Intercom is a popular messaging platform that can be used to connect your customers and team members.It's used by a lot companies as their primary customer support tool. One of the reasons it’s so popular is because Intercom can be customized and enhanced with many different app integrations that extend its functionality to cover the entire length and breadth of the customer experience flow.
In this post, we'll cover some of our favorite Intercom integrations and explain how you can use them to get the most out of this powerful tool.
What is Intercom?
Intercom is a CRM (Customer Relationship Management) tool that lets you manage all of your customer relationships in one place, so you can keep track of what they've purchased and what they're interested in. It also allows you to send automated messages to customers based on their behavior. Some of Intercom's features include:
- Intercom Inbox: This allows you to keep all customer communication in one place. You can send and receive messages to and from your users.
- AI chatbots: Harness the power of AI and train custom chatbots to automate the process of responding to repetitive queries.
- Chat: A widget that your customers can use to send you chat messages.
- Analytics: Intercom has an analytics dashboard where customer support managers can track response rates, average time-to-resolution, CSAT scores and more.
How does Intercom fit into customer support workflows?
Intercom gives companies a way to manage their customer support workflows in one place. With its excellent app ecosystem and native functionalities, companies can create a truly personalized tool that does exactly what they need it to.
From ticket management, to customer communication, to self-service and chatbots, to analytics, Intercom can help make it easier and more efficient for companies to solve customer issues quickly and cost-effectively.
Intercom pricing
Intercom offers a 14-day trial for all their plans. After the trial ends, their paid plans start at $74 per month.
Intercom reviews
Intercom is rated 4.5/5 stars based on over 2000 reviews. Positive reviews mention how intuitive the UI is, how powerful the feature set is and how Intercom's chat and email functions make customer communication easy by consolidating everything in one place. However, there are some detractors. Negative reviews often mention that Intercom's ticket management and sorting functionalities are more limited than other solutions on the market. Other reviewers detracted points based on the fact that many essential support tools are behind paywalls.
Best features of Intercom
Intercom has a couple of standout features including:
- Chatbots
- Onboarding features
- Help center
- DMs with users
Chatbots
With Intercom, you can set up a chatbot to handle simple questions from your customers. The bot can then direct customers to the right place in your app, website or knowledge center for additional help. This saves you time by not having to answer each question individually.
Onboarding features
Intercom has excellent onboarding tools to get your customers to their 'aha' moment with your product. You can create onboarding flows consisting of emails, messages, tool tips and more. Intercom also has a feature that enables companies to build extensive product tours. You can set up in-app messages to trigger at certain points in your app or after certain events have taken place. For example, you can design a product tour for new users that gets them to perform their first action by triggering a guided experience when they sign in for the first time.
Help center
You can host your knowledge center and support articles on Intercom. You can put together articles explaining how different aspects of your product work and link them to other parts of your site so that customers can easily find answers without having to wait around for someone from support. Hosting your help center on Intercom means that it can be leveraged in an integrated way across all the functions you use Intercom for. So, for example, if you use chatbots on Intercom, they can be trained to recommend certain help articles in response to specific customer queries.
DMs with users
DMs allow you to send messages to users directly from Intercom's interface, rather than having to switch over to another app like Messenger or WhatsApp for communication purposes. This makes things much easier for all parties involved and keeps all your customer communication is one place so everyone has access to it.
Features missing from Intercom
While Intercom has plenty of native functionalities that make it a standout customer support solution, it doesn't have it all, which is where integrations enter the picture. Some things that Intercom lacks natively are:
- No good way to escalate tickets
- No good way to solve technical support tickets that are too complicated to tackle over email and chat
- No cobrowsing or in-app calling (meaning you have to switch to a platform like Zoom if you want to speak to a customer)
- No session replays (when a ticket comes in, the only context you get is what the customer describes. You have no way to actually see what happened).
- No console logs (you can't see information like device, network, user journey, errors and warnings when a ticket comes in on Intercom. You'll have to ask your customer for most of those details.
No level 2 and 3 three customer support
Intercom doesn’t have a built-in feature for escalations, so for level 2 and level 3 customer support, you will need to use an integration.
No cobrowsing feature
If a customer wants to show you something on their screen or have you cobrowse with them so that you two can fix issues collaboratively, they won't be able to do that in Intercom. Instead, they'll have to send screenshots or you'll have to switch to a platform like Zoom. This makes things more complicated for both parties involved, and it's not an efficient use of time or resources if you need to solve complex technical issues. There are a few good integrations that offer cobrowsing — including our solution, Fullview. We'll go into more detail about that later.
