Intercom Review

Intercom is a chat solution that provides live chat and chatbots for websites and apps. The question is: Should you buy Intercom to create your chatbots?

Let’s dive in!

 

What is Intercom?

Intercom describes itself as a Conversational Relationship Platform that gives you the opportunity to create better customer relationships.

They mainly provide three features: Live chat, Chatbots and a Help Desk.

In this review, I will mostly focus on live chat and chatbots. With Intercom, you have three kinds of chatbots:

1. Task Bot – This chatbot will only interact if no teammates are assigned to the conversation or when a teammate has closed the conversation. For example, when you ask a question, the Task Bot automatically sends “Chatimize typically replies in a few minutes”.
2. Custom Bot – This chatbot is a complete custom chatbot with specified flows and elements.
3. Resolution Bot – This chatbot automatically replies to questions of your customers (based on keywords).

User Interface

When you sign up at Intercom, Intercom provides you with a “quick-start guide” to help you get started with their platform, which is really useful:

Then when you’ve set up Intercom, you can create two kinds of chatbots: the Task Bot and the Custom Bot.

The Task Bot is a chatbot that will only interact with you if no live chat agents are available and is often an automatic message like “We typically respond in two hours”:

When you want to create a custom Bot (a chatbot flow with elements), Intercom makes use of a Flow Builder:

Once you have determined the content of your Custom Bot, you can also determine on what pages you want to show this chatbot flow, by adding Rules:

And ultimately determine the goal of the chatbot flow (that you can use for analytics):

Moreover, you can also preview your chatbot flow, before it actually goes live:

At first, the interface makes it a bit hard to set up your chatbot, because Intercom is such a large product (with chatbots, setting up helpdesk and more). Also, the interface uses terms like “Outbound” and “Operator” that aren’t explained (unless you search for it). The same is true for the chatbot names – they use Task Bot, Custom Bot and Resolution Bot – and you first need to find out which one you need to use.

So in general, the interface is really easy to use, but it is a bit hard in the beginning to set up your chatbot.

• Visual Flow Builder

  Create chatbot dialogs with a visual flow builder.
• Test chatbot

  Is it possible to test the chatbot before putting your new flows or changes live?
• Interface easy to use?

  Is the chatbot platform easy-to-use?
• Easy to setup a chatbot?

  Is it easy to set up your chatbot with this chatbot platform?

Chatbot elements

Intercom provides enough chatbot elements to create a good chatbot.

They lack some elements, such as Audio, Attachments and Galleries, but these are certainly not deal-breakers.

What I do like about the elements in Intercom, is that you can also display Helpdesk articles inside your chatbot:

• Delays

  Use delays between messages in your chatbot
• Images

  Can you send images via your chatbot?
• Video

  Can you send video via your chatbot?
• Audio

  Can you send audio via your chatbot?
• Attachments

  Can you send attachments via your chatbot?
• Gallery (Horizontal list)

  Show a gallery of cards inside your chatbot. A card consists of an image, title, subtitle and button.
• Vertical list

  Show a vertical list of items inside your chatbot
• Emojis

  Can you use emojis inside your chatbot?
• Persistent Menu

  Can you add a persistent menu to your chatbot?
• Quick Replies

  Can you add quick replies to your chatbot where users can click on?
• Buttons

  Can you add buttons to your chatbot where users can click on?
• Free text input

  Can chatbot users freely type text to your chatbot whenever they want to?
• Location sharing

  Can users share their location inside the chatbot?
• Email validation

  When a chatbot user gives their email, can the platform validate it's a correct email address?
• Phone number validation

  When a chatbot user gives their phone number, can the platform validate it's a correct phone number?
• Date validation

  When a chatbot user gives a date, can the platform validate it's a correct date?

Users

In Intercom, you can see a complete overview of everyone that chatted with your chatbot:

When you click on of your users, you can see their custom fields, tags, recent pages on your website they viewed and more:

With Intercom, you can just ask a question to the user and store the answer in a custom field or assign a tag.

Additionally, you can create your own user segments by filtering on specific custom fields and tags.

