The Ultimate Guide To Conversational Support

The Ultimate Guide to
Conversational
Support
Table of
Contents
The future of support Help customers in context

Chapter 1 Chapter 4
is conversational .......................................................... 3 with self-serve support ............................................. 24
The modern way to provide efficient, personal support at scale .............. 4 Why empowering customers to self-serve matters .................................. 25
Conversational support is heating up ......................................................... 6 Create help content that delivers .............................................................. 26
Both customers and support teams are reaping the rewards .................... 7 Ideas for support chatbots to build ............................................................31
Proper botiquette: 6 principles for staying personal ................................ 35
Take your support to the next
Chapter 2
level with a proven framework ................................. 8 Be personal and efficient
Chapter 5
Scale up with the Conversational Support Funnel...................................... 9 with human support...................................................39
Moving from a “cost center” to a value driver .......................................... 10 Why complex conversations require a human touch ..............................40
Supercharge your team efficiency with automation and apps .................41
Get ahead of known 5 principles for an empathetic, human response .....................................44
Chapter 3
issues with proactive support ................................ 13
Why proactive support is your first line of defense ..................................14 Measure and optimize
Chapter 6
Identify common customer pain points and FAQs .................................. 15 your conversational support strategy ................... 47
Ideas for proactive messages to send .......................................................19
Characteristics of a powerful proactive message .................................... 23 Checklist for setting your support
Chapter 7
team up for success from day one .........................52
The Ultimate Guide to Conversational Support 2

Chapter 1
The future of support

is conversational
CHAPTER 1: THE FUTURE OF SUPPORT IS CONVERSATIONAL
Introduction from
The modern
Kaitlin Pettersen,
Senior Director of Customer
way to provide
Support at Intercom efficient, personal Staying personal meant offering
support at scale expensive, unscalable services like
1:1 phone calls or 24/7 real-time
Today, customer support is chat. Efficiency meant deflecting
undergoing massive, irreversible customer issues through impersonal
change. Support teams are struggling forms and “do not reply” emails. based experience. By combining
to manage increasing conversation human, self-serve, and proactive
volumes. Simultaneously, 73% This type of “good enough” customer support, your team can get ahead
of support leaders say customer support is no longer good enough. of known problems, automatically
expectations are rising, but only The antidote? Conversational answer repetitive queries, and
42% are sure they’re meeting those support – the new way to bridge quickly resolve complex issues.
expectations. the gap between what customers
want and what our teams can Unlike messenger-based tools of
Until recently, due to technological realistically deliver. It’s the next the past, this is so much more than
limitations, most support teams faced generation way to provide customers “live chat". Powered by a modern
an impossible choice – stay personal with the fast, personal support business messenger, bots, and
with customers or get efficient. they need through a messenger- automation, it scales your ability

to answer more questions from everything your team needs to thrive in

more customers without increasing this new conversational era, including
headcount, budget, or hours logged. a full end-to-end strategy, chatbot
“Even during turbulent times
Even during turbulent times like the scripts, principles for staying personal, like the COVID-19 pandemic,
COVID-19 pandemic, it has helped us proactive message ideas, and so much
and thousands of other businesses more. Better team efficiency and conversational support has
enhance our customer relationships, happier, more loyal customers await.
helped us and thousands of
streamline our processes, and
maintain our high CSAT scores. Enjoy! other businesses enhance
In this guide we’ll share our
our customer relationships,
Conversational Support Funnel streamline our processes,
framework to help you achieve
similar results. You’ll walk away with and maintain our high
CSAT scores.”

Trend 1
78
From reactive to of support leaders want to move
proactive support from a reactive to a more proactive
approach with their support.
Trend 2
Conversational support
68
Satisfying of support leaders that already use
is heating up customers’ chatbots plan to invest more in
need for speed chatbots in the coming year to speed
In a recent survey* of nearly 600 support managers and up resolution times.
leaders we discovered that many companies – across
both B2B and B2C – are already shifting their attention Trend 3
to conversational support and investing more in its
50
Supercharging team of support leaders plan to invest
capabilities, including proactive support, chatbots, and
efficiency more in automation in the coming
automation. There are five key trends leading the charge: year to increase the efficiency of their
support team.
Trend 4
27
Bridging the Support teams that use chatbots to
“We experiment with finding the right balance customer automate simple conversations are
between reactive and proactive support and expectation gap 27% more likely than those that don’t
to say they are prepared to meet
use each interaction as the opportunity to win accelerating customer expectations.
a loyal customer and minimize the churn.”
Trend 5
35
Vlada Masevich,
Head of Customer Success at Survicate
From “cost center” Companies that use chatbot
to value driver technology for support are 35% more
likely to be able to track their support
team ROI than those who don’t.
*Intercom commissioned an independent market research firm to survey a random sample of 593 support
The Ultimate Guide to Conversational Support managers and leaders based in the U.S. The study’s margin of error is +/-4% at the 95% confidence level. 6
Happier customers
Support teams who automate support with chatbots are 30% more likely to report
an increase in customer satisfaction – perhaps no surprise to modern customers
who value speedy responses and close-to-instant resolutions.
Both customers and More personal interactions

