News and Updates

Hello Interconnected 👋 Following up on Phil's message below, we have our first deep dive course into the initial layer of the Conversational Support Funnel framework live on Intercom Academy!  Register Here  With support volumes on the rise and the constant push to keep support costs down - it’s never been more important to have a proactive support strategy that will help you get ahead of known support issues before they burn out your team. We’ve just added a new course: Get ahead of known issues with proactive support to our series of courses covering the Conversational Support Funnel framework in Intercom’s Academy. In it, we look at:How to identify which support opportunities to target, and Share ideas for proactive messaging that will improve your customer experience and reduce inbound volumes.  Best of all? You’ll cover it all in less than 20 minutes. So grab a beverage of your choice and enjoy! 😊

💭🤔 Ever wish that you could combine actions with saved replies? Of course you do! We know this is a feature that many Intercom customers have requested. Just a few months ago, @sushana​ said, “+1 on needing a Saved Reply to be inserted along with the auto-closure.” Now, you can do that and much more with the release of macros 🎉Macros (formerly saved replies) allow you to go beyond pre-written responses and add actions like snooze, close, assign, prioritize, add a tag or conversation data attribute. Instead of doing all those tasks individually, you can complete them a single click– and in bulk, too!   Next week, we’ll be sharing Intercom workflows that we’ve streamlined with macros. In the meantime, we want to hear from you– what’s the first macro you’re going to create for your team?

Hey everyone 👋 - It's time to change the conversation around Support being a cost centre!  Something I feel pretty strongly about (having come from a support management background) is communicating the value of your support team to the rest of the business. It’s so easy and tempting for your entire support org to be viewed as a cost instead of recognising the value they bring to your business. And as a support manager, it can be hard to quantify this value too. Starting today, we’re rolling out a series of 4 courses in Intercom Academy designed to help you: Identify the shared goals and metrics that a great support experience can influence, so you can tackle them with your business partners.Explore support trends that will help you improve your customer experience and retention while boosting your team’s efficiency (and morale).Bridge that gap between what your customers want and what your team can deliver. You’ll cover it all in under 30 minutes of video and text lessons, which you can take all at once, or complete at your own pace. Stay tuned for our follow-on courses which dive deeper into each layer of the framework. Sign up to Academy using your Intercom account, or sign in as a guest - and get started today 🙌 Thanks - Phil PS. We'd love to know what you think of the course too, so drop us a message on Academy via the Messenger

Message templates, a proven framework, and top strategies to transform your support – get the guide 🙌 Our latest guide, “The Ultimate Guide to Conversational Support” helps you unleash the power of messenger-based support to achieve personal, efficient support, at scale.   You’ll get:  A proven framework for automatically resolving simple queries, freeing you up for complex ones Chatbot and proactive message templates for providing fast, personal support Strategies from customer-centric companies, like Slack, Zapier, Wootric, and more Download it here, and let us know: how are you striking that seemingly elusive balance between keeping your team efficient and your CSAT high? 

Hey Connectors! Brian here from the Product Education team, I’m excited to share our upcoming webinar Deeper Insights and Better Reporting, which takes place on March 15. This is an exclusive chance to engage with @Rati Zvirawa​ Zvirawa and @David Cullinan​, the product managers behind Custom Reports and Conversation Topics. As they cover:The story behind these features: a brief look at how and why we made themBest practices: how Intercom has used these features to unlock valuable insightsQ&A section: where the team will answer questions and share insights liveFeedback: Share your thoughts, feature requests, and ideas with the team For more information and to sign up, click here! 

Some product updates from...Here's a roundup of last month's product changes, big and small, so you never miss an update! 📊 See the metrics you care about in one place with Custom Reports 💬 Categorize and analyze conversation content with Conversation Topics ⮐ Improve your email deliverability with custom return paths 👀 See user lists for non-message blocks in Series 🎯 Set Series-level goals based on company data 

Reporting is now better than ever with custom reports AND conversation topics 📊 🚀 With custom reports, you can build your own custom charts and dashboards to see all the metrics that matter to you, all in one place. And with conversation topics, you can see what your customers are saying, helping you surface trends and drive business actions. Click Expand Post 👇 to see these two new features!Create your first custom report or check out your topics today. And don’t forget to share your tips, tricks, and advice with fellow Connectors as you start as you dive in!

