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Receiving Customer Support & Updates via Intercom
Receiving Customer Support & Updates via Intercom

Learn how to use Intercom ("the blue bubble") to communicate with the Novi AMS Support and Product teams.

Melisa Smith avatar
Written by Melisa Smith
Updated over a week ago

Intercom is the platform we use as our main source of post-launch communication with our customers. We love helping you with any questions you have and hearing your feedback! 

You can access Intercom on the backend of your Novi site from two places:

  • by clicking on the circle in the bottom, righthand corner - the blue bubble!

  • by clicking on the question mark in the top, righthand corner and clicking on Contact Novi in the drop-down


Intercom's Purpose

Intercom will become the communication tool your team will use to contact the Novi team once you are launched. 

We use Intercom over e-mail or phone simply because Intercom will send your message to our whole team, allowing faster response times (ex: if the person you emailed is unavailable, another Novi team member will take care of you), a trackable message to keep you updated on, and collaborative feedback from our entire team.

Additionally, you will have a record of the answer to your question, just in case you should need it again later down the line.

It will also allow us to send notes to our developers and other team members and keep track of your messages all in one place, further promoting a concierge customer service experience.

The main items you'll use Intercom for are:

  • "How do I" questions - We are always here to help, but make sure you check out our help center if you think the answer to your question may be in there for an instant answer!

  • Feature requests - If you're interested in how our feature request process works, learn more here!

  • Bug reporting - We will keep you posted on updates on bugs reported via Intercom whenever possible.

  • Best practice questions regarding Novi - These may also be in the Help Center! Some articles have deep dives regarding best practices for various sections of the software.

Additionally, the Novi team may also reach out to you regarding information that requires your attention and to deliver our feature release and update notes

So, be sure to check out any notifications that come through Intercom. Your Intercom circle will show a red notification icon when you have a new message.


Navigating Intercom

Once you click on the Intercom icon, you'll notice that three sections appear:

1) Start a new conversation

Click the blue Send us a message button to start a new thread. Note that once you begin or reply to a conversation, you will have the ability to add information to your messages, such as screenshots, files, and links - or even emojis and GIFs if you like a little excitement! If you prefer communicating via email please see the note below (under #2).

2) See all your conversations

Your Conversations section in Intercom is where you can access all of your in-app conversations with Novi team members. The most recent conversations will appear at the top of the list.

  • What if I prefer communicating via email? If you prefer sending and receiving emails with the Novi team vs using the blue bubble (on the backend of your site), you can send your message to help@noviams.com. On our end, it's the same either way - it will come into Intercom and the whole team will have access to the conversation - but on your end, please note that these conversations will not show up in the Your Conversations section (in-app). So you'll need to save any emails that you may want to reference in the future, or better yet add the info to your Novi Notes!

3) Find your answer now

The search bar will allow you to enter keywords that will then take you directly to our help center, where 500+ articles written exclusively by our team live. It's very likely that the answers to most of the basic questions will be in our help section, so definitely check it out. In many cases, during a conversation, we may direct you to an article that will walk you through what you'd like to accomplish.

We wanted to make sure you have access to all the help that you need right at your fingertips. While we do the best we can to get you the answers you need, when it comes to your financials, some items may be out of Novi's scope. In many cases, we will direct you to consult your accountant or potentially QuickBooks' help center. If you feel that your question is related to functionality in QuickBooks Online, check out the link we've added in Intercom to QuickBooks Support.


Communicating with Novi via Intercom

The More Descriptive, The Better

When you're ready to send us a message, please send as much information as possible. Screenshots and links are always a plus - that way everyone is on the same page (literally!). We have various tools we can use to help get you answers if we have information related to your question. 

Think about Who, What, When, and Where.

Here is an example of a question that will help us help you and its counterpart:

  • Not Ideal: Someone is having issues logging in. Can you help?

  • Ideal: John Smith was getting an "invalid login attempt" message when trying to log in this morning. His email is johnsmith@examplecompany.com. Can you help?

If the question is more of a "how-to" or a new feature request-related question, give us the business case and tell us what it is that you ultimately want to accomplish. We may know of other ways we can help you vs. the route that you are currently taking.

Response Time

Our goal is to respond to your question as quickly as possible. Please note that you are always getting our team, never an outside-sourced customer support service. For this reason, response times may vary. 

  • You can expect a response within the business day, but we always aim for quicker than that. Keep in mind that Intercom is not an instant chat platform, but know that our average response time is less than one hour. Also, know that we'll never just leave you hanging for weeks on end. Certainly not our style.

  • We respond to messages in order of their arrival and priority. If we feel that your message may take a bit longer to answer, we'll let you know as soon as we are able.

  • Our operating hours are 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. ET, Monday - Friday. Messages sent close to the end of the business day or after hours may be reviewed the next business day.

NOTE: Please do not send multiple messages or reach out via multiple communication channels regarding the same question/request. If it is urgent (impeding an immediate business need), please let us know in your initial message and we will prioritize your message. If you have an emergency and cannot access Intercom (on the backend of your site), please email help@noviams.com.

Intercom Notifications

For new messages we send to you via Intercom, those will appear to you within Novi. It is less common that we email anyone directly for the communications we send to you, such as feature release notes or private messages regarding things that may require your attention. Therefore, it's important that everyone on your team who has admin access to Novi is logging in and checking Intercom for new message notifications.

For existing conversations, if we send you a reply and you do not see the reply for two minutes, Intercom will email you the reply. Feel free to forward these emails to your staff members to keep them in the loop.


Other Things You Should Know

  • In order to provide the best service to you, our customer, we will not directly communicate with one of your members.

  • Questions and Bug Reports emailed directly to a Novi team member will be forwarded to Intercom for tracking and collaboration between our team and yours. If you prefer communicating via email send your initial message to help@noviams.com and it will come right into Intercom.

  • Questions regarding other integrations outside of the Novi scope, such as general functionality questions about MailChimp, Constant Contact, QuickBooks Payments, Stripe, WebScribble, or other third parties should be directed to their support team for further assistance.

  • If you ask us a question directly from the blue bubble in a help article (instead of using the blue bubble on the backend of your site) Intercom may not recognize you as being logged in to Novi, so we might ask you for your name and association to verify who sent the message.

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