Intercom
Unlocking Intercom's Potential for Support Teams
Let's go!
Hello! About this course...
Intercom is a great tool for customer service teams, but mastering even the best tools can be challenging. Don't worry, brave support agent! This course is designed just for you đ
Start course
Objectives
- Understand Intercom Basics
- Navigating the Interface
- Handling Conversations
- Performance Tracking
- Best practices
Presentation Navigation Guide
Full Screen Mode
Clickable Buttons
Navigation
Embedded Media
Info
Click the arrow buttons to advance the next slide or return to the previous one.
Click the images and screenshots for an immersive experience.
Click play on videos or audio files to view or listen to embedded content.
Look for buttons that link to additional content or different sections.
Modules
Supporting customers in the Inbox
Module 3
Getting to know the Intercom inbox
Module 2
An intro to Intercom for support agents
Module 1
Module 1
An intro to Intercom for support agents
Module 1. Intercom for Support Agents
Welcome to our learning path for support agents! We understand that using a new tool can be confusing, so this course will guide you through your new workspace before you start handling your first customer conversations. You'll learn how to set up your profile, adjust your notifications, and configure your status in the inbox to set customer expectations correctly. Once you're comfortable, we'll share tips and tricks from our support team on how to enhance the support we provide to our customers and speed up your workflow once you know the basics. That's it for this introduction. Let's move on and get to know your workspace in Intercom!
Introduction - Intercom for Support Agents
Take a quick guided tour of the Intercom workspace, such as the inbox, Automation, and Proactive Support.
A quick look at your Intercom workspace
When you're invited to join an existing team's workspace in Intercom you'll get an email like this one, showing what team you're being invited to and some of the teammates who are already there.
+ info
Intercom workspace
Once you're signed up you'll see a short form to tell us what you're using Intercom for and whether you've set up something similar in a previous role. You can also choose what you mostly use Intercom for, so here you can pick:
- 'To support customers'
- The department I'm in select 'Customer Support'
- For the role I'm currently in select 'Support Rep'.
Intercom workspace
To have an inbox seat, if you see this screen, make sure you ask your manager or an admin for your workspace to grant you an inbox seat so you can start resolving customer conversations. And that's it! Now you have an Intercom account and you're ready to support your customers.
Profile settings
If you go into your ''Profile Settings'' you can change anything to do your workspace but mostly we're going to come in here right at the start and change our profile settings like set our avatar, our status, you can update your workspace language too.
Info
Setting your online status
To change your status, hover your mouse on your profile picture at the bottom of the screen and click âSet as awayâ. This opts you out of automatic conversation assignment.
When working in the Inbox, itâs good practice to set your online status to manage incoming conversations. The color of the dot over your profile picture will tell you what your status is set to. đ˘ Active
đĄ Away
Info
Setting an away reason
You can also choose to set a reason for being away. This is great to set expectations with your teammates or manager, especially if you work as part of a distributed team.
Reassigning replies
When your status is set to away, you can also choose to reassign replies automatically. This way, if a customer replies to a conversation assigned to you, it will be unassigned automatically so another teammate can continue the conversation. Otherwise a customer could reply to a conversation assigned to you and need to wait until you come back from vacation to receive a response.
+ Tip
Quiz Time
Welcome to the quiz for the first module of our Intercom training course! This quiz is designed to help reinforce your understanding of the basics we've covered so far.
00:10
00:10
00:10
00:10
00:10
Congratulations, you've reached the end of this moduleđ
Youâve learned:
- Your way around the Intercom workspace
- How to set up your Intercom profile and lay the groundwork for personal support
- How to set your online status
Module 2
Getting to know the Intercom inbox
Module 2. Getting to know the Intercom Inbox
When your inbox is filling up, you don't want to waste time figuring out how to take action. Better to spend it talking with customers and resolving their problems!
In this course, you will learn how to:
- Navigate around the inbox space
- Use conversations and tickets appropriately
- Sort and manage your conversations
- Customize your inbox to make it work for you
An overview of the inbox
Speed through every interaction with a flexible and customizable workspace that allows you to switch between inboxes, conversations, and customer context instantly.
Using the inbox overview
Let's get to know the key features of Intercom's AI-powered, fully configurable, collaborative inbox designed for speed and efficiency.
Conversations and Tickets
In this lesson we're going to cover the difference between conversations and tickets.
Info
The conversation list
In the Intercom inbox, learn about how to make the most of the conversation list, including how to sort by state, priority, ticket type, or SLA deadline.
Conversation list
The conversation space
In this lesson we're going to focus on the conversation space, in particular the top bar and the thread itself.
The conversation space
Let's take a close look at where conversations happen in Intercom - the conversation space in the inbox.
Discover how to prioritize, snooze, and organize your conversations to deliver faster customer support.
