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Using actions in Workflows

What each action does and when to use them in your Workflows.

Beth-Ann Sher avatar
Written by Beth-Ann Sher
Updated this week

When you build out your Workflows, you can take certain actions. This table gives a description of each action and their common use cases so you can find the right one for your Workflow.

Action

How it works

Common use case

Apply rules

With this action, the bot will look through each path and execute every action that is matched (this is the main difference between Apply Rules and Branches, as Branches will proceed only with the 1st matched path).

Apply certain tags or other background actions based on keywords that customers used in each of their messages.

For example, if a customer says “urgent” or “ASAP”, Mark as priority.

Tag conversation

The action will assign a tag to the conversation with the chosen Tag.

Tags are created and managed in your workspace settings.

Automatically tag conversations based on the option a customer selects in the bot flow.

For example, if a customer selects a “Bug” reply, tag the conversation with bug.

Tag person

This action assigns a tag to the associated person who is interacting with the bot with the selected Tag.

Tags are created and managed in your workspace settings.

Automatically tag people based on the options they select.

For example, if a customer needs to be followed up with, tag with “follow up required"

Assign conversation

Sends the conversation to a specific teammate or Inbox by assigning it to the selected destination.

Use a conditional branch to assign VIP customers to the VIP support team.

Snooze

The Snooze action temporarily removes the conversation from the teammate Inbox.

If a teammate or customer sends a reply during the Snooze duration, the Workflow will end. The customer will not see anything about the conversation being snoozed and it will remain open.

Note: Teammate adding actions such as tagging will not interrupt the Workflow.

Snooze steps will get interrupted and finish the workflow if a trigger is processed that moves the conversation away from snoozed in a way which isn't the snooze finishing.

Automatically check-in on conversations when a customer has not replied, or been idle for an amount of time.

For example, send a message to the customer 24 hours later to see if they still require support.

Wait

The Wait action delays the next step of the workflow — once the wait duration ends, the next action applies.

The wait can be interrupted by the closing action, teammate replies, or by teammate AND customer replies (depending on your set up).

Note: Teammate adding actions such as tagging will not interrupt the Workflow.

The Wait action can be used to control when a customer may see an action.

For example, teammates can now better control when CSAT is sent by adding a Wait action prior to adding the new CSAT action.

Mark as priority

This action will label the conversation as Priority in the Inbox.

For VIP customers, use conditional branching to ensure that all conversations from customers within the company are marked as priority.

Apply SLA

Applies an SLA (Service Level Agreement) to the conversation. The SLA can be created and configured in your workspace data.

Note: Only one SLA can be added. If additional Workflows trigger after the first SLA has been added, the next SLA actions will be ignored.

SLAs are often used to ensure targets are hit for important customers.

Use a conditional branch to identify a VIP customer, and apply an SLA to the conversation.

Custom Action (using API)

With this action, a Custom Action will be called from the Workflow.

Learn more about using Custom Actions in bots.

Custom Actions are a powerful way to connect Intercom to external APIs.

For example, within a Workflow a Custom Action could make a request to an order API to update the customer on their order status.

Add a note

With this action, you can write an internal note which will be added to a conversation in the Inbox.

Adding notes are helpful context for your team.

For example, when a customer has been inactive, leave a note to your team prompting them to close the conversation.

Set ticket state

Set ticket state action allows to change state of the ticket within a workflow.

When a teammate closes a ticket automatically set the ticket state to resolved.

Notify Slack channel

Notify Slack channel action allows workflows to send notifications to public and private Slack channels, teammates have access to.

Automatically alert teams to conversation and ticket activity in Slack.

Disable customer reply

Prevent customers from writing messages in the Messenger and force them to complete the bot flow.

Note: To prevent typing when selecting reply buttons, you must turn off the "let the customer reply" option in Pathway A and this will prevent the customer from replying for all reply buttons throughout the Workflow.

Disabling replies in a conversation can be a way to manage inbound volume.

Close conversation

This action will change the status of the conversation to Closed.

There are many use cases for closing a conversation to maintain a healthy Inbox.

For example, you might want to close conversations which haven’t received a customer reply for 24 hours.


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