Many companies use distribution lists to save time and effort on both internal and external communication. A distribution list is an efficient way of sending emails to multiple recipients at once and saves the manual labour of having to type in each individual’s email address.

While distribution lists can be helpful, they do come with issues such as cluttered inboxes and a lack of accountability across a team. This is where Emailgistics’s shared inbox management solution can organize and automate your Outlook experience.

Keep reading for a complete guide on distribution lists, how to create them, and how they differ from shared inboxes.

What are distribution lists, and how do they work?

Email distribution lists are groups of email addresses that allow a single message to be sent to multiple recipients at once. They work by having a central address for the list, and when someone sends an email to that address, a copy of the email is automatically forwarded to all members of the list.

A significant benefit to distribution lists is that anytime a customer or employee sends emails or receives replies to these addresses, everyone on the list gets a copy of the email. This avoids issues if a particular individual is out of office, too busy to reply to the email, or forgets. With a distribution list, you can ensure that your customers’ emails receive replies from your team.

How to create an email distribution list in Outlook

Before you start using distribution lists, you need to create them in Outlook. Here’s a guide on creating an email distribution in the Outlook desktop application.

1. On the navigation bar, click the People icon

4. Name your contact group

5. Click Add Members, and add people from your contacts list or address book

How to import an email distribution list

To import an email distribution list into Outlook, you first have to ensure that all the required contacts are in a Microsoft Excel file. You can import the file by going to File > Open & Export > Import/Export.

Then you will be able to select the Excel file and directly import the contacts to your contact list in Outlook.

What’s the difference between distribution lists and shared inboxes (and why are shared inboxes better)?

Distribution lists are essentially a collection of email addresses where a single message sent to the list address is forwarded to all recipients. Unlike shared mailboxes, message history and replies cannot be seen by members of the distribution list. A shared mailbox allows multiple users to access the same data in one centralized mailbox. Everyone with access to the mailbox can read, reply, forward, and send new emails from the mailbox address.

The key difference lies in who handles the emails. With a distribution list, all members receive copies of each message, whereas a shared inbox centralizes the emails in one place for collaborative management.

Shared inboxes are generally better because they reduce redundancy (no duplicate replies) and improve collaboration by allowing multiple users to see and respond to messages in real-time. By allowing greater transparency, shared inboxes improve the response rate to your customers.

How to convert a distribution list to a shared inbox

Distribution lists can be converted to a shared inbox using Microsoft Admin Council. To do so, you will need Microsoft 365 admin permissions and access to the Microsoft Exchange admin center. 

For a step-by-step tutorial on converting a distribution list to a shared inbox, check out this post.

Addressing issues with shared inboxes 

While shared inboxes are helpful, they are missing key features that allow for collaborative and efficient teamwork. That’s where Emailgistics comes in!

A major problem with shared mailboxes is inbox clutter and missed messages. With Emailgistics, you avoid this problem as our intelligent software automatically routes emails to the right team members every time, meaning no more emails falling through the cracks and happier customers.

Want to track an employee’s performance and your SLAs? With real-time customizable dashboards monitoring metrics important to your team, you can easily do so, empowering you to make informed decisions to keep on top of SLAs. Emailgistics ensures that all team members have an appropriate workload by setting the maximum number of messages assigned to each user’s inbox.

Emailgistics helps you achieve your goals in the four areas that matter the most: customer satisfaction, collaboration, productivity, and analytics & reporting. 

To get a customized demo and to try Emailgistics free for 14 days, click here.