Work the Leads inbox

The Lead Inbox (the Leads page in the sidebar) is where every inbound lead lands — texts, website forms, WhatsApp, Messenger, Instagram, and webhook leads — each as a conversation with a channel chip and a status badge. Your job: open anything with a red edge first (Needs Review or Urgent), skim the thread and the agent's last action, then reply, label the AI's drafts, or hand the conversation back to the agent. The list refreshes itself about every 45 seconds while the tab is open.

Before you start

• The Lead Inbox requires the Phone Enterprise plan.
• Connect at least one source first — until then the inbox shows "No leads yet": "New AI Lead Agent conversations will appear here once sources are connected." See connect lead sources.

Reading the conversation list

Each row shows the customer's name (or phone), the last message preview, a timestamp, a channel chip (SMS, WhatsApp, Website, Google Maps, Facebook Messenger, Instagram, and so on), and a status badge:

Rows that need triage — Needs Review or Urgent — carry a red left edge so they stand out at a glance.

Reading a conversation

Click a row to open it. The right panel shows:

• The customer header — name, channel, status, phone/email, and a one-line summary of the agent's last decision (replied, drafted, handed off, skipped, or booked, with the reason).
• The thread — customer messages on the left, replies on the right. AI drafts are tinted and tagged AI draft; internal notes render italic across the full width.
• The composer for the lead's channel at the bottom — see take over a conversation for replying and the handoff buttons.

Acting on a lead

• Draft reply — asks the AI to write a reply for this conversation without sending it. The draft appears in the thread with Good / Bad / Edited label buttons underneath — every label trains the agent (why labeling matters).
• Reply yourself with the channel composer (Send text, Send via Messenger, and so on).
• On Needs Review leads, use Mark Reviewed, Resume AI, or Close Lead.

Below the conversation card, the Shadow Review panel lists evaluation-only drafts marked "Not sent to customer" — replies the AI generated in shadow mode for you to label. When empty it reads "No shadow drafts for this conversation."

The AI status pill

The header pill shows the SMS channel's AI mode at a glance — for example a green pill when an automatic mode is live, or "AI Agent · Off" when the agent is disabled. Analytics opens the lead analytics dashboards and Configure opens the agent settings.

Troubleshooting

• "Could not load leads." — the list failed to load; the banner shows the reason. Refresh the page.
• "Couldn't load this conversation." — the thread fetch failed. Use the Try again link in the error banner.
• "Draft skipped: a recent AI draft already exists." — the AI won't stack drafts. Act on the existing draft first.
• "Draft skipped: this source is not enabled for AI replies." — the lead's channel is off in Sources.
• "Draft skipped: no customer message found." — there's nothing to reply to yet (for example a lead created without a message body).
• A conversation shows "No messages yet" — the lead record exists but no message content arrived with it; check the source's field mapping if it came from a webhook.