Daily work

Claim, reply and hand over enquiries

Keep one clear owner for each enquiry, including conversations from your website.

5 min readSeptember 2026

For agents, managers and business administrators

On this page

One shared place for incoming requests

The enquiry pool groups requests by their ownership and handling state. Its displayed name follows your workspace's vocabulary. Use channel filters and search to focus on the requests you are allowed to handle. Website conversations join the same ownership workflow as other enquiries.

Gatherdesk enquiry pool for the fictional Willow & Co salon with requests grouped by ownership and channel filters. — A shared enquiry pool makes ownership visible to the team. Actual product screen with illustrative demo data.

Understand the ownership states

State	Meaning	What to do
Open	No current owner	An eligible team member can claim it.
Claimed	Reserved for one team member for five minutes before the first successful reply	Reply before the claim expires, or release the enquiry.
Handling	The first staff reply succeeded and the owner remains responsible	Continue the conversation, release it or mark it handled.
Handled	The enquiry is closed, retaining its history	A manager can reopen it when further work is needed.

Respond without duplicating work

Claim an open request
Claiming reserves the enquiry for you. If someone else claims it first, refresh and choose another request. Clicking Claim repeatedly does not extend the initial five-minute window.
Read the conversation
Check the original message and previous replies before writing. A visible countdown means you have a temporary claim.
Send and check the result
A successful reply moves the enquiry into handling. If ownership changes or a claim expires, sending is rejected and your draft is retained. For an uncertain email delivery, check the mailbox before resending.
Finish or hand over
Mark the enquiry handled when the conversation is complete. Release it to make it available again, or ask an authorised manager to reassign it to an eligible colleague.

An expanded Gatherdesk website enquiry showing visitor and team messages, its current owner, a reply composer and ownership actions. — Read the thread, confirm who owns the enquiry and reply from the same place. Actual product screen with illustrative demo data; only the current authorised owner can send a staff reply.

Assignments and manager actions

Managers with the necessary access can assign or take over visible enquiries. The assignee list contains eligible colleagues for that request. Routing, mailbox restrictions and current permissions still apply; seeing a name elsewhere does not make that account eligible.

For website chat, the agent who owns the enquiry also owns the staff conversation. Automatic replies pause while a human owns the request. A visitor leaving the chat does not remove the enquiry from its staff owner.

Why a channel may be greyed out

Web requires a paid plan with Website Chat, the Enquiries service, an enabled widget and at least one allowed website. Free shows Paid only until the plan changes.
Email requires the relevant service and a configured mailbox accessible to your account.
WhatsApp requires a paid plan, an active WhatsApp service and a connected business number. SMS remains unavailable. The Phone filter is hidden.
Source routing controls who may handle a source. It does not activate an integration.