Reply to a conversation

Find the right thread, confirm who you're writing to, and check that it sent.

Updated September 27, 2026 3 min read

Use Conversations whenever answering a customer well means seeing what was already said to them, not just the latest message. You need access to the workspace and a working send connection for the channel you're replying on.

Conversations, with a customer thread and reply context in the fictional Northline Roofing workspace. — Conversations, with a customer thread and reply context. The real interface uses fictional demo data in this image; follow the steps below in your own workspace. Select the image to view it full size.

1. Find the thread

Open Conversations. Search for the person or subject, or narrow the list by status, channel, assignment, unread messages, or follow-up. Open the conversation and confirm that it belongs to the person you intend to contact.

2. Review the context

Read the recent messages and check the linked contact and opportunity. Link the conversation to the relevant records when needed so the reply is visible in the right business context.

3. Write and send

Write your reply in the composer, check the recipient and the complete message once more, and follow the composer's own send confirmation. This is a manual send: it goes straight through the conversation sender, and you never need to create an AI proposal first just to send something you wrote yourself.

If the assistant prepared the reply instead, review its staged proposal through Approvals before it goes out. Both paths, yours and the assistant's, end up using the exact same send service underneath.

4. Confirm the result

Check the send result in the conversation. A provider accepting a send is different from a later delivery event. If the request times out or the result is uncertain, inspect the original request before sending again.

What to check

If a reply won't send, check the channel connection in Setup first. Gmail replies also need a valid thread anchor, and the system refuses to send rather than silently starting a new conversation when that anchor is missing; developers, this is the Message-ID and References pair used for RFC threading. Share the visible error and the conversation identifier with your administrator, leaving credentials out of the report.
A database conflict-target error before dispatch usually means the migration catalog is behind; run the current migrations and verify Setup before retrying, since the shared sender depends on workspace-scoped conversation and message indexes existing. Keep the same request identity on a retry of an unchanged message, and if a provider attempt's result is uncertain, reconcile its receipt before you try sending it again.