No session replays
Intercom doesn’t offer session replays, which are an essential tool if you want to understand how users are actually behaving in your product. Session replays are video-like recordings of user sessions in your web app. You can watch them to see exactly where a user clicked on something, what pages they visited, what bugs and issues they encountered, and what pain points were so frustrating that they abandoned your app altogether. Session replays are very powerful when it comes to providing proactive customer support (because you can watch a session replay and reach out to a user when you see they’ve encountered an issue — even before they’ve reached out to you about it) and product development (seeing bugs and issues in context makes it easier to recreate and fix them, thereby improving your app). Even though Intercom doesn't offer this feature natively, there are integrations for it — including ours — which we’ll delve into shortly.
Can’t call users
Another drawback is that you can't call users directly through Intercom. You have to go to their customer details page, locate their phone number (if you have it), and then call them some other way. This can be inconvenient if you're having an issue with a customer and need to talk about it right away — especially if you want to call them and cobrowse with them in your app. Fortunately, there are integrations that can add this functionality to Intercom.
No console logs
When you're troubleshooting something with a user, knowing exactly what's happening on the backend can be enormously helpful. Unfortunately, Intercom doesn't have this functionality and you'll need to ask your users for console information like network and device details, user steps, bugs, etc. However, with an integration like Fullview, you'll see relevant console logs that we collect from your end user's system to display to you during cobrowsing calls and session replays, making it much easier for you to identify exactly what is broken or if there are any bugs or issues in your product.
13 best Intercom integrations for customer support
One of the best things about Intercom is that it can be extended with various app integrations. This means that you don't have to rely solely on the features and functions that Intercom provides — you can add new features, functions, and integrations to the platform as well.
By using an Intercom integration — or several — companies can ensure that their customer support stack is comprehensive.
The integrations we'll discuss in this article are:
- Fullview
- Zapier
- Statuspage
- Blendo
- Polytomic
- Calendly
- Chargebee
- Productboard
- Plecto
- Survicate
- Pipedrive
- CheckMarket
- Clearbit
Top five full-scale solutions
Fullview - Cobrowsing and session replays
Fullview augments Intercom's functionality by giving companies the option of adding cobrowsing, session replays, and customer calling to Intercom. For businesses with complex products — especially in SaaS — having these features can go a low way towards making it easier for support agents to resolve support tickets.
When a support ticket comes in, an agent can quickly review recordings of that user's latest sessions to see exactly what went wrong. Then, if the issue is too complex to solve over chat or email, they can initiate a call with a user directly in their app, take control of their screen and solve the problem themselves. They'll also have access to console information during this process for easier diagnosis and troubleshooting.
We even pin a note with the replay that was ongoing when the customer reached out to each support ticket that is created. At the end of the cobrowsing session, we push a note to Intercom with the cobrowsing recording, name of the agent who was in the call and the duration of the call.
Features and benefits of Fullview
Fullview offers a number of great features that can enhance your experience with Intercom. Some of these include:
No downloads
You don't need to download anything and neither do your users. You only have to copy a few lines of code to install Fullview on your app, and this installation takes no more than 10 minutes.
Completely secure
Your data is encrypted and stored on servers within the EU.
Fully GDPR compliant
As one of the only cobrowsing and session replay vendors in Europe, Fullview is fully GDPR compliant.
Session replays
Fullview Replays allows you to watch video-like recordings of user sessions right from Intercom. Your support agents can quickly see customer bugs and issues in context — even before a user reaches out to them with a problem. They can offer proactive support that’s fast, efficient and eliminates the friction typically present in these kinds of interactions. No more screenshots, long email chains or ‘please describe the issue you are having’ requests. They can also see console information (like network, device and user journey info) on a side panel within a session replay and easily filter by errors, warnings and logs.
Customer calling and cobrowsing
Support agents can directly call a user in their app with the Fullview integration. With cobrowsing, a support agent and user can browse and control a screen together. This means that they can solve issues collaboratively. Instead of describing how a user should complete a step, fill a form and use a feature, a support agent can now send a cobrowsing request straight from Intercom’s inbox and guide the user through the process — or even complete it on behalf of the user when necessary. They can also see console information (like network, device and user journey info) on a side panel within the call and easily filter by errors, warnings and logs, just like when watching a session replay
Troubleshooting features
Fullview also provides tools, specifically Fullview Console, that allow you to troubleshoot issues with no effort or delay. You can clearly see console information like device, network and user journey in an easily accessible side-panel on a call or when watching a session replay. We provide convenient filtering for errors, warnings or logs so you can find what you're looking for quickly.
On top of all these great features, Fullview has both a free plan and paid plans, so you can choose the one that works best for your budget and your business needs.
