An end-user's email address can be automatically detected in an email which is forwarded to Intercom, and that end-user will become the participant of the new conversation in Intercom.
The end-user can be detected in two cases:
Admins manually forwarding emails - When an admin manually forwards an email with an end-user into Intercom, the participant of that conversation will be the end-user instead of the admin.
Company Email Addresses with Reply-To header - When a Company Email Address sends an email to Intercom, specifying that replies will go to an end-user email address (with the Reply-To email header) the participant of that conversation will be the end-user instead of the Company Email Address.
This will ensure that the right people are included in the support conversations, resulting in better communication and faster resolution times.
Note: This detection only runs when the email creates a new conversation (not new email messages in an existing conversation).
Admins manually forwarding emails
You may receive a direct email from a customer that you want to handle via Intercom. With this feature enabled, if you forward one of these emails, the participant of the conversation in Intercom will be the customer instead of your admin email address.
Conditions for this to happen:
The sender email address exists as an admin in your Intercom workspace.
The subject of the email must start with “Fwd:” or a corresponding localized prefix.
The body of the email contains the patterns that email clients introduce when you manually forward emails (e.g. “From: Alberto <alberto@example.com>”)
The end-user email address is not in the list of Company Email Addresses.
Enable or disable automatic end-user detection in forwarded emails
To enable this, go to Settings > Email > Email forwarding and scroll down to toggle this on under Manually forwarded emails.
Help Desk experience
When accessing the conversation via the Help Desk, teammates will see the add/remove participants events, as well as a warning tooltip to let them know that the sender of the email is different from the person that will receive replies.
Example of a forwarded message:
Company Email Addresses with Reply-To header
End-users can also be automatically detected when a Company Email Address sends an email to Intercom specifying that replies should go to a different email address (e.g. an end-user's subscription is canceled and that triggers an email to Intercom from their internal (or external) systems with the end-user email in the Reply-To header).
Conditions for this to happen:
Sender email address is a Company Email Address.
A “Reply-To” header exists and it’s different from the “From” header.
Only one email address is specified in “Reply-To”.
The “Reply-To” email address is not a Company Email Address.
Help Desk experience
When accessing the conversation via the Help Desk, teammates will see the add/remove participants events, as well as a warning tooltip to let them know that the sender of the email is different from the person that will receive replies.
Example of a message with Reply-To:
💡Tip
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