Oh to feel understood! 79% of customers are willing to share relevant information
support teams are about themselves in exchange for contextualized interactions in which they’re
reaping the rewards immediately known and understood. Gathering contextual data about your
customers’ issues fuels personalized help at every touchpoint.
As Kaitlin, Intercom’s Senior Director of Customer Support,
often says, “Conversational support enables support Speedier response times
leaders to strike the balance between what’s good for your Since chatbots don’t sleep they’re available 24/7 to answer customer questions
company and what’s good for your customers.” Study after ASAP. They speed up response times by an average of 3 times, saving your
study echoes this sentiment – a well-crafted conversational customers time waiting and your team time replying.
support strategy brings:
Shorter resolution times
Ultimately, customers want fast, seamless resolutions – not just responses. And
support teams who automate support with chatbots are 60% more likely to report
an improvement in conversation resolution times.
"Resolution Bot has been a tremendous help to
our team and is saving our customers 3,600
Greater efficiency gains
hours per month with its instant answers."
Some 61% of executives said conversational bots can enhance their employees'
productivity. What’s more, best of breed conversational support tools
Gabriel Madureira,
VP of GTM Operations at MongoDB empower support teams to automate manual tasks like conversation routing
and prioritization so they can focus on more complex, high-value queries.

Chapter 2
Take your support to

the next level with a
proven framework
CHAPTER 2: TAKE YOUR SUPPORT TO THE NEXT LEVEL WITH A PROVEN FRAMEWORK
VIP inquiries
Scale up with the means that no matter how much your
Inquiries that can be resolved using automation
conversation volume grows or whatever
Conversational resources you have on hand, you can still
Complex inquiries requiring human support
Support Funnel excel and provide customers with the

Inquiries that can be anticipated
fast, personal support they deserve.
Many support teams are worried that
Known questions that can be answered
by adopting a conversational support At Intercom, we use a framework called pre-emptively using targeted content.
approach, they’ll open the support the Conversational Support Funnel that
Our website will be down for
floodgates. That fear is completely combines three support layers: Proactive support planned maintenance this
weekend.
valid if all you do is add a messenger
• Proactive support which helps you
to your website and let your support
get ahead of known problems before
team manually answer every question
they reach your team using Outbound Repetitive questions that can be
that rolls in, regardless of priority. automatically answered with chatbots
Messages, Product Tours, and Mobile
and knowledge base articles.
Of course, this approach is a recipe
Carousels.
for conversation overload, which Self-serve support Here’s how to reset the
will result in longer wait times and • Self-serve support which resolves password on your account.
customer dissatisfaction. Not to simple, repetitive queries through
mention team burnout! automated bots and contextual help

Complex and VIP questions that can
content. only be answered by a human.
Instead, what you need is a clear • Human support to resolve complex

Sorry to hear you’re not happy
framework that helps you scale or VIP issues with the help of a
H u m a n s u p p or t with your plan. How can I
help?
conversational support. That shared Inbox and workflows.

With the funnel, most simple Moving from a

questions are answered proactively
and automatically, which frees
“cost center” to
up your support team to do what a value driver
they do best – using that personal,
empathetic, and specialized touch At Intercom, we’ve long viewed
to resolve the most critical queries. support as a revenue driver. But
The funnel is completely flexible and many teams get stuck (and we’re no
adaptable to your business needs, exception) in the day-to-day work of
even as your business scales. establishing a healthy baseline for
customer experience and efficiency.
In this guide we’ll show you how So achieving this balance with the
to achieve that seemingly elusive Conversational Support Funnel
balance between creating a kickass, serves a greater objective – making
efficient team and providing a space for support to become
world-class, personal customer a positive force on revenue.
experience through the funnel.
It’s something many support leaders Are you like Zappos where you prioritize a great customer experience at the cost of
are actively working towards – efficiency? Or are you like Comcast where you prioritize efficiency at the cost of the
our survey of nearly 600 support customer experience? Conversational support helps you hit the sweet spot between both.

managers revealed that 30% plan This shift in customer support

to measure their team’s impact on mindset and strategy will come as no
customer retention in the coming surprise to forward-thinking support “Quantify your customer issues and
year and 25% plan to do the same for leaders. You’ve been beating this
renewals. “value center” drum for years: no one share them out. The pain points
knows your customers and their pain
and suggestions you hear are
With the funnel, you’ll be able to points better than your support team.
achieve high levels of efficiency and They’re better placed than anyone opportunities for the organization
an enjoyable, personalized customer else in your organization to:
experience. This leaves your team
to help achieve specific business
• Share and champion the voice of
with more time to focus on high-
the customer to help improve your goals (e.g. adoption, retention,
value conversations, like stopping
customers from churning, helping VIP
product roadmap.
expansion) and your insights can
• Empower marketing and sales to
customers achieve success with your
speak to customers in ways that drive cross-functional change.”
product, and solving deep technical
deeply resonate with them and
issues. Overall, you’ll have more time
increase purchases.
to focus on proactively growing the
business’ bottom line and improving • Provide a great customer Jessica Pfeifer,
experience at every stage of the Chief Customer Officer at Wootric
customer loyalty.
funnel, boosting customer loyalty
and advocacy.

