Emailing Patients from the Inbox

Dental Marketing Tool keeps every patient conversation in one place, and that includes email. You can send and receive emails right inside the same thread where you're already texting a patient, so nothing gets lost between inboxes.

How Email Fits Into the Inbox

Your unified inbox handles text messages, emails, and other channels in a single conversation thread per patient. When a patient emails your practice address, the message lands directly in their conversation. When you reply from the inbox, they receive it as a normal email in their inbox. No switching between apps or forwarding messages back and forth.

This is especially useful for longer communications, like explaining a treatment plan, sharing post-op instructions, or following up after a consultation, where email gives you more room than a text.

Sending an Email from a Conversation

1. Open the Conversations tab in the left menu.
2. Click on the patient's conversation to open it. If no conversation exists yet, click New Conversation and search for the patient by name or phone number.
3. At the bottom of the conversation window, look for the channel selector. Click it and choose Email.
4. Fill in the Subject line. This appears as the email subject in the patient's inbox.
5. Type your message in the body field. You can use basic formatting options like bold, bullet points, and links.
6. When you're ready, click Send.

Receiving and Replying to Patient Emails

When a patient replies to an email you sent, or sends a new email to your practice address, the message appears automatically in their conversation thread. You will see the channel icon next to the message so you can tell at a glance whether each message was a text or an email.

To reply, open the conversation, make sure Email is selected in the channel selector, and type your response. The patient's email address is pre-filled automatically.

Keeping Threads Clean

A few habits help keep email threads easy to read for everyone on your team:

• Use clear subject lines so the patient knows exactly what the email covers.
• If a message is just for your team and should not go to the patient, use an internal note instead of an email reply.
• If multiple people handle patient communication, consider assigning the conversation to whoever is responsible for the follow-up so nothing slips through.

Email vs. Text: When to Use Each

Text messages are great for quick confirmations, reminders, and short replies where the patient expects a fast response. Email works better when you need to share detailed information, send attachments or documents, or when the patient has reached out by email and expects a reply in kind. Because both channels live in the same thread, you can switch between them naturally depending on what the situation calls for.

Finding Emails Later

All emails are saved in the patient's conversation thread and never disappear when you close the window. You can use the search bar at the top of the Conversations tab to find a specific patient or keyword. You can also use filters and tabs to narrow down the inbox to unread messages or specific channels if you need to track down a recent exchange.

Once you're comfortable emailing from the inbox, you may also want to explore sending review requests directly from a conversation. See Sending a Review Request from a Conversation to learn how to work that into your post-visit routine.