Intercom- An in depth review 2023

When you are on board your business growth journey, initially, it is trouble-free to manage all the leads personally, respond to all their queries and requests, assemble and conduct meetings, take feedback and turn them into potential customers. But at some point in this journey, the 'trouble-free' tasks become 'worrisome' tasks. It becomes challenging to follow up with a substantial targeted audience, work on sales, and resolve everyone's issues simultaneously. You tend to lose communication touch with your customers and eventually lose them! Statistics reveal that most customers are lost due to a lack of instant and effective replies. Things get worse when you have to handle not just a single platform or channels but multiple.

To rescue you from falling into this dig of problems, we have a savior platform for you- "Intercom."

I know your first question- what is "Intercom"? 

Intercom is 'the #1-rated Business Messenger for customer relationships. This title is self-explanatory. However, to make it more vivid, let me tell you that Intercom is a platform that collectively acquires, targets, filters out, engages, does follow-up, supports customer automation, and resolves their issues via its AI and bot-based algorithm. It carries out the required communication with the leads and modifies them into customers. There are almost 140,107 live websites that are daily Intercom users.

 The next question might arise: how does this platform work?

Intercom assigns leads by round-robin method or directly based on the location of the targeted audience and account holder. This platform tracks all the audience's referral URLs and precise bit data, which discloses the browsing behavior pattern and the leads' interests. 

It helps to choose an appropriate method to convince the charges accordingly. After filtering out the targets, it strengthens the customer relationship by sending personalized messages and following them up throughout the journey of turning them into satisfied customers. Chatbots play a significant role in building a massive network of satisfied customers and boosting the sales and marketing of the business. 

Intercom gives you a glimpse of who all are using your products and services, did they like it or not, and what needs to be done next; based on these notions, Intercom acts upon them and communicates accordingly.

 Benefits and Pros of using Intercom

 1. Gain more leads quickly

Intercom is best known for this purpose. Intercom traps lead in a positive way, engaging them with targeted content and, as a result, convincing them to purchase your product and services. Later, it sets a real-time meeting between the filtered leads and your sales team. Once the first introduction meeting is done, it sends follow-up emails, in-app messages, and texts. 

Intercom also tracks the progress and gets feedback so that improvisations can be done further. Intercom divides all the users into different categories based on their activity and then creates live sessions in other slots. Combining all of these steps altogether ultimately aids in gaining more leads.

2. Live segments arrangement

This feature allows the user to get notified about the client status updates. For instance, you will get notified if a new lead is assigned to you. If any information takes any further action, you will get to know about it as soon as the leader makes a new effort. If any change is made in the business's social profile, Intercom will notify you about the same.

  3. Real-time analytics

Intercom renders reliable statistical data of each of your clients in the most convenient form to be read and understood. It helps you to monitor and understand your client's needs and serves you with the step to be taken next to upgrade your marketing methods and campaigning projects. 

Moreover, it is effortless to operate the analytics tools and gain fruitful information from them. It shows data like click-through rates, open rates, activity logs, etc. It also sends data periodically, ensuring you do not miss out on any of the significant statistics and metrics, which ensures you do not lose any leads.

  4. Personalized messages and chatbots

Intercom sends personalized messages to every user. The letters are automated but with the human touch, which means it sounds like a human is carrying out the conversation with you, not a chatbot. Chatbots reply in a fraction of a second to all the clients and keep them engaged. Chatbots also play a vital role in solving everyone's issues and queries in the least amount of time.

 5. Dashboard of Intercom

Most of the information can be found in this dashboard. There is a primary dashboard where all your messages and emails are categorized. All the summarized data is also shown in the dashboard. You can also find an email forwarding option in the dashboard to easily redirect any message directly into the Intercom Inbox without any external efforts or actions.

  6. User profile information

Intercom has a different section where you can get all the customer's details in a single place. Location, contact number, email Id, goals, product and service preference, etc., are included. This information helps you know your customer well and arrange campaigns for them. It also helps to identify the weak spots and work on them to improve your customer service.

