Can Intercom recognise users without a user portal on my site?

Question

My website is basic, no user logins or anything of that sort. I'd like intercom to remember users as we have regular customers coming in with questions. What's the best way to set that up with Intercom? I tried installing via GTM and it isn't showing up.

Eric Fitz · Accepted Answer

Hey @tony s​&#128075; this won't be possible unless you have some kind of login/authentication portal for your customers, and I'll explain why.For Intercom to recognise someone as a user, you need to pass a value for either email or user_id in the Messenger's code snippet. Email is out for you here, as there's nowhere on your site (such as a login portal) where you request a customer's email address.I also wouldn't recommend passing a user_id for visitors. Firstly, Intercom can only recognise the "same" visitor returning to your site based on their device's cookies/session, which is entirely out of our control. If they were to visit your site from a different browser, in a private/incognito window, from a different device or after their cookie/session had expired, they'd be recognised as a "new" visitor, no matter what data you'd passed on your end.What will end up happening, in this case, is multiple duplicate user accounts will be created, which will impact your data fidelity (and potentially your costs, depending on your subscription with Intercom).I hate to be the bearer of bad news here, but the only way to achieve what you're looking for would be to incorporate a customer portal behind a login on your site.

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