Up until now, you simply haven’t had the time! This guide
Traditional customer Modern customer
will help you elevate the support function within your
support role support role
company, so your team can go from drowning in reactive
conversations (the old way) to carving out more time to
become strategic, revenue-generating business partners • Viewed as a cost center • Viewed as a value driver
(the new conversational way). • Focused primarily on • Focused primarily on resolving VIP
answering repetitive queries and complex queries
• Lack of career growth • Opportunity for career growth and
opportunities specialization
"We’re seeing a big motion across all • Solely focused on reactive • Opportunity to expand to proactive
support support and learn new skills
businesses on how an amazing customer
• Works as a silo • Partners closely with product,
service experience drives loyalty overall."
marketing, and sales
Tom Ronen,
Head of Customer Success at Monday.com
Want to learn more about how to position support as the value driver it
is? Check out our Intercom Academy course: “Change the conversation
around support as a cost center.”

Chapter 3
Get ahead of known

issues with proactive
support
CHAPTER 3: GET AHEAD OF KNOWN ISSUES WITH PROACTIVE SUPPORT
Why proactive the right approach and proactive while increasing customer
support tools, like Outbound satisfaction and retention.
support is your Messages, Product Tours, Mobile So not only can you take
first line of defense Carousels, and Banners you can alert pressure off your team – you
customers to known issues, like: can also demonstrate how your
Proactive support is at the top of • Delivery delays customer support is impacting
the Conversational Support Funnel • Bugs in your product your business’ bottom line.
for a reason – it’s your first line • Website downtime
of defense. The typical support
“strategy” is to let common issues roll You can also onboard and educate
in for support reps to address. But new customers so they’re set up for
this approach not only overwhelms success with your product from day "By proactively targeting specific customers
your team, it also means customers one and have all of the information who are affected when issues come up,
frequently have to wait hours, or even they need to get started and
we’re able to let them know we’re already
days, to get the help they need. overcome common hurdles, like:
• Configuring your app on it and how they can stay updated."
Proactive support is the antidote to • Installing it on mobile
long wait times and ticket deflection.
Christian Parker,
Instead of deflecting conversations, Proactive support can drastically Director of Managed Services at TrueCommerce
your team can prevent issues from reduce the number of conversations
occurring in the first place. With that reach your support team, all

Identify common effectiveness, improve resolution

times, and enhance customer
customer pain satisfaction. Here are our tips:
“We're developing more proactive
points and FAQs
1. Gather valuable and self-serve options to make our
conversation data fast
By now, you may be thinking,
“Proactive support sounds great – A modern conversational support
product stickier and increase
it’s the Holy Grail of support!” But tool will automatically surface your adoption. We want customers to
when you’re so busy managing day- customers’ most common issues
to-day reactive conversations, you and pressing questions to your team be able to set themselves up easily
may be wondering how you’ll find – removing the need to manually by proactively sharing articles
time to identify common customer tag conversations or go digging for
questions and pain points so you can details. You'll also be able to quickly about new features or functionality
begin proactively resolving issues. see how effective your team is at
based on actions taken within the
The right tools will automatically resolving these issues at a glance.
do a lot of the groundwork for you, For example, with Intercom you can: product.”
preventing unnecessary headaches
• View AI-powered suggestions to
for your support team and helping
see the topics your customers are
them reclaim valuable time. Armed Paul Cothenet,
writing in about most.
Co-founder & former CTO at MadKudu
with these insights, you can pinpoint
exactly how to boost your team’s

• Quickly see how effective your team is at resolving each

type of issue and how much time it’s taking to reach a
resolution.
• Unlock trends and insights from customer conversations

that help improve teammate efficiency and boost
customer satisfaction and loyalty.
"Intercom's Conversation Topics feature enables

us to collect and surface data within a matter of
minutes, and also send the product managers
links to the topics so they can see conversations
with the customers in context."
Jack Harrison-Sherlock,
Product Manager at Vend

2. Partner cross-functionally For example, at Intercom our Support

for maximum impact team regularly:
No support team should ever be an
island. Getting ahead of customer
• Shares the top topics customers "Don't think about support
have questions about with our
issues and providing a great proactive
Product Education team so they like a queue that needs to
customer experience is everyone’s
responsibility in your company, and
can address these topics in our be processed. Think about it
Outbound Messages, Product
that makes collaboration critical to
Tours, and more. like a feedback loop for your
success. Your support team is in a
unique position – you know your
• Surfaces top feature requests and product that you're constantly
product pain points to our Product
customers’ pain points, questions,
team so they can fix mission-critical optimizing around."
and desires better than anyone else.
issues and create a more customer-
Make sure your team has open lines of
centric roadmap.
communication with every customer-
facing team – from product to • Partners with Sales to streamline Shirley Shaw, Head of Customer
marketing to sales – so you can share conversation passing for a better Success Engineering at Clearbit
eye-opening, critical insights that help customer experience and to

drive business growth, improve your maximize revenue-generation
product or service, and more. opportunities.