Some product updates from...2021 is off to a busy start! Here's a roundup of this month's product changes so you never miss an update! 🙊 Prevent you audience from responding with new no-reply Post messages 🔗 Link directly to headings within help articles 💪 More flexible Articles with anchor links, tables, alt text, and dividers 🗒 Collaborate with teammates, or leave notes for yourself, directly in Series 🤖 Create entirely Bot-only messaging experiences 💬 Get more coverage from Resolution Bot with looping, bot intro, bot only mode, and more 🪐 Now supporting universal links for iOS 📲 Learn about the newest apps in our app store

Some product updates from...Here's a brief roundup of this month's smaller product changes so you never miss an update! 🧬 Run split tests in Series - like A/B tests but better! 🔒 Control access to conversations by teams or roles with our new inbox permission 🤖 [Open Beta]: New features in Resolution Bot  📲 .P8 certificates for iOS push are now supported

A few more product updates from...  Here's a brief roundup of last month's smaller product changes so you never miss an update! 📌 Ensure your users never miss a message with our new non-dismissable Banners 🚀 Top tip: You can now launch Product Tours from Banners 🏷 Automatically remove tags in Series 📤 Inbox rules can now be triggered by multiple events 🔁 Access conversation data via Intercom’s API for more sophisticated reporting and workflow needs 

Launch Mobile Carousels or Articles directly from content selected in your mobile app 📱✨ We just launched the ability to trigger an Article or Mobile Carousel from an element inside your app. Have buttons open up an Article or Carousel, or have them trigger based on specific end-user actions. Examples include:Trigger an Article or Mobile Carousel when a payment is failedSurface an Article on your orders screen that outlines shipping and return policiesInclude a list of tutorials that open up individual Mobile Carousels Simply insert the ID of the Article or Carousel you wish to open into your app’s code. You can get these IDs from specific Article’s URL or the “Trigger your carousel from code” section of the Carousel editor. To learn more, check out this article on Articles, and this article on Mobile Carousels. Note: You’ll need the latest version of the Intercom mobile SDK in order to use this new feature. 

A few more product updates from...Here's a brief roundup of this month's smaller product changes so you never miss an update! 📅 Customize your Article reports to the timeframe of your choice ✏️ Divide your help docs more effectively with horizontal dividers 👏 Organize your help content more efficiently with tables in Articles 🛒 Lastly, here are some of the newest apps in our app store

Try out Banners: another code-free, customizable way to get your audience’s attention 👀 You can now capture your audience’s attention at the top or bottom of your website or app with customized banner messages. Use Banners to:Share promotions, announcements, service outages and moreOnboard new users by surfacing tips or directing them to a Product TourGenerate leads by capturing email addresses Target users based on who they are, how they’ve engaged with your product, or how they’ve interacted with prior messages. You can even incorporate Banners into broader messaging campaigns with https://www.intercom.com/series"alt="http://Series. https://app.intercom.com/a/apps/_/outbound/banners"alt="http://Create your first Banner today!

Need an easy way to close conversations with unresponsive customers? To help save your team even more time, we’re releasing the ability to automatically close conversations where a customer has been unresponsive.  You can create this rule by selecting the event for “customer has been unresponsive”, setting the time frame to trigger it, and adding a “close conversation” action. To make rules better fit your specific workflows, we’ve also added more flexibility to the existing “if a new conversation hasn’t been replied to” event. You can now choose a longer delay (up to 14 days) before the rule triggers. Check out rules to see how else you can minimize manual, time-sucking tasks. We want to hear from you: what repetitive workflows would you like to automate for your team?

You can now auto-close conversations 🥳 We've just updated our Inbox automation rules feature which allows you to automatically close conversations based on your chosen criteria. Use it to fight spam and close any conversation that doesn't need a teammate's attention. 🔥 Insider tip: We'll be releasing another feature very soon which will make this action even more useful! What could it be?! 

