Manage customer messages: Text, Email, and Web Chat
SkipCalls brings customer conversations from text messages, email, and your website into one Messages inbox. Your receptionists can answer automatically, prepare a response for your review where supported, or let you take over and reply yourself.
This guide explains what each channel does, how to set it up, and how to manage conversations without switching between separate inboxes.
What appears in Messages
Text (SMS) — conversations started when someone texts a phone number assigned to your receptionist.
Email — customer emails received at an Email Receptionist address, including messages forwarded from your existing business inbox.
Web Chat — conversations started through the text chat widget on your website.
Open Messages from the dashboard. Use the All, SMS, Email, and Web chat filters to focus on one channel. Select any conversation to read the full history and reply.
Set up your Text Receptionist
Go to Receptionists, choose a receptionist, and open Text & SMS. This page contains three separate text features.
After-Call SMS
After-Call SMS sends a message after an incoming call ends. You can use either or both of these options:
Smart Follow-ups — the receptionist reviews the call, your Business Profile, and any follow-up instructions to write a useful message for that caller.
Default Post-Call SMS — a fixed message sent after every incoming call, or used as a fallback when a Smart Follow-up has nothing specific to add. Leave it empty if you do not want a default message.
After-Call SMS is separate from an ongoing text conversation. A customer can reply to the message and continue the conversation when incoming text replies are enabled.
SMS During Calls
Turn on Send texts during calls when you want the receptionist to send useful information while speaking with a caller, such as an address, confirmation, or link. Add any rules for these messages to the receptionist's Call Script.
SMS Conversations
Turn on Reply to text messages to let the receptionist handle incoming texts sent to its SkipCalls phone number.
Extra rules for text messages — add channel-specific guidance, such as preferred tone, questions to ask, or situations that should be left for your team. The receptionist also uses its normal call instructions and business knowledge.
Reply instantly — sends the receptionist's response without waiting for review.
Wait before replying — adds a short delay when instant replies are enabled.
When Reply instantly is off, a proposed text reply waits in Messages. You can approve it, reject it, or ask the receptionist to rewrite it with feedback such as “make this shorter” or “include our business hours.”
Set up your Email Receptionist
Go to Receptionists, choose a receptionist, and open Email.
Turn on the customer email address.
Use the address created for the receptionist, or choose a custom name before
@inbound.skipcalls.com.Copy the address.
Forward customer email from your existing business inbox to that address, or share the address directly with customers.
Choose the reply behavior available to your plan.
You reply keeps incoming email in Messages and lets you write each response yourself. AI replies lets the receptionist answer automatically using your Business Profile and Email Reply Rules. The Email page shows which options are included with your current plan.
You can also set the sender name, add a footer, and write Email Reply Rules for tone, escalation, questions, and business processes. Keep these rules focused on email behavior rather than repeating your entire Business Profile.
For provider-specific forwarding steps, see Forward email to your Email Receptionist.
How email safety works
Email Receptionist is designed for customer conversations, not newsletters or bulk mail. Automatic messages, mailing lists, obvious marketing, delivery failures, and possible reply loops may be stored without receiving an automatic response. When SkipCalls filters a message, the conversation can show that the receptionist did not reply.
Email replies stay inside the existing customer conversation. Email Receptionist is not a cold-email or bulk-sending tool.
Set up your Web Chat Receptionist
Go to Receptionists, choose a receptionist, and open Embed.
Add the website domain where the widget will appear.
Enable the website widget.
Choose Text chat as the widget type.
Choose whether visitors should enter their name and email before chatting, and whether to ask for a phone number for text follow-up.
Customize the greeting, subtitle, position, color, size, and other appearance settings.
Copy the embed code and add it to your website.
The preview lets you test the launcher before adding it to your live site. One embed key serves one widget type at a time, so the same key cannot run both the voice widget and text chat simultaneously.
Website visitors receive receptionist replies inside the widget. Their conversation also appears under Web chat in Messages. If a visitor shared contact details, SkipCalls can connect the conversation to a customer profile and use those details when your team follows up.
Use the shared Messages inbox
Find a conversation
The left side of Messages shows the customer or visitor, the latest message, the time of the latest activity, unread messages, and a small channel icon. Click the search icon to search conversations, then use the channel filters to narrow the results.
When a conversation is connected to a customer, click the customer's name or phone number to open their profile. The profile keeps calls, messages, appointments, notes, and other customer activity together.
Read and reply
Incoming messages appear on the left and replies from your receptionist or team appear on the right. The sender name appears above each message group, while the time and delivery state appear below it.
Use the composer at the bottom to send a manual reply. Press Enter to send or Shift + Enter for a new line.
A manual text reply is sent to the customer's phone number.
A manual email reply is sent inside the existing email conversation.
A manual Web Chat reply is saved to the website conversation. When the visitor has shared contact details, SkipCalls can deliver the follow-up by email or text where available; otherwise the visitor sees it when the chat history loads again.
Pause or block a conversation
Open the conversation controls in the upper-right corner:
Pause AI replies — keeps the conversation available while stopping automatic receptionist replies. You can continue replying manually.
Resume AI replies — lets the receptionist continue responding.
Block conversation — prevents further receptionist handling for that conversation.
Unblock conversation — returns a blocked conversation to normal use.
Use pause when a person on your team wants to take over. Use block for unwanted or abusive messages.
Which instructions does the receptionist use?
Every channel uses the same receptionist identity and business knowledge, with additional rules for the channel:
Text uses the receptionist's normal instructions plus any extra rules under Text & SMS.
Email uses the Business Profile and Email Reply Rules.
Web Chat uses the same receptionist and business knowledge configured for customer conversations.
Write rules as clear business guidance: what information to collect, what the receptionist may confirm, when to ask a follow-up question, and when a person should take over. Avoid pasting long scripts that repeat information already stored in your Business Profile or Knowledge.
If messages are not appearing
Confirm that you are viewing the correct receptionist and channel filter in Messages.
For text messages, confirm that incoming text replies are enabled and the customer is texting the receptionist's SkipCalls number.
For email, confirm that the Email Receptionist address is active and that forwarding is enabled and verified in your email provider.
For Web Chat, confirm that the widget is enabled, the correct domain is allowed, and the latest embed code is installed on that site.
Check whether the conversation is paused or blocked.
If a feature is locked, review the plan requirement shown on its setup page.
If the setup looks correct but a new test message still does not appear, contact SkipCalls support and include the receptionist name, channel, approximate time, and the sender's phone number or email address.