Routing Conversations

Without routing, every conversation floods into one channel. Your VIP customers get lost in the noise, billing questions go to engineers, and the wrong people spend time on the wrong issues.

With routing rules, you decide where conversations go:

Each team sees only what's relevant to them.

When a new conversation arrives, BackReply checks your rules in order. The first rule that matches wins—the conversation goes to that channel.

Example:

You have three rules:

A conversation tagged "vip" goes to #vip-support. A conversation with no tags goes to #general-support.

Important: Make sure the BackReply bot is invited to the channel before creating the rule. In Slack, type /invite @BackReply in the target channel.

Conditions determine which conversations match a rule. You can filter by:

Route based on Intercom conversation tags.

When you specify multiple tags, a conversation matches if it has any of them.

Route based on which Intercom team the conversation is assigned to.

Route based on which Intercom admin is assigned.

When you add multiple conditions to a rule, all must match:

Rules are checked in priority order. The first matching rule wins.

This matters when conversations could match multiple rules.

Example: A conversation is tagged both "vip" and "billing."

Arrange your rules with the most important ones at the top.

Always have a catch-all rule at the bottom—a rule with no conditions. This ensures every conversation goes somewhere.

Recommended setup:

Without a catch-all, conversations that don't match any rule may not appear in Slack.

Route your most valuable customers to dedicated channels.

Route conversations to specialists.

Mirror your Intercom team structure in Slack.

Changes apply to new conversations immediately. Existing conversations stay in their current channel.

Temporarily disable a rule without deleting it. Deactivated rules are skipped during routing.

Drag rules to change their priority. Remember: higher in the list = checked first.

Permanently removes the rule. Existing conversations in that channel remain, but new conversations won't route there.

Each rule can have its own notification behavior. This lets you set different alerting levels for different channels.

For example:

Check which rule matched first. A higher-priority rule may have matched before the one you expected. Review the conversation's tags, team, and assignee.

Routing fails silently if the bot can't post. Invite it with /invite @BackReply in the channel.

Start simple. Begin with one or two rules and a catch-all. Add more specific rules as you learn what your team needs.

Name rules clearly. "VIP Enterprise Support" is better than "Rule 1."

Leave gaps in priority. If you use priority numbers, use 1, 10, 20 instead of 1, 2, 3. This makes it easier to insert new rules later.

Test with a real conversation. After creating a rule, tag a test conversation in Intercom and verify it routes correctly.