  Drawbacks of Intercom

 There are only two drawbacks found in this platform:

1.  Intercom does not integrate all the chat channels in one solution at a time. With this software, you can place your chatbot only on the website or app but not on Facebook, Whatsapp, etc. The live chat feature can be used on these platforms but not the chatbot feature.
2. Intercom may seem quite expensive to small businesses that don't have enough audience on their website or app. But, I must mention that Intercom is worth this price.

 You must have been convinced to use Intercom for your business now. If you are one of them, keep reading because I am sharing the different Intercom Pricing Models with you to start your journey of using Intercom. All you need to do is pick a plan and purchase it. Now, you are good to go and take advantage of any particular plan's features. Let's have a look at what Intercom models have to serve you:

 Intercom Pricing Models

 1) Essential (From $136 / Month)

This plan has the following features:

1. Management of conversations right from multiple channels
2. Sending targeted messages on your website or in-app too
3. Easily Integrates with Hubspot, Stripe, Shopify, ad many more sites.

 2) Pro (Starts From $202 / Month)

This plan automates and optimizes your workflows effortlessly. This plan consists of all features from the Essential model and additional features like:

1. Creates intelligent and multi-touch campaigns
2. Customizes workflows with rules and automation.
3. Controls who can see the Messenger and at which time.
4. Integrates with Salesforce, Zendesk, Github, and others

 3) Premium

The price for this varies depending on the customized model.

In this, All-Pro Plans features are included with various add-ons like:

 Helps in driving engagement with the custom bots

1. Gets reports on the team performance and revenue too
2. Integrates popular platforms like Salesforce, Sandbox, Marketo, and Clearbit Reveal
3. Easily converts target prospects right with account bases marketing campaigns and more.
4. It is a complete toolkit for business growth.

 The best part about Intercom pricing models is that it provides a 14-Days Free Trial session. You can cancel a plan whenever you want within the free trial period. Another good part is that there is no penalty for cancellation charges taken from you. Great, isn't it?

The silver lining is that the free trial period will permit you to use all the features of Intercom for free, and if it's a thumbs up for your business, you can purchase and move forward with any one of their plans depending on the type, size, and goals of your business.

 Features

Features available in Intercom include the following:

1. AB Testing
2. AI/Machine Learning
3. Alerts / Escalation
4. Appointment Management
5. Auto-Responders
6. Automated Responses
7. Automated Routing
8. Campaign Management
9. CAN-SPAM Compliance
10. Canned Responses
11. Chatbot
12. Code-free development
13. Communication Management
14. Contact Database
15. Contact Management
16. CRM
17. Customer Database
18. Customer Support
19. Customer Surveys
20. Customizable Branding
21. Customizable CTAs
22. Data Import/Export
23. Drip Campaigns
24. Dynamic Content
25. Email Management
26. Email Marketing
27. Event-Triggered Actions
28. For Sales / Marketing
29. Geotargeting
30. Knowledge Base Management
31. Language Detection
32. Lead Capture
33. Lead Database Integration
34. Lead Nurturing
35. Lead Qualification
36. Lead Segmentation
37. Lead Verification/Validation
38. List Management
39. Live Chat
40. Mobile Optimized Emails
41. Multi-Channel Communication
42. Natural Language Processing
43. Performance Metrics
44. Pre-Configured Bot
45. Proactive Chat
46. Prospecting Tools
47. Query Suggestions
48. Queue Management
49. Reporting/Analytics
50. ROI Tracking
51. Screen Sharing
52. Segmentation
53. Self Service Portal
54. Social Media Integration
55. Subscriber Management
56. Surveys & Feedback
57. Template Management
58. Third-Party Integrations
59. Transfers/Routing
60. Virtual Assistant
61. Website Visitor Tracking
62. Workflow Management

Suggested Reading: 

Are you sure about Intercom & Drift? Checkout BotPenguin

 Conclusion

Wondering whether you should purchase or buy Intercom or not?

Well, the answer is yes, you should.

Intercom is trusted and used by many of the world's businesses like New Relic, Atlassian, Shopify, etc. It is a magical key for opening the doors of business growth, be it a small business or a large one. It is a legit solution for all obstacles in marketing, sales, engaging customers, growing business, and empowering customer support and service so that the profit and reach of the company grow exponentially.

I hope this Intercom – in-depth review 2022 has helped you understand the platform better and provided helpful insight.