All docs Channels
Email channel
Answer your support mailbox from the Arasta Inbox — forward your support address, let Kalfa AI reply by email, keep every thread together.
With the email channel, emails your customers send to your support address (for example [email protected]) open conversations in the Inbox. Kalfa AI answers by email when it can, your team takes over when needed, and every reply goes back to the customer in the same email thread. The email channel is included in every plan.
Before you start: you need access to your support mailbox's settings (Google Workspace, Microsoft 365 or your email host) to set up forwarding. Only an Owner or Admin can turn on email.
How it works
- A customer emails your support address.
- Your mailbox forwards the email to your store's Arasta inbound address.
- The email appears in the Inbox with an Email badge and its subject. Quoted earlier messages and signatures are removed so you see only the new text.
- Kalfa AI replies by email (or, with Kalfa AI off for email, the customer is told your team will reply). Replies come from your store's name and keep the subject, so they land in the customer's existing thread.
- When the customer replies, the message joins the same conversation. A new email with no thread opens a new conversation.
Step 1 — Turn on email
- Open Stores, choose your store and open the Channels tab.
- In Email, enter Your support address — the address customers already write to.
- Choose whether Kalfa AI answers emails and click Turn on email.
Arasta shows your store's inbound address, for example 3f9c…@inbound.arasta.io. Copy it.
Step 2 — Forward your support mailbox
Set up automatic forwarding from your support address to the inbound address:
| Email provider | How to forward |
|---|---|
| Gmail / Google Workspace | Settings → Forwarding and POP/IMAP → Add a forwarding address → paste the inbound address. Google emails a confirmation code to that address; it appears as a conversation in your Inbox — copy the code from it. Then choose Forward a copy of incoming mail. Workspace admins can also use a routing rule. |
| Microsoft 365 / Outlook | Outlook settings → Mail → Forwarding → Enable forwarding, or in the Exchange admin center a mail flow rule "redirect messages to" the inbound address. Your admin may need to allow external forwarding. |
| Other hosts | Create a forward or alias from the support mailbox to the inbound address in your host's control panel. |
Keeping a copy in your mailbox is fine; Arasta only reads what is forwarded to it.
Step 3 — Send a test email
From another email account, send a message to your support address. Within a minute the conversation appears in the Inbox, and the Channels tab shows Last email received.
Settings
| Setting | What it does |
|---|---|
| Your support address | The address customers write to. Shown in the setup steps; replies carry your store's name. |
| Kalfa AI answers emails | On: Kalfa AI answers first and hands over when needed. Off: new emails go straight to your team. |
| Turn off email | Stops receiving and answering email. Existing conversations stay in the Inbox. Remove the forwarding in your mailbox too. |
Knowledge, workflows (Autonomous / Shadow / Off), handoff profile and saved replies apply to email exactly as to the website chat. See How Kalfa AI answers.
What your team sees
- An Email badge, the subject, the sender's name and address.
- Your reply is sent by email to the customer, in the same thread. There is no reply window — you can answer any time.
- Attachments are listed by name in the message (for example
[attachment: invoice.pdf]); their content is not stored.
Order details and verification
The sender's address of an email can be forged, so it does not prove who the customer is. Before Kalfa AI shares order details it verifies the customer as in the website chat: order number and email, and a 6-digit code sent in a separate email that the customer replies with. See Order verification.
Out-of-office and newsletters
Automatic replies (out-of-office), mailing-list and newsletter mail, and mail from no-reply addresses are ignored: they never open a conversation and never get an answer, so two autoresponders cannot reply to each other. A single sender can open at most 20 conversations per hour.
Troubleshooting
| Problem | What to check |
|---|---|
| Test email does not appear | Forwarding is active and points at the exact inbound address; your provider confirmed the forwarding address; the email was not caught as spam before forwarding. |
| Customers do not get replies | Check the conversation for an internal note "Not sent by email" and the Channels tab for a sending problem. |
| Replies start a new thread in the customer's mailbox | The customer changed the subject or wrote a new email instead of replying; Arasta then opens a new conversation. |
| A reply shows the whole history | Some email apps quote unusually; the full text is kept but Arasta could not separate the new part. |