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Hi all! I'm looking for some feedback on the 'Default Sender Address' setting.


  • New Participant
  • 3 replies

Hi all! I'm looking for some feedback on the "Default Sender Address" setting. Right now we have this set to "Use teammate's Intercom account email address" which is the recommended setting, but we're looking at switching this to "Use an Intercom email address" to help mask teammates' full names and email addresses. We've been seeing situations where users are sending emails to a teammate's email directly instead of using the Intercom reply-to address. Any thoughts or insights on why the account email is recommended? Any other considerations we should take into account before making this kind of change? Thank you in advance!

4 replies

  • Connector
  • 7 replies
  • June 2, 2022

Hey Kim!

 

You can change this up in the settings and this will allow you to use a centralized email "support@company.com but individual teammates will get notifications of conversations to their own email address. Is that what you were looking for?

email settings


  • Author
  • New Participant
  • 3 replies
  • June 2, 2022

Thanks! That's the setting I'm looking at - specifically the part of changing how a conversation appears to be sent from a teammate to users. Right now we have the default sender address for each teammate set to name@company.com (the option below what you have above), but we're looking at switching to firstname.lastname@company-1234.intercom-mail.com (the option you have selected). I'm looking for any thoughts, insights, benefits of either sender address - the settings page recommends using the name@company.com email instead of using the Intercom email address but we're looking to help mask teammates' full names and email addresses. Have you used both and prefer your current setting over each teammate's account email address? Any downsides to the option you have on now?


  • Connector
  • 7 replies
  • June 3, 2022

Hey Kim,

 

I did some playing around. The custom email address that you can insert into Intercom can only be used for sending outbound messages to customers: it allows you to choose a shared email address if you want to avoid it coming from one person..

image 

However, I don't think this works for chat messaging but we might need someone with a bigger brain than mine to verify this!

 

I think there's a whole raft of reasons why masking is not available: from the tracking of individuals' workload, transparency of conversations, accountability in the team, stats in terms of performance etc.

 

I do think the Intercom email is probably your best bet to avoid direct work email addresses being directly available to your customers. We haven't tried both but I think it definitely safeguards the staff a little more.

 

So, my only other suggestions are hacks: since Intercom's email is developed off the back of the first/last name, you could invite your staff to use an alias inside of their Intercom account and edit their names (make something up)

image 

as well as create an avatar through something like Zmoji. As long as you know the aliases (which should be easy since they will still set up their account with their work email), then it shouldn't be an issue for managers to track work.

 

Another workaround is to provide your staff with the option to mask their identity via their work email by having an alias available for particular interactions, ie, if Shelly Smith does not feel comfortable being 'known' by customers, you could have Shelly choose an alias specifically for Intercom work. I know Gmail has this capability - I think it would require email forwarding.

 

That's all I got! Good luck!


  • Author
  • New Participant
  • 3 replies
  • June 3, 2022

Thank you! Your hack is exactly what we're looking at doing - teammates can already use an alias or last initial instead of their full last name. The problem we've been running into is that newer company email addresses are no longer firstname@company but now include firstname.lastname@company so an Intercom alias/hidden last name isn't helping them since the email comes from their Intercom account email address.

 

It sounds like what we're trying to do would work, but no best practices or experience with either side?


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