3. Create a customer feedback loop One of the best ways to do this is

Quantitative data is meaningful. But it create a feedback message. For
won’t help you fully understand all of example, you can check in with
the context behind your customers’ customers who are trialing a beta
pain points. Often, you’ll be left with of your new product to get context
questions like: Why do they have on any issues they’re experiencing.
these issues, how do they feel, and Then, by the time you launch your
where are the stumbling blocks? While new product you’ll know the exact
reviewing customer conversations questions to address in your help
is useful, sometimes you need a content and the precise words to use
quick route to unlocking immediately (yes – your customers’ words).
actionable insights – for example, you
may want to understand the “why”
behind the issues new customers
are facing. That’s why it’s important
to create a qualitative customer
feedback loop where customers can
quickly and easily share more detail
on their issues.
If you’re using Intercom you can quickly collect qualitative

data from a customer by embedding a Typeform survey into
the Intercom Messenger.

Ideas for proactive experience a steep learning curve.

That’s especially true if your product or
messages to send service is a little more complex. While
new customers are learning the ropes,
Now that you know your customers’ they can require quite a bit of hand-
most common pain points, you’ll holding. Their questions are often
have a better idea of the types directed at your busy support team,
of messages that will help them which can clog up your support queue.
overcome issues, navigate tricky
features, and ultimately, achieve An overflowing inbox doesn’t have
success with your product or service. to be the status quo. You can set up
Regardless of your business type a Product Tour or Mobile Carousel to
and customer needs, there are four automatically walk new customers
powerful proactive messages to send: through setting up and configuring
your product, getting value up front,
1. Onboard new customers and navigating known pain points.
There’s nothing more exciting Giving customers proactive guidance
than when a new customer signs from the outset not only increases
up for your product or service. customer satisfaction and retention, it
But, of course, newbies will often also helps keep your inbox clutter-free.

2. Address common stumbling blocks

When customers are browsing your website or using
your product, they may encounter a stumbling block, like
a processing error or not being able to find the details
they need on how to use a specific feature. They’ll have
questions like: “Why isn’t my data saving?” or “What are
your shipping times?”
By proactively identifying these stumbling blocks ahead

of time, you could save your customers time writing
to your support team. For example, if a customer is
trying to purchase an item from your e-commerce store
and their payment fails, you can trigger an automated
message to pop up at that exact moment with helpful
troubleshooting tips.

3. Educate customers on new features

Even when customers have been using your product or
service for a while, when you release new features or add-
ons, they’re bound to have questions. Usually your team
will brace for a large tsunami of queries on launch week.
If you can anticipate your customers’ questions ahead of
time, you’ll be able to reduce the tide of incoming queries.
For example, you can automatically send a message to
customers once they add your new feature and prompt
them to check out your FAQs. This will empower them to
answer their own questions in their own time.

4. Alert customers to known issues

No matter how diligent your business is, day-to-day
issues can occur with your product or service that can
affect your customers. Think product outages, website
downtime, bugs, delays with delivery – all those mission
critical issues that can frustrate your customers and
wipe out your team’s entire day. Instead of waiting
for a flood of issues to come rushing in for your team
to address, you can proactively send an outbound
message to flag the issue and provide help up front.
For example, if you’ve recently experienced a vulnerability

with your premium product, you could message your
premium customers who have logged in over the last
10 days prompting them to change their password.

Characteristics of a powerful proactive message

Chapter 4
Help customers in
context with self-serve
support
CHAPTER 4: HELP CUSTOMERS IN CONTEXT WITH SELF-SERVE SUPPORT
Why empowering Groundhog Day for your team. Not constant flow of support tickets
only is this time-consuming, it’s means all of your customers will
customers to self- also a heavy drain on your support have to wait longer for a response.
serve matters team’s resources and morale. Plus, study after study reveals that
many customers would rather self-
“How do I update my password?” No one wins when your team is stuck serve than talk to a support rep at
“What’s your cancellation policy?” running up an endless ticketing all. Maybe they’re busy and don’t
Answering simple, repetitive treadmill – especially not your fancy hanging around for a response. answers to simple questions, like:
questions like these can feel like customers! Keeping pace with a Or maybe they simply prefer to
• Where can I update my billing
learn things for themselves.
details?
• How can I return an item I bought?

Today’s modern customers are
“We host an online help center with best practices, FAQs, used to living in an on-demand • What’s your typical US delivery
and troubleshooting tips for all of our main features. world where their every whim can timeframe?
We also leverage an automated bot to bring up relevant be met 24/7 – think: fast food,
instant news updates, and same day Ultimately, self-serve support
articles to a segment of our customers.”
deliveries. Self-serve support satisfies empowers you to scale your support
customers’ need for speed and and provide customers with the fast
Brian Abad, control. With contextual knowledge answers they need, when they need
Head of Technical Support at Amplitude base content and bots you can them – without upping your headcount
provide customers with on-demand or overstretching your team.

Create help conversation volume in the process.