The conversation details panel and inbox apps
On the righthand side of your inbox, youâll find conversation details and inbox apps. These give you the context you need to provide the best possible customer experience. You can customize your conversation details to show the exact information you need, and perform actions directly in external tools without needing to leave the conversation. Letâs look at this panel in more detail.
By default, youâll see details about the conversation at the top of the panel:
- Who the conversation is assigned to
- What team itâs assigned to
- Whether thereâs a ticket linked to it
Info
How do I customize the conversation details?
Adding and re-ordering apps
Letâs say a customer reports a bug in your app... Itâs helpful to see the actions theyâve taken before seeing the issue so youâll want to bring âRecent eventsâ to the top. Just click âEdit Appsâ, then select the pin icon to the right of âRecent eventsâ to add it.
You can then select the icon to the left to drag it to the top.
Info
Choosing which attributes and events are visible
With User data, Company details, and Total events you can also specify exactly which attributes and events you want to see. Just click âSee Allâ below the list and use the âpinâ icon to toggle visibility on and off. When you're finished, click the back arrow at the top
Hiding apps
Efficiency is important when youâre supporting a high volume of customers. Removing unnecessary information is a good way to tidy up your inbox so you can focus on whatâs important to you and your customers. To hide apps and information you donât need, click âEdit Appsâ, then, select the âPinâ icon on any that you would like to hide
Note: Any changes you make to your conversation details will only apply to your view of the inbox - it wonât affect your teammatesâs inboxes.
Quiz Time
Welcome to the quiz for the second module of our Intercom training course! This quiz is designed to help reinforce your understanding of the key concepts we've covered in this module.
00:10
00:10
00:10
Congratulations, you've reached the end of the moduleđ
Youâve learned:
- How to navigate the Intercom Help Desk
- How to use tickets to manage long-running queries
- How to sort and manage your conversations to drive efficiency
- How to customize your inbox for effective customer support
Module 3
Supporting customers in the Inbox
Module 3. Supporting customers in the Inbox
Now that you know your way around Intercom and the inbox, let's go into more detail about responding to conversations.
How conversations arrive in your Inbox
Conversations can land in Intercom a number of ways depending on the channels your company use:
Once theyâre in Intercom, a workflow assigns them to the appropriate teams. From here, they can appear in your inbox in one of three ways:
- Automatic assignment
- Round robin assignment
- Manual assignment
Balanced assignment
Conversations are assigned to the active teammate in the team inbox with the fewest open conversations. This ensures workload is evenly distributed among all teammates.
When multiple eligible teammates have the same number of open conversations, the teammate who didnât get assigned a conversation for the longest time receives a conversation first.
For teams who use assignment limits, teammates with open conversations equal or above their assignment limit donât receive more conversations.
Round robin
Conversations are continuously assigned to active teammates in the team inbox in a sequential order, they are also distributed evenly across teammates. Keep in mind that:
- Conversations assigned to a round robin team inbox while all teammates are away wonât automatically get assigned to teammates when they become active again.
- Conversations manually assigned to a team inbox (not via workflows) wonât automatically get assigned to active teammates when round robin is active.
- For teams who use assignment limits, round robin doesnât account for assignment limit.
Manual assignment
Conversations will not be automatically assigned to individual teammates (unless they match an assignment rule). This is the default setting for new team inboxes. Conversations can be assigned to another teammate or team in the inbox manually. When you manually assign a conversation to a specific teammate, the team assignment also remains in place.
This means if that teammate switches on away mode, the conversation will be automatically assigned back to the correct team.
Info
Status
Changing your status will change how you get conversations. If you donât know how to set your status, click your profile photo to set your status.
Info
Adding context in the Inbox
Learn how to tag conversations in the Intercom inbox and summarize issues for your teammates using internal notes.
Snooze a conversation
You and your teammates should snooze any conversation thatâs still active, but temporarily on hold. For example, when youâre waiting on more information from a customer or another teammate, you can snooze the conversation until they reply.
Snoozing a conversation will temporarily remove it from your open conversations list for a set period of time. Then, when the snooze period ends (or if someone replies) the conversation will reopen, reminding you to follow up.
Snooze helps you streamline your workflow, so you can work on pressing issues first.
How to snooze a conversation
If you want to snooze the conversation until a specific date, click on 'Custom' and select a date and time from the calendar.
Then choose how long youâd like your conversation to be snoozed for.
To snooze a conversation, use Z or click the moon icon in the top right hand corner.
Snooze helps you streamline your workflow, so you can work on pressing issues first.
When does a snoozed conversation automatically reopen?
The snooze time period youâve specified is over.
A customer or teammate replies to the conversation.
When a conversation reopens, weâll show you when the conversation was snoozed and at what time it re-opened. The time is displayed in your local timezone, so may appear differently to different teammates.
When a customer or teammate replies to the conversation, it will be removed from snooze.
