Backreply mirrors your Intercom conversations into Slack. A customer writes in Intercom, the conversation appears as a thread in a Slack channel you choose, and when a teammate replies in that thread the customer receives it in Intercom. Nobody needs an extra Intercom seat to help.
Setup takes about 10 minutes and has four parts: connect Intercom, connect Slack, create one routing rule, check your teammate list.
Before you start
You will need:
Intercom — a teammate account that is allowed to authorize apps for your Intercom workspace.
Slack — permission to install apps in your Slack workspace. If your workspace requires admin approval for new apps, arrange that first.
A Slack channel for conversations to land in.
#supportis a fine place to start.
One Backreply workspace connects one Intercom workspace to one Slack workspace. You can add more workspaces later from the same account.
Step 1 — Create your Backreply account
Go to app.backreply.com.
Sign up with an email address and password, or use Sign-up with Intercom or Sign-up with Slack to save a step.
Confirm your email address if you are asked to.
New accounts get full access during a free trial. Plans are listed on the Pricing page inside the app.
Step 2 — Connect Intercom
On the Workspaces page, click New Workspace, then Connect Intercom. If this is your first workspace, the page asks "Which support tool do you use?" — choose Intercom there.
Intercom asks you to sign in and choose which Intercom workspace to connect.
Review the access Backreply requests, then click Authorize.
What Backreply asks Intercom for, and why
Access | Why it is needed |
Read conversations and their messages | To mirror customer messages into Slack |
Reply to conversations and add notes | To deliver what your team types in Slack |
Assign conversations | For the Assign to Me and Reassign buttons |
Read teammates, teams, and tags | To map teammates and route by team or tag |
Upload attachments | To carry files from a Slack reply into Intercom |
Backreply works only with conversations. It does not change your Intercom settings, billing, workflows, or Series.
Step 3 — Connect Slack
As soon as Intercom is authorized, Backreply sends you to Slack.
Choose the Slack workspace to connect.
Review the permissions and click Allow.
What Backreply asks Slack for, and why
Access | Why it is needed |
Post messages and reply in threads | To create the conversation thread and post updates |
Read messages in channels it has been added to | To pick up your replies |
Add and read emoji reactions | To confirm notes and delivery on your own message |
Upload and download files | To move attachments in both directions |
See channels and join public ones | To post into the channel your rule names |
Read member profiles and email addresses | To match Slack members to Intercom teammates |
When both connections finish you land back on Workspaces, and your new workspace card shows Intercom and Slack connected.
Step 4 — Create a notification rule (required)
A notification rule tells Backreply which conversations go to which Slack channel. Until you create one, nothing appears in Slack.
Open your workspace, then click Configure next to Notification Rules.
Click Add Notification Rule.
Give the rule a name — for example All support.
Choose the Slack channel.
Optionally add a condition. Intercom conversations can be filtered by:
Conversation Tag
Assigned Team
Assigned Teammate
A rule with no condition is a catch-all: every conversation goes to that channel. That is the right first rule for most teams.
Choose how follow-ups behave in that channel:
Quiet — post only when a conversation is new.
Responsive (recommended) — also nudge the channel when a customer is waiting on you.
Attentive — nudge on every customer message.
Click Create.
How rules are evaluated: top to bottom, and the first matching rule wins. Put narrow rules (a specific tag or team) above broad ones. If no rule matches a conversation, it does not appear in Slack at all. You can drag rules to reorder them.
Private channels: Backreply joins public channels on its own. For a private channel, invite it first with /invite @BackReply.
Step 5 — Check teammate mapping
Teammate mapping is what makes a Slack reply appear in Intercom under the right person's name.
In your workspace, open Teammate Mapping.
Anyone whose Slack email matches their Intercom email is mapped automatically and marked Email matched.
For anyone else, click Add Mapping and pair the Intercom teammate with the Slack member by hand.
Teammate lists sync from both sides every hour after you connect, so a brand-new connection can take up to an hour to fill in.
If someone is not mapped: their reply still reaches the customer, but it is posted by the Operator bot with a "Sent by Name via Slack" line rather than under their own profile. Unmapped users also cannot assign a conversation or open and close it from Slack.
Step 6 — Try it end to end
From another browser or an incognito window, start a conversation through your Intercom Messenger.
Within a few seconds a thread appears in the Slack channel your rule names.
Reply in that thread.
Check the Messenger — the reply is there, and it is in the Intercom conversation with the rest of the history.
If nothing arrives, jump to Troubleshooting below.
Using Backreply day to day
Everything below happens in the Slack thread. No Intercom seat required.
Reply to the customer. Type in the thread and send. Bold, italics, lists, quotes, links, code blocks, and emoji all carry over. Attachments go too — up to 10 files per message, 50 MB each.
Leave an internal note instead. Start your message with an @mention — @sarah can you check the billing here? — and it is posted as a private note in Intercom rather than sent to the customer. Backreply reacts with 📝 and ✅ so you can tell at a glance. An @mention in the middle of a sentence is not a note; that message goes to the customer.
Use the buttons on the thread.
Button | What it does |
Assign to Me / Reassign | Assigns the Intercom conversation to you, or to another teammate or team |
View in Intercom | Opens the conversation in Intercom |
Add Note | Opens a note box — safer than the @mention shortcut, and can close or reopen at the same time |
View Details | Shows the customer details in a modal |
Close / Open | Changes the conversation status in Intercom |
Nothing else needs to run. Inbound conversations, status changes made in Intercom, and teammate syncing all happen on their own.
Disconnecting and uninstalling
Pause a workspace (keeps your settings). Open the workspace, expand Danger Zone, and click Deactivate. Syncing stops immediately; your rules and mappings are preserved so you can reconnect later.
Remove Backreply from Intercom. In Intercom, open Settings and go to your installed apps list (Apps & integrations). Find BackReply and uninstall it. New conversations stop reaching Slack right away.
Remove Backreply from Slack. In Slack, go to Settings & administration → Manage apps, open BackReply, and remove it.
What happens to your data. Your Intercom conversations, notes, assignments, and history stay in Intercom exactly as they are — Backreply never deletes anything there. Slack threads that already exist stay in Slack as a record, but they stop syncing. Backreply keeps the identifiers that link an Intercom conversation to a Slack thread, your rules, and your teammate mappings, so a reconnect picks up where you left off. To have your Backreply data deleted, email team@backreply.com.
Troubleshooting
Symptom | Most likely cause |
No conversations appear in Slack | No notification rule exists, or none of your rules match. Add a catch-all rule with no conditions. |
Conversations appear in the wrong channel | Another rule higher in the list matched first. Reorder the rules. |
Nothing appears in a private channel | The bot is not in it. Run |
Replies are posted by "Operator" | That Slack user is not mapped to an Intercom teammate. Map them, or wait for the hourly sync if the emails match. |
"You must be mapped to an Intercom teammate…" | Assigning and opening/closing require a mapping. |
Replies stopped entirely | Check the workspace card — if Intercom or Slack shows as disconnected, use Reconnect. Also check that your trial or subscription is still active. |
An attachment did not arrive | Over 50 MB, or more than 10 files on one message. The text still goes through, and skipped files are listed by name. |
A reply to an old thread was not sent | The conversation moved to a different channel after a rule change. Backreply shows you a private message with a link to the new thread — reply there. |
Get help
Email team@backreply.com. It helps to include your Slack workspace name, the channel, roughly when it happened, and the Intercom conversation ID (it is in the Intercom URL).