Here are our tips for creating content
content that that delivers over the long term:
delivers real value Map your help content to

Great help content compounds in your customers’ journey
value over time. The help content you With traditional knowledge bases,
create today will lay the foundations the key question is often: “How can
for supporting thousands, maybe we create articles that satisfy our
even millions, of your customers customers’ search intent?” That’s
for years to come. Not only will it still a worthy pursuit; however, with
empower your customers to self- modern conversational support tools,
serve, it can also provide them with you can take your content one step
proactive guidance from day one of further and deliver help in context to
using your product or service. the right customers, at the right time.
So the question then becomes, “How
It’s worth taking the time to get this can we meet customers wherever
right, so you can offer more help they are?” – whether that’s in your
to a greater number of customers product, or browsing your website.
and significantly reduce your overall

We recommend planning out the different types of articles

you need to help customers at each stage of their journey.
For example: “We promote our help center inside the
• Getting started guides are perfect for onboarding
customers to new products or features.
product and in communication with
• FAQs and how-to articles are great for activating users. The help content allows us to
customers and getting them up and running with your
decrease support requests, boost team
product or service.
• Best practice guides and troubleshooting articles are

efficiency, and encourage adoption of
ideal for helping customers get value from your product, new features and products. We're getting
empowering them to overcome common hurdles, and
ultimately, turning them into long-term, loyal customers. customers to their 'aha' moments faster
and inspiring active usage.”
Vlada Masevich,
Head of Customer Success at Survicate

Getting started guide

linked to from a
product tour
Define your funnel vision

At the planning stage, you’ll also want to define
where and how you’ll deliver your help content
within the Conversational Support Funnel. For
example, when your customers are starting out
with your product or service they’re bound to
have lots of questions. We recommend setting FAQ article that appears
up your messenger to act like the receptionist of
when a customer
opens the messenger
your product or website. For example, you can
on relevant pages
set up a relevant FAQ article to appear once a
customer opens your messenger, helping guide
them towards the help they need.
Troubleshooting guide
sent by a teammate

Mirror your customers’ language paragraphs of text when you can

People don’t search for your solution, quickly show them what to do? Use
they search for their problem. So, tools like Skitch to create screenshots
if your customers are searching for and Droplr for gifs to help your
“cannot create new project", you customers quickly comprehend
don’t want to be writing articles complex ideas.
about “scaling database errors”.
Translating your product’s concepts Make your articles easy to scan
into customer-friendly language will Don’t bog your readers down with
help you optimize your help content a wall of text – use subheadings,
for both search engines and bots. bulleted lists, and images to break
up text, and keep sentences and
Show as well as tell paragraphs as short as possible.
Using images, videos, and gifs White space is your customers’ friend.
removes the need for enumerating
steps or writing overly wordy
descriptions. Why waste your
customers’ time with a few

Use real-life examples questions customers are most often

Almost all the examples we use in our searching for or frequently writing
help content are taken directly from in with, but can’t find. Then, you can
our customers. That means actually go ahead and create relevant help
talking to them and listening to their content using the exact words your
stories. Then, when a customer runs customers typed.
into trouble, they’ll have real-life
examples, not abstract use cases they
can’t relate to.
Optimize articles to work harder

Once your help content is published,
don’t let it go stale or become
irrelevant. You’ll want each piece of
content to work as hard as it can for
your customers and your business.
With modern conversational support
tools, it’s easy to identify what

Ideas for support 1. FAQ bot

When a customer writes in with a simple question,
chatbots to build like “How do I change my credit card details?” they
One of the most powerful ways expect a close-to-instant response. You can set up
to provide fast, personal help a chatbot to automatically resolve simple, frequent
exactly when customers need questions – our data shows that chatbots speed
it is through well-crafted bots. up response times by an average of 3X, which
There are four powerful bots significantly boosts customer satisfaction.
we recommend setting up.
With Intercom, you can use Resolution Bot to speed up
self-service even further by surfacing relevant answers
based on what customers are typing – before they even
hit the enter key. And you can even have your bot predict
answers as soon as customers open the Messenger
based on what page they’re on or other contextual cues.
It’s our version of the FAQ bot – just supercharged!
The secret to ensuring your FAQ bot

delivers razor-accurate answers lies in its
training. First, identify the common topics
your customers ask about, then create an
effective answer for each common question.

2. Triage bot
Modern customers are busy with a capital B. They don’t
have time to type out every detail about an issue in a
lengthy email or form. Bots make it easy for customers to
input important information in a way that feels lightweight,
faster, and more conversational. For example, you can set
up a Triage bot to prompt customers to select key details
about the type of issue they have – like if it’s a technical
issue or feature request. Then, you can automatically route
their issue to the right support team based on what they
need and even mark critical issues as priority.
So, when customers write in with priority queries, like those

related to their billing, they’ll get the right person the first
time around, rather than being put on hold or passed from
rep to rep.

3. Out of Office bot

Long-lasting, quality relationships are built on trust. To lay
the foundations of trust with your customers, there are
three golden rules to abide by:
• Do what you say you’re going to do.

• Be there when you say you’re going to be there.
• Set expectations when you’re not available.
Whether your team is fast asleep or snorkeling in Aruba

(team offsite, anyone?), you can set up an Out of Office bot
to set customer expectations 24/7 and let them know when
you’ll reply. Your bot can even follow up with helpful next
steps, like encouraging customers to check out your FAQs
in the meantime.
This also gives your support reps peace of mind – there’s

no need to work overtime as your bot will be there to hold
With Intercom’s Custom Bots, you can offer different follow-up options the fort, answer questions when it can, and set customer
to customers based on who they are and what they need. For example, expectations when it can’t.
you can invite customers on your premium plan to leave a message
and prompt your freemium customers to visit your help center.