Should I snooze or close a conversation?
You should snooze a conversation after each message you send, until the conversation has been fully resolved. For example, snooze a conversation if youâre waiting on an answer from a customer or a teammate.
You should only ever close a conversation when itâs been fully resolved for the customer.
Info
How to apply Intercom's tone of voice framework for customer support
A simple six-step framework helps us to create consistency, stay on brand, and deliver personalized, conversational customer support at scale.
Composing a response
Maximize your efficiency when responding to customers with AI, automations, and shortcuts in the Intercom inbox.
Conversation ratings
When you close a conversation, a message will be sent to customers to rate their experience. These ratings help to highlight what's working well, and what can be improved with the support your team provides.
Conversation ratings
There are some cases where this message wonât be sent. In order for it to trigger, the conversation must match the following criteria:
A teammate must have replied to the conversation
- The conversation was replied to by a teammate OR a teammate starts a direct outbound conversation. If the conversation has only been replied to automatically, a rating won't send.
Conversation ratings
Teammate participation in AI-bot conversations
The conversation was seamlessly handed over to an AI-bot, Fin, ensuring that the customer continued to receive immediate assistance. During this time, a teammate also joined in to provide additional support and ensure that all the customer's questions and concerns were addressed efficiently.
Conversation ratings
The conversation needs to be over two hundred and fifty characters long
And that includes messages from both the support rep and the customer. This ensures ratings only send for conversations with a significant amount of dialogue.
If thereâs more than one customer in a conversation, no rating will send, as you canât have two separate ratings for one conversation.
The conversation has to be a 1:1 chat
If you close a conversation that hasnât been replied to, by you or the customer, in the last 7 days - no rating will send. This is to stop ratings appearing in old or inactive conversations.
Ratings donât trigger for old conversations
Info
A conversation can only be rated once
Ratings trigger on conversations initiated by customers and teammates
Can ratings be changed?
If customers left a comment when they first rated the conversation - they can't change their rating. But if they didn't leave a comment, they can return and change the rating.
If you have a conversation that has been closed and reopened again, a rating wonât send the second time you close it. Keep this in mind, and make sure you only close your conversation once youâre sure itâs resolved.
Rating requests are triggered when a conversation was replied to by a teammate OR a teammate starts a direct outbound conversation.
It's important to bear these things in mind when working in the inbox, so you'll always know when and why a rating will trigger.
Using inbox shortcuts
Working efficiently in the Inbox can save time for you and your customers while making repeated tasks in the Inbox easier to complete. To do this, we'll show you how to use command (or control on Windows) + K, hotkeys and we'll share some tips for working efficiently in the Inbox.
If youâre used to using your mouse a lot in the Inbox, donât worry! You can still use your mouse to do whatever you need to, keyboard shortcuts just let you speed things up, with less effort.
Command + K allows you to compose replies, perform inbox actions and navigate around the Inbox really quickly. First things first, where is command + K? Here's a basic Mac keyboard with command + K highlighted.
Info
Shortcuts
Letâs look at how to use these shortcuts
Learn how to supercharge your efficiency in the Intercom inbox with shortcuts
Start a conversation
There may be times when you need to reach out proactively to a specific customer, or communicate with a third party (like a vendor or supplier) for assistance.
Start a conversation
Click the compose icon from the Help Desk menu and select Conversation.
Select the channel you want to start a conversation on.
Info
Start a conversation
Choose who the message should be sent from.
As a default the email will be sent by you. If you have a custom sender address set up in your workspace, you can choose to send the new message from that address.
Here, you can also select who the conversation should be assigned to after your message has been sent.
Info
Compose your message
Compose your message and insert macros, emojis, GIFs, articles, attachments, images, or tours. Simply use keyboard shortcuts with â/Ctrl K or click the three dots below the composer to insert content
Mentions
Often a message needs to be seen by another member of your team. Maybe they're better placed to answer it, or maybe you need their opinion before replying. You can add an internal note and @mention any one of your teammates so 25they get notified straight away and directed to that conversation.
Tooltip
Find conversations where you're mentioned
Any conversation that you're mentioned in will appear in your inbox under Mentions.
To stay organized and ensure that important messages are not overlooked or forgotten, you can mark mentions as "unread". Simply click the three dots next to a conversation and select Mark unread.
Clear unread mentions
To clear unread mentions, select Unread mentions from dropdown menu and click into any conversation that is unopened.
When to loop teammates into conversations
Sharing ideas
Answering product questions
Addressing issues fast
Sometimes an issue is so pressing that you will need to get it sorted straight away. But you wonât always have the full solution. You might need to loop in your manager to gather advice on how to reply.
Often a conversation with a customer can spark a moment of inspiration. Theyâll have lots of ideas about how to use your product and what features theyâd like to see next.
