Why would you want an auto-reply feature? (Question from an Intercom Product Manager)

@Alissa Tyrangiel​ , Localized for 7 Languages only, it's not possible to customize messages there.

Mostly all helpdesk solutions supporting welcome e-mail customization or auto-reply set-up.

As I mentioned before, lot's of Intercom customers are using e-mail forwarding and mail support features. It's crucial to have an auto-reply feature to operate e-mail support with Intercom.

Hi @Alissa Tyrangiel​ hope you are well, we have already touched on some of these previously.

Some immediate use cases for auto-reply;

1. Introduction and greeting based on customers attributes (Welcome to Premier Support for VIPs)
2. On snoozing a conversation, sending a standard response to customers
3. On closing a conversation, sending a standard response to customers
4. On reassigning a conversation, sending a standard response to customers (with the name of the new agent)

As others have mentioned and as some of the 3rd party apps or use cases on scheduling and timing that would be amazing. Dealing with inactive/transient customers and being able to trigger messages would save so many clicks. Additionally, if y'all introduced new status types, automated messages based on a status change updating customers would also be a nice value add.

Our use case is closer to number 2.

Generally, 3 attempts over at 24 hour period, so standard practice would be;

• Customer is inactive, send a message and snooze for 3 hours
• The customer is still inactive (not online), the agent will send a saved reply message and snooze until end of the day (generally another 3 hours)
• Following day, the agent will send a final saved reply message and close conversation

Additionally, if we see that a customer has read the message (where we have provided the solution) but has not responded we will provide a different saved reply and close the conversation (we understand you are busy and have read the solution provided, please do reach out.. )

Great thanks for clarifying Craig!

Hi @Alissa Tyrangiel​ ​ ! I'm excited about the possibility of this feature being available. At Octopods, many customers have asked for a similar feature.

Our app integrates social and SMS chats into the Intercom inbox. The most common use case for auto-replies is setting up an out-of-office message. This is important to our users because:

• Conversations created by Octopods can't run Intercom bots or outbound campaigns
• When support staff are away (esp. on weekends), anyone contacting them via SMS or other channels will not receive a response in return. Many users would like to at least send an automated away message.

Automated welcome messages are also in demand, but they're not as popular as out-of-office messages 😊

Thanks for getting back to me so quickly, @Alissa Tyrangiel​! I think customers would prefer the ability to set their own messages, but having this exact task bot as an option for other channels would also be extremely useful, and could satisfy the need.

Many customers (those who've used apps like FB or WhatsApp) are used to being able to set custom welcome and away messages on those platforms, or simple, text-based welcome bots, and they lose that when they integrate those channels into Intercom through Octopods. (Admittedly, this is a gap we've thought about filling.)

Another use case that may have already been mentioned in this thread (and I believe Bump helps in this area, although I have yet to try it):

• Sending an auto-message in a conversation based on a tag (or some other trigger). This is helpful for follow ups, but would also allow customers to send outbound messages through API-created conversations, and therefore to channels other than email and the Intercom Messenger.

Thanks for the input @roy s11​ , appreciate it. 🙂

Currently we snooze conversations and follow up to ensure people received the message and were able to get the issue sorted out. Ideally, we could include a button that users could click to indicate that the issue was solved (conversation closed). If the button or a response was not received, the system would automatically follow up (ideally on multiple channels in-app, then email). This would save us from having to snooze and follow up which is probably 25% of our time right now.

Hi @Alissa Tyrangiel​ thank you for asking! We have a public Google Sheet online that our users can use as a template. Many people do not understand this public concept and therefor request access. These requests all go to our intercom support. So we send them instructions with an reply template on how to go about getting the template for themselves. The effectiveness of this point of engagement is very very low that I almost decided to stop answering, but I find this harsh and unfair. So, in this case I'd really love to send an automatic reply based on the subject and help tem with the instructions to copy the template. Kind regards, Jacob

Hi @peter r​ you can set your business hours inside the messenger configuration.

For holidays I also change de business hours and days and change the special notice in app, so people will figure it out.

The bot also helps, since it explains that you'll be available when you get back

Hi @Alissa Tyrangiel​ , 7 Month left and still no any updates

Hi @jasmyn​ . Unfortunately we don't currently have an ETA for a feature like this. 😞