Fullview pricing
You can start with our forever free plan that offers up to 1,000 recorded sessions per month. If you need more features and sessions, you can upgrade to the pro plan, which starts at just $39 per month.
Rating and customer reviews
Fullview has a 4.7 rating on G2. As one customer explains:
"Fullview helped us navigate through replays of the customers and this helped us discover and rectify hundreds of bugs and glitches in the product."
Install the integration to get started.
If you're looking for a single solution to integrate all of your customer support tools, Zapier is the way to go. It allows you to create custom "zaps" (Zapier's word for automations) that automate tasks in different apps.
For example, if someone replies to a support ticket from Intercom, Zapier could automatically send them an email with specific information about the issue and then forward their response back to Intercom for a follow-up.
Pros of Zapier
- Zapier integrates with over 2,000 different apps
- It's easy to use, thanks to its drag-and-drop interface
- Custom zaps can be created for highly specific use cases
- Zapier offers a free plan that includes up to 100 tasks per month, so it's accessible to small businesses and individuals on a budget
Cons of Zapier
- Zapier can be expensive for businesses with high-volume needs
- There can be a delay in processing some automations, especially in the case of automations that involve APIs with long wait times
- Some integrations can be limited in their capabilities
Zapier pricing
Zapier offers a forever-free plan for those who only need to perform 100 tasks per month. Paid plans start at $19.99 per month and include up to 750 tasks per month.
Ratings and customer reviews
Zapier has a 4.5 rating on G2.
"Zapier provides simple integration with so many tools, and if a tool is unavailable, you can code your own scripts in nearly any programming language, making this tool everything you need for integrating tools and automation."
Statuspage is a service that allows you to monitor your website's performance and alert your customers in real-time when something goes wrong. You can also receive notifications about outages, security issues, and server maintenance.
You can even integrate Statuspage with Intercom to give your customers the ability to report incidents directly from the Intercom dashboard. With this integration, you can add status updates as part of your account management workflow, so you don't have to worry about keeping track of them separately.
Pros of Statuspage
- Real-time monitoring of website performance
- Automatic alerts to customers when something goes wrong, ensuring customer satisfaction
- Notifications about outages, security issues, and server maintenance allow you to act fast
- Integration with Intercom, making it easy to report incidents and add status updates as part of your account management workflow
Cons of Statuspage
- Limited features in the free plan, which may not be sufficient for larger organizations
- Requires manual setup and integration with other services
- Limited ability to customize the layout and design of incident pages
Statuspage pricing
Statuspage offers a free plan of up to 100 subscribers and 25 components. For larger organizations, you'll want to use a paid plan starting at $29 monthly for 250 subscribers.
Ratings and customer reviews
Statuspage has a 4.1-star rating on G2.
"We like being able to keep an eye on all incidents that we have daily; it is an excellent way to keep organized in our team and have all alerts in our hands, and in this way, all of us are in sync."
With the Blendo integration, companies can more easily sync customer data generated in Intercom with other applications. From there, they can easily combine it with other types of data from different sources: payments data, events data and the like. This makes reporting across multiple data sources simpler. And it also goes a long way towards giving you a 360-degree view of your customer.
Pros of Blendo
- Simplifies data syncing across multiple data sources, including customer data generated in Intercom, financial data, and event data
- Easy to combine and report on data from different sources, resulting in a 360-degree view of customer interactions
- Helps to streamline workflows by ensuring that relevant data is available to the right people at the right time
- Offers automated data transformation, reducing the need for manual data manipulation and saving time for business analysts and IT staff
Cons of Blendo
- May be too complex for smaller organizations or those with limited budgets
- Users may require training or onboarding before fully utilizing all of Blendo's features and benefits
- There may be better fits for companies with very specific data integration requirements or unique data structures
Blendo pricing
Blendo offers a full-featured 14-day free trial. After that, paid plans start at $150 per month.
Ratings and customer reviews
Blendo has a 4.8 rating on Capterra.
"The folks at Blendo are incredible. Their software is equally as great!"
Polytomic is another integration that allows you to sync data from a variety of sources. It's also built to be easy to use, so you don't need the help of engineers when you're syncing app databases, data warehouses, and spreadsheets to Salesforce, Marketo, HubSpot, Zendesk, or, in this case, Intercom. It also allows you to automate the data sync process or set up custom sync schedules to make sure that you're working with current and relevant data that is consistent across all your systems.
Pros of Polytomic
- Saves time and effort by automating the process of syncing your data
- Reduces errors and improves accuracy by eliminating manual data entry
- Simple and intuitive user interface
Cons of Polytomic
- Implementing and integrating Polytomic's platform can require significant upfront costs, which may be a barrier for smaller businesses or startups
- Employees may need training and onboarding to learn how to effectively use Polytomic's services
- Depending on the types of tools and systems being integrated, there may be security concerns related to sharing data and information across different platforms
Polytomic pricing
Pricing for Polytomic begins at $500/month. It's best to reach out to their sales team for an exact quote.