Your customers will have plenty of questions about how your product works and how they can use it. But there will be times when youâll get a particularly complex question that you donât know the answer to.
Limitations
Notes canât be added to the conversation before itâs sent and the pane is disabled on the new conversation page. They can be added afterwards as per usual App, articles and Product Tours cannot be inserted when composing a new email. They can still be inserted via macros but wonât display correctly in the email received by end users.
Benefits
Help your customers help themselves
Better tickets for your team and your customers
Maximize productivity with the fastest shared Inbox
Our shared Inbox is AI-enhanced and designed for speed and efficiencyâso your team can work smarter and collaborate faster.
Connect your Help Center across the whole platformâso your customers can find the most accurate answers when and where they need them.
Resolve complex issues quickly with tickets optimized for team collaboration and real-time customer updates.
Saying NO to customers
When customers love your products they become invested in it and often suggest features,
some are great and some won't fit into your product roadmap. So how do you say no?
Here are a few key things that can help you make that know a bit more palatable.
Saying 'no' isn't always as easy as it sounds. Ask any support agent and theyâll tell you just how tricky rejecting a customerâs request can be.
Quiz Time
Welcome to the quiz for the third module of our Intercom training course! This quiz aims to solidify your grasp of the advanced topics we've discussed. Test your knowledge and see how well you've mastered the material. Best luck!
00:10
00:10
00:10
00:10
00:10
00:10
00:10
Practice
For our final practice, let's get familiar with the shortcuts. On the left side of the Intercom interface, scroll down and select "Practice for the Shortcuts" to begin.
Congratulations, you've reached the end of the moduleđ
Youâve learned:
- How a conversation lands in your inbox
- How to add notes and take actions on queries
- How to use macros, tags, snooze, and send to effectively manage requests
- A range of inbox hotkeys and shortcuts to supercharge your productivity
Congratulations!
You have completed the course!
Course completed!
Note: When you click to accept this invite you can either sign up using a Google account or by entering your name, email and a password, depending on how your company would prefer so you might need to check with your manager on which version of these to take.
Note
If your message is sent from a custom email address, replies will go to that address. You must have Can send outbound emails from custom addresses permission enabled to send messages from a custom address. To see these replies in your inbox you must also have email forwarding enabled.
Beyond this panel, you can add, remove and rearrange apps to see only what you want to.
These apps give you information about customers, allow you to take actions in Intercom and in third-party tools.
Every teammate in your Intercom workspace can choose their own unique combination of apps and information to display here so your conversation details might look different to your teammates.
Note
Note that you can have more than one teammate in a conversation, and ratings will still trigger. When this happens, the rating is given to whichever teammate sent the last reply.
In this example, a rating request will not be sent as there are two customers in this conversation.
Look for buttons that link to additional content or different sections.
Setting your status to away is great for things like being away from your desk for lunch, but away and reassigning is more suited to something like being out of office on holidays.
There are many built in options you can use to make your inbox more powerful and efficient, like these:
- Quick links â Create dynamic links to other products or internal tools with user or company attributes. E.g. yourbillingsystem.com?user_id={user_id}.
- Recent events â See the actions your customers have taken in your product.
- Total events â Count the total number of times your customers have taken certain actions.
- User/Company notes â Check notes you or your teammates have added, like: âDanny loves GIFs in conversationsâ.
- User/Company tags â So you can easily apply tags like: âPotential_beta_candidateâ.
Note
You can contact one or multiple people at once, as long as you have their associated email addresses. You can't add the email address of a teammate within your workspace. If you want teammates to participate in a conversation, @mention them in a note instead.
If you want to send an email to a person that is not in your contacts' list yet, simply enter the email address and new contact will be created
Status
When a teammateâs status is set to away, both balanced assignment and round robin stop automatically assigning conversations to them. When a teammate sets their status to away, they can also enable the reassign replies option. Note: Conversations can still be assigned to teammates who have set their status to away and reassign. If a customer replies to a conversation assigned to a teammate while they have the reassign replies option enabled:
- The teammate gets automatically unassigned from the conversation which puts it back in the team inbox open conversations list. It will be picked up by balanced assignment if it is the assignment method for this team inbox.
- If the conversation was assigned to a teammate and doesnât have a team inbox assigned, it will get automatically assigned to the default assignee.
You'll find both of your command keys on either side of the spacebar. If you do use windows, it'll be the control key.
You'll find both of your command keys on either side of the spacebar. If you do use windows, it'll be the control key.
Opening the command + K menu lets you take lots of different actions within your conversation. As well as this, you have hotkeys so you donât even need to open this menu if you'd prefer.
Pro tip! We suggest starting small with one or two actions that you use a lot, and then progressing to introduce more into your workflow. It could be send and close and send and snooze because you use this so often throughout your day.
