Tips from the Intercom Team

34 Topics

When should I use conversation tags and conversation attributes?

Hey, I’m Larissa, a Customer Support Specialist with Intercom. 👋We often get asked what is the difference between conversation tags and attributes. Whist they can easily be confused, they can be used in different ways.Conversation Tags are tags that are applied to individual responses in a conversation. Tags can be applied by teammates, bots, and/or rules. These tags are helpful to flag and categorize information. You can apply multiple tags to the same conversation and they can be completely different. Let’s say that on the same conversation a customer asked for a feature, complimented another one and was really happy with the support given. This conversation could have three tags: ‘feature request’, ‘positive feedback’ and ‘good interaction’.Conversation Data Attributes are more structured than tags. You define specific information that you would like retrieved from a conversation, like specific numbers, text, true/false responses, priority, etc., and then it becomes categorized to

1 month ago

FemiEmployee

posted in Getting started with Intercom

How to create a Workflow that uses Custom Object data to retrieve data from a Custom Action.

Hey there 👋Femi here from the Technical Support Engineering team! We get some questions about using Custom Actions with Custom Objects and Workflows, here’s how to do that. Let’s start by taking a look at what my custom API response to the /products endpoint of my test API looks like 👇 This is important as the request and response type will determine how you structure the Custom Action request. Now that we know what the response looks like, let’s go ahead and set up our Custom Action. First, navigate to Settings and go to Apps & Integrations where you’ll find “Custom Actions”: This is where you'll set up all the different connections you have to external data (e.g. Shopify, Salesforce, etc.) depending on your use case. In this post, I’ll be making use of my custom online store that sells football boots.Click “Create action” to set up your first Custom Action: Give your Custom Action a clear description 👇 Configure the Request details: This is where you’ll need to enter the AP

1 month ago

Noor SalehEmployee

posted in Intercom for Human Support

How to exclude time spent in bot inbox from SLA targets

Hi Intercom Community! We’re back with another Intercom Quick Win, and this one’s about managing SLAs. 🚀 Have you noticed your conversations going out of SLA before your agents even have a chance to catch up on the thread or greet the customer? This often happens because the time customers spend interacting with Fin AI Agent or going through a Workflow counts towards your SLA. Here’s a simple fix: set up a separate Bot Inbox in your Automation Settings. This way, any conversation that starts with Fin AI Agent or a Workflow will appear in a separate inbox. Your SLAs won’t start ticking until the conversation is assigned out of that inbox and into the right hands. By turning on this separate bot inbox, you can also exclude the time customers spend with Fin AI Agent or in a Workflow from your reporting. This gives you a clearer picture of how long it really takes for your agents to respond and follow up. Check out this 1-minute video to see how it works, or follow along with our help gui

1 month ago

Brian BrancaEmployee

posted in Getting started with Intercom

Trigger One Product Tour After Another

Hi, I’m Brian, a Customer Support Engineer in Chicago 👋A common question: “Is it possible to create two Product tours where the second tour shows immediately after the first one finishes?” The answer is yes! There are a few ways to achieve this. Note: #2 and #3 will require the help of your dev team 1) Using SeriesPerhaps the simplest way to do this would be to create a Series which sends out the Tours. Then, you can configure it so when the User has completed the first Tour, the second one will be sent automatically.2) Utilize the Intercom(‘update’) methodAn alternative to using a Series would be to refresh the Intercom page after the first Tour is displayed. When you call the Intercom('update') method using some new user data, Intercom will look for new messages that should be shown to the user and will display the second Product Tour. 3) Use the Intercom(‘startTour’) methodAn alternative method would be to display the second tour when a button or a link is clicked on your s

1 month ago

Jacob CoxSr. Technical Support Engineer

posted in Tips for Developers

aykut.aydinCustomer Support Engineer

posted in Intercom for Automated Support

Automatically Create Tickets by Using Workflows & Custom Actions

In Workflows, it is possible to share a ticket form with customers for them to fill out, but it is not directly possible to create a ticket automatically.To create the ticket automatically, you can use Custom Actions to make an API call to create a ticket. The API endpoint you will need to use is here. Here is an example,1- Firstly, you can create your custom action using the example below, which you will insert into your Workflow later. You can adjust the content of the ticket based on your use-case. 2- Now it's time to incorporate this into our workflow:In my example, I’d like to automatically create a ticket whenever a conversation is rated negatively. (See here for more details on how to ask CSAT via Workflows)For this, I am using branches to check if the conversation is rated negatively. If so, it will trigger the Custom Action we created. 3- Result:When the customer rates the conversation negatively, the custom action is automatically triggered by the Workflow above, creating a

