Use this article to set up skill-based routing for your team inboxes, understand how conversations are matched to the most qualified teammate, and review feature limitations. Skill-based routing is available to workspaces on the Expert plan, it builds on balanced assignment by adding a skill-matching layer so customers always reach someone qualified to help.
Skills are built on custom list conversation attributes, user-defined attributes with predefined dropdown values (such as "Tier", "Region", or "Product area"). Assign them to teammates from Settings > Inbox > Assignments > Teammate assignment limit using the Skills column.
Note: Skill-based routing is available on the Expert plan. Skill-based routing requires Balanced assignment. It doesn't work with round-robin or manual assignment methods.
How to enable skill-based routing per inbox
To set up skill-based routing for a specific inbox, complete the following steps:
Click on the inbox you want to configure, then click Manage workspace skills to add skills and turn on the ones you want to use for routing in this inbox.
Toggle on Skill-based routing to route each conversation to the available teammate whose skills best match it. Skill-based routing takes effect immediately once enabled.
Note:
The Skill-based routing toggle only appears for inboxes using Balanced assignment.
Make sure you're assigning skills on the Teammate assignment limit tab (Settings > Inbox > Assignments > Teammate assignment limit).
Tip: Once routing is enabled, assign skill values to your teammates. Go to Settings > Inbox > Assignments > Teammate assignment limit and use the Skills column to set each teammate's skill values..
How skill-based routing assigns conversations
When a conversation arrives, skill-based routing checks which teammates in the inbox have skills that cover the conversation's requirements. It then assigns it to the best-matched available teammate, still respecting existing capacity and availability limits.
If no skilled teammate is available, skill-based routing falls back to standard load balancing (balanced assignment), the conversation won't be left unassigned.
Example: routing by customer tier
The following shows how skill-based routing works using a "Tier" conversation attribute with "Basic" and "Enterprise" values.
In the Manage workspace skills drawer, create a skill backed by the "Tier" attribute.
On your Support inbox (set to Balanced), enable Skill-based routing and turn on the Tier skill.
On the Assignments > Teammate assignment limit tab, assign the "Enterprise" skill value to Alice and Bob. Leave Carol without it.
A conversation with Tier = Enterprise routes to Alice or Bob, whichever is less loaded. If neither is available, skill-based routing falls back to Carol (the least-loaded available teammate) — the conversation is never left unassigned.
Limitations
The following limitations apply to skill-based routing:
Fallback is best-effort. When no skill-matched teammate is available, the conversation goes to the least-loaded available teammate. Conversations are never held in a queue waiting for a skilled teammate.
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