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Every B2B company has a sales@ and partners@ alias. Most companies have no idea what arrives there. Replies sit for days. Hot leads get answered three times by different reps. Set up Zoho Mail shared mailboxes properly and the chaos becomes a queue with SLAs.

Shared mailbox vs distribution list: pick correctly

A distribution list forwards to N inboxes. Everyone gets a copy, nobody owns it. A shared mailbox is a real inbox with multiple users having access. You can assign, status-track, and SLA. Sales aliases should always be shared mailboxes.

Convert under Zoho Mail Admin, Mail Accounts, Convert to Shared. Existing list members become shared users.

Status workflow inside the mailbox

Every inbound email gets a status: Unassigned, Assigned, In Progress, Waiting, Closed. Default to Unassigned. Sales ops or a triage human assigns within 15 minutes. SLA timers run from Assigned.

Auto-assign with rules

Build mail rules that route by content. RFP language to the proposals team. Pricing-only requests to AE pod. Partnership inquiries to BD. Catch-all to triage human.

Rule 1: Subject contains "RFP" OR "RFQ" → assign to Proposals_Team
Rule 2: Body contains "pricing for" AND number > 50 → assign to AE_Enterprise
Rule 3: From domain in Partner_List → assign to BD_Lead
Default: assign to Triage_User

Push to CRM as Lead or Activity

Decide policy: every inbound becomes a CRM Lead, or only inbound that does not match an existing Contact. The latter is cleaner. Use the Mail-CRM connector to search by sender email; if Contact exists, log as Activity on the Contact; if not, create a Lead with Source = sales@.

sender = email.from_address;
existing = zoho.crm.searchRecords("Contacts","(Email:equals:" + sender + ")");
if(existing.size() > 0)
{
  zoho.crm.createRecord("Tasks", {"What_Id":existing.get(0).get("id"),"Subject":email.subject,"Description":email.body});
}
else
{
  zoho.crm.createRecord("Leads", {"Email":sender,"Last_Name":parseName(email.from_name),"Lead_Source":"sales_inbox","Description":email.subject});
}

Reply-from address discipline

When an AE replies from the shared mailbox, the From should still be sales@ so the customer sees a single thread. Configure under Mail Settings, Send Mail As. Reply-to can be the AE’s address if you want them to own the next round.

Out-of-hours autoresponder

A 2am inbound gets an autoresponse: “We received your message, we will reply by 10am ET.” Manages expectations without a human. Configure as a Vacation Responder scoped to off-hours.

SLA reporting

Pull mailbox activity weekly: inbound count, assigned count, avg first-response time, avg resolution. Anything over 4-hour first response on a sales mailbox is a leak. Show it in the team standup until it improves.

Delegate access for execs

For exec assistants managing a CEO or VP inbox, shared-mailbox delegation beats password sharing. Configure under Mail Admin, Account Settings, Delegate Access. The assistant sends as the exec, with audit trail.

What to do this week: convert sales@ to a shared mailbox if it is still a list, build the four routing rules, and instrument first-response time. The team will know within a week whether anyone is missing leads.

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