Vendor:
Founded:
Headquarters:
Intercom
2011
San Francisco, CA
Customers:
Deployment Model:
Free Trial:
30,000
Cloud
Yes
Intercom At A Glance
Product Overview
Intercom is a business messaging and live chat solution that helps organizations engage with their leads throughout the customer lifecycle. The software has a chatbot that can be placed on any page of a company’s website to greet visitors with an automated message and communicate with visitors even when users are offline.
Intercom’s main use cases are sales, marketing and customer support. Both the sales and marketing teams can engage with a lead throughout the funnel using targeted campaigns, while the customer support team can provide self-service options for customers and respond to elevated issues quickly.
Intercom has numerous benefits, including:
- Intuitive interface that’s similar to other messaging apps (e.g., Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp)
- Customizable settings to fit a company’s brand
- Integration with over 100 applications
Intercom has four scalable plans. Specific pricing is in our Pricing section below.
- Start – The Start plan includes a single seat, basic live chat and outbound messaging features, a team inbox, integration with Slack, two-factor authentication and a customer data platform.
- Grow – The Grow plan includes all of the features of the Start plan, plus five seats, Messenger visibility, outbound and inbound emails, bots for lead qualification and article suggestions, conversation ratings, the ability to add articles in conversations, article smart suggestions, a help center and integration to HubSpot and GitHub.
- Accelerate – The Accelerate plan includes all of the features of the Grow plan, plus 10 seats, an unbranded messenger, custom bots, advanced conversation management features, a multilingual help center, a private help center, team performance reports and integration with Twitter, Facebook, Zendesk Support and Salesforce.
- Scale – The Scale plan includes all of the features of the other plans, plus SLA rules, workload management features and advanced security features.
Features
Here are some of Intercom’s key features.
Outbound messaging – Users can set up automated outbound targeted messages using built-in templates or by creating them from scratch. In addition to text, they can include videos, images or emojis within the message. The software integrates with email marketing solutions like Mailchimp to capture email addresses for follow-up campaigns.
Team inbox – The inbox organizes all communications (e.g., email, website, social media) in one place so that users can respond to customers quickly. It integrates with a CRM, giving users access to relevant visitor data. The sales, marketing and customer support teams can each have their own inboxes. Users can tag another team member to share information and respond to customers’ questions via the Intercom mobile app while on the go.
Custom bots – Users can create a custom bot within minutes without any code knowledge. The bot replaces web forms, since it collects information from the visitor. It triages the visitor’s intent (e.g., interest in product) and then routes them to the appropriate team.
Customer data – With this feature, marketers can track and segment their target audiences. They can view a full customer profile, including purchasing activity, and filter and group those profiles into live segments based on their attributes. Marketers can track the customer data across multiple platforms, such as websites and mobile apps.
Knowledge base (help center) – Companies can give their customers a self-service option with a knowledge base. It can be customized with the company’s logo, domain or other branding, and Intercom has a built-in editor for creating content (e.g., articles, guides). Users can tailor their content to a specific audience and add images, videos or call-to-action buttons. A chatbot can be placed within each page to provide additional support to customers. There’s also a feedback loop feature that displays performance data on the piece of content and gives suggestions for improvement.
Reporting – Intercom provides built-in reports on conversation volume, leads and team performance. Managers can track new inbound conversations, busiest periods or biggest customer issues. They can also measure team performance, such as the team’s responsiveness to customers. Meanwhile, marketers can measure their campaigns, like leads generated and which messages work best.
Intercom offers several optional features, including:
Product tours – Users can create product tours to drive customer adoption. This feature includes a code-free builder that supports video content, templates, audience targeting and more.
Advanced lead generation – Sales and marketing teams can grow their pipeline with advanced lead gen features, such as account-based marketing.
Advanced customer engagement – Marketers can drive growth with automated multichannel campaigns using tools like push messaging, smart campaigns and A/B testing.
Advanced support automation/resolution bot – The resolution bot gives a visitor searchable answers, allowing the support team to focus on serious customer issues. Users can choose the bot’s answers based on common criteria like customer spend or business type. The bot supports multiple time zones and can provide answers in up to seven languages.
Target Market
Intercom targets all businesses from startups to large enterprises. We’ve listed 10 of its clients below.
- Atlassian
- Bitly
- Envoy
- Expensify
- Housecall Pro
- Moz
- New Relic
- Pantheon
- Shopify
- Sotheby's
Implementation/Integration
Clients can sign up for a 14-day free trial before purchasing any of the paid plans. The Accelerate and Scale plans provide personalized onboarding services.
Intercom integrates with many applications, such as Salesforce, Slack, Jira, Marketo, Zoom and more. Developers can also build their own custom integrations.
Customer Service & Support
Users can browse the help center for product guides and other articles, participate in webinars or contact support by email and chat. In addition, the Intercom Academy provides training courses that help the support and sales teams gain experience in using live chat software.
The Accelerate and Scale plans offer 24/7 prioritized tech support and a dedicated relationship manager. The Scale plan also has personalized training sessions and ongoing product consultation.
Pricing
As mentioned, Intercom has four pricing plans. The Start plan starts at $39 per month, while the Grow plan starts at $99 per month. The Accelerate plan starts at $499 per month (billed annually), and the Scale plan starts at $999 per month (also billed annually).
Early-stage companies (new businesses) can purchase an Intercom plan for $49 per month for only one year. They’ll need to apply for it by reaching out to Intercom.
The optional features are product tours (starting at $199 per month), advanced lead generation (starting at $499 per month), advanced customer engagement (starting at $499 per month) and advanced support automation (starting at $299 per month).
Shortcomings
Smaller businesses may find that the advanced pricing plans are too expensive for their needs. Also, there may be an initial learning curve even though Intercom offers product guides and other training resources.
Screenshots
About
Founded in 2011, Intercom provides a suite of customer messaging products that drive growth at every stage of the customer lifecycle from acquisition to support. It has over 30,000 customers and 450 employees and has raised $241 million in venture funding. Intercom is headquartered in San Francisco and has offices in Chicago, Dublin, London and Sydney.
