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Set up and customize the Messenger
Set up and customize the Messenger

Learn how to customize, preview and manage the next generation Messenger.

Beth-Ann Sher avatar
Written by Beth-Ann Sher
Updated over a week ago

You'll find your Messenger settings in Messenger & Omnichannel. The Messenger settings are divided into three sections. We’ll go through what each of them contains and how to manage them below.

You must have the Can access Messenger settings permission to manage Messenger settings.


Platforms

Web

This is where you manage your Web Messenger.

Mobile SDKs

This is where you manage your Mobile SDKs.

The settings here are the same as Web, other than where a feature is web-only. Learn how the Messenger works on mobile apps.

Web includes both the desktop web + mobile web. Mobile SDKs refers to your mobile SDK app (if you have one).

Content

The Content tab relates to your customer's initial experience with the Messenger, from the Messenger Launcher to the Messenger Home.

Terminology:

  • Messenger Launcher - the chat bubble/circle (as you see at the bottom right of your screen now 😉).

  • Messenger Home - the Home space which opens when customers click the Messenger Launcher for the first time.

Layout

This is where you can choose to use the Default Messenger or Compact Messenger shape.

Spaces

This is where you control which spaces your visitors and users see in the Messenger by turning them on or off.

  • Home - A space to make your own and decide exactly what you want to display to your visitors and users.

  • Messages - A space for conversation management. Both inbound and outbound conversations will live here.

  • Tickets - A space for all Tickets to live, separate from conversations.

  • Help - A space for customers to access a full, in-context Help Center from anywhere in your product.

  • News - A space for your News feed, suitable for a variety of announcement types and curated for each customer. (Opt-in available.)

  • Tasks - A space where customers can complete your custom Checklists when onboarding or using your product to its full potential. (Opt-in available.)

Messages is a permanent space in the Messenger and can’t be turned off.

Reorder how the spaces appear by using the drag and drop on the left. The Home Space will always remain at the top, but it can be turned off if you’d like to remove it from your Messenger.

Set your welcome message

Choose how you’d like to greet people and introduce yourself when they open the Messenger.

This can be configured to support up to 45 languages from Messenger > General settings.

Customize Home with apps

Customize Messenger Home by adding and removing apps. Choose whether customers can start a conversation with you, search for articles in your Help Center, see featured News announcements, or view any other custom apps.

Messenger Home needs at least one app.

Show the Messenger Launcher

You can decide to show or hide the Messenger launcher based on audience rules.

Styling

In Styling, you’ll find all the ways you can customize and style the Messenger to match your preferences for multiple brands.

First select the brand you want to customize from the dropdown at the top.

Import your brand

If you joined Intercom since December 2023, you'll find the option to import your brand logo and colors automatically. Simply enter your chosen domain and click Import.

You can use the dropdowns to select a different action or background color that was found on your domain.

You can also choose to use the logo that was found on your domain. This can be changed manually at any time.

When you click Confirm the Messenger preview on the right will automatically be updated with your brand. Read the section below if you'd like to customize your brand manually. 👇

Set your brand colors

Manually select your brand colors to match your Messenger Background color and Action color which is used in buttons, links and more to highlight and emphasize.

Style Messenger Home

Stylize the Messenger Home with your logo and decide whether to display your teammates’ avatars for a more personal touch.

Use the guidelines below when uploading a logo. 👇

The space available for a logo will change if you've chosen to show your team avatars.

Customize the Messenger header further with optional color gradients, background image, background fade, or text color.

If you select Image as your header background, we recommend using an image size of 800 x 600 pixels.

Customize the Launcher

Decide how the Launcher should appear by uploading your own image, and choosing where to position it on your site.

Note:

  • See our plans and pricing to add this feature to your subscription.

  • To find "Customise the Launcher" under the Styling tab, Show the Messenger Launcher must first be turned on for visitors/users.

  • The Launcher uses the Action color you selected in brand colors.

  • You can only set the Messenger to one position on your site (it can’t appear in multiple positions across the same site).


Conversations

Choose how customers start conversations with you, and introduce your team from Conversations.

Start conversation button text

The "Start conversation button text" or call-to-action (CTA) can be configured for teammates and Fin AI Agent separately.

For example, when a conversation is going to be handled by a teammate you might want the CTA button to say "Contact Support" so that customers know they're getting in touch with your human support team. Whereas, if a conversation is going to be handled by Fin, you might prefer the CTA button to say "Ask a question" instead.