• Custom fields

  Store information from your chatbot users inside fields. For example, you can ask for someone's email and store it inside the "email" custom field.
• Tags

  Add tags to users in your chatbot flows to organize and categorize contacts.
• User segments

  Can you create user segments based on custom fields and tags?

Messages

With Intercom, you can send a broadcast to your users, by using large Posts or Banners.

Unfortunately, you cannot create a sequence of messages, but it is possible to create Series, which we will cover later (in the Marketing section).

Luckily, you can have a chatbot in multiple languages, but it is not easy to translate your chatbot.

• Broadcasts

  Send a message to all or a part of your chatbot users at a specific date and time
• Sequences

  Send messages on a pre-defined schedule with a certain time interval between those messages
• Conditions

  Make checks in your chatbot flow based on if-then logic. For example, if the user has not given their email, ask for their email.
• Multiple languages

  Is it possible to create a chatbot in multiple languages?
• Easy to translate

  Can you translate text to other languages without using a third-party platform and without creating duplicate flows?

AI & NLP

If you want to automatically reply to questions of your users, you need to use the Resolution Bot of Intercom.

With the Resolution Bot, you can train your chatbot on several questions, that will ultimately understand the intent of the user:

Unfortunately, it is not possible to use Entities with Intercom.

What I really like about Intercom, is that you can automatically import customer questions from Zendesk, which can give you a headstart on creating your first keywords:

• Keywords

  Trigger chatbot flow based on certain words or phrases a user says to the chatbot.
• Intents

  Trigger a chatbot flow by understanding the intent of the user.
• Entities

  Capture specific information from sentences. For example, if a user says "veggie pizza", the chatbot can understand it's not a regular pizza, but a veggie pizza.
• Dialogflow integration

  Does the chatbot platform provide a direct integration with Google's AI Platform?

Channels

Intercom provides three main channels to put your chatbot on:

• Website
• iOS app
• Android app

Moreover, with Intercom, you can automatically send email campaigns, such as a client onboarding campaign when someone becomes a new client.

Furthermore, Intercom provides additional channels that you can use with live chat, but you cannot use with your chatbot:

• Facebook
• Instagram
• WhatsApp
• Twitter
• SMS

And this is a drawback, because you cannot create an omnichannel chatbot experience for your users.

• Website

  Can you publish your chatbot on your website?
• Facebook

  Can you publish your chatbot on Facebook?
• Instagram

  Can you publish your chatbot on Instagram?
• Whatsapp

  Can you publish your chatbot on WhatsApp?
• Telegram

  Can you publish your chatbot on Telegram?
• SMS

  Can you publish your chatbot on SMS?
• Slack

  Can you publish your chatbot on Slack?
• Skype

  Can you publish your chatbot on Skype?
• Email

  Can you publish your chatbot on email?

Integrations

Intercom has a built-in live chat, which is the most important integration of any chatbot platform:

Moreover, they even have their own App Store with over 100 direct integrations with other software applications:

What is so great about their App Store, is that every developer can contribute to it. For example, Intercom itself doesn’t provide a Telegram integration. But, by using an App in their App store, you can create this integration yourself.

If that’s not enough, you can use Zapier or Make (formerly Integromat) to integrate with almost any software application on earth.

Moreover, you can also get or send data from other systems by creating an API call and you can receive webhooks when an event is happening inside Intercom.

• Livechat

  Direct integration with live chat, either via a built-in live chat functionality or a third-party live chat platform.
• Zapier

  Direct integration with Zapier, one of the largest integration platforms in the world.
• Make (formerly Integromat)

  Direct integration with Make (formerly Integromat), one of the largest integration platforms in the world.
• Google Sheets

  Direct integration with Google Sheets, to store or retrieve data from sheets.
• Webhooks

  Can you call an API inside your chatbot flow to send or get data from other applications?

Marketing

Intercom mainly provides seven marketing possibilities with their product:

1. Website widget
2. Chats
3. Posts
4. Product Tours
5. Banners
6. Mobile Push
7. Mobile carousels
8. Series

Let’s go by them one-by-one:

Intercom’s Website Widget

The website widget of Intercom is pretty advanced.