Ratings and customer reviews
Polytomic has a 4.7 rating on G2.
"Polytomic has been easy to use and reliable for us. So far, we have been able to handle any integration need that we have. "
8 Other Intercom integrations
Though these apps didn't make the cut on our list of the top full-scale intercom integrations, they're still useful and a great addition to your Intercom setup.
- Calendly
- Chargebee
- Productboard
- Plecto
- Survicate
- Pipedrive
- CheckMarket
- Clearbit
Calendly is a web-based booking tool that allows you to manage your appointments online. Calendly integrates with Intercom to help you keep track of your customers and their upcoming bookings. Once the integration is set up, you'll be able to see how many current or future appointments each customer has scheduled, as well as any relevant information for each appointment, such as who they're meeting with and where it's being held.
Chargebee is a subscription billing platform that allows you to accept payments from customers, manage subscriptions and invoices, automate your billing process, and more. You can use Chargebee to create and manage pricing plans, add new customers and run pricing experiments in a structured way. You can also use Chargebee's automation features to send emails and text messages to your customers at specific times, such as when their account is about to expire, which can help boost your loyalty and retention rates.
Productboard is a product management tool that helps you create and communicate your product strategy. It allows you to build product roadmaps, centralize user feedback and prioritize features based on it, test new feature ideas to validate them and integrate with the tools you already use for product development and customer support. With the Productboard app for Intercom, you can capture valuable product feedback in Intercom and then send it to a centralized repository where it is easier to organize, glean insights from and implement i.
Plecto is a dashboard software that allows you to build customizable dashboards using data that you collect in Intercom. Some of the categories of data you can import and organize into dashboards include comments, average customer reply times and events/activities. The dashboards you build using Plecto also sync up with Intercom, meaning they're updated in real-time, so you're always working with accurate information.
Survicate is a tool that lets you send your users NPS, CSAT and CES surveys straight from Intercom, through messenger or emails. Survicate helps you streamline your survey process and makes it easier for customers to reply to them, meaning both engagement and response rates go through the roof. A neat feature about Survicate is that you also receive data from surveys that were not completed, in cases where a user abandoned them midway, for example. This integration also gives you access to a separate product called Feedback Hub, that helps you import and organize customer feedback you've received on Intercom.
Pipedrive
Pipedrive is a CRM platform that helps sales teams stay organized and focused on their goals. It allows users to create deals, track activities, and manage contacts all in one place. Pipedrive also offers integrations with other popular tools, such as Intercom, to help streamline processes and increase efficiency. By integrating Intercom and Pipedrive, you can easily manage your sales pipeline. You can quickly create new deals without leaving your Intercom inbox, giving you the ability to efficiently handle customer requests and keep your sales process running smoothly.
CheckMarket
CheckMarket is a web-based survey tool designed for enterprises to gather valuable insights from customers. It offers a wide range of features to create surveys and analyze the results. With CheckMarket, you can easily design surveys with drag-and-drop tools and customize them with various options such as images, videos, and more. The platform also provides powerful analytics to help you make sense of the data collected. CheckMarket integrates with Intercom to enable businesses to send surveys directly from Intercom conversations. This integration allows companies to quickly collect feedback from their customers and use it to improve customer service. For example, with this integration, businesses can ask customers for feedback after they have interacted with customer service representatives or completed a purchase on their website.
Clearbit
Clearbit is a data intelligence platform that provides companies with tools for data enrichment, lead generation, and marketing personalization. It helps B2B teams understand customers, identify prospects and personalize interactions with real-time intelligence. Clearbit integrates with Intercom to provide users with enriched customer profiles. With this integration, Intercom customers can access Clearbit's suite of APIs to enrich their customer profiles with additional information such as job title, company size, and industry. This allows them to better segment their audiences and target their messaging more effectively.
Wrapping things up
Intercom is one of the most popular platforms for customer support, and it's easy to see why: it has a robust lineup of features and what it lacks, it makes up for in a pretty comprehensive marketplace. While all-in-all, Intercom is a great CRM, it's missing a few important features to truly cover all bases in an end-to-end customer support workflow. But with the right integrations, you'll have that flow built in no time!
If you're looking to retool Intercom for technical customer support, look no further than the Fullview integration for cobrowsing, session replays and console logs. All three features help you to demystify product and customer issues, gain much-needed context into support tickets and cut support time in half while keeping your CSAT scores high.