Last updated on June 13th, 2023

14 Intercom Custom Attributes To Add For Better Support and Sales

Pardeep Kullar
Pardeep Kullar
14 Intercom Custom Attributes To Add For Better Support and Sales

Adding just a few of the right custom attributes makes support flow for every chat. The custom attributes below include tried and tested methods for resolving queries 30% faster as well as understanding the customers level of engagement and improving upselling.

Related: See Our Entire Intercom Email Campaign

Also see: Show Users Through Your Website Like Never Before

For devs: How Upscope Integrates with Intercom API using Ruby

Custom attributes that improve every chat

Each company uses different attributes depending on their product and below is a great list to consider for your own support and sales growth.

'Admin’ link for fast editing of that user’s features and permissions

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It’s hard to function without this one.

This is a link from Intercom directly to your own websites admin page.

In one click, go from a chat with a user to adjusting the plans or features they just asked for.

It’s the difference between talking to a support agent who says ‘I will do that for you now’ vs ‘I will need to take a minute to find your account’.

‘Instant Screen Share’ link to see their screen in one click

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See what they see in one click from Intercom and solve problems 30%+ faster.

Don't spend 10 minutes writing instructions.

In one click, see their screen AND use your mouse on their screen to click for them.

Add this using Upscope, which is an official app on the intercom app store.

Do this without the user or agent needing to install anything, it'll change your support team's life and is used by account management for onboarding.

‘Annual saving’ so you can tell them how much they could save

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This custom attribute might for example say: Annual saving $316

If they’ve been on a monthly plan for a while and they like the product this helps remind them of the saving they make if they switch to an annual plan.

You can also set up an automated email to do the same.

'Price plan’ / 'Team size' for upselling

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See how much they’re paying already and how many team members are using it.

Over time, software companies realise that a large customer expanding their use of that company's product can bring more revenue than a dozen smaller new companies signing up.

This can either be reminding them of the new feature the development team has built or starting the conversation to spread the product's use from the sales team to the account management team, for example.

‘Job title’ to send content explaining the product in a way they prefer

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Knowing their exact job title gives you perspective on which educational article / content to send them and can be essential to effective onboarding.

A manager might be interested in your KPI or usage reporting whereas a regular employee primarly needs to know how to use the key features.

‘Sessions count’ to see how much they’re using it

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Are they using it a lot?

Are they using it enough?

Depending on your app this can tell you if someone is a very happy user of the app and possibly one of those promoters we are always looking for, you know, people who would love to give us a testimonial or case study.

If they’re not using it a lot, that’s a good time to ask questions if the opportunity arises.

‘Feature use count’ to check if they use your key central feature

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When onboarding, have they got to the feature which gives them a small internal ‘aha’ moment where they got to understand the value of your service?

When chatting, check the 'feature use count' to ask why they might not have used that feature.

Of course, you can also automate it by sending an email if they have not used it.

‘Teammates’ to see if their team has been added when they sign up

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If they have not added team mates then send them that team invite link or explain the pricing for team members.

You can also encourage them to invite team members by increasing the trial period from 7 days to 14 days when they do.

This works well if they’re buying products individually within a large company which still happens oddly enough.

‘Has cancelled’ for finding out the problem

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Well, if they’re talking to you then you know there’s a problem but it’s good to have it there for when they talk to you and you don’t realise they’ve hit cancel on their subscription.

Find out why as they may not understand a feature or needed a custom plan. The number of times they were not aware of a feature or some smart way to use the product is incredible. It’s not cost, it’s ROI.

‘Call’ to phone them using VOIP in one click.

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Use a service like Toky for making calls in one click from Intercom.

It can automatically log inbound and outbound calls, record them and click to call inside Intercom.

Often these services give you a call button to add to the home page of the website and offer further integrations so across your CRM, Facebook and other platforms.


Below are some theoretical attributes which could be built

‘Events list’ to see the path they took to get there

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Some live chat systems have this but we’re talking about a key path they took and which bits they may have skipped.

Good for understanding if the user really went through that onboarding process and if you include events for common errors they make, you’ll see what they don’t understand.

‘Alert me when they are back’ to respond to a key user on time.

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This is a feature we’d like to have within Intercom.

Sometimes we need someone to be online to ask them more questions or run a test with them.

We’d like to be able to chat to someone and then click this button so we get a warning alert when they’re back online. Then we’ll run the test.

‘Report bug’ link to send conversations and details to a developer

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This would ideally take the user id, the admin link, the browser information and everything else to send as a ticket to the development team.

It would be nice if they were on Intercom to see things for themselves but that’s not really how things pan out.

There is software for this out there and I’ll add it in here when I find it again.

‘Customer health score’ score so you know if they’re not getting value

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A health score can be calculated by combining key indicators of use including session counts, uploads, team mates added, consecutive days of use etc.

It will vary according to your app but is the fastest way to understand customers who are more likely to cancel a subscription over time.

This takes more work than just adding sessions and it’s not easy to put together but a great concept.


See Intercom’s own docs on custom attributes

https://docs.intercom.com/configure-intercom-for-your-product-or-site/customize-intercom-to-be-about-your-users/send-custom-user-attributes-to-intercom

See Upscope’s full Intercom email campaign to onboard customers

We’ve laid out the full Upscope email campaign for intercom including the entire process from sign up, installation, trial and purchase. You can use this as a template to configure your own campaign or check if you’re missing anything. You can see it here.

Pardeep Kullar
Pardeep Kullar

Pardeep overlooks growth at Upscope and loves writing about SaaS companies, customer success and customer experience.