2 months ago

Jennifer KCustomer Support Specialist

posted in Getting started with Intercom

How to Create a New Workspace

Hi I’m Jennifer 👋I am part of the Support Team here at Intercom 👍We often see confusion between creating new Workspaces live in production, creating Test Workspaces and creating Developer Workspaces. There are 3 different types of Workspaces that can be created.Intercom Apps (instances) are called Workspaces, whereas Integrations are called Apps. We've made this change to avoid confusion for developers who are building apps on our Framework. However, we have not renamed the "app_ID", as changing the name of that to "workspace_id"would have been a breaking change for integrations with Intercom across web apps and websites.To create a new Workspace, you can click on your avatar in the lower left-hand corner. You then hover over your current workspace's name and a pop-out should appear. At the bottom of the "Search for a workspace" pop-out, click "Add a new workspace..." 👍If you are trying to create a Test Workspace, you should go to your general settings. You'll then be directed to

2 months ago

Beth-AnnEmployee

posted in Intercom for Automated Support

Enabling a culture of knowledge management in your team

Hey everyone, I’m Beth, Help Center Manager here at Intercom. Besides creating articles, one of the most important duties of managing a Help Center is making sure those articles are kept up-to-date and helpful. Our articles are not only used by our customers, but are also seen and shared by our support reps. Equipped with their deep knowledge of Intercom’s products and features, they’re often the first ones to spot content that looks stale or inaccurate, so who better to flag it than our own Support team, and what better place than from the article itself? By setting up an inbound Workflow from our Help Center, support reps can make article update requests or submit new article ideas, straight from the Messenger. Their request details can either be captured in the conversation thread, or by sending a ticket. These requests are automatically triaged into a specific Workflows, where I can easily pick them up. Tickets are great for capturing all the details needed to action the request, a

3 months ago

Ebenezer.LaleyeCommunity Manager

posted in Tips for Developers

How to Pass a Company ID over in a Conversation.

Hey there! Ebenezer here from Engineering Support👋.We get a lot of questions on how to “Pass a Company ID over in a Conversation”. While Company data doesn't get stored in the Conversation Object, there is a way to do this!☝😎First, you'll need to create a Conversation Data Attribute that stores the specific value that you're looking to access.Next, Your team will need to perform several calls to our REST API to get the ball rolling. Initially, they would Retrieve a conversation and then locate the value for source.author.id. This value will contain the ID of the person who initiated the conversation.A little side note; You’ll want to verify that the source.author.type is "user" for those conversations. If it's "admin" then that ID will be for a team member on your workspace who started the conversation. In these situations, you will want to dig into the conversation_parts attribute to see who the actual customer is.Once you have the ID of the User, you will then want to make a call

3 months ago

Ruth KEmployee

posted in Tips for Developers

Converting visitor to lead by passing anonymous email

Using our JS API, it is not possible to update the email field of a visitor type contact with the standard Intercom('update', {"email": "rk.test@testing.com"}); Doing so will result in a 403 error. However, using a parameter in the JS API called anonymous_email will allow you to convert a visitor to a lead via the JS API without running into any issues. Use the update method to pass through the email of the visitor without needing to set up REST API calls to achieve the same result. Intercom('update', {"anonymous_email": "test@example.com"});

3 months ago

ShaunaCommunity Manager

posted in Getting started with Intercom

Why are users disengaging from my Series? How do I re-engage those users back into the Series?

Hey, I’m Shauna - Technical Support Specialist with Intercom 👋I’ve had a lot of interactions with customers who are querying why their users disengaged from the Series and how to re-engage them - so I’m here to help 🚀 To start out at the root of it - why are users disengaging from a Series? Disengaged Users are users who haven’t qualified for the next block in their path or users who haven’t come online to receive a message within the set timeframe.Note: If using the "try to match once" rule, a user will disengage as soon as they reach this block if they do not match the rules at that time. If users will need time to match the rule block, try using the "try to match for X days" rule. This rule means that users will stay at this block until they match the rules and then proceed down the path, or they will disengaged after 'X days' have passed.Some other examples where Users can disengage is in the case of an Email or SMS - the user could be:Unsubscribed from Emails or SMS On the Hard

3 months ago

Jacob CoxSr. Technical Support Engineer

posted in Intercom for Human Support

Delete a Single Conversation Directly From Your Help Desk

Have you ever found yourself pounding your head against the wall trying to figure out a simple way for your team to delete a single Conversation in Intercom? For a long time the only way to delete a conversation was by deleting the Intercom User or Lead associated with the Conversation. But by doing this you not only delete that single Conversation, you also delete that User/Lead and every other conversation that is associated with them. Recently our Engineering team added a ‘Delete a Conversation’ call to the Unstable version of our REST API. This new endpoint allows your team to delete a single conversation from your Intercom workspace without having to delete the associated Intercom Contact! This is a step in the right direction, but making an API call isn’t always super convenient. Also, those three letters API, can strike fear in the hearts of those customers who don’t have a little bit of coding experience under their belt. What follows is a solution for deleting a single convers