4. VIP Customer bot

Oftentimes, high-value customers, like those on your
premium plan, will expect VIP support. Maybe it’s even
part of the package they signed up for. Either way, these
customers are often larger businesses who have more
complex needs and their specific issues may require a
deeper investigation with your team. You can set up a
VIP bot to quickly identify messages from your highest-
spending customers, then escalate their messages to your
VIP team, so the right support specialist can step in to
reply ASAP.
With Intercom, you can automatically mark VIP messages as Priority ⭐

as well as routing them to your VIP inbox.

Proper botiquette: your bot is a person, they’ll expect it

to respond like one when it can’t. That
6 principles for doesn’t mean you can’t give your bot
staying personal a personality or customize it to match

your brand. But “Jenny from Examply”
There’s a misconception among shouldn’t be ExamplyBot in disguise.
support leaders that bots can’t be
personal. The truth is that bots can Personalize the experience
(and should) be deeply personal. That Not everyone who asks for help will
said, there are a few rules that will need that help in the same way. Your
help you get more bang from your chatbot should send customers down
bots and deliver better experiences different paths based on who they
for your customers. Below, we share are and what they need. For example,
our six rules for chatbot etiquette if a customer wants to reset their
(or “botiquette” for short 😉 ): password your bot can help resolve
the issue with a quick answer. If they
Don’t pretend it’s a human have a bug to report, on the other
When designing a chatbot, there’s hand, your bot can route the issue to
often a strong temptation to give it a the tech arm of your support team to
name, a face, even a little personality investigate further.
of its own. But if your customer thinks

Keep it short and simple Set clear expectations

Today, in this modern era of No matter what your business looks
automation, the most personal thing like, unmet and unclear expectations
“Communicate expectations to
you can do is resolve your customer’s are the source of all heartache. A
question as fast as possible. Chatbot good customer experience is rooted customers with empathy. Good
interactions should be short, precise,
and to the point. So, collect any
in setting crystal clear customer
expectations. When a customer writes
upfront clarity on resolution times
information you need to make your in, set up your bot to let them know does two things: it helps team
response personal, but then give how long they’re going to wait. And
customers the help they need and get if the wait is on the longer side, then prioritization and efficiency,
out of their way. make sure to meet that expectation.
and it maintains transparency
with the customer – which
can dramatically improve their
experience.”
Jessica Pfeifer,
Chief Customer Officer at Wootric

Do: Set clear expectations Don't: Leave people guessing

Empathy is about anticipating needs,
not saying nice things
We strongly believe automated interactions can

still be empathetic interactions – but empathy isn’t
necessarily what you think. Designing an empathetic
chatbot has nothing to do with making the bot say
nice things. It has everything to do with understanding
your customers’ context and creating bots that
accurately anticipate and address their needs.

Do: Give people a way out Don't: Trap people in a bot loop
Provide an escape hatch
The last thing you want is for your customers to feel like
they’re trapped in the chatbot equivalent of a phone
tree. “Press 9 to hear these options again” is a far worse
experience than letting them disengage from your bot
entirely and providing clear next steps for how to find
help. If your customer has engaged with a bot, and it’s
not going well for them, there should be an easy way out
– whether that’s:
• Letting them chat directly with your team.
• Or giving them clear next steps, like encouraging them

to check out a list of your most popular FAQs.

Chapter55
Chapter
Be personal and efficient

with human support
CHAPTER 5: BE PERSONAL AND EFFICIENT WITH HUMAN SUPPORT
Why complex and it’s expensive to operate. It’s • Issues from VIP customers
also a waste of your support team’s • Emotionally-charged complaints
conversations expertise and resources if they • Complex troubleshooting issues
require a need to answer every question that

rolls in – regardless of each issue’s And even with these types of questions,
human touch priority, how urgent it is, or how there’s no need to go it alone. Optimizing your
much the customer is spending automation, team workflows, and personal
There’s an inescapable fact in with you. Instead, you’ll want to support principles will help your team provide
support: not every answer can or free up your team’s workload so the right customers with the world-class,
should be automated. After all, not they can focus on high-value, fast, personal support they deserve.
even the best chatbot can help calm complex queries that make use of
an angry customer, investigate a their product knowledge, technical
thorny issue, or build a rapport with expertise, and empathy skills. With
high-value customers quite like your the Conversational Support Funnel,
“If somebody on my team can make a process
team can. These types of issues self-serve and proactive support happen with one click – or no clicks – all the better,
require an empathetic, human touch. will automatically take care of the because it means they can spend that time actually
mundane, repetitive questions. That building a relationship with the customer.”
Human support is an essential part leaves your team with more hours
of any successful support strategy, and headspace to provide real value Ian MacLean,
but the reality is that it doesn’t scale where it’s needed most, like: Global Head of Customer Care at Aircall

Supercharge your It’s worth making your workflows

as efficient as possible. Taking
team efficiency mundane, repetitive tasks off your
with automation team’s hands will add more fuel

to their tank and leave them with
and apps more time to better support your
customers. Here are some powerful
Your support team may appear to foundational steps to take:
possess superhero powers, like the
ability to calm angry customers, Automate your inbox workflows
translate technical issues into easy- “Can I put you on hold?” “Let me pass
to-understand solutions, and solve you to my colleague.” If you’ve ever
complex problems. But they’re still been on the receiving end of this type
human, and being human comes of ping pong support as a customer,
with productivity limits. Some of your you’ll know how frustrating it is to be
biggest efficiency gains won’t come passed from rep to rep. It wastes both
from the hands of your support reps the agent’s and the customer’s time.
at all, but from the backend of a
well-oiled, automated inbox.

