All Updates

The Conversation Sidebar was redesigned to make the context behind every conversation easier to find. Conversation details like status, assignee, SLA, Topics, and Sentiment now live alongside customer and company information, conversation history, Custom Fields, and apps, so you can spend less time clicking around while helping a customer.

Custom Fields are now editable directly from the sidebar, while customer and company profiles open into a consolidated view that makes it easier to find the information you need. You can also resize the sidebar, collapse or reorder sections, and personalize the layout to work the way you do.

If you support companies with multiple contacts, no one person has a complete view of what their company has raised with your team. A billing question might come from Finance, a product issue from an end user, and an access request from an admin, with each conversation living in a different inbox.

Customer Portal gives customers a secure website where they can see those support conversations together. You can give selected contacts visibility into their company’s support history, so they can see what colleagues have already raised, check for new responses, and understand what’s still in progress. Contacts can also view and reply to conversations they started themselves.

Customer Portal is available on Plus and Pro. Customers sign in with a six-digit verification code, with no password required. Ready to get started? Go to Manage → Company → Customer Portal to set up access.

You can now connect your own Twilio number to Help Scout and manage two-way SMS conversations alongside email, chat, and social channels. Reply to customers from the shared inbox with live SMS segment and character counts, so you know exactly how many messages will be sent before hitting send. Ready to connect? Click into one of your Inboxes, tap the Settings icon and select Connect Channels. 

Now, you can set office hours for each inbox instead of relying on a single company-wide schedule. Whether you have teams in different time zones or departments with different working hours, each inbox can follow its own schedule for more accurate reporting and the right out-of-office replies. To get started, go to Manage → Company → Company Hours and customize the schedule for each inbox.

Keep conversations moving when someone is out of office.

Choose how long a teammate needs to be away before reassignment kicks in, then let the system handle the rest. When a customer replies, a conversation reopens, or a new message comes in through workflows, it will not sit with someone who is unavailable.

If a customer follows up while the assigned teammate is on vacation, the conversation becomes unassigned so someone else can pick it up and respond.

You can now manage your availability status from web and mobile. Set yourself to Active or Away, or add a custom status like “Out to lunch” or “At a doctor’s appointment” so teammates have more context around your availability. Your status stays in sync across the inbox, making it easier to know who’s available before assigning conversations or looping someone in.

Stop manually monitoring SLA targets and let workflows do the work.

Trigger workflows when a conversation is assigned to an SLA policy, approaching a breach, or has already missed a target. Send notifications, add internal notes, update conversation details, or take other actions automatically so teams can respond before issues escalate.

For example, if a conversation is nearing its first response or resolution deadline, you can notify a team lead or add an internal note that prompts follow-up before the SLA is missed.

Get the context you need before your next customer conversation.

Company Profile brings together the metrics, trends, and activity that shape a customer's support experience. Quickly see changes in response times, customer satisfaction, conversation volume, and the topics customers are reaching out about, all from a single view.

Whether you're preparing for a renewal, reviewing account health, or investigating a change in support activity, you'll have the context you need to understand what's happening and where to focus next.

Create more targeted views based on what’s happening in a conversation.

Quickly find conversations where a customer is waiting on a reply, spot low-rated interactions that need follow-up, or surface messages that mention specific topics. Combine these with your existing filters to keep the right conversations front and center, without needing workarounds or extra steps.

Learn more about all supported views conditions here.

We introduced SLAs to help teams manage first response and final resolution times directly in Help Scout. Now, we’re expanding that support with Next Response Time (NRT) goals.

NRT helps you track follow-up responsiveness between the first reply and final resolution. Each time a customer replies, the SLA timer starts again so you can measure how long customers are waiting throughout the conversation, not just at the beginning or end.

For example, if a customer follows up with another question after a teammate’s response, Help Scout will track how long it takes for the next reply to happen, helping your team avoid long gaps between responses.

NRT compliance is also included in SLA reporting, giving you a clearer picture of responsiveness across the full conversation experience.

Learn more about SLAs here.