Intercom

Introduction

Intercom is a customer service and engagement tool used by companies to improve their ways of communicating with their customers. Using AI, live chat, and automated responses, Intercom provides an efficient platform for answering customer inquiries about products and services via web pages or mobile applications.

By using Intercom, businesses can achieve lower average response times, provide superior quality of support services, and maintain a single point of contact for every conversation with a customer.

What is Intercom?

Intercom is a customer service platform that utilises Artificial Intelligence as its base model. It provides all the tools necessary for your business to communicate with customers in real-time, automate frequently asked questions, and assist customers throughout the whole customer journey seamlessly. Many businesses use Intercom to manage customer support tickets, show users how to use your product, and provide support for a large number of customers.

Key Features of Intercom

• AI Chatbot (Fin AI Agent): Uses a knowledge base to provide automated answers to frequently asked questions from customers

• Live Messaging & Chat: Provides a real-time chat environment for customers via mobile and the web.

• Shared Inbox: A single place for teams to track and respond to all incoming customer inquiries.

• Help Centre: Create and manage articles that provide customers with self-service options.

• Automation and Workflows: Automate ticket assignment, route conversations and automate task assignment

• Customer Profiles: View a customer’s details (history, past conversations, etc.)

• Reporting and Analytics: Monitor customer response rates, volume of conversations, and team productivity.

• Integration: Connect to platforms like HubSpot, Jira, Salesforce and Slack.

Pros & Cons of Intercom

Pros:

• Offers AI-Powered Automation of Customer Support
• Has an Intuitive Interface for Customer Support Agents and Managers
• Can Scale to the Needs of a Growing Business
• Combines Live Chat, Bots, and Help Center Features within One Integrated Platform.

Cons:

• Monthly Fees Can Be Prohibitive for Smaller Groups or Companies.
• More Advanced Features Require More Expensive Monthly Subscription Levels.
• Implementation of Automation Capabilities for More Complex Workflows Can Require an Extended Amount of Time for Deployment.

How to Use Intercom?

1. Sign up and create an Intercom account
2. Install the Intercom widget on your website or app
3. Set up your inbox and assign team members
4. Create automated replies and chat workflows
5. Add help center articles for self-service support
6. Use analytics to track performance and improve responses

Who Can Use Intercom?

• SaaS companies
• Ecommerce businesses
• Startups and scale-ups
• Customer support teams
• Sales and customer success teams
• Enterprises managing high support volume

What Makes Intercom Unique?

As an “AI” focused company, Intercom combines automation (bot/automated), live chat (agent/human), and customer-related data (information about the user) (who the user is) into one platform. Intercom’s emphasis is on decreasing manual work on behalf of agents, while keeping conversations personal and relevant. Intercom aids teams in quickly resolving customer issues by providing “context”.

Pricing & Plans

Intercom follows a subscription-based pricing system, which is impacted by what functions are used, how many people are on the product, and how much after-hours (support) the customer needs. Pricing will typically break down as follows:

• Essential Plan: Messaging and inboxing features, with limited capabilities
• Advanced Plan: All the automation and AI agent capabilities, reporting
• Add-ons: Anything with AI associated with it, additional seats, and more advanced workflow possibilities.

As with all systems of this type, pricing will vary depending on your business size and selections made via the service; for detailed pricing, users are advised to check Intercom’s website directly for more accurate information.

Conclusion

Intercom offers an excellent customer service solution for companies seeking to manage their interactions with customers in a more productive manner. Intercom’s intelligent AI automation, co-existing live chats, and a shared inbox allow every team member to respond to customers more quickly and stay on top of their communications.

Intercom’s pricing may be higher for smaller companies, but due to Intercom’s powerful capabilities to scale with the growth of a company, Intercom is priced for businesses that want to scale their customer support solutions. Therefore, for companies that want to make improvements in their customer communication and support processes, Intercom makes an appealing case.