First of all, you can set up your widget so it matches the branding of your website:

Then, by using Chats, you can send personalized greeting messages to your users.

 

Intercom Chats

With Intercom Chats, you can send personalized greeting messages to your users:

By using Rules, you can set up different greeting messages per page and per type of user:

And these rules are pretty specific. You can even target people if they come from a specific ad (by using UTM parameters).

But that’s not it, you can also only show the greeting if the user has been on the page for a certain amount of seconds or when the last contact was.

 

Intercom Posts

Intercom Posts are pretty similar to Chats, but the difference is that the chat widget opens with a small post in it:

Also, you can create a large post that opens up as a pop-up:

 

Intercom Product Tours

This is one of the best marketing opportunities of Intercom, showing a tour of your product.

In my opinion, there is no better way of onboarding new customers than just showing them how to do it, step-by-step.

And it is also really simple to create a tour, you can just click on parts of your website and add instructions:

 

Intercom Banners

Intercom also provides Banners that you can put on your website.

Banners are highlighted sections on the top or bottom of your website that you can use to promote something, such as a discount:

 

Intercom Mobile Push

The Mobile Push of Intercom can only be used if you are using Intercom for your iOS or Android App.

With the Mobile Push, you can send a push notification to users who have the app on your phone:

 

Intercom Mobile Carousels

The Mobile Carousel of Intercom allows you to send a carousel of images when someone is opening your iOS or Android app.

For example, you can use the mobile carousel to display new features of your app:

 

Intercom Series

Series is a visual campaign builder that allows you to send emails, posts, chatbot flows and product tours if the user meets some conditions.

For example, you can use Series to create an onboarding campaign for new customers:

• Facebook website widget

  Embed your chatbot as a Facebook Widget on your website.
• Native website widget

  Embed your chatbot as a native widget (your own branding & colors) on your website.
• Landing pages

  Can you create a simple landing page to drive users to your chatbot?
• Facebook Ads

  Start a conversation with your chatbot when someone clicks on a Facebook Ad
• One-Time Notification

  Send one-time notifications via Facebook Messenger for a topic that a chatbot user has opted-in for
• Facebook comments auto-reply

  Automatically reply with your chatbot to users who comment on your Facebook Posts
• Button creator

  Add a button to your website to drive users to your chatbot
• Custom URLs for your chatbot

  Generate a simple URL that can be shared anywhere to send users to your chatbot

Pricing

The pricing of Intercom is a bit complicated and unclear.

Intercom provides the Start plan, which is $39 per month and comes only with their live chat feature. The next plan is the Grow plan, which is $99 per month and comes with their live chat, 5 live chat agents, email integration, help desk articles, Mobile Carousels, Banners, an article suggestion chatbot and a lead qualification chatbot (not enough to build a complete chatbot):

When you want to create your own custom chatbot, you need to go with one of their Conversational packages, which starts at $499 per month and includes 10 live chat agents, all the different kinds of chatbots, all the different channels, analytics and more:

What is weird about these last plans is that they don’t provide you with all the features of the platform. For example, in the Conversational Marketing plan, you don’t have the Series feature, but in the Conversational Customer engagement plan, you do have that feature. So it is unclear what it would cost you to have all the features of the platform.

Also, what happens with the price if we want more than 10 live chat agents? How much would that cost? That is also not provided on their website.

Then the last question regarding their pricing: Is $499 per month worth it? In my opinion, this depends on the number of people that use your chatbot and on our business. If you have enough users on your website or customers in your software application, this could be a very good deal. By using a chatbot you can save a lot of time on customer service or automatically qualify the leads that come into your chatbot.

• Free trial

  Does the chatbot platform provide a free trial?
• Free plan

  Does the chatbot platform provide a free plan?
• Price per month

  What is the lowest price per month for creating a chatbot on this platform?
  499
• Monthly pricing available?

  Is it possible to pay monthly?
• Money back guarantee

  Is there a money-back guarantee in case you are not satisfied with the platform?

Analytics

The analytics of Intercom are pretty extensive.

