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The Unified Inbox keeps every conversation with a customer (phone, SMS, and email) on a single timeline tied to that customer’s profile. This guide walks through the practical flows for each channel, plus the email forwarding, call recording, and AI summary features.

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At a glance

Unified conversation thread

See calls, texts, and emails for one customer on the same timeline.

Branded HTML emails

Send estimates, invoices, and job updates as polished, on-brand emails.

Personal inbox sync

Reply from your normal email and stay logged inside ShineCRM.

Calls, transcripts, and AI

Record calls, get full transcripts, and read AI summaries instead of re-listening.

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The conversation thread

Every customer profile has a single conversation view that combines:
  • Phone calls placed to or from the customer through ShineCRM.
  • SMS messages sent or received on your business number.
  • Email sent from ShineCRM and replies that come back in.
Entries appear in time order, attributed to the team member who sent them. Anyone on your team can open the contact and read the full history without asking around.
Placing or receiving a call from inside ShineCRM is mobile-only (it uses the in-app voice client). Reading call history, listening to recordings, sending texts, and sending emails all work on both surfaces.
1

Open the contact

Open the customer’s profile from Contacts or search.
2

Switch to the conversation view

The conversation tab shows every call, text, and email tied to that customer.
3

Send from the same place

Use the composer at the bottom of the thread to send a text or send an email without leaving the customer profile.

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Two-way texting

Texts work the same in both directions. Outbound messages go out from your business number, and replies land back in the same thread.
  • Send and receive on web and on mobile.
  • Messages are visible to your whole team, so coverage doesn’t depend on which phone the customer happens to text.
  • Each message is attributed to the user who sent it, with timestamps preserved.

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Branded email and signatures

ShineCRM sends transactional emails (estimates, invoices, job confirmations, follow-ups) as branded HTML templates that use your organization’s logo and colors. Customer replies render as normal email so the conversation stays readable. Branding, email signature, and customer email forwarding all live on the Settings → Organization screen on both surfaces.
1

Set your email signature

Open Settings → Organization and fill out the Email signature field.
2

Confirm your branding

On the same screen, upload your logo and confirm the brand colors used in email templates.
3

Send from a workflow

Send an estimate, invoice, or job update from either surface. ShineCRM uses the branded template automatically, attaches any generated PDFs, and applies your signature.
Outbound emails are always logged on the customer’s conversation thread, alongside any replies that come back in.

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Personal inbox sync

Personal inbox sync lets you reply to customers from the email address you already use, without losing the log in ShineCRM. It’s a forwarding loop:
  1. You send an email from ShineCRM. It goes out branded, from your business address, tied to the customer.
  2. The customer replies. ShineCRM forwards that reply to your personal inbox so you can read and respond from wherever you normally work.
  3. You reply from your personal inbox. ShineCRM relays the response back to the customer and logs it on the conversation thread.
The customer only ever sees your business address. The conversation history stays complete inside ShineCRM, even when nobody opened the app to respond. Personal inbox sync is configured on the Settings → Organization screen on both surfaces, under the Customer Email Forwarding section.
1

Open organization settings

Open Settings → Organization and scroll to Customer Email Forwarding.
2

Enter your personal forwarding address

Set the Notification email to the inbox you want customer replies forwarded to. Leave it blank to turn forwarding off.
3

Send a test reply

Send yourself a test email through a customer thread, reply from your personal inbox, and confirm the reply appears on the conversation thread in ShineCRM.

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Call recording, transcripts, and summaries

Calls placed or received through ShineCRM are recorded, transcribed, and summarized so you don’t have to re-listen to a long call to find one detail.

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Call recording

  • Every business call through ShineCRM is recorded.
  • The recording is saved on the customer’s conversation thread with audio playback.
  • Recordings are stored per organization and tied to the right contact, the right team member, and the right call timestamp.

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Transcripts

  • Each recording is automatically transcribed.
  • Transcripts are searchable from the contact and from the global search.
  • Quote a customer back to themselves, or scan to the part of the call that matters, without scrubbing through audio.

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AI call summaries

  • Every recorded call gets a short summary at the top of the entry: what was discussed, what was agreed, and what’s outstanding.
  • Use the summary to triage, then jump into the transcript or recording only if you need detail.

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AI contact summaries

In addition to per-call summaries, ShineCRM produces a per-contact AI briefing. It reads the full history (calls, texts, emails, estimates, invoices, jobs) and gives you:
  • A short paragraph on who the customer is and where things stand.
  • Suggested next steps, like sending an estimate that was promised on a recent call, or following up on an overdue invoice.
The briefing updates as new activity comes in, so you can open a contact cold and walk into a call already up to speed.

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Frequently asked

Are texts visible to my whole team? Yes. SMS lives on the customer’s conversation thread, which is visible to your team based on the permissions of your ShineCRM organization. Do customers know I’m reading their emails from my personal inbox? No. The customer only sees emails from your business address. Personal inbox sync forwards their reply to you and relays your reply back, all behind the scenes. Are call recordings stored securely and per organization? Yes. Recordings are stored against your organization and surfaced on the relevant customer’s profile. They’re not shared across tenants. Can I turn off call recording for a specific call? Does the AI contact summary update automatically? Yes. Summaries are regenerated as new activity (calls, texts, emails, jobs) is logged on the contact. Do I need to use the ShineCRM email composer to keep the conversation logged? For the first message in a thread, yes. Once ShineCRM has sent the initial email, personal inbox sync handles replies from your normal email client and keeps everything logged.