Problem

In high-automation accounts, real one-to-one conversations get buried. A contact replies to an automated email or SMS, and by the time staff open the thread there are 20+ automated sends stacked on top of it. The existing automated/manual filter doesn't solve this: an inbound reply to an automated message is attached to the automated thread, so filtering to "manual" drops the reply out of view, and filtering to "automated" buries it again. Keyword search doesn't help either, because you don't know what the customer said — that's the thing you're trying to find.

Real impact: I run a loyalty program that sends scheduled follow-ups across ~200 locations. A customer told me they liked the product but weren't sure they could use it, because there was too much noise in the inbox to find actual replies.

Proposed solution

A thread-level view toggle that separates conversation signal from automation noise:

Collapse or hide outbound automated messages in the thread, while always keeping inbound messages visible regardless of what they replied to

Treat inbound replies as first-class: an inbound message never gets filtered out by an outbound-automation filter

Make it a saved/pinnable view so staff don't rebuild it each time

Ideally the same distinction is available as a smart-list / conversation filter, not just an in-thread toggle

Why it matters

Response time and SLA depend on staff finding real replies fast. "Jump to unread" helps once, but doesn't fix the noise problem at scale — and the more automation an account runs, the worse the inbox gets. Related: the reply-to address on campaigns always resolves to the sending domain, which removes another signal that could distinguish these threads.