Our recommendations:
đ˘ Active: Keep your status as active when youâre available to receive new conversations. đĄ Away: Set your status to away when youâre occupied with something else for a short while, and shouldnât receive any new conversations (like at a meeting, coaching other teammates, or taking a break).
Manual assignment
Assigning a conversation to a team will remove the teammate assignment, so it can be picked up from that teamâs inbox at the right time, or assigned automatically by round robin, or workload management. For teams who use assignment limits, this doesnât prevent manually assigning conversations to teammates even if theyâre at their limit.
Manage your snoozed conversations
To view your snoozed conversations, just click the dropdown arrow on the left-hand side of your message and select Snoozed conversations.
Shortcut
Use shortcuts N and R when youâre outside the composer to quickly jump between mentioning a teammate in a note and sending a reply to a customer. You can also double-click to switch between Reply and Note modes:
Learn about the most essential profile settings for support agents in Intercom, including your profile picture, password, notification settings, location settings, two-factor authentication, and more.
Intercom Course
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Created on July 1, 2024
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Transcript
Intercom
Unlocking Intercom's Potential for Support Teams
Let's go!
Hello! About this course...
Intercom is a great tool for customer service teams, but mastering even the best tools can be challenging. Don't worry, brave support agent! This course is designed just for you đ
Start course
Objectives
Presentation Navigation Guide
Full Screen Mode
Clickable Buttons
Navigation
Embedded Media
Info
Click the arrow buttons to advance the next slide or return to the previous one.
Click the images and screenshots for an immersive experience.
Click play on videos or audio files to view or listen to embedded content.
Look for buttons that link to additional content or different sections.
Modules
Supporting customers in the Inbox
Module 3
Getting to know the Intercom inbox
Module 2
An intro to Intercom for support agents
Module 1
Module 1
An intro to Intercom for support agents
Module 1. Intercom for Support Agents
Welcome to our learning path for support agents! We understand that using a new tool can be confusing, so this course will guide you through your new workspace before you start handling your first customer conversations. You'll learn how to set up your profile, adjust your notifications, and configure your status in the inbox to set customer expectations correctly. Once you're comfortable, we'll share tips and tricks from our support team on how to enhance the support we provide to our customers and speed up your workflow once you know the basics. That's it for this introduction. Let's move on and get to know your workspace in Intercom!
Introduction - Intercom for Support Agents
Take a quick guided tour of the Intercom workspace, such as the inbox, Automation, and Proactive Support.
A quick look at your Intercom workspace
When you're invited to join an existing team's workspace in Intercom you'll get an email like this one, showing what team you're being invited to and some of the teammates who are already there.
+ info
Intercom workspace
Once you're signed up you'll see a short form to tell us what you're using Intercom for and whether you've set up something similar in a previous role. You can also choose what you mostly use Intercom for, so here you can pick:
Intercom workspace
To have an inbox seat, if you see this screen, make sure you ask your manager or an admin for your workspace to grant you an inbox seat so you can start resolving customer conversations. And that's it! Now you have an Intercom account and you're ready to support your customers.
Profile settings
If you go into your ''Profile Settings'' you can change anything to do your workspace but mostly we're going to come in here right at the start and change our profile settings like set our avatar, our status, you can update your workspace language too.
Info
Setting your online status
To change your status, hover your mouse on your profile picture at the bottom of the screen and click âSet as awayâ. This opts you out of automatic conversation assignment.
When working in the Inbox, itâs good practice to set your online status to manage incoming conversations. The color of the dot over your profile picture will tell you what your status is set to. đ˘ Active đĄ Away
Info
Setting an away reason
You can also choose to set a reason for being away. This is great to set expectations with your teammates or manager, especially if you work as part of a distributed team.
Reassigning replies
When your status is set to away, you can also choose to reassign replies automatically. This way, if a customer replies to a conversation assigned to you, it will be unassigned automatically so another teammate can continue the conversation. Otherwise a customer could reply to a conversation assigned to you and need to wait until you come back from vacation to receive a response.
+ Tip
Quiz Time
Welcome to the quiz for the first module of our Intercom training course! This quiz is designed to help reinforce your understanding of the basics we've covered so far.
00:10
00:10
00:10
00:10
00:10
Congratulations, you've reached the end of this moduleđ
Youâve learned:
Module 2
Getting to know the Intercom inbox
Module 2. Getting to know the Intercom Inbox
When your inbox is filling up, you don't want to waste time figuring out how to take action. Better to spend it talking with customers and resolving their problems! In this course, you will learn how to:
An overview of the inbox
Speed through every interaction with a flexible and customizable workspace that allows you to switch between inboxes, conversations, and customer context instantly.
Using the inbox overview
Let's get to know the key features of Intercom's AI-powered, fully configurable, collaborative inbox designed for speed and efficiency.
Conversations and Tickets
In this lesson we're going to cover the difference between conversations and tickets.
