Help Scout

Map the support address, staff count, number of queues, contact volume, and needed Docs sites before choosing a tier. Additional inboxes and Docs sites can carry recurring charges on paid plans, and the Free plan cannot simply add more of either. Test the forwarding path and Beacon's unavailable-chat fallback with your own email and site configuration.

Check how many users, inboxes and Docs sites each tier includes, along with the monthly contact allowance and add-on charges. The listing is based on vendor documentation; test forwarding, staffing and the actual customer-facing experience in a trial account.

If conversation automation matters, examine Help Scout's documented paid-plan workflows before choosing a tier: rules use conditions and actions such as tagging, assignment or an automatic reply, while manual and automatic workflows run differently. Confirm the workflow quantity and advanced-condition allowance for the selected plan.

If reporting matters, examine Help Scout's vendor-described conversation, response and Docs reports, and check the selected tier's history and export options. These are available documentation and buyer checks, not a measurement of outcomes in a customer account.

Plan a separate path for support history when exporting Help Scout reports. The CSV/XLSX report export requires the Reports: Export reporting data permission and omits conversation thread contents and satisfaction-rating comments; Help Scout points to its general Inbox API for raw data. If replies and notes must be retained, test an example conversation through the intended API route and compare the result with your archive or migration requirements.

Before moving between Help Scout accounts, have an Account Owner or Administrator prepare same-named Inboxes in the destination and review a sample Import2 transfer. The documented path copies conversations, customers and tags, but not users, Inboxes or their settings, Workflows, Saved Replies, Docs, Beacon or Messages. Inventory what must be recreated and compare the sample with expected records before scheduling a full move; a conversation transfer alone is not a complete account migration.

Before relying on Beacon for customers to revisit support conversations, check which history setting and visitor-verification path are implemented. Help Scout says the default history is tied to one browser and device and can disappear when local data is cleared. Cross-device history uses Secure Mode with a server-side signature and requires custom development. A separate Enhance Security choice limits message and chat submission to verified visitors. Test history and contact access with synthetic visitors on two devices before launch.

Before planning a Help Scout Docs exit, test an authorized sample of articles. Help Scout directs Docs article export to its Docs API; report CSV/XLSX exports cover reporting data, and account-to-account Import2 does not copy Docs. List Articles returns abbreviated references and can span pages, so fetch each needed full article with Get Article. If the team maintains unpublished edits, request the draft version where one exists. Compare article body, links and embedded assets against the destination before estimating a knowledge-base rebuild.

Before automating support-history cleanup in Help Scout, decide whether a workflow should change status or add a tag instead of deleting a conversation. Help Scout says a user-deleted conversation remains in Recently Deleted for 15 days unless purged, and only users with the Inbox: Delete conversations permission can access that view. A workflow's Delete action bypasses Recently Deleted and cannot be recovered. Test with fictional conversations and document who can delete, restore and purge before enabling the rule.

When several agents work from one inbox, check Help Scout's automatic Collision Detection with fictional conversations. It shows when a teammate is viewing or drafting in the same conversation and stops an outgoing reply if another agent's reply or note, or an unseen customer reply, arrives first; it also covers replies to outdated email notifications. Stopped replies appear as Paused in Needs Attention. Assign someone to review that folder and send, edit or discard each reply so a prevented collision does not leave a customer waiting.

Before merging Help Scout conversations, confirm they belong to the same customer profile; multiple email addresses may require merging the contact profiles first. Choose the primary conversation carefully: additional conversations are merged one at a time, with no bulk option, and the secondary conversation stops existing as a separate item. Help Scout says a conversation merge cannot be undone. For a shared exchange involving different people, check the primary customer and CC recipients before combining threads.

Before deleting a Help Scout customer profile, have an authorized owner or administrator inventory its linked support history. Help Scout says deletion is permanent and also removes linked phone notes, chats, emails, group conversations and Messages data. A conversation where the customer appears only in CC or BCC is not linked to that profile and remains. There is no undo; a profile with more than 100 linked conversations requires an administrator or account owner to contact Help Scout support for assistance. Check the primary customer association and any retention or export needs before confirming deletion of real data.

Before deleting a Help Scout team member, inventory their assigned conversations, user-targeted Workflows and My Apps connections. Help Scout says their previous replies and notes remain, but assigned conversations move to Unassigned. Run a reassignment Workflow before deletion if another user should receive them; that route is unavailable afterward. Workflows acting on the deleted user become inactive, and the user’s App IDs are removed, which can interrupt custom integrations. Confirm successor assignments and replacement authentication, then check the Unassigned queue after offboarding.

