A practical guide to Intercom triggers and rules

If you’re on a support team, you’re probably trying to do two things at once: work as efficiently as possible and give customers a great, personal experience. The real secret to nailing both isn't about working harder; it's about working smarter. Automation is a huge part of that, and for teams on Intercom, the native Workflows feature is a great place to get started.

The whole system is built on triggers and rules, which are basically simple commands that tell the platform when to do something and what it should do. Getting a handle on these is the first step to getting all those repetitive tasks off your team's plate.

This guide will walk you through how Intercom triggers and rules actually work. We'll look at some real-world examples, but we'll also be honest about where they fall short. Then, we’ll show you a more powerful way to automate support that can genuinely understand your customers.

What are Intercom triggers and rules?

At their core, triggers and rules are the simple "if this, then that" logic for any automation you build in Intercom. Think of it this way: a trigger is the doorbell ringing, and the rules you set decide who answers and what they say.

Triggers: The 'when' of Intercom automation

A trigger is the specific event that kicks off a workflow. It’s the starting gun for any automated process. Intercom gives you a few different kinds to play with:

• User-based: These happen when a customer does something, like "Customer sends their first message" or "Customer visits a page."

• Event-based: You can track custom events in your product, so a trigger could be something specific like "upgraded-plan" or "project-created".

• Time-based: These are based on a lack of action, like when a "Customer has been unresponsive" for a few hours.

Rules: The 'who' and 'what' of Intercom automation

Rules are the conditions that add some context to a trigger. They make sure the right automation runs for the right person at the right moment. The main parts of a rule are:

• Audience filters: This lets you target users based on their details. You can get pretty specific here, filtering by things like their browser language, subscription plan, or where they're located.

• Scheduling: You can set a workflow to only run during your office hours. Or maybe you have a specific workflow that only runs outside of business hours to help manage expectations.

• Page rules: For triggers based on website visits, you can specify the exact URL the user is on or how long they have to be there before the workflow starts.

When you put them together, these rules help make your automation more precise. Instead of blasting everyone with the same generic message, you can shape the experience based on who the customer is and what they’re doing.

How Intercom triggers and rules work in workflows

Triggers and rules really come to life inside Intercom’s visual workflow builder. The process is pretty straightforward: you pick a trigger to start, then you layer on your rules for audience, channel, and scheduling to narrow down who it applies to.

From there, you can add another layer of logic inside the workflow using branches. This is Intercom’s take on conditional logic, and it lets you send users down different paths based on specific details.

Let's imagine a simple flow for someone who lands on your pricing page:

1. The trigger is "Customer visits pricing page."

2. The workflow then checks the rules.

3. If a rule sees the user is on a 'Trial Plan,' it sends them down Path A, which might be a message with a special offer to upgrade.

4. If another rule sees the user is already on a 'Pro Plan,' it could send them down Path B, maybe offering a demo for enterprise features.

5. If neither of these conditions are met, the user goes down the default path, and nothing happens.

This kind of system is great for creating personalized customer journeys. You could, for instance, build completely separate onboarding flows for English and French-speaking users just by using the "Detected Language" attribute as a main rule.

But you can probably see how this could get complicated, and fast. As your business grows, you might find yourself trying to manage dozens of these workflows, each with complex, nested logic. It can become a real headache to keep everything updated, which is usually when a simpler, more intelligent approach starts to look very good.

A look at the Intercom visual workflow builder, which uses triggers and rules to automate processes.

Common use cases for Intercom triggers and rules (and their limitations)

Let's break down a couple of ways you can use Intercom triggers and rules in the real world, while also being real about where these rule-based systems start to creak under pressure.

Proactive user onboarding

• How it works in Intercom: You could set up a workflow with a trigger like "Customer visits a page" (for example, their new dashboard) and pair it with a rule like "Signed up less than 1 day ago." The workflow could then pop up with a friendly welcome message or a helpful checklist.

• Limitations: This whole approach is pretty rigid. The workflow has no idea if a user has already finished one of the steps you're suggesting. It's just following a script. It also only works with data you track inside Intercom. What if a key onboarding step happens in a totally different tool? Your workflow is completely blind to it, which can make your "proactive" messages feel a bit out of touch.

Automated ticket triage

• How it works in Intercom: You can use the "Customer sends their first message" trigger to get the ball rolling. From there, you can build rules based on keywords. For example, if a message has the word "bug," the workflow can automatically tag it as a "Bug Report." Or, if a customer's profile shows their "plan is enterprise," you can route them directly to your Tier 2 support team.

