email thread the conversation relates to.
When you open an email in Gmail, the thread relating to that email will automatically open in the Sidechat tab.
Email threads without an active Sidechat display an empty grey chat bubble. Click the chat bubble icon to open a new Sidechat where you can add collaborators:
Email threads with Sidechat active but no new messages display a filled, grey chat bubble. Click the chat bubble icon to open the existing Sidechat conversation:
Email threads that have a new Sidechat message display a notification showing the number of unread messages. A New Sidechats banner will also appear at the top of your inbox. Click the chat bubble icon to view new messages in the Sidechat conversation, or click the New Sidechats banner to open your conversation list:
Adding collaborators to the conversation
What happens when you add a collaborator?
If your collaborator is a Mixmax user on the Small Business plan or above, they will see the email in their Gmail inbox with the Mixmax Collaborator label. Collaborators can add comments in the Sidechat, and all future replies on this conversation will be synced to their inbox.
Email threads with collaborators will display the Mixmax Collaborator label:
If you add a collaborator who is not a Mixmax user already, they will receive an email from you, letting them know that you'd like to collaborate with them on an email thread and providing a link to sign up for Mixmax. If you add a collaborator with the Mixmax Free plan, they will receive an email from you to notify them that you would like to collaborate on an email thread but that they will need to upgrade to the Mixmax Small Business plan first.
Who can view the Sidechat comments?
Folks who received the email message (to/from/cc/bcc) cannot view the Sidechat activity automatically. Only users explicitly added as collaborators in Mixmax can view Sidechat content.
How to add a collaborator
It's easy to add collaborators to any message. Note that you can add collaborators from outside your organization - please only add those you would like to see the message thread you are collaborating on.
@-mention
You can mention a team member in Sidechat to add them to the conversation. Type @ or + in the chat window to search for a collaborator by name or email address. Sending a chat message with an @Mention will automatically add the mentioned individual as a collaborator.
Participants list - To add a collaborator from the participants' list, click the Manage collaborators (person) icon at the top right corner of Sidechat.
Type the collaborator's name or email address into the search field.
Removing collaborators from the conversation
What happens when you remove a collaborator?
When a collaborator is removed from a conversation, the shared email is removed from the collaborator's inbox, and they are removed from the Sidechat conversation. Emails addressed to the collaborator (To, Cc, Bcc) will remain in the collaborator's inbox.
How to remove a collaborator
To remove a collaborator from a thread, click the Manage collaborators (person) icon at the top right corner of Sidechat.
Click the X next to the collaborator you would like to remove.
You can follow the same steps to remove yourself from the conversation.
Please note that if you get logged out of Mixmax or revoke Mixmax's access to your Google account, it could cause your collaborator to stop receiving email updates. Mixmax's access can get revoked, e.g., when you reset/recover your Gmail password or your Workspace Admin removes Mixmax from the list of authorized apps in your Google account.
To keep email updates going, please remove and add the collaborator to the Sidechat again.