Help Scout’s Conversation Lock changes what happens when a customer replies to an older Closed conversation. An administrator sets a day window; after it passes, the reply creates a new conversation linked to the original instead of reopening the old thread. Setting the window to zero disables that rule, but conversations with more than 100 user and customer replies lock automatically. Test a sample closed case and confirm how your team finds its prior context before relying on long-running threads.

Help Scout Snooze can bring a conversation back at a chosen time without changing its assignee. The default If no reply setting clears the snooze when a customer replies; Regardless keeps the snooze, but the reply makes the conversation Active in either case. Moving the conversation to a different Inbox also removes the snooze. For team handoffs, assign the follow-up owner and check the reminder after any Inbox move.

Help Scout's Send Later schedules an outbound reply, while Snooze brings the conversation back for follow-up. Under If no reply, a customer response before send time removes the schedule and leaves an unscheduled draft; Regardless can still send after that response. Scheduled replies appear in Later and are sent as the user who set the time. Review the sender, date and condition there: Edit changes the reply or time, Unschedule removes the time, and Delete removes the scheduled reply. The guide covers current-plan users able to reply; check your plan rights, displayed time zone and actual delivery with a fictional conversation before relying on scheduled follow-ups.

Before forwarding a Help Scout conversation to someone outside the account, check the recipient and message content. Help Scout creates a separate conversation with that recipient; the original customer is not notified and cannot see replies in the new thread. The internal link back to the original conversation is not shown to the forwarding recipient, while the original thread records that it was forwarded. Use a fictional case to confirm who can see each thread and how your team returns to the customer conversation before forwarding real support details.

Help Scout Docs Private Collections are hidden from customers on the Docs site and visible to authenticated Help Scout users by default. Its guide says you can choose to surface private collections in Beacon and Scout, Help Scout's AI agent; Beacon also offers all-collection versus selected-collection display. Before adding internal playbooks, have an authorized administrator check the selected audience with a fictional article from a signed-out visitor view. Help Scout advises against storing private customer data in Docs, even in a private collection.

Help Scout's Plus/Pro Customer Portal can show company contacts only conversations they started (Restricted), all company conversations (Full), or all except selected Inboxes (Custom). A colleague may view but cannot reply to another contact's eligible thread. Hide reply content sends a portal notification instead of an agent's reply text, but system auto-replies still send standard email content. Before using the portal for sensitive customer work, have an authorized administrator test contact and company visibility plus an agent reply and a system auto-reply; company settings can override the global defaults.

Help Scout Routing can automatically assign active conversations already waiting in Unassigned, oldest first; enabling it is not limited to new arrivals. Plus supports Round Robin, while Pro also offers Balanced assignment to the teammate with the fewest active conversations. Routing skips Away teammates and those at their assignment limit, leaving new conversations Unassigned when nobody qualifies; manual and Workflow assignments are separate. Before enabling it, use a fictional inbox and no-send conversations to check the plan and Manage Routing permission, backlog, assignment limits and who monitors Unassigned when everyone is unavailable.

If your support team plans to answer through Help Scout's connected WhatsApp channel, check the follow-up window before relying on ordinary replies. Help Scout says a customer message opens 24 hours for regular replies; after 24 hours without another customer message, a reply requires a Meta-approved Utility template that is text only and has no variables or headers. The channel is on paid plans and requires a WhatsApp Business Platform account rather than the standard Business app. In a no-send walkthrough, use a fictional unanswered enquiry to check who watches the window and who prepares an approved template for later follow-up; confirm the chosen plan and Meta setup.

On Help Scout Plus or Pro, compare a Light User with a full User before giving a cross-functional reviewer access. Help Scout says Light Users can view conversations and attachments and add their own notes, but cannot reply to customers or manage conversations. Converting an existing User to a Light User unassigns their active conversations and removes them from teams, so check ownership and team routing first. Have an authorized admin compare the roles with a fictional inbox and no customer data, then confirm the selected plan's Light User allowance and optional permissions.

If staff run Help Scout Manual Workflows from a phone, review any preset reply, note or forward before they use that action on a customer conversation. Help Scout says the mobile app can run a Manual Workflow but does not let a user edit its replies, notes or forwards before sending in that flow; Light Users cannot use the mobile app at this time. Compare a fictional conversation and prewritten message with the intended handoff, then confirm the selected role and current app behavior without running a workflow or contacting a customer.