The most important numbers are:
- Your support traffic: How many new mails a day?
- Your support staff: How many people are answering mails?
Slight digression here, since you’re asking about Discourse co-existing with other helpdesk solutions, but: If you’re looking at ~10 mails (new exchanges, not replies) a day and 2-3 people checking in part-time, you’d be perfectly well off with Discourse’s inbuilt support features. I’ve managed a couple different helpdesks, and at moderate traffic volumes they’re all completely interchangeable; it’s just a shared inbox.
Getting back on the main topic, @jesselperry set up an example of a simple integration between Discourse and Intercom.
We also touched a bit on this in my Coinbase interview with @john_mardlin.
p.s. Did you check out getbrimir.com? I haven’t tested it myself, but it’s another very promising open source helpdesk.