3 months ago

Jennifer KCustomer Support Specialist

posted in Getting started with Intercom

Guidance on how to set up different workflow triggers with rules and conditions and understand their prioritisation

When creating a Workflow, there are multiple Triggers to choose from and it's important to note that once you chose a Trigger and set the Workflow live, you cannot change the Trigger type.Each Trigger has a different purpose and there are 14 Triggers that can be used depending on if you are creating a Workflow for a Conversation or for a Ticket.This article goes into more detail on what each trigger does and their common use cases 📄- https://www.intercom.com/help/en/articles/7434613-introducing-triggers-for-workflowsYour Workflows always run in sequential order. Customers only experience the first customer facing Workflow they match which is why we recommend having different audience rules in your targeting if you have multiple Workflows with the same trigger as if you have the same audiences and same triggers, only the first Workflow will fire.You can read more on how to manage the order of your Workflows in this article below 👇https://www.intercom.com/help/en/articles/7857645-manag

4 months ago

mateusz.leszkiewiczCommunity Manager

posted in Getting started with Intercom

What to do when Product Tour is not firing? (Troubleshooting guide)

Your Product Tour may not be showing or sending for a number of reasons. I'll review a few, but let me know if this does not sound familiar to you. Intercom Messenger must be installed on the page the tour is built on. If Messenger isn’t installed on the page you built the tour on, the tour will not work. To make sure your Messenger is installed, you can check your Network tab in your Browser Developer Tools (Fn+F12) and put Ping in the search bar. If there are some logs, it means that Intercom is installed on your website. 👇 If a user matches for multiple tours at the same time through the “Show tour automatically” audience rules, we will only send the user the most recently updated tour by date. The audience rule might not be set up correctly in “Show tour automatically.”. For example, this could be set up for users rather than leads (you can click on the toggle there to change the audience). The page URL in the audience rules in “Show tour automatically” may be incorrect.

4 months ago

aykut.aydinCustomer Support Engineer

posted in Intercom for Automated Support

Enhance Customer Satisfaction with Automated CSAT Follow-Up Actions in Your Workflow

Customer Satisfaction (CSAT) is a crucial metric for any business aiming to deliver exceptional customer experiences. Taking the initiative to understand and act upon customer feedback is essential for continuous improvement. Here, I’ll guide you on how to ask for conversation rating and take follow-up actions based on the given rating in Workflows. Step 1- Create a Workflow by going to Automation > Workflows > New Workflow. Select “Create from scratch” and then select “Teammate changes the conversation state” trigger type. Step 2- Choose “Closed” in the below section. This means, the Workflow will trigger when the conversation is closed Step 3- Now you can add the first action of your Workflow. Ask for conversation rating. Step 4- Enable the below toggle to make sure your Workflow doesn’t proceed to the next steps until the customer gives a rating. If you don’t enable this option, the Workflow will proceed to the next step without waiting for the customer to provide a rating. S

4 months ago

Sarah H11Custom Support Specialist 2

posted in Getting started with Intercom

Why does my Email audience count look less than I expect?

When creating a Proactive Email, we often get asked why the audience size is smaller than using the same filters in the Contacts page. Let’s break down the main reason this can happen!With email messages, we automatically exclude users that:Don't have an email Have unsubscribed from you Have marked your emails as spam Have bounced any emails you've sent to themIf you want a more accurate list of the users who would be in your email audience, you can see this in Contacts by using the same filters in your message and then additionally adding Email is unknown and Unsubscribed from Emails is false or Marked email as spam is false or Has hard bounced is false.

4 months ago

berniceCommunity Manager

posted in Tips for Developers

Intercom specific CSS selectors for Product Tours

Hey, I’m Bernice, a Customer Support Engineer with Intercom 👋🐝 An issue we often see users face when building Product Tours & Tooltips is that their selector cannot be found on the page the Tour is being built on.A guaranteed way of making your Product Tour display as expected is editing your CSS selectors to the Intercom specific ones provided -[data-intercom-target="Specific element name"]You’ll find more on this method in this article from our Help Center 📌

5 months ago

Pavel KozlovEmployee

posted in Intercom for Automated Support

Using Apply rules step in Workflows to tag conversations based on specific keywords

Hello Intercom community, Pavel here, Engineering manager from Automation group at Intercom. We recently shipped the “Apply rules” step to our Workflows. This step is essentially a “case” statement that allows to apply multiple sets of actions based on specific conditions for each set.What I wanted to share in this post is how well this step handles a very popular use case of tagging conversations based on keywords.Before this release you could do it only using rules, and you had to create a rule per each keyword. Now you can do the same work in Workflows using just one Workflow.Here’s how it works: Go to Workflows and find “After a customer sends any message trigger” Add the “Apply rules” step Set up keywords/tags pairs Set your Workflow live! Hope it helps! Cheers,Pavel