Info
The conversation list
In the Intercom inbox, learn about how to make the most of the conversation list, including how to sort by state, priority, ticket type, or SLA deadline.
Conversation list
The conversation space
In this lesson we're going to focus on the conversation space, in particular the top bar and the thread itself.
The conversation space
Let's take a close look at where conversations happen in Intercom - the conversation space in the inbox. Discover how to prioritize, snooze, and organize your conversations to deliver faster customer support.
The conversation details panel and inbox apps
On the righthand side of your inbox, youâll find conversation details and inbox apps. These give you the context you need to provide the best possible customer experience. You can customize your conversation details to show the exact information you need, and perform actions directly in external tools without needing to leave the conversation. Letâs look at this panel in more detail.
By default, youâll see details about the conversation at the top of the panel:
Info
How do I customize the conversation details?
Adding and re-ordering apps
Letâs say a customer reports a bug in your app... Itâs helpful to see the actions theyâve taken before seeing the issue so youâll want to bring âRecent eventsâ to the top. Just click âEdit Appsâ, then select the pin icon to the right of âRecent eventsâ to add it. You can then select the icon to the left to drag it to the top.
Info
Choosing which attributes and events are visible
With User data, Company details, and Total events you can also specify exactly which attributes and events you want to see. Just click âSee Allâ below the list and use the âpinâ icon to toggle visibility on and off. When you're finished, click the back arrow at the top
Hiding apps
Efficiency is important when youâre supporting a high volume of customers. Removing unnecessary information is a good way to tidy up your inbox so you can focus on whatâs important to you and your customers. To hide apps and information you donât need, click âEdit Appsâ, then, select the âPinâ icon on any that you would like to hide
Note: Any changes you make to your conversation details will only apply to your view of the inbox - it wonât affect your teammatesâs inboxes.
Quiz Time
Welcome to the quiz for the second module of our Intercom training course! This quiz is designed to help reinforce your understanding of the key concepts we've covered in this module.
00:10
00:10
00:10
Congratulations, you've reached the end of the moduleđ
Youâve learned:
Module 3
Supporting customers in the Inbox
Module 3. Supporting customers in the Inbox
Now that you know your way around Intercom and the inbox, let's go into more detail about responding to conversations.
How conversations arrive in your Inbox
Conversations can land in Intercom a number of ways depending on the channels your company use:
Once theyâre in Intercom, a workflow assigns them to the appropriate teams. From here, they can appear in your inbox in one of three ways:
Balanced assignment
Conversations are assigned to the active teammate in the team inbox with the fewest open conversations. This ensures workload is evenly distributed among all teammates. When multiple eligible teammates have the same number of open conversations, the teammate who didnât get assigned a conversation for the longest time receives a conversation first. For teams who use assignment limits, teammates with open conversations equal or above their assignment limit donât receive more conversations.
Round robin
Conversations are continuously assigned to active teammates in the team inbox in a sequential order, they are also distributed evenly across teammates. Keep in mind that:
Manual assignment
Conversations will not be automatically assigned to individual teammates (unless they match an assignment rule). This is the default setting for new team inboxes. Conversations can be assigned to another teammate or team in the inbox manually. When you manually assign a conversation to a specific teammate, the team assignment also remains in place.
This means if that teammate switches on away mode, the conversation will be automatically assigned back to the correct team.
Info
Status
Changing your status will change how you get conversations. If you donât know how to set your status, click your profile photo to set your status.
Info
Adding context in the Inbox
Learn how to tag conversations in the Intercom inbox and summarize issues for your teammates using internal notes.
Snooze a conversation
You and your teammates should snooze any conversation thatâs still active, but temporarily on hold. For example, when youâre waiting on more information from a customer or another teammate, you can snooze the conversation until they reply.
Snoozing a conversation will temporarily remove it from your open conversations list for a set period of time. Then, when the snooze period ends (or if someone replies) the conversation will reopen, reminding you to follow up. Snooze helps you streamline your workflow, so you can work on pressing issues first.
How to snooze a conversation
If you want to snooze the conversation until a specific date, click on 'Custom' and select a date and time from the calendar.
Then choose how long youâd like your conversation to be snoozed for.
To snooze a conversation, use Z or click the moon icon in the top right hand corner.
Snooze helps you streamline your workflow, so you can work on pressing issues first.
When does a snoozed conversation automatically reopen?
The snooze time period youâve specified is over.
A customer or teammate replies to the conversation.
When a conversation reopens, weâll show you when the conversation was snoozed and at what time it re-opened. The time is displayed in your local timezone, so may appear differently to different teammates.
When a customer or teammate replies to the conversation, it will be removed from snooze.
Should I snooze or close a conversation?
You should snooze a conversation after each message you send, until the conversation has been fully resolved. For example, snooze a conversation if youâre waiting on an answer from a customer or a teammate. You should only ever close a conversation when itâs been fully resolved for the customer.
