Inbox rules let you automate repetitive tasks for your team for optimum efficiency and to ensure your customers get the best experience possible. Conversations will always be handled by the right team, and in the right order. Let your team focus on what they do best, and spend less time manually tagging and assigning conversations.
Rules can automatically:
Tag conversations.
Snooze conversations.
Close conversations.
Set or update conversation data attributes.
Assign conversations to the right team or teammate.
Mark conversations as priority.
Set the right SLA target on each conversation.
Trigger processes based on tickets.
Apply Custom Actions to conversations
How to create a new rule
First, go to Settings > Inbox automation > Inbox rules and click New rule.
Now you’re creating your rule. It’s important to give it a clear and descriptive name, so others on your team can see at a glance what this rule does:
Pro tip: Describe the conditions that trigger your rule in the title, like ‘Conversations from VIPs’.
Next, select the point in a conversation when you’d like your rule to fire. Choose from when:
A customer starts a new conversation.
A customer replies to outbound content.
A customer sends any reply.
A new conversation hasn’t received a reply. — Define a time limit and then your rule will take action.
A customer has been unresponsive.
A ticket is created.
A teammate changes state of the ticket.
Tip: Learn more about how and when rules trigger.
Select multiple triggers if you'd like your rule to fire when different events occur.
Note: Only one "delay based" event can be selected:
A new conversation hasn’t received a reply
orA customer has been unresponsive”
not both.
Next, add filters for any conditions that a conversation or customer must meet for the rule to apply. 👍
Along with standard filters like customer and company attributes, you can also filter your rules based on the following:
The channel the conversation has come from — (iOS, Android, Email, Social media etc)
The email address a customer sent their message to. For example, if you forward multiple email addresses to Intercom you could assign or tag those conversations differently.
Whether the conversation is started in or outside one of your teams’ office hours.
Keywords in the message content.
The team or teammate currently assigned.
Ticket type and ticket state.
Tip: For more targeted and nuanced rules, use a combination of And / Or filters.
Finally, select the actions that you’d like the rule to automate for you. Rules can assign or tag the conversation, mark it as priority or set an SLA rule.
And that’s it. Hit save, and your rule is live.
Prioritizing your rules
It’s possible for a conversation to match the filters for multiple rules at a time, in which case the rules are run in priority order and only the highest priority actions will be triggered.
For example: if you have two rules, both triggered at the start of a conversation with the following filters:
Rule 1 (French support) — If a customer’s browser language is French, assign the conversation to the French support team.
Rule 2 (VIP support) — If a customer is on the Premium plan, assign the conversation to the VIP support team.
If a new conversation is started by a French speaking customer on the Premium plan, it would match the filters for both rules, but would only be assigned once. The assignment action highest in the rules list will apply, which in this case is the French support rule:
Note: In this example, the conversation would still be marked as priority by the VIP support rule.
Tag rules are the exception, and all tag rules will apply to matching conversations, no matter the priority.
To prioritize your rules in the list, you can drag and drop them into your preferred order.
Or, move them quickly to the top or bottom of the list from the dropdown on the right.
As you add more rules, you may want to view only a subset of them. To do this simply add filters to the list to show specific rules.
Tip: You can filter by the event that triggers a rule, its state, or the actions that it performs.
If a conversation doesn’t match any of your rules, it won’t be tagged, marked as priority or have an SLA set but it will be assigned to your default assignee, which you can select at the bottom of the rules list.
💡Tip
Need more help? Get support from our Community Forum
Find answers and get help from Intercom Support and Community Experts