Who do we call to set up a shared mailbox?

A shared mailbox is the right answer for info@, sales@, billing@, support@, and anything else where several people need to see and reply to the same mail.

Two reasons to use one rather than the common workarounds:

• It does not need a license up to 50 GB, so you are not paying for an extra user to hold a role address.
• Replies come from the shared address and land in a shared sent items folder, so your colleagues can see what was already answered. Forwarding to everyone's personal inbox, which is the usual workaround, means three people answer the same customer and nobody knows what was said.

Things worth setting up at the same time: who has access, whether they can send as the address or only on behalf of it, and whether anyone should get a notification rather than having to remember to check.

One thing to avoid: converting a departed employee's mailbox into a shared mailbox and leaving it forever. It is a reasonable short-term step and a bad permanent filing system. Move what matters somewhere sensible within the first few months.