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How to apply Intercom's tone of voice framework for customer support
A simple six-step framework helps us to create consistency, stay on brand, and deliver personalized, conversational customer support at scale.
Composing a response
Maximize your efficiency when responding to customers with AI, automations, and shortcuts in the Intercom inbox.
Conversation ratings
When you close a conversation, a message will be sent to customers to rate their experience. These ratings help to highlight what's working well, and what can be improved with the support your team provides.
Conversation ratings
There are some cases where this message wonât be sent. In order for it to trigger, the conversation must match the following criteria:
A teammate must have replied to the conversation
Conversation ratings
Teammate participation in AI-bot conversations
The conversation was seamlessly handed over to an AI-bot, Fin, ensuring that the customer continued to receive immediate assistance. During this time, a teammate also joined in to provide additional support and ensure that all the customer's questions and concerns were addressed efficiently.
Conversation ratings
The conversation needs to be over two hundred and fifty characters long
And that includes messages from both the support rep and the customer. This ensures ratings only send for conversations with a significant amount of dialogue.
If thereâs more than one customer in a conversation, no rating will send, as you canât have two separate ratings for one conversation.
The conversation has to be a 1:1 chat
If you close a conversation that hasnât been replied to, by you or the customer, in the last 7 days - no rating will send. This is to stop ratings appearing in old or inactive conversations.
Ratings donât trigger for old conversations
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A conversation can only be rated once
Ratings trigger on conversations initiated by customers and teammates
Can ratings be changed?
If customers left a comment when they first rated the conversation - they can't change their rating. But if they didn't leave a comment, they can return and change the rating.
If you have a conversation that has been closed and reopened again, a rating wonât send the second time you close it. Keep this in mind, and make sure you only close your conversation once youâre sure itâs resolved.
Rating requests are triggered when a conversation was replied to by a teammate OR a teammate starts a direct outbound conversation. It's important to bear these things in mind when working in the inbox, so you'll always know when and why a rating will trigger.
Using inbox shortcuts
Working efficiently in the Inbox can save time for you and your customers while making repeated tasks in the Inbox easier to complete. To do this, we'll show you how to use command (or control on Windows) + K, hotkeys and we'll share some tips for working efficiently in the Inbox.
If youâre used to using your mouse a lot in the Inbox, donât worry! You can still use your mouse to do whatever you need to, keyboard shortcuts just let you speed things up, with less effort.
Command + K allows you to compose replies, perform inbox actions and navigate around the Inbox really quickly. First things first, where is command + K? Here's a basic Mac keyboard with command + K highlighted.
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Shortcuts
Letâs look at how to use these shortcuts
Learn how to supercharge your efficiency in the Intercom inbox with shortcuts
Start a conversation
There may be times when you need to reach out proactively to a specific customer, or communicate with a third party (like a vendor or supplier) for assistance.
Start a conversation
Click the compose icon from the Help Desk menu and select Conversation.
Select the channel you want to start a conversation on.
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Start a conversation
Choose who the message should be sent from. As a default the email will be sent by you. If you have a custom sender address set up in your workspace, you can choose to send the new message from that address. Here, you can also select who the conversation should be assigned to after your message has been sent.
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Compose your message
Compose your message and insert macros, emojis, GIFs, articles, attachments, images, or tours. Simply use keyboard shortcuts with â/Ctrl K or click the three dots below the composer to insert content
Mentions
Often a message needs to be seen by another member of your team. Maybe they're better placed to answer it, or maybe you need their opinion before replying. You can add an internal note and @mention any one of your teammates so 25they get notified straight away and directed to that conversation.
Tooltip
Find conversations where you're mentioned
Any conversation that you're mentioned in will appear in your inbox under Mentions. To stay organized and ensure that important messages are not overlooked or forgotten, you can mark mentions as "unread". Simply click the three dots next to a conversation and select Mark unread.
Clear unread mentions
To clear unread mentions, select Unread mentions from dropdown menu and click into any conversation that is unopened.
When to loop teammates into conversations
Sharing ideas
Answering product questions
Addressing issues fast
Sometimes an issue is so pressing that you will need to get it sorted straight away. But you wonât always have the full solution. You might need to loop in your manager to gather advice on how to reply.
Often a conversation with a customer can spark a moment of inspiration. Theyâll have lots of ideas about how to use your product and what features theyâd like to see next.
Your customers will have plenty of questions about how your product works and how they can use it. But there will be times when youâll get a particularly complex question that you donât know the answer to.
Limitations
Notes canât be added to the conversation before itâs sent and the pane is disabled on the new conversation page. They can be added afterwards as per usual App, articles and Product Tours cannot be inserted when composing a new email. They can still be inserted via macros but wonât display correctly in the email received by end users.
