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HELP - re: company messaging


HELP - re: company messaging

 

We use company targeted messaging a LOT. I was just told by IC support that if I use company attributes to target a message with "AND" criteria, and the user is a member of multiple companies, the messaging system will use the attributes from ALL of the companies they are members of to qualify them.

 

Example:

 

I have a segment for our current customers. These are customers active with us, and this segment is VERY important for messaging criteria. We don't want to send messaging to people who aren't with us anymore.

 

So I targeted the message at: Current Customers AND criteria 1 AND criteria 2

 

The user who got the message belongs to two companies with us. One is active and belongs to the Current Companies segment and one is not.

 

They qualified for the message based on being a Current Company for company B, and meeting Criteria 1 and Criteria 2 for company A, which IS NOT EVEN OUR CUSTOMER ANYMORE.

 

If this is indeed how it is supposed to work, targeting companies is completely worthless to us.

 

Also it means I've been sending out messaging to users who aren't even customers anymore, for YEARS. A LOT of our users belong to multiple companies and since we can't actually target messaging at companies directly (which- WHYYYYY) this causes so many problems for us. Campaigns are already basically dead in the water for us because of this. Now if the messaging is too - I don't know that IC is going to remain a viable solution for us for messaging our customers.

21 replies

  • Author
  • Active User
  • 17 replies
  • September 14, 2020

Anyone with insight on this? @eric f11​ ?


  • Author
  • Active User
  • 17 replies
  • September 14, 2020

The support team just re-confirmed this is expected behavior, so now I'm faced with essentially redoing the entire structure of how we manage users to accommodate for Intercom's lack of ability to properly target messages at companies.


Eric Fitz
Employee
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  • Employee
  • 1630 replies
  • September 14, 2020

Hey @nicole j12​, we've experienced similar behaviour with our campaign to launch Interconnected (users getting copies of each messages for every workspace they're part of).

 

@Kate Sugrue​ and I have raised this internally to see if there's any kind of workaround available to us. Additionally, I'm investigating if a new release tomorrow will help to solve the problem you're experiencing here, at least partially.

 

Once I have an update for you, I'll post it here!


  • Author
  • Active User
  • 17 replies
  • September 14, 2020

In this case, I wouldn't mind multiple of the same message. But people are getting messages pertaining to companies that aren't even customers of ours anymore. That makes us all look real dumb.


Eric Fitz
Employee
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  • Employee
  • 1630 replies
  • September 15, 2020

I hear you, it's far from ideal (to put it mildly). Out of curiosity, how do you denote, in Intercom, that a company is no longer a customer of yours? Do you use any kind of CDA or tag? Is there a Mediavine database that you have linked to Intercom's API? Just thinking in terms of possible workarounds (but happy to park that discussion, too, if you don't think it's of value!)


  • Connector
  • 9 replies
  • September 15, 2020

We are trying to design a similar challenge. From what I am learning, the initial design for Intercom was B2C (as most interactions are done at the user level).

 

A lot of B2B functions like Companies seem like a bit of an afterthought. It would be great to have deeper support for B2B (Company level management). I'm sure as Intercom moves up market these features will become all the more desired.

 

Do you see any differences if you filter from the user route, and use company attributes, instead of going from the Company screen > filtering down for users?

 

In the mean time, shoot me a message if you want to strategize, as i'm going through a similar struggle - albeit still in implementation.


  • Connector
  • 7 replies
  • September 15, 2020

Yeah, we've definitely struggled with this for a long while now.

 

In a similar vein, if you include company data variables in the body of an email, and the targeting criteria include a mix of both user-based and company-based rules, a recipient who's connected to multiple companies will receive 1 email for each one -- regardless of whether or not that company matches the company-based criteria.

 

We've actually leveraged that equally vexing behavior as a workaround for the broader targeting issue. If all of the auto-message's targetting criteria are company-based, and you include a company data variable in the email, IC will only send out emails for companies that match all of the company attribute criteria.


  • Author
  • Active User
  • 17 replies
  • September 16, 2020

We have our database integrated as custom attributes, so I just target messages based on those. All workarounds and ways to make us NOT look like idiots are of value. 😉


  • Author
  • Active User
  • 17 replies
  • September 16, 2020

I've never actually seen this happen when filtering from the "People" section (or whatever they are calling it now). When I send outbound messaging, I always filter from right within the message. We mostly use Company-based attributes because that's who the message is meant for - the entire company.


