Fin Response Hierarchy by Seasonality

Question

Friends! What capability does Fin have in terms of creating a response hierarchy based on seasonality? For example: we service Accountants - during tax season we want Fin to default to a specific answer based on snippets we’ve created for that inquiries during tax season, and in the “off-season” we want the response to be more general.  Has anybody solved for this or done some work around to provide Fin this training?

Jacques Reynolds · Accepted Answer

Hey ​@Malachi Hopoate👋 Jacques here from Intercom Support. I hope all is well today!Currently, Intercom Fin does not have a built-in feature to automatically create a response hierarchy or switch its default answers based on seasonality (e.g., tax season vs. off-season) out of the box. There is no direct way to schedule snippets or content to be prioritised or surfaced only during specific times of year, such as tax season for accountants.Fin allows you to segment content using "Audiences" - for example, by user type, product, or other attributes. However, there is no native time-based or seasonality-based audience rule. You can manually update which content is available to which audience, but this is not automated by date or season.Some teams handle seasonality by manually enabling or disabling certain articles, snippets, or guidance at the start and end of a season. For example, you could swap in tax-season-specific snippets at the beginning of tax season and revert to general content afterward. This is a manual process and not automated.You can use Workflows to route certain types of questions to specific answers, and Custom Answers to ensure Fin always gives a particular response to certain queries. However, these are not time-aware; you would need to manually activate or deactivate them as the season changes. Guidance can be used to fine-tune Fin’s behaviour for specific scenarios, but again, there is no built-in scheduling or seasonality trigger. You can update guidance to reflect seasonal priorities, but this requires manual intervention.Some customers prepare both seasonal and general content in advance, then manually activate the relevant content at the start of the season and deactivate it afterward. This is the most common workaround, but it does require operational discipline and a clear process.Also, for very common, repetitive seasonal questions, some teams use Custom Answers to ensure a specific response is always given. These can be enabled or disabled as needed, but again, this is not automated by date.Hope this helps!

Malachi Hopoate · Answer

Thanks, ​@Jacques Reynolds.

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