Benefits
Help your customers help themselves
Better tickets for your team and your customers
Maximize productivity with the fastest shared Inbox
Our shared Inbox is AI-enhanced and designed for speed and efficiencyâso your team can work smarter and collaborate faster.
Connect your Help Center across the whole platformâso your customers can find the most accurate answers when and where they need them.
Resolve complex issues quickly with tickets optimized for team collaboration and real-time customer updates.
Saying NO to customers
When customers love your products they become invested in it and often suggest features, some are great and some won't fit into your product roadmap. So how do you say no? Here are a few key things that can help you make that know a bit more palatable.
Saying 'no' isn't always as easy as it sounds. Ask any support agent and theyâll tell you just how tricky rejecting a customerâs request can be.
Quiz Time
Welcome to the quiz for the third module of our Intercom training course! This quiz aims to solidify your grasp of the advanced topics we've discussed. Test your knowledge and see how well you've mastered the material. Best luck!
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Practice
For our final practice, let's get familiar with the shortcuts. On the left side of the Intercom interface, scroll down and select "Practice for the Shortcuts" to begin.
Congratulations, you've reached the end of the moduleđ
Youâve learned:
Congratulations!
You have completed the course!
Course completed!
Note: When you click to accept this invite you can either sign up using a Google account or by entering your name, email and a password, depending on how your company would prefer so you might need to check with your manager on which version of these to take.
Note
If your message is sent from a custom email address, replies will go to that address. You must have Can send outbound emails from custom addresses permission enabled to send messages from a custom address. To see these replies in your inbox you must also have email forwarding enabled.
Beyond this panel, you can add, remove and rearrange apps to see only what you want to.
These apps give you information about customers, allow you to take actions in Intercom and in third-party tools. Every teammate in your Intercom workspace can choose their own unique combination of apps and information to display here so your conversation details might look different to your teammates.
Note
Note that you can have more than one teammate in a conversation, and ratings will still trigger. When this happens, the rating is given to whichever teammate sent the last reply. In this example, a rating request will not be sent as there are two customers in this conversation.
Look for buttons that link to additional content or different sections.
Setting your status to away is great for things like being away from your desk for lunch, but away and reassigning is more suited to something like being out of office on holidays.
There are many built in options you can use to make your inbox more powerful and efficient, like these:
- Quick links â Create dynamic links to other products or internal tools with user or company attributes. E.g. yourbillingsystem.com?user_id={user_id}. - Recent events â See the actions your customers have taken in your product. - Total events â Count the total number of times your customers have taken certain actions. - User/Company notes â Check notes you or your teammates have added, like: âDanny loves GIFs in conversationsâ. - User/Company tags â So you can easily apply tags like: âPotential_beta_candidateâ.
Note
You can contact one or multiple people at once, as long as you have their associated email addresses. You can't add the email address of a teammate within your workspace. If you want teammates to participate in a conversation, @mention them in a note instead. If you want to send an email to a person that is not in your contacts' list yet, simply enter the email address and new contact will be created
Status
When a teammateâs status is set to away, both balanced assignment and round robin stop automatically assigning conversations to them. When a teammate sets their status to away, they can also enable the reassign replies option. Note: Conversations can still be assigned to teammates who have set their status to away and reassign. If a customer replies to a conversation assigned to a teammate while they have the reassign replies option enabled:
You'll find both of your command keys on either side of the spacebar. If you do use windows, it'll be the control key.
You'll find both of your command keys on either side of the spacebar. If you do use windows, it'll be the control key. Opening the command + K menu lets you take lots of different actions within your conversation. As well as this, you have hotkeys so you donât even need to open this menu if you'd prefer.
Pro tip! We suggest starting small with one or two actions that you use a lot, and then progressing to introduce more into your workflow. It could be send and close and send and snooze because you use this so often throughout your day.
Our recommendations:
đ˘ Active: Keep your status as active when youâre available to receive new conversations. đĄ Away: Set your status to away when youâre occupied with something else for a short while, and shouldnât receive any new conversations (like at a meeting, coaching other teammates, or taking a break).
Manual assignment
Assigning a conversation to a team will remove the teammate assignment, so it can be picked up from that teamâs inbox at the right time, or assigned automatically by round robin, or workload management. For teams who use assignment limits, this doesnât prevent manually assigning conversations to teammates even if theyâre at their limit.
Manage your snoozed conversations
To view your snoozed conversations, just click the dropdown arrow on the left-hand side of your message and select Snoozed conversations.
Shortcut
Use shortcuts N and R when youâre outside the composer to quickly jump between mentioning a teammate in a note and sending a reply to a customer. You can also double-click to switch between Reply and Note modes:
Learn about the most essential profile settings for support agents in Intercom, including your profile picture, password, notification settings, location settings, two-factor authentication, and more.