With teammates

For conversations started with teammates, choose the "Start conversation button text" or CTA. You can select between 6 options and set a different CTA for visitors and users.

Customers will see this CTA on the Home, Messages, and Help spaces when a conversation is going to be handled by a teammate (not Fin AI Agent).

With Fin AI Agent

For conversations started with Fin AI Agent, you can choose to set bot expectations which allows you to change the "Start conversation button text" or CTA when a conversation will be handled by Fin. Or simply match teammate expectations you set above.

Team introduction

Edit the Team introduction to introduce your team to customers and set expectations before they start a conversation in the Messenger.

This can be configured to support up to 45 languages from General settings.

Special notice

Write a Special notice to all your visitors and users. For example, if your response times are slower than usual.

This is a temporary beta feature that’s limited to a single language.


General settings

In General settings, you’ll find inbound volume controls, office hours and reply times, supported languages, security settings, and other Messenger preferences.

Control inbound volume

Control inbound volume by deciding who can start a conversation in the Messenger. You can make this more targeted by adding display conditions based on user attributes.

You can also turn on/off and add display conditions for the following options:

Prevent users or visitors from having multiple inbound conversations

  • With this turned on, if a customer already has an open conversation from the last 3 days, they'll be encouraged to continue that existing conversation, as opposed to starting a new conversation.

  • Value add: This is a great way to combat duplicate conversations from being created.

Require users or visitors to search before starting a conversation

  • With this turned on, a customer won't be given the opportunity to start a conversation until they search your articles through the Messenger.

  • Value add: This encourages users to self-serve before adding to your teams volume. This is a great way to deflect support conversations.

Prevent users or visitors replying to closed conversations

  • With this turned on, a customer won't be able to continue a conversation after the set timeframe.

  • Messenger experience: If teammates closes an existing conversation, the customer won't be able to reply to the conversation from the Messenger, instead they'll see a note "Your conversation has ended" and a button prompting them to start a new conversation.

  • Email experience: If teammates closes an existing conversation, and the customer replies to an email notification after the set timeframe, a new conversation will be created.

  • Value add: This allows teammates to get the credit when it's due. With this setting turned off, a customer can keep replying to the same conversation (or email thread), reopening the conversation - which would only count as 1 conversation towards the teammate's volume KPI.
    Also, with this setting turned off, if your team is experiencing high volume, a customer can reply to an old conversation to reopen the conversation in the teammate's individual inbox (as long as they don't have Away & Reassign replies turned on). This essentially allows the customer to jump the queue.

  • What timeframe to use? Teams with live chat usually enable this setting with a "1 day" timeframe. Teams with more complex, troubleshooting conversations usually enable this setting with a "5 day" timeframe.

Office hours and reply times

Office hours tell customers when your team will be back online as a way to set expectations. Set your office hours and reply times and let customers know when to expect a response.

Tips:

  • For global support teams that are available to assist customers 24/7, there's no need to add office hours.

  • If you have various teams with different operating hours, set custom hours for teams.

Choose supported languages

Choose which default language should be displayed in the Messenger interface for all customers, or add different languages to display the Messenger in these languages when they match your customer’s browser or device settings.

Keep your Messenger secure

Keep your Messenger secure by listing your trusted domains and subdomains, separated by commas.

Important:

  • If you leave this blank, the Intercom Messenger can be added to any domain.

  • You can list multiple domains, separated by commas.

  • To list all subdomains just use an asterisk, like *.intercom.com.

  • Ensure you add the full domain name (i.e. 'www.intercom.com', not 'intercom.com').

  • We don't support adding localhost, but you can add '0.0.0.0' and/or '127.0.0.1' and the Messenger will work on these domains.

  • At Intercom we updated our terminology to progress beyond harmful, racially biased phrases. This setting used to be the "Whitelist". We now use "Trusted list". To read more on why and how we made these changes please read our article on why words matter.”

Set up identify verification

We also strongly recommend setting up identity verification to keep third parties from impersonating your logged-in users and seeing their conversations.

Other preferences

Configure your other Messenger preferences such as whether customers hear a sound for incoming messages you send.

Certain subscriptions allow you to remove the Intercom branding from your Messenger. To remove branding, go to General and toggle the On/Off slider. This will also remove the link added in emails so there will be minimal Intercom branding.


Save and set live

When you’re happy with your Messenger preview, click Save and set live.

The Messenger works beautifully in your mobile app too. To use the new Messenger, you'll need to install or upgrade to iOS SDK 15.2.0 and Android SDK 15.2.0. Learn more about using the Messenger in your mobile app.


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