5 months ago

Sarah H11Custom Support Specialist 2

posted in Intercom for Human Support

Target messages to users based on Survey responses

Hey folks 👋 I'm Sarah, a Customer Support Specialist in Dublin, we may have spoken before if you've ever written into the support team. A common question I get asked, is if it’s possible to send follow up messages to users based on their response to a Survey and the answer to this is absolutely! When you create a Survey in Intercom, you can choose to save the Survey answer the user selects as a user attribute by clicking here 👇 You can then create a Proactive support message, to follow up with users based on the answer they have chosen, by using this attribute in the audience rule 👇 The above Email will now send to users who have rated less than 3 in the Survey. Hope this helps and happy Surveying!! 😊

7 months ago

Jacob CoxSr. Technical Support Engineer

posted in Getting started with Intercom

Harness Webhooks in Your Series to Send Survey Responses to Slack

As a Customer Support Engineer, a common question I get from customers is, “Can I send Intercom Survey results to Slack?”The answer is a resounding “Yep”! In fact, it’s possible to do this within Intercom without having to write a single line of code. (Though a little knowledge about how APIs work never hurts 😀!) What you’ll need to do this: Slack’s API docs An Intercom Subscription that includes both Series w/Webhooks and our Surveys product. Create the Series Create a new Series in your workspace and set up your Audience rules to filter for your intended Survey audience. In my example, I want to send a Survey to all of my customers who have signed up for my product in the last 90 days. This Survey can send on any URL that my Intercom workspace is installed on. Create and Add your Survey I’m not going to go through all the steps of creating a Survey. If you want to learn how to set one up you can read about that here. That said, one important thing to remember to do when setting the

7 months ago

Ivan BranimirEmployee

posted in Tips for Developers

Copying your articles from US to EU/AU workspace

Hey everyone 👋 My name is Ivan and I’m a Customer Support Engineer here at Intercom. You might’ve seen my face around if you messaged our support via the Messenger 👷🏼‍♂️ Here’s a sample Python scrip you can use to copy your articles from your US to your EU workspace 👇import requests# set parameters for US and EU endpoints/headersintercom_token_us = "<YOUR US TOKEN GOES HERE>"intercom_token_eu = "<YOUR EU TOKEN GOES HERE>"intercom_us_url = "https://api.intercom.io/articles"intercom_eu_url = "https://api.eu.intercom.io/articles"# header used to get the articles from US workspaceintercom_headers_us = { "Authorization": "Bearer " + intercom_token_us, "Accept": "application/json", "Content-Type": "application/json",}# header used to create the articles in EU workspaceintercom_headers_eu = { "Authorization": "Bearer " + intercom_token_eu, "Accept": "application/json", "Content-Type": "application/json",}# store all articles in a listarticles = []# get all ar

10 months ago

Brian BrancaEmployee

posted in Getting started with Intercom

Add Product Tours to your Messenger Home

Hi, I’m Brian, a Customer Support Engineer in Chicago 👋 Product tours are a great, interactive way to drive adoption of your product. Product Tours can be shown automatically, shared via a link, or triggered with an Intercom JavaScript method. But did you know it’s possible to add Product Tours to your Messenger Homepage using our Content Showcase app? It’s a great way to make sure that interactive and engaging information about your product is front and center and always a click away.The Content Showcase App allows you to drive engagement by featuring announcements, articles, and Product Tours on your Messenger home screen or in your conversations. Let’s walk through how to add Product Tours to your Messenger Homepage.First, copy the link to your Product Tour from the Show tour everywhere section of your Tour builder Note: Adding a tour to Content Showcase doesn’t support dynamic URLs (add attributes to the URL). See below for a workaround! Next, navigate to your messenger s

11 months ago

Brandon S13Employee

posted in Intercom for Human Support

How we manage low-touch forecasting and scheduling (partnering with Assembled)

I’m Brandon, the Workforce Manager on the Customer Support team at Intercom. My primary responsibility at Intercom is to ensure that we have the right people, at the right place, at the right time in order to answer our customers’ queries in a timely fashion - and we’ve partnered with the workforce management tool Assembled to make this process easier for myself.With Assembled, we are able to connect Intercom directly to the tool through API integration. In doing so, Assembled is able to ingest and track the number of conversations that flow through all our specific inboxes. The tool then uses this historical data, along with configurable inputs I provide, to generate future short-term forecasts. I then apply manual adjustments within the tool to fine tune a forecast that is most aligned to our business model. Once we input the team’s weekly schedule and time off into Assembled, the staffing timeline updates to display our projected supply versus our forecasted demand. I then schedule

11 months ago

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