What is our primary use case?
I have been using Intercom Customer Communications Platform for almost three years before my company switched to Zendesk. When I joined the company, we were using Intercom on a daily basis.
For three years, I used Intercom Customer Communications Platform to answer queries from our customers through emails and various social media platforms. I also used it for creating a knowledge help center and writing articles to guide partners on how to use our services. Additionally, I used Intercom Customer Communications Platform for reporting and pulling data on a daily basis to understand the different queries we were receiving, the nature and type of partners sending these queries, enabling proactive customer support using the reporting functionality.
Intercom Customer Communications Platform supported my team with integrated artificial intelligence. The platform is more intuitive, and we were able to educate the bot to identify queries and provide what we call a first response. When a partner escalates something, it is reviewed by a bot, and the artificial intelligence bot provides a first touch to address the issue if able or escalate it to the relevant team. This aspect improved our customer satisfaction rate because we could quickly intervene regardless of time. Even at night, the bot performed the job for us and qualified different tickets so they were assigned to the relevant and competent team that could quickly tackle the issue.
It actually made a difference because we saw our customer numbers increase over time. We were able to quickly identify the daily issues partners were experiencing with us. All of this was possible through reporting, which showed us the types of questions we were receiving and the percentage of issues raised on a daily basis. When we reviewed this data, we could escalate quickly to the technical teams to fix issues or create an article to guide users to overcome the issue on their end. We saw this reduced the number of queries we identified on a weekly basis.
It improved our operations and saved us time because the AI could also correct messages that agents were writing. Instead of an agent writing a response and going to a different platform to get grammar corrected, the AI suggested great and important sentences that could appeal to partners' sensibilities. This saved us time and reduced the cost of buying additional add-ons to correct grammar, since Intercom Customer Communications Platform came with the capability to correct sentences and improve text. The AI also improved our satisfaction rate because partners received support quickly in a shorter period. We set a 48-hour resolution target, but with AI, issues could be resolved in less than 10 minutes. With AI's capacity to qualify query types and assign them to the relevant team, we could quickly see raised issues and intervene promptly. We achieved a full-time resolution improvement of 90%, and our satisfaction rate has been maintained above 95% on a weekly basis. Intercom Customer Communications Platform was doing a great job for the company and our customer support department.
What is most valuable?
The feature that stood out to me the most is the AI function of Intercom Customer Communications Platform, where bots can provide first responses to qualify tickets and search through the articles we have written. The AI is able to propose the most fitting article to support partners with their issues.
What needs improvement?
I would recommend that Intercom Customer Communications Platform increase its database capacity to manage more than 1,000 partners, considering that each partner can send approximately 10 requests daily. When partner numbers exceed 1,000, we sometimes experience complications in quickly processing all the queries we receive. I believe Intercom Customer Communications Platform could perform better for larger companies like mine to coordinate and manage all our partners across the world.
The second suggestion concerns the complexity of pricing. Intercom Customer Communications Platform has very complex pricing structures. While this was not a real issue for my company, as someone interested in entrepreneurship and starting a business, Intercom Customer Communications Platform is very costly for startups and people wanting to launch businesses. If Intercom Customer Communications Platform reviews its pricing and creates plans specifically for startups, I am certain they would reach a much larger market.
The integration of Intercom Customer Communications Platform is great because we have more than 100 integration options available. When it comes to user interface, it is more intuitive but somewhat difficult. When I started my job without prior CRM knowledge, it took me approximately two weeks to understand the platform and use it at full capacity. I believe they could improve the user interface by collaborating with users and gathering suggestions. I am very happy to provide this feedback to Intercom Customer Communications Platform and work with them on the user experience side to ensure the app is ready to use for people without customer management experience. I will give eight out of 10 for integrations and six out of 10 for user interface.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
In three years, I have seen only one day with an outage, and it lasted no more than five minutes. Intercom Customer Communications Platform reacted quickly, informing the team via email and providing a realistic ETA for resolution. The issue was actually resolved before the stated time arrived. Intercom Customer Communications Platform is one of the most stable platforms. With Intercom Customer Communications Platform, you can be confident because the system operates 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, enabling you to always support your customers.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Intercom Customer Communications Platform can grow with company needs and market evolution. If you start with 500 customers, you can use Intercom Customer Communications Platform even when you reach 900. The app is scalable and fits with current market evolution. Intercom Customer Communications Platform is scalable. I will give 9.5 out of 10 when it comes to scalability.
How are customer service and support?
The experience was great. We reached out to them when we needed to improve our knowledge center hub, and they were really supportive. They do not delay in responding. If you reach out to them, you can get a response within a maximum of 10 minutes. They are very available. They even organized calls with us to guide us through the setup of the knowledge hub and the use of articles that agent bots and AI bots can send to partners. They are very good. I will rate Intercom Customer Communications Platform customer support 9 out of 10.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
I have used Sprout Social before Intercom Customer Communications Platform. Sprout Social is not bad, but I would say it is not as complete as Intercom Customer Communications Platform when it comes to reporting, integration, AI usage, AI agents, and knowledge hub building. Intercom Customer Communications Platform surpasses and is better than Sprout Social in these areas.
How was the initial setup?
I do not have information about the initial setup because when I joined the company, Intercom Customer Communications Platform was already being used. My company paid monthly bills to Intercom Customer Communications Platform. My company chose the premium plan and paid on a yearly basis, though I am not entirely certain if it was a six-month basis. I did not handle the deployment part as it was already in place and fully used by every department within the company when I arrived.
What was our ROI?
Intercom Customer Communications Platform has provided a strong return on investment. We increased our market presence because of Intercom Customer Communications Platform's powerful support regarding customer satisfaction and team efficiency. I believe it also supported the company when it came to hiring decisions because Intercom Customer Communications Platform and integrated agents were performing the job. Instead of hiring many people, the company could focus on hiring powerful and skilled employees to handle communication with partners through Intercom Customer Communications Platform. Regarding market reach, Intercom Customer Communications Platform has boosted our revenue through customer satisfaction of our premium partners who have informed other business friends and relatives to come to us. We have seen very important market reach as a result. Intercom Customer Communications Platform has played an 80% role when it comes to loyalty. A business can survive when partners and users are loyal and decide to remain with that company.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
Intercom Customer Communications Platform has very complex pricing. While this was not a real issue for my company, as someone interested in starting entrepreneurship and developing a business, Intercom Customer Communications Platform is very costly for startups and people wanting to start businesses. I would recommend that Intercom Customer Communications Platform review its pricing and create plans specifically for startups. If they do this, I am sure they will reach a much larger market.
What other advice do I have?
The integration of Intercom Customer Communications Platform is great because we have more than 100 integration options available. When it comes to user interface, it is more intuitive but somewhat difficult. When I started my job without prior CRM knowledge, it took me approximately two weeks to understand the platform and use it at full capacity. I believe they could improve the user interface by collaborating with users and gathering suggestions. I am very happy to provide this feedback to Intercom Customer Communications Platform and work with them on the user experience side to ensure the app is ready to use for people without customer management experience. The app is quite good. I will definitely recommend the app. On a scale of 1 to 10, I give it a nine because the app is very complete and great. Organizations can use it to maximize profit and return on investment. I advise that they maximize the use of the agent AI integration, which is very good and will help them communicate easily with partners and build trust with them. Intercom Customer Communications Platform has played a key role in customer loyalty, trust building, and market reach. If organizations have the same goals and purposes, they will definitely choose Intercom Customer Communications Platform. I rate this review 8 out of 10.
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.