The shared inbox that teams actually love

Front takes the concept of a shared inbox (support@, billing@, sales@) and turns it into a full customer operations platform. Instead of forwarding emails, leaving internal notes in separate Slack threads, and losing context — Front puts everything in one collaborative workspace. Teams can assign, comment, draft together, and automate — all within the email thread itself.

Who it's for: Operations teams, customer success teams, and B2B companies (20-500 employees) where multiple people need to collaborate on customer communications across email, SMS, and chat.

Key features

Inbox Unified Inbox

Email, SMS, WhatsApp, social media DMs, and live chat — all in one inbox. Assign conversations to teammates, add internal comments, and draft replies collaboratively.

Auto Workflow Automation

Auto-assign based on keywords, route by sender domain, send auto-replies, escalate based on SLA. No-code rules engine that handles complex routing logic.

CRM Built-in CRM

Customer context sidebar shows past conversations, account details, and custom fields. No need for a separate CRM — Front has the essentials built in.

Analytics

Track response times, resolution rates, team workload, and customer satisfaction. SLA monitoring and real-time dashboards.

The honest take

✓ What works

Best shared inbox experience on the market — period
Internal comments within email threads are a game-changer
Multi-channel (email + SMS + chat + social) in one place
Automation rules engine is powerful and flexible
Deep integrations with Salesforce, HubSpot, Jira, Slack

✗ What doesn't

Expensive — $19/seat starts cheap but Pro is $59/seat
Learning curve — it's a powerful tool that needs onboarding
Built-in CRM is basic — not a Salesforce replacement
No built-in knowledge base (integrates with Guru, etc.)
AI features are limited compared to Intercom Fin or Zendesk AI

Verdict

Front is the best tool for teams that collaborate on customer communications. If your team forwards emails to each other, discusses customers in separate Slack channels, and loses context — Front fixes all of that. It's more expensive than basic help desks, but the collaboration features are worth it for any team of 5+ people handling customer ops.

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