When to use search
Reach’s Home screen is always scoped to the contact record you currently have open in Intercom. Contact search is the way to reach someone else without first navigating to their CRM record. Common uses:
Replying to a phone number a teammate shared in Slack.
Sending a quick follow-up to someone you are not currently viewing.
Sending a first message to a phone number that has never been in your CRM.
Opening search
In the Reach side panel, open the Search screen from the top of the Home screen.
The search box appears at the top. A row of category chips under it controls what you are searching by.
Choosing what to search by
Pick one of the four category chips before typing. The placeholder updates to match:
Chip | Placeholder | What it matches |
Name | Search by name… | First or last name. |
Phone | Search by phone… | Any phone number on a contact. |
Search by email… | Any email address on a contact. | |
User ID | Search by User ID… | The contact’s ID in your CRM. |
Results appear as you type and show the contact’s name plus the matching field so you can distinguish similar contacts.
Sending to a phone number that isn’t a contact
Above the search results, the Or send to a phone number section lets you skip contact lookup entirely and send to a raw phone number:
Type the phone number in the Or send to a phone number field. Reach formats it as you type.
Tap Send to [formatted phone]. Reach looks up the phone and navigates to the channel picker.
On the channel picker, you see Found: Name (phone) if the phone matches an existing contact, or No existing contact — will send to phone only if it doesn’t. Pick a channel to continue.
Note: Sending to a phone number with no contact record still delivers — Octopods will create or match the contact automatically when the message goes out.
Sending to a search result
Tap a contact row in the results list. Reach opens the User detail screen.
Review the contact’s name, phone, email, and any other properties Reach has loaded.
Under ACTIONS, tap Send proactive message.
Reach decides the next screen based on the contact’s available channels. If only WhatsApp is available, Reach opens the WhatsApp template browser. If only SMS is available, it opens the SMS compose screen. If both are available, it opens the channel picker so you can choose. If none are available, it returns you to Home.
From there, follow the standard compose flow: Sending Proactive WhatsApp Messages from Reach or Sending Proactive SMS Messages from Reach.
Merging duplicate contacts
If search returns two contacts that are really the same person (for example, the same phone split across two CRM records), tap either contact to open the User screen, then under ACTIONS, tap Merge with another user to start the merge wizard. Merging keeps conversation history in a single thread so replies to your proactive message land in one place.
What’s next
See the Reach Browser Extension section for contact merging in depth