Hey everyone! We’re using Intercom for both live chat and longer ticket-style support.
A challenge we’re facing is that conversations often remain open, but the agent who was handling the chat goes offline (end of shift). In theory someone else could jump in, but in practice each teammate already has a high ticket load, so constant handovers are not realistic.
What’s the best practice workflow for this in Intercom?
Best answer by Christopher Boerger
Hi
This is a common pain point, especially for teams balancing live chat and async tickets. A few patterns I've seen work well:
1. Let Fin handle the "resolved but not closed" problem Many conversations go inactive because the customer got their answer and just left. Fin has built-in inactivity handling for this — you can configure it to check in after a period of inactivity and auto-close if there's no response. Customize the closing message to be friendly ("Looks like you're all set — feel free to reach out anytime") rather than abrupt. This alone clears a lot of clutter without agent intervention.
See: Use Fin AI Agent in Workflows
2. Use the auto-close inactive conversations workflow template Intercom has a pre-built template under Fin AI Agent > Workflows > Create from template > "Send a friendly reminder to inactive customers." It sends a nudge after X days, waits, then closes. Adjust the timing to suit your SLAs and add a tag like "auto-closed" for reporting.
See: Auto-close inactive conversations
3. Separate live chat from async tickets operationally The handover problem is really a live chat problem. Async tickets can wait for the original agent to return. Live chat can't. If you're not already, consider routing these differently — live chat goes to a shared team inbox with round-robin, tickets stay with individual assignment.
4. Use "away" status to trigger reassignment Under Settings > Workload Management, you can configure what happens when a teammate goes away or offline. Set open conversations to automatically move back to the team inbox or reassign via round-robin. This removes the "someone could jump in but doesn't" ambiguity.
5. Set SLA-based workflow triggers Create a workflow that reassigns or escalates conversations that have been waiting without response for X minutes while the assignee is offline. This catches things that slip through without requiring manual monitoring.
See: Customer or teammate has been unresponsive
One gotcha: The "customer has been unresponsive" workflow trigger only works if the last message came from a teammate, not the bot. So if Fin was the last to respond, you'll need to use Fin's native inactivity settings rather than a separate workflow.
The underlying pattern: automate the cleanup of conversations that don't actually need human attention (inactive, resolved, out of scope), so your team can focus on actual handovers that matter.
+3Hi
This is a common pain point, especially for teams balancing live chat and async tickets. A few patterns I've seen work well:
1. Let Fin handle the "resolved but not closed" problem Many conversations go inactive because the customer got their answer and just left. Fin has built-in inactivity handling for this — you can configure it to check in after a period of inactivity and auto-close if there's no response. Customize the closing message to be friendly ("Looks like you're all set — feel free to reach out anytime") rather than abrupt. This alone clears a lot of clutter without agent intervention.
See: Use Fin AI Agent in Workflows
2. Use the auto-close inactive conversations workflow template Intercom has a pre-built template under Fin AI Agent > Workflows > Create from template > "Send a friendly reminder to inactive customers." It sends a nudge after X days, waits, then closes. Adjust the timing to suit your SLAs and add a tag like "auto-closed" for reporting.
See: Auto-close inactive conversations
3. Separate live chat from async tickets operationally The handover problem is really a live chat problem. Async tickets can wait for the original agent to return. Live chat can't. If you're not already, consider routing these differently — live chat goes to a shared team inbox with round-robin, tickets stay with individual assignment.
4. Use "away" status to trigger reassignment Under Settings > Workload Management, you can configure what happens when a teammate goes away or offline. Set open conversations to automatically move back to the team inbox or reassign via round-robin. This removes the "someone could jump in but doesn't" ambiguity.
5. Set SLA-based workflow triggers Create a workflow that reassigns or escalates conversations that have been waiting without response for X minutes while the assignee is offline. This catches things that slip through without requiring manual monitoring.
See: Customer or teammate has been unresponsive
One gotcha: The "customer has been unresponsive" workflow trigger only works if the last message came from a teammate, not the bot. So if Fin was the last to respond, you'll need to use Fin's native inactivity settings rather than a separate workflow.
The underlying pattern: automate the cleanup of conversations that don't actually need human attention (inactive, resolved, out of scope), so your team can focus on actual handovers that matter.
Hi Team, I am using Intercom and I think that customers should have an option of searching their previous chats using a search bar at their end under the messenger.
This will enhance the customer satisfaction.
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