September 20, 2017
By Sam Del Rowe, contributing writer

Intercom Announces New Features for Its Live Chat for Sales Solution

Customer messaging platform Intercom recently announced a number of new features for its Live Chat for Sales solution, as well as an integration with Clearbit Reveal and new skills for its Operator bot.

The new Live Chat for Sales features include Messenger Visibility, a tool that enables businesses to determine which website visitors they want to make a connection with; and new functionality for its Visitor Auto Messages tool, including new targeting capabilities, new message styles, and A/B testing functionality.

“The problem that Intercom is trying to solve is that businesses typically will use different tools for different parts of that customer life cycle and what ends up happening is that they have a very disjointed view of the customer and they’re unclear what the left hand is not talking to the right hand,” says Colin Bentley, group product manager at Intercom. “On the flipside, the customer also feels those pain points: [For example], they might be getting regular emails from the company but then when they want to go and raise a support ticket with that same company, they’re asked for their email as part of the form fill because those systems are different. A central part of what Intercom is doing is providing that central view of the customer for the business and also a very consistent, single experience for the end user.”

The new Live Chat for Sales features have these goals in mind. Messenger Visibility allows users “to very specifically decide when, based on different attributes, visitors should be given the option to ask a question of you [the business] or to start a live chat,” Bentley says. Visitor Auto Messages “are almost like a layer on top of that,” he adds. “If Messenger Visibility is allowing a conversation to commence, Visitor Auto Messages is being even more proactive. Using some of those same triggers or conditions…it allows you to be proactive in reaching out to high-value leads.”

Intercom has also announced a new integration with Clearbit Reveal that enables businesses to send messages to visitors based on data such as company size, industry, or amount of funding raised. “Clearbit Reveal is a product by Clearbit that allows you to identify company information based on the IP address that visitors are coming from. You’re able to translate that IP address into specific criteria about the company so you can be very specific about only presenting messages or only giving the option to convert in the live chat scenario with someone who’s in a company [with] X amount of employees or in a particular industry,” Bentley says.

In addition, Intercom has announced a new skill set for its Operator bot: After a lead asks a question, Operator responds with a small set of initial questions to help qualify the value of that lead and move the conversation forward. “Once a conversation does begin or once a visitor does ask a question, it’s natural that those visitors will have different levels of value or intent that they are likely to buy or be interested in your product, or if they’re going to be a good match for your product, for that matter,” Bentley explains. “When someone asks a question, Operator will jump in and ask two or three very pertinent questions that allow a business to really understand the likely value or the likely fit that that person has for their product.”