Open, closed, and what "done" means for your team
The filter most teams set up wrong, because nobody agreed what closed means before they started using it.
Status looks like the simplest control in the Inbox and causes more disagreement than any other, because "closed" is not a fact about the conversation — it is a claim your team is making, and most teams have never agreed what the claim means.
Two definitions are common and they are incompatible. "The customer got what they needed" is one. "I have finished typing" is the other. A team running both simultaneously has a status field that means nothing and an unreplied count nobody trusts.
Steps
Agree what closed means, out loud, before enforcing anything
Pick one definition and say it in a stand-up. This is a five-minute conversation that determines whether your reporting is worth anything for the next two years.
Use status as the last filter in the chain
It sits with channel and assignee. Combined with unreplied it answers most real questions about the queue.
Decide whether auto-close fits each channel
High-volume, low-value chats — a widget on a marketing page, a public Instagram account — benefit. A sales channel usually does not, because an open conversation is a lead somebody has not finished.
Email almost never benefits, because people reply days later.
Check unreplied against closed weekly
Conversations closing while still unreplied means work is being hidden rather than finished. That is the signal auto-close is too aggressive.
Reopen rather than starting a new thread
The customer experiences one relationship. Keeping the conversation whole is what makes the contact timeline readable a year later.
Check it worked
Open five recently closed conversations. If more than one of them ended without the customer's question being answered, your closing behaviour is hiding work.
The parts people get wrong
- Auto-close is per channel, so you can use it where it helps and leave it off where it hides work.
- Status and lead stage are different things. A closed conversation says nothing about whether the person is still a live opportunity.