The new chat experience on Gmail makes it easier to chat with friends, family, and groups of people. The new look is streamlined and modern, and it works across your phone, tablet, computer, or any other device with the Gmail app. You can also chat with people you might not know very well yet in Hangouts Chat – a group chat experience that’s all about keeping conversations focused on what’s important to you and your group. The New and Improved Gmail Chat
What is new?
So what’s new about it? While many of its features are still in development, some of them are already available to users. Here’s what we know
Why do we need it?
Having real-time chat is really important to our business. If a customer has a question, they can instantly ask us so we can help them in a timely manner. We have customers that work around other people’s schedules, so sometimes it is hard to speak with them on phone calls. If they need an answer right away, then emailing back and forth can be very frustrating for both parties.
How does it work?
If you already use chat on gmail, then you’ll find that it works almost exactly like what you have right now. The only real difference is that instead of a little chat icon in your inbox, there will be a chat button on each email. It’s a small change—but one we hope will make chatting on gmail even more of an integral part of using gmail overall. You can turn off conversation view if you prefer to see emails stacked vertically instead of horizontally.
Where can I find it?
Click on any conversation, then click on More next to their name. From there, you can find Start video call under Actions. If you don’t see that button immediately, hang tight—it might take a few minutes for a video window to pop up after you start chatting.
Tips and tricks
Stay on top of conversations with snooze (allows you to put off your reply until later) or switch from mute (skips future messages from that person) to priority inbox (automatically sorts important messages for review first). You can also customize notifications. For example, if you don’t want notifications when your coworker is sending replies, go to settings > account preferences > notifications.