  • Author
  • Active User
  • 17 replies
  • September 16, 2020

That's interesting, and slightly terrifying. I had no idea that was a thing. We usually DO include a company-based variable in the body of our emails to let people know WHICH company we are referring to, as many of them belong to multiple companies. I haven't seen what you are describing happen (each company the user belongs to getting an email), and our users would definitely complain about that.

 

I think there's some significant bugs and issues in their Company segmenting and targeting, and I'm not sure why they are spending their time re-rebranding the existing features instead of fixing this very basic, very necessary part of the tool that we spend over $5k a month on.

 

Have you seen your workaround cause the issue I described initially, where the qualification is piecemealed together from every company they belong to?

 

Appreciate you sharing your experience here!


  • Connector
  • 7 replies
  • September 16, 2020

Yeah we have a meaningful chunk of users who are essentially 3rd-party digital consultants for our customers, who specialize in our SaaS product, and thus who are often simultaneously connected to dozens of "companies" across various plans/lifecycle stages/etc. We've also got a decent amount of repeat customers, given the fairly high staff turnover rate in the nonprofit/political campaign world.

 

All to say, I can definitely sympathize.

 

"That's interesting, and slightly terrifying. I had no idea that was a thing."

 

Yeah, it's a thing ... or at least it used to be a thing. Intercom actually alludes to it in this help doc, under the "Company name" section:

 

"Note: If a user is a member of multiple companies, messages using company name will be sent to them once for each company."

 

I'm pretty sure that if a dupe emails are sent to a single user, each of those will appear in the feed on their profile -- so you should be able to validate this is still the behavior thataway.

 

For that reason, generally speaking, whenever we need to include a company-based variable in the body of our email, while also including user data-based targeting params, we'll do one of two things:

 

Just suppress multi-account users from receiving the message.

 

Or add it to a campaign (if it wasn't already), handle all of the necessary user data-based targetting at the campaign entry/exit criteria level (e.g. User `is_admin` = TRUE), and then only include company data-based criteria at the individual auto-message level (e.g. Company `plan` = "standard" AND Company `status` = "paid").

 

That way, if a user is a connected to two companies, one with status "shutdown" and another with status "paid" -- they'll only receive an email for the "paid" account. (If we were to add that "User is_admin = TRUE" rule at the individual auto-message level, that same user would receive two emails).

 

But more often than not, we actually just avoid including actual company data-based variables in our email auto-messages -- which does sometimes garner questions to our support team about which account we're referencing ... at which point the support rep will usually just ping my team, and we'll do some digging to try and figure it out.

 

That said, for us, those people attached to multiple companies are typically power users -- and so usually don't need/bother to inquire.

 

"Have you seen your workaround cause the issue I described initially, where the qualification is piecemealed together from every company they belong to?"

 

So, my workaround doesn't really address the underlying qualification criteria issue -- in theory, the multi-account user would still qualify for the message due to piecemeal-ed company data, but they just wouldn't receive an email for any companies whose attributes don't match ALL of the company-based targeting rules. Does that make sense?

 

But there is another workaround which I think might more directly address your issue -- at least if what you're looking to do is suppress users who are associated with at least one Company that's an ex-customer.

  1. Create a saved User segment for all Ex Customers (e.g. Company status = shutdown).
  2. Then create another User segment (e.g. "Current + Ex Customers") for "Segment IS = Current Customers" AND "Segment IS = Ex Customers" -- that's the only way to filter for users who are associated with multiple companies with different values in a given company attribute.
  3. Then in the auto-message rules, add this rule "Segment IS NOT = Current + Ex Customers".

  • Connector
  • 7 replies
  • September 17, 2020

@eric f11​ - icymi, I outlined the only two workarounds i know of below.


  • Connector
  • 7 replies
  • September 17, 2020

As an aside, I actually drove a push to invest in Segment Personas in part because I hoped it would better handle the complexities of accurately targeting multi-account users / their accounts (e.g. we carve out the audiences in Personas, then sync that to Intercom as an attribute). Long story short, Personas isn't up to that task either. 😪


  • Author
  • Active User
  • 17 replies
  • September 24, 2020

@alex s12​ Would you mind emailing IC support and letting them know you are also experiencing this issue? They are saying they cannot prioritize so it can get fixed in the next 3 months due to a "lack of companies reporting this issue".

 

But, it is my guess that most companies don't REALIZE they have this issue, but almost every B2B business will. I don't think having users attached to multiple companies is all that unique.


  • Author
  • Active User
  • 17 replies
  • September 24, 2020

@jeff h12​ Would you mind emailing IC support and letting them know you are also experiencing this issue? They are saying they cannot prioritize so it can get fixed in the next 3 months due to a "lack of companies reporting this issue".

