Introducing Intercom Phone: Calls and conversations all in one place

Phone support isn’t going anywhere. Even with the move towards messenger-based and self-serve support, a lot of customers still like to have the option of phoning a business. 

That’s why we’ve released Intercom Phone: a phone support solution that ensures a seamless customer and team experience, with calls and conversations all in one place.

How does Intercom Phone work?

Busy support teams need tools they can rely on to get up and running straight away. That’s why we’ve made sure Intercom Phone is easy to set up and even easier to use. Teams can use phone calls, video calls, and screen sharing to troubleshoot
customer issues faster, all natively from the Intercom Inbox just like any other conversation.

Phone calls

Intercom can provide a phone support number, or help port over an existing number so your team can receive inbound calls directly in the inbox. Teammates can also make outbound calls from the inbox to follow up with customers faster.

Messenger calls 

Teammates can seamlessly transition a messenger conversation into a voice or video call – and even use screen-sharing – without exiting the conversation. 

Interactive voice response (IVR) Workflows 

Intercom Phone can take advantage of all of the benefits of our Workflows tool. Route, assign, or automate calls with fully customizable, no-code IVR trees that shorten wait times and increase team productivity.

Traditional phone support just isn’t working

From spending hours on hold to losing your cool over unintuitive IVRs – customers are all too familiar with the perils of phone support. And the experience isn’t much better for support teams. Here are some of the reasons why: 

• Tool-switching: Phone is just one of many channels where modern support teams are supporting their customers. Switching between channels and tools can be exhausting, demanding, and inefficient.
• Long call queues: If there’s someone out there who enjoys being on hold, we haven’t met them yet. Customer service agents are the ones who experience the brunt of that frustration when they do pick up, which can seriously impact morale.
• Unclear team availability: Using a bunch of different tools for support makes it almost impossible to understand the team’s availability at any given time. 
• Missing customer data: Picture yourself on a customer call. They’ve called before, but you’re missing key context and notes from other tools, meaning you have to put the customer back on hold while you collate the details – reducing efficiency and increasing frustration. 

Despite phone support’s flaws, it looks like it’s around for the long haul. It can be inconvenient and messy, but it also facilitates the most important element of support – human empathy and problem-solving. So we took phone support, kept the good parts, and reimagined the terrible parts. 

How does Intercom Phone make life easier for your support team?

Intercom is a complete customer service platform, allowing you to provide world-class support to your customers across their preferred channels – all within one tool. Adding phone support to that mix offers support teams an even more efficient, delightful way of working. 

Fully integrated phone support 

Take calls, make calls, troubleshoot, and view your customer’s history and account details – right there in the inbox. Having all the details you need right at your fingertips means less context-switching for you and a seamless experience for your customers.

Share your availability 

Easily change your status to reflect your availability so you never have to miss a call, or rapidly switch tools and context to answer a customer. 

“With Intercom Phone, you can quickly transition from a chat to a voice or video call directly on the messenger without breaking the flow of the existing conversation”

Use the channel that makes sense 

How many times have you laboriously explained a complex process to a customer over chat or email, just because that’s how they reached out. With Intercom Phone, you can quickly transition from a chat to a voice or video call directly on the messenger without breaking the flow of the existing conversation. So whether you’re explaining a difficult concept, demonstrating a process to your customer by sharing your screen, or getting a first-hand look at the problem they’re experiencing on their end – you can ensure a personalized experience, every time.

Seamlessly route phone calls to the right team 

We’ve all experienced the frustration of being passed between three or four people before finally reaching the team that can help us. This is often down to bad tools rather than inefficient support teams. With Intercom Phone, you can route calls to the correct team based on customer data, with the help of easy-to-customize IVR workflows. 

“It’s not the teams that are to blame, it’s the tools”

Monitor your customers’ experiences – and your team’s performance 

Measure call volume, performance trends, agent productivity, and more, on real-time dashboards and trend reports. And, because all of your support channels are operated within one complete platform, you can measure performance across every channel your customers use. 

Quality assurance 

Access call recordings and transcripts seamlessly for reference, or to monitor your team’s support quality and performance.

At Intercom, we believe that customer service is in need of radical change – and it’s not the teams that are to blame, it’s the tools. Intercom Phone represents an entirely new approach to the way teams do phone support, integrating this essential channel into our complete, AI-powered customer service platform. 

Click here to learn more about how Intercom Phone will transform your support experience.