How to integrate Intercom Fin AI with custom workflows for small businesses

If you're running a lean team, you know how much of a lifesaver automating customer support can be. You’ve probably looked into using AI to handle the endless stream of repetitive questions, and if you’re on Intercom, its AI agent, Fin, has likely caught your eye. It seems like the perfect fix for handling basic FAQs and giving your team some breathing room.

But the real power of AI isn't just in answering simple questions. It's in making that AI a core part of your unique, custom workflows. This guide will walk you through how to integrate Intercom Fin AI with custom workflows for small businesses. We'll cover the official setup, but more importantly, we’ll talk about the common hurdles you might hit, from tricky configurations to costs that can sneak up on you.

And stick around, because there’s a much simpler way to get powerful automation inside your Intercom setup without the usual headaches.

Prerequisites for integrating Fin AI with custom workflows

Before we get into the details, let's make sure you have a few things ready to go. Getting these bits and pieces in order beforehand will make the whole process a lot smoother.

• An active Intercom subscription (you'll need the Advanced plan or higher to really dig into the Workflows builder).

• Admin access to your Intercom workspace.

• An existing knowledge base, like Intercom Articles, that Fin can use as its source of truth.

• A clear idea of which common support questions you're ready to hand off to AI and which ones should always go to a human.

A step-by-step guide to integrating Fin AI with custom workflows

Let's get into the nuts and bolts of connecting Fin to your workflows. This involves a little bit of planning upfront and then some configuration inside the Intercom dashboard.

1. Define your automation goals

Before you touch a single setting, the first thing to do is think about your strategy. For a small business, knowing exactly what you want to achieve is the best way to avoid wasting time and money.

Start by asking yourself a few questions:

• What are the top 3-5 questions that eat up most of your team's day? We're talking about the "Where's my order?" or "How do I reset my password?" type of queries.

• What's the best outcome for these questions? Should the AI spit out a direct answer, link to a help article, or maybe create a ticket for a specific person?

• What are the absolute deal-breakers that should send a conversation straight to a human? This could be specific phrases like "talk to a person," a customer's frustrated tone, or a complex problem you know the AI can't solve.

2. Prepare your knowledge base

An AI agent is only as smart as the information it learns from. Fin's performance is tied directly to how good your knowledge base is, so it's worth spending some time here.

A screenshot of Intercom's knowledge base, which Fin uses as a source of truth. A well-maintained knowledge base is crucial when you Intercom integrate Fin AI with custom workflows for small businesses.

Here are a few tips:

• Make sure your help articles are up-to-date, easy to read, and focus on one main topic per article.

• Write in plain English and ditch any internal jargon your customers won't recognize.

• Use clear headings and short paragraphs in your articles. This structure helps the AI scan the information and pull out the right answer quickly.

• Pro Tip

  Pay close attention to the conversations where Fin gets stuck. This is a goldmine for spotting gaps in your knowledge base that you need to fill.

3. Adjust Fin's basic settings

Now it's time to hop into the Intercom dashboard and get Fin's basic settings configured. This is where you give it a personality and set its default behaviors.

A screenshot of Fin's persona and tone of voice settings in Intercom. Matching the AI's tone to your brand is a key step to Intercom integrate Fin AI with custom workflows for small businesses.

A few key settings to adjust are:

• Turning Fin on in the Intercom messenger.

• Setting its persona and tone of voice so it matches your brand.

• Deciding on a standard response for when it can't find an answer, like "I'm not sure about that, but I can get you to someone who can help."

4. Build a custom handoff workflow

Okay, this is where you connect the dots. The goal is to create a smart handoff from AI to a human. When Fin can't solve an issue, it shouldn't just dump the chat into a general inbox. Instead, it should trigger a custom workflow that knows exactly what to do next.

A screenshot of the Intercom Workflows builder, which allows you to create custom paths for conversations handed over from Fin when you Intercom integrate Fin AI with custom workflows for small businesses.

Here’s how you can build it using the Intercom Workflows builder:

1. Head to Workflows in your Intercom dashboard and create a new workflow from scratch.

2. Set the trigger for the workflow to be "Conversation is handed over from Fin."

3. Add branches based on what the customer is asking about. For example, if their message contains the word "refund," you can create a branch that routes it straight to your finance team's inbox.

