Customer Success Platforms and Integrating Live Chat Support

Luke Cullimore

Hi all,

First time post - really glad to be a part of this community! 

We are reaching a breaking point with our Customer Support Tech Stack - we use Intercom for Live Chat only, we don't have a traditional ticketing system. (Zendesk e.t.c)

I am envisioning this lack of a ticketing system could become problematic for our growing Enterprise funnel where our CSMs will need to see a curated view of the broader Support Experience. Which is best enabled using a ticket based system.

I am currently reviewing vendors but am preferring to stay with Intercom as they have recently released some ticket based workflow features - operationally it makes sense for us in the short term but long term I have concerns about how well this could integrate with a CS Platform.

We use Hubspot currently for our CRM and do not currently use a CS Platform (Gainsight, Totango)  though I envision at some point in the next 12 - 18 months this may be essential. 

Zendesk and other ticketing systems seem to integrate very well with CS Platforms whereas Live Chat tools like intercom don't appear to, I have a concern that I might solve the immediate need but cause further problems down the road.

If you could help on the below:

- Are there any examples of a successful integration between Intercom and a CS Platform?

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Thanks,

Luke Cullimore - CS Ops Lead

Sara Bochino

Hey Luke! 
Great post. Yes, many CSPs integrate with Intercom (Vitally, planhat, catalyst, Gainsight). I think you need ask yourself are you looking to push data to intercom? pull data or both? 

Also, understand the goal of the integrations. 

Cheers,
S

Brian Hoffman

Hey Luke, 

Great question--any CS tool is only as good as the data going in so integrations are key (garbage in, garbage out).

ChurnZero has a native integration with Intercom to pull in conversation data (and is also is a HubSpot Certified App partner).

Luke Cullimore

That is great to hear and alleviates my initial concerns! My goal initially is to implement a Support Tech Stack that scales but knowing from Brian and yourself that there are native integrations to get Intercom Live Chat data into a CS platform is honestly great to hear! 

Indeed though these are questions I will begin to ask in the coming months so thanks again for guidance! 

Jordan Silverman

One interesting side note to add in. Make sure the integrations do both tickets and chat.

Totango for example only integrates Zendesk tickets not Zendesk chat.