Customer Experience News is a weekly newsletter about the most important news and discussions for Customer Experience and Customer Support Leaders.
This is all the weekly news you need in around 5 minutes.
Intercom Adds Channel Routing And Telegram Support
News Summary
Intercom, a customer service platform combining shared inbox, ticketing, and AI powered Agents, announced two updates. Teammates can now route work by channel without splitting their inbox, choosing exactly which channels they handle, including email, Messenger, SMS, and phone, in any combination. Telegram is also now a supported channel, letting teams connect a Telegram bot and manage Telegram conversations alongside every other channel in the inbox.
Operational Impact
Support Specialists can specialize in the channels they know best while the team keeps one shared queue with assignments balanced across every channel, cutting down the coordination work of managing separate inboxes per channel. The Telegram addition extends that same shared inbox to one more channel, and Fin can resolve Telegram questions automatically, extending automated deflection to a channel that previously required a manual workaround.
Implementation Considerations
Each teammate needs to set their own channel selection from their profile or the Inbox Dashboard Teammate View, so rollout benefits from a short internal announcement. Teams with layered routing rules, such as language or product based specialization, should confirm the new channel selection interacts correctly with those rules. Teams that already run automated workflows and CSAT collection on other channels need to confirm those workflows also apply correctly to Telegram, and brands with a meaningful Telegram audience should weigh setup time against actual message volume before prioritizing it over other backlog work.
Zendesk Adds Live Transcription For Voice Agents
News Summary
Zendesk, a customer service platform used across support, sales, and IT teams, announced live call transcription for Voice Agents. Agents can now view real time transcripts during voice calls, with speaker labels, searchable text, timestamps, and language switching.
Operational Impact
Support Specialists no longer need to rely on memory or post call notes to capture what a customer said, since the transcript is visible while the call happens. Searchable, timestamped transcripts also make it easier to pull up a specific moment in a call for coaching or dispute resolution instead of re-listening to a full recording.
Implementation Considerations
Live call transcription is available for Zendesk Voice with the Copilot add-on, so teams without that add-on need to confirm licensing before planning around this feature. Teams operating in multiple languages should test the language switching behavior on real calls, since transcription accuracy on accented speech or mixed language conversations varies and is worth verifying before frontline reliance.
Gorgias Ships Chat Discovery And Agent Statuses
News Summary
Gorgias, a customer service platform built for ecommerce and Shopify brands, announced two updates. Shoppers can now explore similar products with one tap inside chat, seeing a More Like This option when the Agent recommends a product. Admins and team leads can also add custom agent unavailable statuses, such as Lunch, Break, In A Meeting, or In Training, instead of a single generic offline status.
Operational Impact
Support Specialists benefit indirectly from the product discovery feature, since shoppers can browse alternatives themselves within the conversation instead of asking an agent for more options or leaving the chat to search the site separately. The custom statuses give team leads visibility into why someone is unavailable rather than only that they are offline, which helps with staffing decisions during high volume periods.
Implementation Considerations
The product discovery feature depends on the Agent already having accurate product catalog data, so brands with incomplete or outdated product feeds may see irrelevant suggestions. Teams should review a sample of recommendations after rollout to confirm they match brand merchandising intent. For custom statuses, admins need to create them in Settings under Agent Unavailability before teams see any difference from the current single offline status, and teams should agree on a consistent status list across the organization before rollout.
Help Scout Adds Twilio SMS Support
News Summary
Help Scout, a shared inbox platform built for SaaS and growing support teams, announced support for connecting a Twilio number directly to Help Scout. Teams can now manage two way SMS conversations alongside email, chat, and social channels from the same shared inbox.
Operational Impact
Support Specialists can reply to SMS conversations from the same interface they already use for email and chat, rather than switching to a separate SMS tool and losing conversation history in the process. Live character counts show exactly how many messages a reply will send as before hitting send, which helps avoid the extra cost or fragmented delivery of an unexpectedly long SMS reply.
Implementation Considerations
Teams need their own Twilio account and number before connecting the channel, so this is not a zero setup integration. Organizations relying heavily on SMS for time sensitive updates should confirm their existing automation, tagging, and reporting rules extend correctly to the new channel rather than assuming SMS behaves identically to email inside Help Scout.
Kustomer Streamlines Company Hierarchy Editing In Sidebar
News Summary
Kustomer, a customer support platform built around a unified customer timeline, announced an update that lets Support Specialists edit a company’s hierarchy directly from the sidebar. Assigning and managing company relationships now happens without navigating away from the sidebar’s current view.
Operational Impact
Support Specialists working with multi entity accounts, such as franchises or parent and subsidiary organizations, can update relationship data in the moment a conversation surfaces it, rather than stepping out of the ticket to make the change elsewhere. Keeping hierarchy edits inside the sidebar also reduces the chance of losing context on the company a Support Specialist was originally viewing.
Implementation Considerations
This update matters most to teams that actively maintain company hierarchies as part of their support workflow, such as B2B support teams tracking parent accounts and subsidiaries. Teams that do not use the Hierarchy tab today will not see a meaningful change, so this is a smaller quality of life update rather than a workflow overhaul.
Gleap Brings AI Agents Into Ticket Conversations
News Summary
Gleap, a customer support and product feedback platform, announced that AI Agents now work directly inside support tickets rather than in a separate panel. Support Specialists can mention an Agent in the composer to hand off a task, watch its steps appear in the conversation timeline, and step in if the Agent needs input.
Operational Impact
Support Specialists no longer need to leave the ticket to see what an Agent tried or asked, since agent runs now appear as messages in the same timeline as human replies. A full activity log for any run, available in one click, also makes it easier to catch an Agent that is heading in the wrong direction and stop it before it responds incorrectly to a customer.
Implementation Considerations
The update also introduces reply threading, a rebuilt conversation view, and a keyboard driven command palette, so teams should expect a short adjustment period alongside the AI Agent changes. Teams with existing automations or Agent permission rules should confirm those carry over as expected before rolling this out broadly, since a redesign this size touches most of the day to day inbox experience.
Now this is:
Strategic Support for CX Leaders.
You’ve got ambitious Support targets and new metrics but you’re not sure what to prioritize first.
The list is long, the queue is getting longer, and you don’t have time to step back and think about CX strategically.
What if you could pressure test your thinking with someone who has spent 20 years building Customer Support operations?
No pitch, just a conversation.
