A practical guide to the Intercom Google Sheets integration

If you're using Intercom for customer support, you're sitting on a mountain of useful data. But getting that data out of Intercom and into a spreadsheet for proper analysis can feel like a chore. That's why so many teams want a solid Intercom Google Sheets integration. Moving your conversation data and support metrics into a spreadsheet means you can finally build custom dashboards, spot trends, and share what you've learned with the rest of the team.

The setup isn't always obvious, though. In this guide, we'll break down the three most common ways to connect Intercom and Google Sheets, from dead-simple manual exports to fully automated workflows. We’ll also look at a more modern, AI-powered way to skip the manual work and get straight to the insights.

What is Intercom?

You likely know Intercom as the little messenger that pops up on websites, but it's a full customer communications platform. Teams use it for live chat, email support, and sending proactive messages. Every single one of those chats and emails creates data about what your customers are asking, where they're getting stuck, and how they feel about your service. The real trick is figuring out how to make sense of it all without getting lost in the weeds.

A screenshot of the Intercom Messenger, showcasing its modern design and live chat capabilities.

What are Google Sheets?

Google Sheets is Google’s web-based spreadsheet tool, and it’s a favorite for a reason. It’s easy to use, great for collaboration, and has all the data-crunching tools you’d expect, like pivot tables, charts, and formulas. For support teams, it’s often the go-to free tool for building the custom reports and dashboards that their main help desk software might not offer.

How to set up an Intercom Google Sheets integration: 3 common methods

So, how do you get your Intercom data over to Google Sheets? There are a few paths you can take. Each has its trade-offs, depending on your budget, how tech-savvy you are, and whether you need your data updated in real-time.

Method 1: The manual csv export

The most straightforward way to move your data is with Intercom's built-in export feature. Just head to your reports in Intercom, filter for the data you want (like conversation volume or response times), and export it as a CSV file. From there, you can import it directly into Google Sheets. You can even schedule these exports to run regularly.

• The good: It’s free and you don’t need any other tools.

• The not-so-good: It's completely manual. The data is never live, and it’s easy to mess up a step or forget to download and upload the file.

Method 2: Using no-code tools

This is where tools like Zapier, Coupler.io, and Make come in handy, especially for teams without a developer on hand. These platforms let you build little automated workflows between Intercom and Google Sheets. For instance, you could set up a rule that automatically adds a new row to a spreadsheet every time a conversation is closed in Intercom.

• The good: It’s fully automated, pretty easy to set up, and keeps your data fresh.

• The not-so-good: The costs can add up. Most of these services charge you based on how many tasks you run, which can lead to some surprisingly high bills if you have a busy month.

A visual workflow builder demonstrating how an automated Intercom Google Sheets integration can be configured.

Method 3: A custom API

If you have developers, you can connect directly to the Intercom API for the most control. By writing a script (Google Apps Script is a good option here), you can pull whatever data you want from Intercom and format it exactly how you need it in Google Sheets. You get total control over what data syncs and when.

• The good: It's 100% customizable and usually cheaper in the long run than paying a monthly subscription for another tool.

• The not-so-good: This requires real technical skill to build and maintain. If Intercom changes its API, someone has to go in and update the code.

Method	Cost	Setup Effort	Data Freshness	Best For
Manual CSV Export	Free	Low	Stale (Manual)	Quick, one-off reports
No-Code Tools	Monthly Subscription	Medium	Near Real-Time	Teams without developers needing automation
Custom API Script	Developer Time	High	Real-Time	Teams with tech resources who want full control

Common use cases for an Intercom Google Sheets integration

Once you have the data flowing, what can you actually do with it? The point isn’t just to have your data in two places at once; it's to find things that help you make your customer support better.

Create a custom support dashboard

Intercom has its own reports, sure, but Google Sheets lets you build a dashboard that tracks the KPIs your team cares about. You can even pull in data from other tools to get a complete picture of your team's performance.

Some key things you might track:

• First response time

• Average time to close a conversation

• Conversation volume by topic

• Customer satisfaction (CSAT) scores

• Individual agent performance

An Intercom reports dashboard showing CSAT scores, which can be exported via an Intercom Google Sheets integration for deeper analysis.

Analyze conversation trends

By exporting your conversation data, especially with any tags you use, you can do some deeper digging in Google Sheets. Pivot tables are your friend here for finding recurring bugs, common feature requests, or frustrating parts of your product. This kind of info is gold for your product and engineering teams.

Build a lead tracker

If you use Intercom for sales, you can set up a sheet that logs every new lead who starts a conversation. This makes it much easier to track follow-ups and assign leads to sales reps without having to live inside the Intercom app all day.

The problem with manual analysis (and a better way forward)

Setting up an Intercom Google Sheets integration is a solid first step, but let's be honest, it doesn't solve the whole problem. You’ve moved the data, but now someone still has to spend hours every week digging through spreadsheets, making charts, and trying to find meaningful patterns. It’s slow, tedious, and you’re always looking at what already happened.

What if you could just get the insights without the spreadsheet headache?

From raw data to real answers with AI

Instead of just dumping raw data into a spreadsheet for someone to analyze later, AI tools can analyze your support conversations right inside your help desk. This is what a tool like eesel AI does. It connects directly with Intercom and other places you keep information, like Google Docs or Confluence, to understand all your past support conversations.

Instead of you hunting for the answers, eesel AI brings them to you.

• Reporting that tells you what to do: The eesel AI dashboard automatically points out gaps in your help articles, shows you what topics are trending, and tells you what your customers are struggling with. It’s like having a data analyst on your team who never sleeps.

• Automatic help article drafts: See a bunch of questions about a new feature? Instead of writing a help article from scratch, eesel AI can look at how your team successfully answered those questions and draft an article for you. It turns a problem into a solution, automatically.

• A powerful simulation mode: Before you even turn it on, you can run a simulation on thousands of your past Intercom tickets. This shows you exactly which issues could be automated and what trends are hiding in your data, all without building a single spreadsheet.

Using an AI layer over your help desk means you can stop just collecting data and start using it to make improvements automatically.

A quick look at pricing

Okay, let's talk about cost, because it always matters. Here’s a rough breakdown of the tools we’ve mentioned:

• Intercom: Pricing depends on seats and how much you use their AI. Their "Expert" plan is $132 per seat per month, and their AI agent costs an extra $0.99 for every conversation it resolves. That cost can be unpredictable.

• Zapier: A popular choice for automation. Their "Teams" plan starts at $69 a month (if you pay annually) and gives you 2,000 tasks. If you have a lot of conversations or complex workflows, you’ll likely need a more expensive plan.

• eesel AI: We offer straightforward pricing based on interactions, not resolutions. Plans start at $239 a month (billed annually) and include everything, from the AI Agent to the advanced reporting. No surprise bills after a busy month.

Move beyond your Intercom Google Sheets integration

Connecting Intercom to Google Sheets is a great way to get a better handle on your support data. Whether you stick with manual exports, use a no-code tool, or build a custom script, getting your information in one place is a smart move.

But the real goal isn't just to move data from one app to another. It's about improving your customer experience and making your support team's life easier. Spreadsheets are a decent starting point, but they still rely on a lot of manual work to find anything useful.

A tool like eesel AI can do the analysis for you. It works with Intercom to find the answers you need without all the manual digging, so you can focus on what actually matters: helping your customers.

Ready to see what's really going on in your Intercom data? Try eesel AI for free.