How to automate Intercom conversation assignment by user attributes (2025)

If you're manually assigning conversations in Intercom, you probably feel a bit like an old-school telephone operator. You're constantly plugging and unplugging conversations, trying to connect the right customer with the right agent. It's slow, it’s easy to make mistakes, and every moment you spend playing router is a moment your customer is left staring at a blinking cursor.

There's a much better way.

By setting up automatic conversation assignment based on user attributes, like a customer's plan type, language, or location, you can make sure every question lands with the perfect person to handle it, instantly. This one change can cut down your first response times, make your team more efficient, and create a way smoother experience for your customers.

This guide will walk you through exactly how to set this up using Intercom’s own tools. We'll also look at a more powerful, flexible option for teams ready to take their support operations up a notch.

Prerequisites

Before we get into the nuts and bolts, let's make sure you have everything you need. It’s a pretty short list:

• An Intercom account with Workflows. The ability to build automated rules is the key to this whole process. According to Intercom, the Workflows feature is available on their Advanced and Expert plans.

• Defined user attributes. You can't route conversations based on data you don't have. Make sure the attributes you want to use, like "Plan name" or a custom one like "is_vip", are already being tracked in your Intercom account.

• Clearly defined teams. You’ll need to have your support teams set up in Intercom so you have a destination for the conversations. Think "Tier 1 Support," "Billing," or "Enterprise Team."

How to automate conversation assignment in Intercom

Once you have your ducks in a row, you can build your first automated assignment rule. Here’s how you do it inside Intercom.

Step 1: Figure out which user attributes to use

The foundation of any good automation is clean, reliable data. Before you build a thing, you need to know which user attributes you want to use for routing.

You can find and manage your user data by going to your Intercom settings and looking for your conversation or data attributes. Think about what information would be most helpful for getting a conversation to the right person. Some common examples are:

• Plan: Route customers on your 'Enterprise' plan to a dedicated success team, while 'Free' plan users go to general support.

• Language: Automatically send conversations to native-speaking agents for a more personal feel.

• is_trial: Funnel users who are still in their trial period to a sales-focused or onboarding specialist.

• Country: If you have region-specific teams, this is an easy way to sort conversations by location.

Take a second to check that these attributes exist and are being filled in correctly before you move on.

Step 2: Build a new workflow in Intercom

With your attributes confirmed, it’s time to build the actual automation. Head over to the AI & Automation > Workflows section in your Intercom dashboard.

Click on + New workflow to get started. You can pick a template or start from scratch. For this walkthrough, we'll start from scratch.

Your first and most important choice is the trigger, which is the event that kicks off your automation. For routing new conversations, the best trigger is usually Customer sends their first message. This makes sure your rules run the moment a customer reaches out, so the conversation gets assigned correctly from the very beginning.

A view of the Intercom workflow builder, which is used to Intercom automate conversation assignment by user attributes.

Step 3: Add your rules based on user attributes

Now for the logic. In the workflow builder, choose the Apply rules path. This is where you’ll tell Intercom how to decide where a conversation should go.

Click + Add rule and set up your condition. You’ll want to filter based on "User data." For this example, let's create a rule for VIP customers. It could look something like this:

"If User data > Plan > is > Enterprise"

You can also use AND/OR logic to build more detailed rules. For instance, if you have a dedicated German-speaking enterprise team, your rule might look like this:

"If User data > Plan > is > Enterprise"

"AND"

"User data > Country > is > Germany"

This gives you a fair amount of control over how you slice and dice your incoming conversations.

Step 4: Tell the workflow what to do

Once your rule is defined, you just need to tell the workflow what to do when a conversation matches it. This is the final piece.

Add an action block and choose Assign to from the list of options. From there, you can select the specific team that should handle these conversations. Following our example, you'd pick your "Enterprise Support" team.

After you've set the assignment action, all that's left is to click Save and close and set your workflow live. Now, any new conversation from an enterprise customer will automatically skip the main queue and go straight to your specialists.

Limitations of Intercom's native automation

Intercom Workflows are a great starting point for basic automation. But as your team and customer base grow, you might start bumping up against their limits.

Things get complicated at scale

Managing a handful of routing rules is simple enough. But what about when you have dozens? If you’re juggling multiple product lines, support tiers, and languages, your workflow map can quickly start to look like a plate of spaghetti. It becomes hard to see the big picture, and a tiny change in one rule can cause unexpected problems elsewhere.

