Submitting this on behalf of Brian Christu from KidsUnted Nanuet:

When a bulk SMS message or an automated workflow/drip sends a text to a contact, any existing unread conversation with that contact is automatically marked as read—even if no team member has actually viewed or responded to the customer's message.

This can cause important inbound messages to be missed because they disappear from the unread queue.

Example

A parent texts us with an important question.

The conversation is correctly marked as Unread.

Before a team member responds, a bulk text or automated campaign sends that parent a message.

The conversation is automatically marked as Read, even though nobody has handled the parent's question.

As a result, the conversation no longer appears in the unread list, making it much easier for customer inquiries to be overlooked.

Why This Matters

Many businesses rely on the unread conversation list as their primary work queue. Automated outbound communication should not imply that a human has read or addressed the customer's inbound message.

This is especially problematic for:

Bulk SMS campaigns

Scheduled broadcasts

Drip campaigns

Workflow automations

In these cases, there is no practical workaround because the messages are sent automatically.

Requested Behavior

Please add an option (or make it the default behavior) so that outbound automated messages do not change the unread/read status of an existing conversation.

The conversation should remain unread until a user actually opens or manually marks it as read.

This would ensure that automated communication never interferes with customer service workflows or cause inbound messages to be accidentally missed.