4. Set up actions within each branch. This could mean adding a tag (like "billing-issue"), assigning it to a specific agent, or sending a Slack notification so your team can jump on it right away.

5. Test, tweak, and repeat

Your work isn't over once you hit "save." To get this right, you need to treat it as an ongoing project of testing and improving.

A screenshot of Intercom's reporting dashboard, where you can monitor Fin's resolution rate and other key metrics to optimize your Intercom integrate Fin AI with custom workflows for small businesses setup.

Here’s how you can stay on top of it:

• Use Intercom's reporting to keep an eye on Fin's resolution rate. Is it trending up or down?

• Each week, set aside some time to read through transcripts of conversations Fin handled. Check for accuracy, tone, and whether it was actually helpful.

• Get feedback from your support agents. They're on the front lines and will have the best ideas on how to improve the AI-to-human handoffs.

It's a good idea to start small. You can set Fin to handle just a small percentage of conversations at first. This lets you work out the kinks without risking a bad experience for too many customers.

Common challenges when integrating Fin AI with custom workflows

So, that's the official way to set up Fin with custom workflows. But as many small businesses find out, the reality can be a bit tougher than the user guides suggest. Here are a few common bumps in the road to watch out for.

• That sneaky pricing model: Intercom prices Fin at "$0.99 per resolution". For a small business on a tight budget, this creates a variable cost that can easily get out of hand as your support volume grows. In a way, you get penalized for being successful at automating support.

• A rigid workflow builder: While the visual builder looks nice, it can feel a bit limiting when you have very specific needs. Trying to connect to external systems, like a custom admin panel or your e-commerce backend for order lookups, often requires clunky workarounds or a developer's help, which isn't always an option.

• Siloed knowledge: Fin does its best work when it's pulling from your Intercom Articles. Getting it to reliably use information from other places, like your team's Google Docs, Confluence, or even past support tickets, is not really a built-in feature. This can lead to incomplete answers and frustrated customers.

A simpler alternative to Intercom's custom workflows: eesel AI

If those challenges sound a little too familiar, you're not alone. The good news is there's a solution built to sidestep them. eesel AI plugs right into your existing Intercom setup but avoids the common pitfalls around cost, complexity, and scattered knowledge.

Here’s what makes it a different approach:

• Predictable pricing: eesel AI has straightforward plans based on how many interactions you have, with no per-resolution fees. This gives you complete cost certainty, so you can scale your automation without worrying about a huge, unexpected bill.

• Seriously simple setup: Forget about mandatory sales calls and long onboarding processes. With eesel AI, you can connect your helpdesk with a single click and be live in minutes, all by yourself.

• All your knowledge, in one place: This is a big one. eesel AI doesn't just look at your help center. It learns from your past tickets, Google Docs, Confluence, and dozens of other tools. This gives the AI a complete picture of your business, so it can answer more complex questions with much better accuracy.

• Test without the risk: Instead of testing new setups on live customers, eesel AI lets you run a simulation. You can test your AI on thousands of your past tickets to get a solid forecast of its performance, resolution rate, and ROI before you ever flip the switch for your customers. It takes all the guesswork out of the process.

A screenshot of the eesel AI simulation feature, which forecasts performance based on past tickets, offering a risk-free alternative to the typical Intercom integrate Fin AI with custom workflows for small businesses process.

Here’s a quick side-by-side look at how the two approaches stack up:

Take control of your Fin AI and custom workflow setup

Now you know how to integrate Intercom Fin AI with custom workflows for small businesses. More importantly, you're aware of the limitations around its unpredictable pricing, rigid workflows, and siloed knowledge that can hold you back.

For small businesses that want a powerful, predictable, and truly connected solution, modern tools like eesel AI offer a much smarter way to scale support. You can get top-tier automation without breaking the bank or needing a team of developers to pull it off.

Start automating Intercom the smart way

Ready to see how easy support automation can be? Sign up for eesel AI and run a free simulation on your Intercom tickets in minutes. No per-resolution fees, no complex setup, just powerful AI that works with the tools you already use.