Fin by Intercom vs. SMARTe Data Platform

While Fin is an awesome investment, the setup and tuning of responses to meet brand alignment and delivery have taken some time. If you prioritize not just resolution rate and accuracy, but style and delivery, it's a bigger lift. However, for the vast majority of businesses, the step and its impact on resource management are a worthy investment.

Incentivized

1. SMARTe was purchased to serve three purposes. To to act as a secondary source of enrichment to another product. Our lead qualification processes rely on accurate data being populated and enriched. SMARTe boosts our enrichment rate by 20% in some areas vs our other supplier. We performed this analysis during renewal which confirmed their complimentary functionality in this area. From this point of view it runs silently in the background without maintenance making it perfect for our needs.
2. The ability to correctly classify free Text job titles into segmentable values. Most enrichment platforms will provide values with a job title they provide which is ok, but SMARTe will categorise any title we send regardless of if they match the contact. This has a large impact to how we can successfully make use of our data from segmentation to Lead Scoring.
3. New contacts - we have two options here, download straight from their humungous dataset using the filters provided (including being able to upload accounts to match). Or, use their bespoke service which ranges from desk based research to GDPR compliant phone qualifies contacts. One area that could improve is the integration with HubSpot. A robust API means we have managed to integrate, but Native integration would be preferred.

• Answer easy questions based off of the knowledgebase I provided
• It's decent with redirecting customers who aren't satisfied to a human agent (me)
• I like how it quotes the article that it is using to the customer, I'm not sure how often they're actually clicking on that article, but it's nice that the option is there

Incentivized

• Unlocking Phone Number from a contact
• Unlocking Email from a contact
• Tracking the relevant role within the company
• Understanding companies organization

Incentivized

• Customizing Fin by Intercom's escalation paths could be easier (ex. if there are some inquiries we don't want passed to the human team)
• Reporting on conversations handled to completion by Fin by Intercom (not just those that are marked as "resolved")
• It would be helpful to be able to indicate to Fin by Intercom when an answer is wrong, or train it on things that it shouldn't do (not only what it should do)

Incentivized

• UI could be better.
• Automate the product buying experience.

We have been and will be continuing our journey with Intercom and nothing too concerning has happened that I have experienced or heard of that has us on the edge yet. If it ever happens it will be something along the lines of "Outgrowing" the use of need of the platform.

Incentivized

It's incredibly useful. You're honestly a little silly if you don't because it can handle simple conversations very easily and more in-depth conversations if you're willing to put in the work. It's great both as a customer success representative (with the AI agent) and as a higher-level customer success reporter.

Incentivized

always there

Incentivized

works perfect

Incentivized

Intercom is the premier customer support/engagement model and it definitely has one of the top tier customer support teams as well. I don't think I have ever waited more than 5 minutes to get the information I need or get help with an issue. They are incredible and I aim to model our customer service department after them.

Incentivized

Easy to know the learning path

Incentivized

The implementation was surprisingly easy but we are having to adapt from our old process to work well with Intercom.

Incentivized

I used Zendesk briefly but found it difficult to navigate — I often couldn’t tell what was going on or how to simply reply to a ticket. In contrast, Intercom is much more intuitive and user-friendly. Its clean interface and support for multiple communication formats like emails, posts, and banners make client communication clear and efficient.

Incentivized

We use them to compliment each other, there are areas that Clearbit provides matches that SMARTe does not and visa versa. This applies at both a contact and an account level. Where SMARTe really stands out (for me) is the ability to classify any provided Job Title. This really has dramatic impact to our processes. Clearbit does have a native integration that offers data refresh.

• Since we implemented Fin AI in February, we have been able to support customer queries during non-business hours. This is a game changer. Fin has brought down response times and is also extremely capable of handling complex queries from our customers. We have seen closure rates go down by 24-30 hours, which is quite phenomenal.

Incentivized

• More contacts available
• Increased response rate thanks to more way to reach out
• Increased conversion rate

Incentivized