• Limitations: Keyword matching is famous for being brittle. It just can't understand intent, context, or sarcasm. A customer might write, "This isn't a bug, it's a feature!" and their conversation would still get tagged as a bug report. This leaves you trying to manually predict every single word and phrase your customers might use, which leads to some incredibly complicated and fragile branching logic.

The core issue with Intercom triggers and rules: No context or learning

So, what's the real problem here? Intercom's triggers and rules are great for scenarios you've already planned for, but they can't learn or adapt on their own. They follow the commands you give them, but they don't actually understand the customer's problem. They can't learn from your team's past conversations or pull in knowledge from outside the Intercom bubble.

This is where modern AI solutions have a huge advantage. Instead of just matching keywords, an AI agent can analyze the actual meaning behind a customer's message. A platform like eesel AI can be trained on all your past support tickets to learn how your team really solves problems, letting it provide complete answers that go way beyond simple, rule-based routing.

A simpler alternative to Intercom triggers and rules: AI-driven automation

Instead of spending hours building out complicated "if this, then that" flowcharts, AI offers a completely different and more effective way of doing things. It's the logical next step after manual rules.

While a rule-based system needs a messy flowchart with dozens of branches to cover every possibility, an AI-based system is much cleaner. A customer asks something, the AI "brain" checks all of your knowledge sources, your help center, past tickets, even internal docs, and then gives an answer or takes the right action.

Go beyond Intercom triggers and rules with natural language

With a modern AI agent, you don't have to build tons of complicated rules. You just connect your knowledge sources and use a simple, plain-language prompt to tell the AI how to behave. For example: "You are a friendly and helpful support agent. First, try to answer the customer's question using the help center. If you can't find an answer, politely escalate the conversation to the support team."

eesel AI gives you a fully customizable prompt editor, so you have complete control over your AI's tone, personality, and actions without having to fight with complex logic.

Unifying all your knowledge: A core limitation of Intercom triggers and rules

One of the biggest downsides of native automation tools is that they're often stuck in their own world. They can only work with the data that lives on their platform.

But customer problems are rarely that neat. The answer might be in a Confluence page, a Google Doc, or buried in an old ticket from a different help desk. A tool like the eesel AI Agent can connect to all of these different sources. It can even look up live order information in Shopify. This gives the AI all the context it needs to solve problems accurately the first time, something a rule-based system just can't do.

Test with confidence before going live: AI vs Intercom triggers and rules

When you build a complex workflow in Intercom, you often have to just push it live and cross your fingers that it works the way you planned. There's no good way to test it at scale.

This is where eesel AI's simulation mode is a huge help. You can safely test your AI setup on thousands of your own past tickets in a sandbox environment. This lets you see exactly how it will perform, get solid forecasts on resolution rates, and tweak its behavior, all before a single customer ever talks to it. You can roll out your automation feeling totally confident.

Intercom pricing

Intercom's automation features, like triggers, rules, and workflows, are a core part of its value. But they are mostly available on the paid plans, and the really advanced stuff is saved for the higher-priced tiers.

As of late 2024, here’s a rough breakdown:

Plan	Price (billed annually)	Key Automation Features
Starter	Starts at $39/seat/month	Basic rules and targeted messages.
Pro	Custom pricing	Advanced workflows with branching logic, scheduling, and A/B testing.
Premium	Custom pricing	Everything in Pro, plus more advanced customization and permissions.

To get the most out of Intercom's automation, you'll probably need to be on a "Pro" or "Premium" plan, which can be a serious investment. It's something to think about when you compare it to the flexibility and power you get by adding a dedicated AI layer like eesel AI.

Build smarter automation that scales beyond Intercom triggers and rules

Intercom triggers and rules are a solid starting point for basic automation. They're perfect for simple tasks like greeting new users, sending out targeted messages, or routing conversations based on criteria that don't change.

But as your support volume grows and customer questions get trickier, the rigid nature of a manual, rule-based system can really slow you down. These systems don't have context, they can't learn, and they aren't very flexible. They need constant babysitting and can't handle new problems unless someone goes in and manually builds a new rule.

To really scale your support, you need to move beyond "if this, then that." It’s time to embrace smart, context-aware automation that learns from every conversation.

Don't just automate tasks; automate resolutions. By adding an AI layer like eesel AI to your existing Intercom setup, you can bring all your company knowledge together, handle complex questions easily, and provide a better customer experience, all without the complicated setup.

Try it for free and see how much you can automate in just a few minutes.