A far more efficient (and polite) This also means your team won’t With a modern conversational support
approach is to set up a workflow that have to spend time manually tagging tool, like Intercom, you can apply
“Adding apps to Inbox
automatically collects conversation conversations to identify common multiple automated rules within each has empowered our
data from your customer on what customer pain points for your workflow. For example, you can mark support team to quickly
their query is about – whether that’s proactive support. these pressing issues as priority and and accurately resolve
a billing query, a technical issue, apply an SLA rule to hold your team customer questions. With
or something else. Then route the Prioritize VIP and urgent accountable to delivering a top quality, the adoption of apps
conversation to the right team, like conversations rapid response. we have decreased our
your billing team, so they can step When a VIP customer gets in touch, median first response
in and provide the customer with a you’ll want to fast-track the issue to Seamlessly manage all of your tools time by 18%.”
speedy, empathetic response. your VIP team so they can reply ASAP. from one inbox
Some 68% of support leaders say their

June Zhang,
team hit roadblocks once a month Technical Support
because their support stack isn’t Manager at Guru
integrated with technology from other

teams. What’s more, the majority of
support teams have between six and
10 tools in their support tech stack
alone. Imagine how many wasted hours
your team is racking up switching
between all these tools, not to mention
the headaches.

Whatever tools you’re using – whether Inbox. That means you can get further
that’s social media, call center, context on issues, check in on order
issue management, or even sales statuses, manage subscriptions,
tools – you’ll want to make sure your process payments, and lots more –
conversational support tool can all without switching to another app
plug into and play nicely with them. and potentially losing context.
Ultimately, this will make your support
• The Aircall app lets you start a quick
more efficient, powerful, and all-
phone call with a customer from
around more helpful for customers.
the Inbox. It provides a fast, easy,
and delightful experience for your
With Intercom, there are lots of useful
customers too as they can join the
apps you can integrate with and use
call directly from the Messenger.
right from the Inbox to streamline
• Twitter and Facebook apps automatically
your support. For example:
pull your direct messages into the
• You can connect with your Inbox. Instead of your team spending
favorite tools, such as Github, large chunks of their day frequently
Stripe, Shopify, and Salesforce, checking social media channels, they
to take key actions and view can manage these conversations
third-party data right from the right from the Inbox too.

5 principles for 1. Be personal

Nothing says “I don’t value your
an empathetic, business” like a canned, generic
human response response. With modern support
tools, you can quickly view rich
Of course, speed is just one part of a context about each customer, like
great customer experience equation. which plan they’re on, what company
The other part is helping your support they work for, and whether they’ve
team provide a personal, authentic, been in touch before with a similar
and genuinely helpful response to issue. These personal details can
every customer they interact with. For help you quickly understand who
this, we recommend creating a set of the customer is and what they need,
guiding principles your team can use without asking lots of introductory
as their conversational support North questions. Then, you can use these “When someone writes to us, we should know who
Star. Here are some of our favorite details to resolve the issue in a they are, what their experience has been leading up
principles we use at Intercom: faster, more empathetic way.
to that, and make it feel like they’re reaching out to a
friend who’s there to help, versus a case number.”
Kristen Swanson,
Senior Director of Customer Insight at Slack

2. Explain things in multiple ways product or service works and Focus on the customer's job, not the "no"
Different ways of communicating what it’s capable of. Partner with
resonate with different people. Be your product team to understand
prepared to explain the same thing new releases ahead of time.
in a bunch of different ways – in a
bulleted list, with a gif, emoji, or a 4. Don’t just “address”
well-annotated screenshot. However issues, resolve them
you choose to help your customers, Reaching resolution means that the
make sure you show, rather than just customer is satisfied – whether you’ve
tell. It’s a great way of illustrating solved their problem or not. Don’t
“how-tos” in your product. avoid difficult conversations or say
no without any explanation. Saying
3. Know your product or yes to every request only leads to
service inside out mistrust between customers and your
When new features are being added, business. When a customer trusts that
or old ones removed, your product you’ve considered their problem, and
knowledge becomes stale a lot given them an honest response, you’ll
quicker than you think. You should reach resolution far quicker.
be an up-to-date encyclopedia
of knowledge about how your

5. Watch your tone with the P roud Own your mission and its impact. Don't apologize for
features you never plan to build.
PREACH framework
Often in life, it’s not what you say

but how you say it that makes Responsible If a bug ships and a customer is disappointed or frustrated,
take ownership and then move forward.
all the difference. Getting your
company’s tone of voice just right
is incredibly important, especially E mpathetic Truly understand how your customers feel and handle each
conversation accordingly. Match their tone of voice.
when you’re dealing with a tricky or
emotionally-charged conversation.
At Intercom, we use the PREACH A rticulate Good writing matters. Correct typos, bad punctuation, and
tone of voice framework to ensure poor phrasing before hitting "send".
we’re consistently providing
customers with the fast, personal, and C oncise Never forget customers contacted you for a reason. Get to
transparent support they deserve. the point and resolve their issue ASAP.
H uman If you wouldn't say the words in a "normal" spoken

interaction, don't say them during a customer interaction.

