Our new book: Intercom on Customer Support - The Intercom Blog

Summary

Intercom published its third book, Intercom on Customer Support, sharing principles used while scaling to over 8,000 customers across 85 countries. The book examines customer support from three angles: starting and scaling a team, planning the quality of support, and ensuring support has positive relationships with other teams. It argues that quality customer support is a competitive advantage, not a cost, aligning with Forrester’s “age of the customer” concept from 2011. Two key macro trends—all businesses becoming internet businesses and the shift to recurring revenue—place the future lifetime revenue of the customer at the center of every support discussion. As boundaries between sales and support dissolve, the book addresses challenges like supporting free users, scaling the team, and controlling costs, while remaining tool- and tactic-agnostic.

Takeaways

1. 1

   Quality customer support is a competitive advantage, not a cost, and should be measured strategically rather than purely as a cost center.

2. 2

   The trends of all businesses becoming internet businesses and shifting to recurring revenue make every support interaction touch future customer lifetime value.

3. 3

   The lines between sales and support have blurred; support teams handling trial user questions can directly close sales, impacting revenue.

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