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Intercom
28 posts about Intercom. Every summary links to the original.
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Switch on the next generation of support – Introducing Intercom Switch
Intercom introduced Switch, a no-code feature that lets businesses move inbound phone call volume to messaging without changing providers, simply by adding an option to their phone menu. When a caller selects that option, Intercom identifies their phone number, matches it to a user profile, and personalizes the conversation flow for a tailored support experience. This shift enables support agents to handle multiple conversations at once, reducing wait times and improving CSAT scores, as 73% of customers value companies that respect their time. Switch integrates Resolution Bot to automate common questions, triage more complex issues, and provide agents with full context, saving team bandwidth. Intercom cites a Forrester report that phone is the most expensive CX channel and messaging the most cost-effective, and early adopter LoyalZoo reported a 50% drop in voicemails and calls after implementing Switch.
Upgrade your support: Announcing Intercom’s WhatsApp integration
Intercom has partnered with WhatsApp to offer an integration that lets businesses manage customer support conversations directly from the Intercom Inbox, reaching WhatsApp’s 2.5 billion users across over 100 countries. The integration simplifies omnichannel support by bringing WhatsApp messages into the same tool where teams already handle other channels, eliminating the need for separate software or new processes. Customers can initiate a conversation through the Intercom Messenger and then seamlessly switch to WhatsApp by scanning a QR code, making it easier to receive support on their preferred platform. Support teams continue using their existing workflows because core inbox tools such as rules, SLAs, and macros work with WhatsApp conversations, and messages appear directly in their usual inbox. Additionally, reporting features allow businesses to compare WhatsApp’s conversation volume, response times, and customer satisfaction against other channels to optimize their omnichannel strategy.
Intercom turns 10: Highlights from our first decade - The Intercom Blog
Intercom marked its 10th anniversary by reflecting on major milestones from its first decade. The company was founded in August 2011 by Eoghan McCabe, Des Traynor, David Barrett, and Ciaran Lee, who sought to make internet business personal. Intercom released the world’s first in-app messenger in 2011, which later evolved into a full-fledged Business Messenger with a homepage and embeddable apps. The company also published a series of books on product management, customer engagement, and Jobs-to-be-Done. In July 2020, Karen Peacock became CEO, succeeding Eoghan McCabe, who moved to Chairman.
Meet Fin: Intercom's AI chatbot, Powered by GPT-4
Intercom launched Fin, an AI chatbot powered by GPT-4 and fine-tuned for customer support, combining existing Resolution Bot technology with the new model. Fin answers questions solely using content from a business’s existing help center, reducing hallucinations by constraining its knowledge base and refusing out-of-domain queries. It requires minimal setup, automatically ingesting articles from Intercom or Zendesk help centers, and updates responses when articles change. Fin links to source articles for verification, handles multi-turn conversations, and seamlessly passes unanswered queries to human support representatives. Limitations include potential inaccuracies, high cost of GPT-4, and latency of 10 or more seconds, but Intercom expects improvements, is exploring configuration settings for creativity tradeoffs, and is rolling out a limited beta with a waitlist.
Building "Minicom": How Our Engineering Interviews Illustrate Values
Intercom’s engineering interview breaks from the common practice of testing arbitrary, Googleable knowledge by having candidates build “Minicom,” a scaled-down version of its Messenger product, within a fixed time. Candidates begin with a minimal viable demo and then choose which features to prioritize or optimize, directly echoing the company’s philosophy of shipping small, cupcake-sized products and iterating rapidly. Throughout the interview, pairing sessions with Intercom engineers allow candidates to ask for help on obstacles, demonstrating collaborative problem-solving in a realistic context. At the conclusion, candidates present their creation, explain their design and product choices, and reflect on what they learned and what they would improve given more time. This process illustrates Intercom’s core values: shipping to learn, collaboration, and emphasizing learning potential over pre-existing stack knowledge, while ensuring the interview is transparent and respects candidates’ time as a mutual evaluation.
A complete guide to Fin, the AI bot transforming customer service
Intercom has launched Fin, an AI chatbot powered by OpenAI’s GPT-4 and Intercom’s proprietary technology, now available to all customers. Fin ingests existing support content to resolve up to 50% of queries, providing answers constrained to approved materials to minimize hallucinations. The bot is designed to be trustworthy, controllable, and seamless, with features like custom actions, audience targeting, and the ability to hand off complex queries to human agents. Fin is priced per resolution, charging only when a query is successfully resolved without human escalation. Upcoming features include multilingual support in 43 languages, integration of conversation data, and email as a channel.
Intercom on Product: How we became an AI-first company - The Intercom Blog
Intercom’s Chief Product Officer and Co-founder discuss how generative AI reshaped their strategy, product development, and internal rituals. They describe moving from isolated AI tasks to AI-native products built from the ground up with AI at their core. A key move was launching Fin, their AI agent, as a standalone product on competitor platforms like Zendesk, prioritizing AI leadership over platform exclusivity. They draw parallels to Facebook’s mobile pivot and the iPhone’s initial skepticism, arguing generative AI will face similar resistance but have profound disruptive potential. The conversation emphasizes that second- and third-order effects of AI will create entirely new workflows and behaviors, making full impact hard to predict.
Intercom vs Zendesk: Two AI agents put to the test
The post compares Intercom’s Fin AI Agent with Zendesk’s AI agent, focusing on answer quality, complexity, and resolution performance. In a test using 48 fictional bed-and-breakfast help articles and 200 questions, both systems answered the same dataset, while four AI models judged responses and an Elo rating system selected winners. It reports that Fin produced better answers in 80% of cases, answered 96% of multi-source questions versus Zendesk’s 78%, and delivered responses averaging 120 words versus 50. The analysis also found no statistical difference in hallucination levels and estimated that Fin was 66% more likely to provide a complete resolution when both agents answered. The post notes limitations including simulated data, AI judging, and differing product features, then describes Fin’s integrations and 99¢-per-resolution pricing.
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