It lacks deeper context

Intercom rules are pretty good, but they can only act on the data you feed them. They can’t understand the nuance or intent of a conversation. A workflow knows a customer is on the "Enterprise" plan, but it doesn't know if they're asking a simple billing question or reporting a critical bug. This means you still end up with tickets that need to be manually re-routed.

There's no "test drive" mode

One of the biggest headaches with building automations in Intercom is that there’s no way to safely test them. You can't see how a new workflow would have handled last week's tickets. You just have to build it, turn it on, and cross your fingers. When you're dealing with your most important customers, that’s a bit of a gamble.

It's static and needs manual upkeep

Your business changes, and so do your customers' problems. But Intercom's rules don't learn or adapt on their own. When a new type of issue starts popping up, you have to spot the trend yourself and then manually build a new rule to handle it. This is where modern AI platforms have a real edge, since they can learn from your data over time.

A faster way to automate conversation assignment with eesel AI

If you're hitting the limits of the built-in workflows, you're not alone. That's why tools like eesel AI exist, giving you the power of smart automation without making you ditch the tools you already use. eesel AI plugs right into your helpdesk, including Intercom, to handle the heavy lifting.

Here’s how it helps you get around the common challenges.

Go live in minutes, not months

Many AI tools involve long sales calls, mandatory demos, and weeks of setup. With eesel AI, you can connect your Intercom helpdesk with a single click and start building your first automation on your own, in just a few minutes.

Total control with a simple workflow engine

eesel AI provides a fully customizable workflow engine that’s powerful but still straightforward. You can create rules based on user attributes, just like in Intercom, but you can also go much further. For example, you can set up a custom action that tells the AI to look up a customer's order status in your internal system before deciding whether to answer the question itself or send the ticket to your billing team.

Configuring an AI agent's tone of voice to align with your brand, a feature that improves how you Intercom automate conversation assignment by user attributes.

Unify your knowledge for smarter routing

This is where AI really makes a difference. eesel AI can be trained on all your past Intercom conversations, so it learns your brand voice and common solutions right away. It can also connect to all your other knowledge sources, like Confluence, Google Docs, and your help center. This allows it to understand the actual intent behind a conversation, not just the user's data, which leads to much more accurate and intelligent assignments.

A visual of connecting multiple knowledge sources to an AI, enhancing how you Intercom automate conversation assignment by user attributes.

Test with confidence

Remember that risk of deploying untested workflows? eesel AI solves this with a simulation mode. Before you activate anything for your customers, you can run your AI agent on thousands of your historical Intercom tickets in a safe environment. You'll see exactly how it would have responded to and routed each one, giving you a clear forecast of its performance and letting you roll out new automations without the guesswork.

Pro tips for successful automated assignment

Whether you stick with Intercom's native tools or use a more advanced platform like eesel AI, a few best practices will help you get the best results.

• Start small. Don't try to automate everything on day one. Begin with one or two clear user segments, like your VIP customers or users on a specific plan, and expand from there.

• Keep your data clean. Your automations are only as good as the data they're based on. Make sure your user attributes are consistently and accurately populated. Garbage in, garbage out, as they say.

• Have a fallback plan. No matter how good your rules are, some conversations will inevitably slip through. Always set up a default team or agent for any conversation that doesn't match a rule to ensure nothing gets lost.

• Monitor and tweak. Automated assignment isn't something you set up once and forget about. Regularly check your reports to see how your workflows are performing. Are tickets going to the right place? Are there any bottlenecks? Use this info to fine-tune your rules over time.

The reporting dashboard in Intercom, where you can monitor the performance of your automated assignment workflows.

Get your routing right every time

Automating conversation assignment based on user attributes is one of the biggest levers you can pull to improve your support efficiency. It ensures every customer gets to the right person, faster.

While Intercom’s native Workflows are a solid place to start, you'll likely want a more intelligent and flexible solution as your team grows. For teams that need a smarter, more powerful, and easier-to-manage way to route conversations, adding an AI layer is the logical next step.

Ready to see what your Intercom workflows could really do? Start your free trial of eesel AI and see how easy intelligent ticket routing can be.