May 2021 Summaries

The COVID-19 pandemic has significantly impacted how companies and consumers interact with each other, leading to a shift towards digital-first ways of working. As a result, customer expectations for fast, personalized support have increased, making it essential for companies to understand their customers and deliver high-quality experiences. The survey found that messaging is becoming the second most used support channel, with 53% of support teams experiencing an increase in conversation volume since the pandemic began. This shift has also led to a rise in emotional customer interactions, with 32% of respondents noting an increase in emotionally charged conversations. To address this, companies are adopting proactive support strategies and leveraging automation and self-serve capabilities. The new normal of customer support includes messaging-based experiences, efficient automation, and personalized self-serve capabilities, which will require support teams to be more productive and personal in their interactions with customers.

The Intercom company scaled its core technologies team by recognizing the need to manage its increasing number of teams that relied on core technologies. The team, initially focused on Elasticsearch, aimed to improve product teams' efficiency and reduce operational complexity. By building a map of the problem space, defining a "gold standard" for Elasticsearch, and automating best practices, the team achieved significant positive impacts on engineering, leading to more investment in the area. As the team matured, it expanded its responsibility to include other core technologies like RDS Aurora, applying similar principles to determine expansion criteria, such as product health being light enough and having multiple experts in each technology. The team's success with these expansions led to a significant scaling runway for Intercom, ultimately prompting a name change from Team Datastores to Team Core Technologies.

Forrester research commissioned by Intercom reveals that conversational support is no longer just a "nice-to-have" but a crucial business critical component, as 58% of respondents believe customers prefer conversational engagements with brands and 71% of support leaders think scaling conversational support will allow them to stay competitive or become industry leaders. The research found that messenger-based support is now the second most used support channel, overtaking phone and in-person support, and only 43% of support leaders believe they have the technology needed to provide personalized support experiences. With all these challenges, the path forward for support leaders is clear: they need conversational support to deliver fast, efficient, personalized messenger-based support at scale, leveraging bots and automation to make workflows more efficient for their teams and customers.

When it comes to supporting and engaging with customers, striking a balance between personalization and efficiency is critical for operating at scale. To achieve this, one needs to deeply understand their customers' experiences with the product - and their expectations. However, without this knowledge, customer communication will remain impersonal and inefficient. To address this, Intercom has launched a suite of new features to enhance messaging, reporting, analysis, and support automation, providing teams with meaningful insights to power personalized support at scale. These features include Custom Reports for tracking key metrics, Conversation Topics for analyzing customer conversations, Macros for automating common Inbox actions, Series for more precise targeting and testing, and updates to Articles and the Intercom mobile app for streamlined support experiences. Additionally, Intercom has introduced updated permissions, custom return paths, and apps in the App Store to safeguard email reputation, enhance productivity, and supercharge the tech stack.

At Intercom, building high-performing teams is an ongoing process that requires continuous improvement. The company has developed a framework called the High-Performing Teams (HPT) framework to measure and address the challenges that prevent its R&D teams from performing at their best. The HPT framework focuses on alignment, continuous improvement, and shared learning to help teams identify areas for growth and implement changes to achieve high performance. Intercom implemented the HPT framework in early 2020 to focus on team alignment, continuous improvement of processes, and collaboration. The framework consists of four steps: Measure, Act, Review, and Share, which facilitate in-depth quarterly reflections, using an agreed set of metrics to represent a shared understanding of high team performance. The framework has undergone revisions to make it more inclusive, usable, and useful for every team member, across all teams. Intercom aims to maintain high adoption and engagement with the HPT framework and is adding new reusable 'plays' weekly based on team suggestions to accelerate learning, collaboration, and performance across the org.

At Intercom, a customer support company, they recognize that inappropriate customer conversations can be emotionally draining for both customers and support representatives. They have implemented a robust process to address this issue, including pre-written responses called "macros" that help de-escalate situations and protect the team from unwanted comments or behavior. The process also includes offering emotional support to the team, ensuring they feel safe and valued, and empowering management teams to take over conversations when necessary. By prioritizing their employees' mental health and psychological safety above all else, Intercom aims to create a positive work environment where their team can thrive.

Building a sales tech stack can be overwhelming, especially with 1,078 vendors to choose from. However, choosing the right tools can help improve sales efficiency and effectiveness. The article provides an overview of the best frameworks for guiding sales tool selection and recommends 55 sales tools across six categories: customer relationship management (CRM), sales and market intelligence, lead handling and prospecting, analytics and reporting, process and training, and automation and integration. The recommended tools include Intercom live chat, Salesforce, Clearbit, LeanData, Gong, DocuSign, Stitch, AWS Glue, Workato, PieSync, Segment, Zapier, and many others. The article emphasizes the importance of considering customer needs and aligning sales tools with those needs. It also highlights the growing trend of using live chat as a key sales tool to convert website visitors into customers in real-time.