Get To Know Your Users - The Intercom Blog

Summary

Startups need a comprehensive view of their users, but customer information is often scattered across separate systems like databases, support apps, and emails, creating data silos. Intercom today launched a unified user profile screen that aggregates profile data (e.g., company role), business data (e.g., plan), activity data (e.g., login frequency), and communication data (e.g., past conversations) into one authoritative view. This screen answers key questions such as who the user is, how often they use the app, whether they have seen announcements, and if anyone has spoken with them recently. When customer data is siloed, companies may email inactive users or ignore influential signups, costing them customers and leaving them clueless about churn. By simplifying user research by an order of magnitude, the tool enables proactive, targeted communication that improves loyalty and changes how products are designed.

Takeaways

1. 1

   Customer information falls into four categories: profile data, business data, activity data, and communication data. Missing any category weakens your ability to understand and serve users.

2. 2

   Siloed data across support, marketing, and analytics leads to mistakes such as sending marketing emails to users with open support tickets, which can cause customer churn.

3. 3

   Making user research and communication drastically simpler enables targeted, in-context feedback that changes how you design products and interact with customers.

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