 

But, it is my guess that most companies don't REALIZE they have this issue, but almost every B2B business will. I don't think having users attached to multiple companies is all that unique.


  • Connector
  • 7 replies
  • September 24, 2020

@nicole j12​ 😬 I've reported/inquired about this for years... needed to have at least a dozen convos with various support reps because of a nagging lack of confidence in my grasp on the "expected" current behavior.

 

But yes, I'm inclined to agree that there are many other B2Bs out there in a similar boat who just haven't realized it yet.

 

I guess it's possible that most other B2Bs have setup their tracking to knowingly create dupe user records for people as they switch companies. But wouldn't you lose the ability to identify power users -- and end up sending repeat lifecycle auto-messages, erroding personalization? You'd also risk sending dupe batch-and-blast emails to the same inbox. Feels like an anti-pattern to IC's product philosophy.


  • Connector
  • 7 replies
  • September 24, 2020

@nicole j12​ you might be able to drum up more awareness by cross-posting to the Product Wishlist group ... and maybe even submitting it via the "Ask a question" feature on one of the QA boards -- maybe "Messages, Series & Smart Campaigns"?

 

(Conversations in Groups don't get returned in the Search)


  • Connector
  • 9 replies
  • September 25, 2020

@nicole j12​ more than happy to put in a note to give it a +1. Please let me know what address to send the inquiry.

 

A couple of perspectives:

  • Being a PM myself, I know how hard it is to address EVERY customer request. While we in the B2B space have significant challenges with this, for all we know some of the B2C customers have another part of their critical workflow blowing up as we speak. I imagine the Product team is doing the best they can to put out the biggest fires first
  • With that said, I am a little disappointed with the lack of customer-facing communications of the Product team at Intercom. It appears like it is quite a large team, but for whatever reason -- we never see or interact with them as representatives. For a company that promotes such Product-led and communication driven cultural values through Podcasts, Blogs, and Marketing material , it seems like there is some cognitive dissonance at work. I'm sure they have their reasons for being so tight lipped when it comes to the Product team, but a little goes a long way.
  • Furthering the point above, I recently got an automated note from Kaitlyn, the head of Support. She posted a video recognizing that they are not satisfied with the current state of affairs. I very much appreciated the level of transparency provided. It sounds like there are some growing pains, but we need to be patient with Intercom as they implement systems that can scale.
  • Lastly, I do feel that our customer segment (B2B) are an alarming minority. The entire B2B experience clearly comes second fiddle to B2C, seemingly inbound lead gen for marketing websites. As Intercom moves upstream and looks to IPO I expect this to change -- however in the mean time, we need to keep in mind that we are a very small segment of their user base.

 

For the Intercom team: Im sure you take many variables into account, including severity and risk of churn. This may be stating the obvious, but my two cents:

 

  • While it is good to look at 'popularity' metrics to prioritize bugs and features, you are always going to get the most requests from your largest *current* customer segments. One way to look at it is, if you have a large number of customers in one segment - your product probably does the job it needs for them to stay as customers. Of course they will always have desires, but please don't let this overshadow opportunities to grow. Im sure your B2C solution is best in class. However, your B2B solutions need a lot of work, and perhaps prioritizing some core workflows for our segment would help bring in and retain more customers like us - who do tend to have larger contracts and more stickiness.

 

Overall, I am very satisfied with the unique solution Intercom brings to the table, and am impressed with many of the recently launched features. Growing pains are normal -- and of course something to celebrate! Looking forward to what's to come...


Eric Fitz
Employee
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  • Employee
  • 1630 replies
  • March 9, 2021

Hey @nicole j12​ @jeff h12​ @alex s12​ - we have finally shipped a new feature that allows you to manually determine which companies should be prioritised in your messaging here.

 

This applies to all messages contained within a Series.

 

You can control the company prioritisation settings here:Screen Shot on 2021-03-09 at 15-08-17I'd love to hear any feedback you might have about this, and I hope it goes a long to resolving the issues you've been experiencing!


  • Author
  • Active User
  • 17 replies
  • March 9, 2021

This is fantastic! Thank you so much for the update. I have some work scheduled on our Series this week and I will definitely check this new feature out!


Eric Fitz
Employee
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  • Employee
  • 1630 replies
  • March 9, 2021

No problem, and thank you for being such a strong advocate for this feature! In my nearly four years in Intercom, it's been a frequent feature request and a big challenge for our product team to solve, I'm so happy that it's shipped!


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