Connect your first channel
The four ways customers can reach you, and which one to set up first.
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A channel is any route a customer message can take into your inbox. You need one to start; most teams end up with three.
Which to set up first
| If you… | Start with | Setup time |
|---|---|---|
| Already have a support inbox | Email forwarding | ~2 min |
| Want replies from your real mailbox | Gmail or Outlook | ~5 min |
| Want to catch people before they email | Web widget | ~5 min |
| Sell in a WhatsApp-first market | ~20 min |
Email forwarding is the fastest start
Every workspace is issued a unique inbound address that looks like support-ab12cd34@inbound.kognithq.com. Anything sent to it becomes a ticket.
You do not have to change MX records or move your mailbox. Point a forwarding rule at the address and your existing support inbox keeps working exactly as it does today, with Kognit reading alongside it.
Find your address in Connections → Support Email Forwarding.
Connecting a mailbox instead
Forwarding gets mail in. Connecting Gmail or Outlook over OAuth gets mail in and lets replies go out from your real address, threaded into the original conversation. If customers already recognise help@yourcompany.com, this is the better long-term setup.
You can run both: forward from aliases you do not want to connect, and OAuth-connect your main mailbox.
Once a channel is connected
Every inbound message, whatever the channel, becomes the same kind of ticket:
- Classified by intent, and routed to a team
- Matched to an existing contact, or a new one created
- Put on an SLA clock, and assigned to an agent
- Answered or escalated according to your Autopilot settings
That uniformity is the point — an agent works a WhatsApp message and an email the same way.
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