Best practices for managing multi-party (marketplace support) ticket communications in Helpdesk

[mike-apfusion]

I'm currently migrating from Intercom to HubSpot Service Hub Professional and looking for guidance on handling a common support pattern for our business.

Our Use Case: We operate an online marketplace connecting business sellers and retail buyers (similar to eBay or Etsy). When a buyer submits a support ticket, our agents frequently need to reach out to the corresponding seller (or vice versa) to resolve the issue. These communications need to stay associated with the original buyer's ticket for context, automation, and audit purposes.

In Intercom, we handled this with "Side Conversations" which were automatically tied to the parent ticket. I haven't yet found a direct equivalent in HubSpot.

What I'm trying to achieve:

• Initiate a separate conversation thread with a seller from within an existing buyer ticket (or vice-versa)
• Keep both conversation threads visibly linked to the same ticket
• Allow agents to easily distinguish between buyer-facing and seller-facing communications
• Maintain a clear audit trail of all communications related to a single issue in one place
• Prevent the respective parties from viewing details relating to conversations/statuses of the other
• [NICE-TO-HAVE] Implement ticket-level automation based on activity in the underlying conversations

Our HubSpot Stack: Marketing Hub Enterprise, Sales Hub Professional, Service Hub Professional, and Content Hub Professional

Thanks in advance!

[mike-apfusion]

EDIT: I figured out how to un-resolve the thread. Sorry for the noise folks, still a bit new here! 

Hi everyone!

I don't believe this thread should have been marked as resolved, as the accepted response only addressed the optional "nice-to-have" bullet point about workflows and didn't touch on the core question.

The main question remains unanswered: How can I handle multi-party support conversations in HubSpot Service Hub?

To restate the use case more concisely: Since we operate largely as an intermediary, when a buyer submits a ticket, we often need to contact the seller to resolve it – and vice versa. Both conversation threads need to stay linked to the same ticket for contextual purposes, while keeping each party's communications private from the other.

In Intercom, this was handled via "Side Conversations," which were automatically associated to the ticket. I'm looking for the HubSpot equivalent or a recommended workaround.

Specific requirements:

• Initiate a separate conversation with a third party (seller) from within an existing ticket
• Keep both threads linked to the same ticket record
• Maintain privacy between parties (buyer can't see seller comms)
• Preserve a unified audit trail for agents

If there's no native feature for this, I'd appreciate hearing how others have approached this pattern — whether through associations, custom properties, child tickets, or another method.

Thanks!

[Jonathan_Vaz]

Hey @mike-apfusion, since you do have Service Hub Professional, you can use Ticket-based Workflows for the nice to have automation requirement. I recommend checking out the template library for a rough idea of the different workflow options available. You may refer this article for additional insight. https://knowledge.hubspot.com/workflows/create-workflows

[mike-apfusion]

Thanks Jonathan! I'm already comfortable building workflows. The bullet point regarding automations was was more about confirming that whatever solution I implement will be accessible within workflows, as this isn't always the case by default with some of the more niche HubSpot features.

[Jonathan_Vaz]

your welcome Mike and I see what you meant by the ticket automation question.