Introducing Conversation Sidebar: More at your fingertips in every conversation

There’s a lot to consider when you’re responding to a customer. The message they just sent is one part of it, but there’s also what they’ve asked about before, what company they belong to, whether there’s an SLA attached to the conversation, and all the details your team has picked up along the way.

Having more of that information can change how you support someone. It helps you recognize that what looks like a straightforward question is part of a larger issue, understand the history behind a request, or simply save you from asking a customer for something your team already knows. But there’s a practical problem with adding more context to the support experience: eventually, you run out of good places to put it.

That’s something we’ve been thinking about as Help Scout has evolved. Over time, information about a conversation started to spread across the Inbox. Some details lived in the header, others were tucked behind buttons or separate panels, and moving between customer and company information required its own navigation. Each piece was useful on its own, but taken together, it was becoming harder to get a clear picture without moving around the page.

That led us to rethink the conversation sidebar: how could we bring more of what you know about a customer into the conversation, while keeping the experience clear and easy to navigate?

Bringing the bigger picture together

The new sidebar brings the information surrounding a conversation into one place. Status and assignment now sit alongside signals like SLA, Topics, and Sentiment. You can reference recent conversations, view and edit Custom Fields, and move into customer details without bouncing between different parts of the Inbox.

Sometimes, understanding a conversation also means looking beyond the person who wrote in. When someone contacts your team, you may already have years of history with their company, including conversations with other people on their team. Customer and Company now each have a dedicated profile view, with previous conversations and contact details, so you can move between the person you’re helping and the broader relationship behind them.

Together, these changes make it easier to understand what’s happening in the conversation, see what you already know about the customer and their account, and pull in more history when you need it. The information itself is familiar. What’s changed is how easily you can put it to use while you’re helping someone.

Room for what comes next

What you see in the Conversation Sidebar today is just the beginning. SLAs, Topics, Sentiment, and Company Profiles are already bringing more information about the conversation and customer into the Inbox. As Help Scout continues to bring more customer and conversation information into the Inbox, the sidebar’s modular structure gives each new piece a natural place to live.

Over time, that means we can bring more of the details that shape how you respond directly into the conversation. A repeat issue, an approaching SLA, or a pattern across people at the same company can all change what someone needs from your team in that moment. Conversation Sidebar gives us room to make more of those signals visible and useful as Help Scout evolves.