A few more product updates from...Each month we'll post a brief roundup of our smaller product changes so you never miss an update! 📊 Get more control of your reports with customizable CSV exports 🛒 Resolve order issues faster and provide better self-serve support with our updated Shopify App 🏷 Prevent your conversation tags from getting unmanageable with new tagging permissions 🧹 Keep your inbox automation organized by archiving and deleting unused SLAs 😎. More leads with less effort - Custom Bot A/B testing, goals, retriggering rules, + more! ⚙️ More efficiently manage customer conversations with API v2.2 

 As we continue to celebrate the launch of Interconnected, we're giving you a chance to win an exclusive invite to a fireside chat with Intercom CEO, Karen Peacock! 🔥 Throughout the month of October, all you need to do is answer questions in Interconnected to be in with a chance to grab an invite to this exclusive event! Happy connecting! 🙌

Meet Series 🚀 our new visual campaign builder that works across every channel With Series you can now create customer engagement campaigns using all of Intercom’s messaging channels, from emails, to Mobile Carousels, to Product Tours - reaching your customers wherever they are.  Drive action across the customer lifecycle with integrated onboarding flows, feature announcements, and re-engagement campaigns – all within a single tool.  Create your first series today, and share your tips, tricks and advice with fellow Connectors as you start using this powerful new messaging tool 🙌 

Let’s get this party started 🎉   Today we’re officially opening the doors to our new Intercom community forum, Interconnected!  And to kick off the festivities we’re announcing the first in a series of exciting giveaways 🤩Any member who posts a question to the community in September will be entered into a draw to win a 1:1 support session with our Customer Success team 🤩  (There’ll also be a few swag-shaped spot prizes along the way) This community was designed to help you find peer support, make valuable connections, get closer to the Intercom team and be rewarded and recognized for your achievements along the way.  If you have any questions about how this all works check out the Interconnected Q&A section, and if you have ideas, feedback of requests for us please share them in this group. Welcome to Interconnected, we can’t wait to get to know you 👋

Save time with our new powerful and flexible rules system! 🚀  ✅️ Create and manage all your rules from a single place✅️ Trigger rules on a wide set of events and conditions, like re-assigning conversations when a teammate hasn’t replied or when a question comes in outside of your office hours✅️ Use a single rule to complete multiple actions like prioritizing, tagging and assigning a conversation to the right team in one go Learn more about how the new Rules work here and head to your Inbox > Automation > Rules to check out the feature.

More leads with less effort 😎 - Custom Bot A/B testing, goals, retriggering rules, + more!To help you drive even more leads and engagement with your Custom Bots, we’ve launched several new features 🎉  1. A/B test your bots and set goals to understand effectivenessIt’s now easier than ever to understand what bot content performs well with A/B testing and goal setting. A/B test what message content is most effective, and set goals to see which versions perform best. Then make optimizations based on this data to drive more leads for your business 💰 2. Send your Custom Bots more than once Generate more leads by reengaging returning website visitors with the same bot. You can now use the same Custom Bot to engage your website visitors, regardless of if they’ve seen the bot before. Customize when you want your bot to be seen until: once per user, until it’s opened/dismissed, or until it’s engaged with. Note: to use this specific feature in your mobile app, you must have the latest version of Intercom's mobile SDKs . 3. Manage all your outbound messages in one place📍You now have the ability to manage your Custom Bots in the Outbound section of Intercom where all of your other outbound messages live (e.g. email, chats, posts, mobile push, etc.). Your bots will also continue to live within Operator, and we’ve merged bots for visitors and for users to make it easier for you to keep track of all your Custom Bots.To get started, navigate to your Custom Bots in Intercom. To learn more about Custom Bots and how they can help you drive engagement on your website, check out this article.

Introducing Predictive Answers for Resolution Bot 🎉 You can’t read your customers’ minds, but with Predictive Answers, you can come close!  Using data from historically asked questions, user metadata, and webpage location, you can predict what your customer might need at any given moment. You can even choose what type of customers predictions can show up for. Simply select your audience preference when you turn on Predictive Answers in the Operator settings page. Turn on Predictive Answers today and let us know what you think! 

Handle complex conversations more efficiently with new ticketing workflows 🎟 With our new conversation data attributes your team can handle conversations efficiently and consistently, like with a traditional ticketing system, without losing the personal experience of the Messenger. 

Ensure that a conversation never falls through the cracks 🤹‍♂️ Conversations can be assigned to both a Teammate and Team, so you have context on where it originated. Also, if you’re in Away Mode, a conversation is now returned automatically to the right team.  

Nobody wants to have the same conversation twice! 🙃 Reduce team inefficiencies by spotting duplicate conversations from the same customers. Task Bot now alerts you to a potential duplicate by posting an internal note in the conversation.