How a conversation flows end to end
The integration is bidirectional. Here’s the round trip for a single conversation:
A customer sends a message on a connected channel — for example, WhatsApp, SMS, Telegram, Messenger, Instagram, LINE, Viber, or WeChat.
Octopods receives the message through the channel and creates (or updates) the matching conversation in Intercom.
The conversation appears in the Intercom Inbox like any other Intercom conversation, attached to the matching Intercom contact when one exists.
Your team replies from the Intercom Inbox the way they would for any conversation.
Octopods delivers the reply back to the customer on the original channel — the same WhatsApp number, SMS line, Telegram chat, or other channel they wrote in on.
The customer never sees Intercom; they only see the channel they messaged on. Your team never has to leave Intercom to read or reply.
How Octopods identifies the contact
When an inbound message arrives, Octopods tries to match it to an existing contact in your Intercom workspace before creating anything new:
For phone-based channels (SMS, WhatsApp), the customer’s phone number is used to find a matching Intercom contact.
For username-based channels (Telegram, Messenger, Instagram, LINE, WeChat, Viber), the platform-specific identifier on the message is used.
If a matching contact exists in Intercom, the conversation is attached to that contact. If no match exists, Octopods creates a new contact in Intercom so the conversation has somewhere to live. Either way, your team has a contact record to work from when they reply.
How replies are routed back
When your team replies from the Intercom Inbox, Octopods reads the reply and sends it through the channel that started the conversation. A reply written on a WhatsApp conversation goes out on WhatsApp; a reply on an SMS conversation goes out as SMS.
A few notes on replies:
Channel-specific limits apply. Some channels — WhatsApp in particular — have messaging windows that govern when you can send a free-form reply versus when you must use a pre-approved template. Octopods follows those rules and surfaces an error in Intercom if a reply can’t be sent.
Attachments work both ways. Inbound media (images, audio, video, files) appears in the Intercom conversation, and attachments your team sends from Intercom are delivered to the customer on the channel — within the channel’s own format and size limits.
Replies are attributed. The Intercom admin who sent the reply is the agent shown in the Intercom conversation. Octopods preserves that attribution.
Channels supported in the Intercom Inbox
Channels you can connect in an Intercom workspace and have route into the Intercom Inbox include:
WhatsApp (Cloud API).
SMS (via Twilio).
Telegram.
Facebook Messenger.
Instagram.
LINE.
Viber (including Viber Business Messages).
WeChat.
Each channel has its own setup in the Channels section. Once a channel is connected inside the workspace, its inbound messages start arriving in the Intercom Inbox automatically.
What you’ll see in Intercom
For each conversation routed by Octopods you’ll see:
The conversation in the Intercom Inbox view, alongside Intercom-native conversations.
The channel and the customer identifier (such as the phone number for SMS or WhatsApp) on the conversation.
The full message history from that conversation, including media.
Your team’s replies in the conversation thread.
You don’t need to switch tools, configure a separate inbox, or train your team on a new UI. The Octopods integration sits behind the standard Intercom Inbox.
Configuring channel behavior
Behavior that’s specific to a channel — welcome messages, out-of-office replies, signatures, templates, and per-channel routing — is configured on the channel itself inside Octopods, not in Intercom. See the Channels section for the specific options on each channel.
When something doesn’t arrive
If a message you expected to see in Intercom isn’t there, check:
Channel status. Open the workspace in Octopods and confirm the channel shows a connected status. A channel with a problem won’t deliver inbound messages.
Workspace status. On the Connected Workspaces page, the Intercom workspace should show the Active badge. If it doesn’t, reconnect it.
The message itself. Confirm the customer sent the message to the right destination — the connected phone number, bot, or page.
If the channel is connected and the message still isn’t appearing, contact Octopods support with the channel name, the timestamp, and the contact’s identifier so we can trace it.
What’s next
See the Channels section for setting up WhatsApp, SMS, Telegram, Messenger, Instagram, LINE, Viber, and WeChat
See the Proactive Messaging section for sending outbound messages without waiting for an inbound first