First of all, when you’ve set up a goal for your chatbot flow, you can see how many people reached that goal:

Moreover, you can see an analytics dashboard for all of the conversations with Intercom:

Intercom provides even so much analytics that I hardly can cover them all in this review, but they provide a lot.

There is only one I also want to point out: user input that the chatbot didn’t understand. By using “Training for the Resolution Bot”, you can analyze common questions users asked and determine an answer for them:

So yeah, they do really well on this category.

• Dashboard

  Dashboard that provides general analytics of your chatbot.
• User input

  Get the input from users that your chatbot didn't understand.
• Sent messages

  The number of messages that were sent by your chatbot.
• Open rate

  The percentage of chatbot users that opened a message inside your chatbot.
• Click rate

  The percentage of chatbot users that click on a button inside your chatbot.
• Conversion rate

  The percentage of users that converted through your chatbot. For example, the percentage of users that gave their email address
• Fall back rate

  The percentage of interactions where the chatbot did not know an answer to a question.
• Custom dashboards/reports

  Can you create your own dashboard or reports?

eCommerce

Intercom provides a Shopify integration that you can use to:

• Let users automatically get the order status in the chat widget
• Create orders from live chat
• Search for customers and products in live chat

Moreover, Intercom has a WooCommerce integration (built by ektagon, $15 per month) that allows you to sync data between WooCommerce and Intercom.

Also, you can accept payments by using the Stripe integration of Intercom.

• Payments

  Collect payments inside your chatbot
• Shopify

  Direct integration with Shopify to get products, order information and cart data.
• WooCommerce

  Direct integration with WooCommerce to get products, order information and cart data.
• Buy directly within the chatbot

  Ability for chatbot users to buy products or services directly from a chatbot
• Cart abandonment

  Trigger messages in the chatbot when a user abandons their cart on a website or inside the chatbot

Templates & Cloning

Intercom provides 7 templates to build your Custom Bot.

Unfortunately, you cannot create these templates yourself and share them with others.

On the other hand, it is possible to duplicate your chatbot flows and chatbot elements, so that you can easily reuse them.

• Templates

  How many pre-built templates does the chatbot platform provide?
  7
• Make template

  Can you make templates yourself?
• Share template

  Can you share self-created templates with others?
• Duplicate chatbot flows

  Is it possible to duplicate chatbot flows, so you can easily reuse them?
• Duplicate chatbot elements

  Is it possible to duplicate chatbot elements, so you can easily reuse them?

Optimization

Unfortunately, you cannot use any optimization in your chatbot flows, such as A/B Testing.

• A/B Testing

  Can you optimize your chatbot flows by performing A/B tests?

Support

Intercom provides lots of tutorials explaining their platform and they have a huge documentation.

Moreover, they also provide support through live chat and email.

• Tutorials

  Does the chatbot platform provide tutorials on how to use its platform?
• Documentation

  Does the chatbot platform provide documentation on how to use its platform?
• Customer support

  Does the chatbot platform provide customer support?

Conclusion

So, should you buy Intercom to create your chatbots?

Yes, you should.

Intercom has an easy-to-use interface, you can assign custom fields/tags and create user segments, has built-in AI & NLP, put your chatbot on your website and on your iOS/Android App, built-in live chat, has over 100 direct integrations, provides many marketing possibilities, eCommerce integrations and really advanced analytics.

There are only three drawbacks of Intercom.

In the beginning, Intercom can be overwhelming. Because of the various marketing opportunities they provide and the many features, I was clueless about where I needed to start. So don’t be surprised if it takes you some time to fully understand Intercom.

Second, if you want chat software that integrates all your chat channels in one solution, Intercom isn’t for you. With Intercom, you can only put your chatbot on your website or your App, but not on other channels, such as Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp and SMS. It is possible to use these channels with live chat, but not with your chatbot.

Third, Intercom can be too expensive for you. Intercom provides many features and many marketing possibilities, which make it totally worth it to buy this chatbot builder. But, it could be the case that Intercom is too expensive, for example, when you don’t have enough users on your website or current customers.