Feature Request: Channel-Specific Notification Sounds and More Noticeable Live Chat Alerts
I'd love to see more granular notification preferences in Intercom, especially for teams managing both live chat and email.
I know Intercom already allows teammates to choose a notification sound, enable notifications for specific team inboxes, and receive desktop alerts.
But the challenge is that all incoming conversations still sound pretty much the same, regardless of how urgently they need attention.
For context, our FRT targets are:
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Live Chat: 2 minutes
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Email: 2 hours
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Phone: 1 minute
Phone consistently performs best for us, and I think part of that comes down to how noticeable incoming calls are. There's a distinct ringtone and a prominent pop-up, so teammates know immediately that something needs their attention.
Live chats require almost the same urgency, but they don't get the same treatment. A new chat can easily get lost among email notifications, assignments, and other inbox activity.
And realistically, teammates can't be expected to watch their inbox every second while working on other tasks.
A few improvements I'd love to see:
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Different notification sounds by channel. Let teammates assign separate sounds for live chats and emails. Even just having a distinct default sound for chats would help.
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Custom sounds by team inbox. Allow different sounds for Sales, Support, Escalations, etc., especially for teammates covering multiple queues.
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More noticeable live chat alerts. I know desktop notifications already exist, but it would be great to have an optional, more prominent pop-up specifically for incoming live chats, similar to how incoming calls are displayed.
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Optional SLA-based reminders. For example, if a live chat hasn't received a response after 60 seconds, trigger another alert before the conversation breaches its FRT target.
I also wonder if there's an opportunity to improve the reliability and visibility of existing notifications.
We've found that simply having notification preferences enabled doesn't always mean incoming chats are noticeable enough, especially when teammates are working across multiple tabs.
I understand that some of these would be bigger product changes, but I think separate notification sounds for chats and emails would be a great starting point.
The goal isn't to create more notification noise. It's to help teammates recognize what needs immediate attention without having to constantly monitor the inbox.
I also found a few similar requests here in the Community, so it looks like other teams are running into the same challenge.
Curious how others are handling this. Are your teams also struggling to distinguish incoming live chats from emails, or have you found a setup that works well?