I’ve tried explaining this feature request to Intercom support multiple times, and they always seem super confused about it: I want to be able to link into Intercom Inbox in a way that opens a new compose window with an arbitrary email address filled into the recipient list. (Bonus points if we can also pass in subject line.)
In other words, what we’ve been able to do for 30+ years with mailto: links, but opening Intercom to do it instead of a regular email client.
After quite a few back-and-forths, it ended today with Intercom support telling me that “as a CRM” Intercom doesn’t have the functionality of an email client.
Really?
All email sent to our company’s support address ends up in Intercom Inbox, where we can read and respond to it, just like an email client. When we want to start a new email conversation with our customers, we go to Intercom Inbox and start the conversation there, manually filling in the To field, just like an email client. (Unless you’re on the mobile app, in which case THERE’S NO WAY TO START A NEW CONVERSATION WITH AN ARBITRARY EMAIL ADDRESS. Ahem.)
So how is Intercom not like an email client?
I mean, other than not currently supporting the mailto: style links that I’m asking them to support!
Am I crazy?
We don’t currently use Intercom for anything other than a shared support email box. All of our customer data is managed on our side with our own custom UI and database, we don’t want to use Intercom for that purpose.