Chapter 6
Measure and optimize

your conversational
support strategy
CHAPTER 6: MEASURE AND OPTIMIZE YOUR CONVERSATIONAL SUPPORT STRATEGY
What gets Set meaningful metrics

that move the needle
measured gets Today, more and more businesses “We're currently building datasets
improved are realizing the true bottom-line
that will show us the success of our
value that incredible customer
Peter Drucker said it best: “If support brings to a business – customers if they contact support.
you can’t measure it, you can’t customer loyalty, retention, and
improve it.” The same goes for your advocacy to name but a few. In Do we retain them? Do they grow
conversational support strategy. fact, customers don’t just seek
their usage? Is that particular part of
While there are infinite metrics you out higher quality service – they’re
could track and tweaks you can willing to pay more for it. the product working 30 days after
make, it’s important to identify
what business outcomes you’re Now that the perception of support is
we help them?”
trying to solve for, up front. That will beginning to shift, the new challenge
help you ensure you’re making and is creating metrics to match. Rather
Pam Dodrill,
measuring the most impactful wins than solely focusing on costs, it pays
VP of Customer Support & Success at Zapier
for your team. Here are our tips: to focus on business outcomes that

help you move from a “cost center” to retention, shouldn’t lie solely in Team Great partners for Collective metrics
a value driver, like customer retention, the hands of your support team.
renewals, and so on. The good news One of the best ways to ensure Support Ops • Setting up and optimizing • ROAR (rate of
your bots and automation for automated
is that the Conversational Support you’re meeting your goals is to
maximum efficiency. resolution)
Funnel helps you directly influence partner with and get buy-in from
• Saving a ton on support
these critical business outcomes. key teams in your organization, costs, while maintaining a
like product, marketing, and sales. high satisfaction rating with
Solve for business your customers.
Accountability is paramount to
outcomes together success. So, identify what tasks
Product • Proactively fixing bugs and • Customer retention
Providing a great customer each team will be responsible for
product issues that are
experience and solving critical and set collective metrics to work bothering customers.
business outcomes, like customer towards. Here’s an example:
Marketing • Proactively messaging • Product/feature
customers and addressing activation
known pain points before • Customer retention
they have questions.
Sales • Establishing hand-off points • Customer renewals

for sales conversations, • Customer retention
Choose a conversational relationship platform (like Intercom 😉) so you can provide a
seamless transition for your
that allows you to build conversational relationships across the
customers.
entire customer lifecycle, spanning marketing, sales, and support.

Track efficiency gains Use customer satisfaction

Once you’ve implemented the funnel as a leading indicator
you’ll want to see how it’s improving Today, the leading metric for “Support is the best product expert
your team’s productivity over time. support teams is still customer
We recommend setting a benchmark satisfaction. Nearly a quarter (24%)
within the company and the team that
you can track progress towards for of support leaders say this is the interacts with the most customers.
key metrics like: metric they most closely track.
Measuring customer satisfaction We have valuable insight into what
• Rate of new inbound conversations enables businesses to know just
can be improved. Use support tickets
• ROAR (rate of automated resolution) how successfully they’re meeting
• Average first response rate customer expectations. It’s also a as data points for these customer
• SLA performance hit rates crucial leading indicator of future
churn and customer retention.
experience improvements.”
Brian Abad,
Head of Technical Support at Amplitude

Learn, iterate, improve! • Keep an eye on how your help

Support metrics on their own are content is performing. Which
just numbers on a dashboard. They articles are closing the most
only become meaningful when conversations? High-performing
you dig deeper, start looking for articles are worth investing more in,
underlying trends and themes, and while you should consider gutting
use those insights to take the next or reworking low traffic articles.
step toward providing a world-class
• If you’re an Intercom customer, you
customer experience. For example:
can view Conversation Topics to
• Measure how your bots and see the exact topics customers are
proactive messages are performing. asking about most. This can help
Are they engaging customers you identify the most helpful articles
and resolving issues effectively? and bot answers to create next.
If there’s an answer or message
that’s underperforming, try
tweaking the copy or filters
to improve performance.

Chapter 7
Checklist for setting

your support team up for
success from day one
CHAPTER 7: CHECKLIST FOR SETTING YOUR SUPPORT TEAM UP FOR SUCCESS FROM DAY ONE
Lay the foundations

Can the platform do everything you need? In this day and
for world-class age siloed tools will cost your support team time, so make
conversational support sure your platform can integrate with your favorite tools and
empower your support, marketing, and sales teams to work
Once you’ve created your conversational support strategy, together seamlessly.
you’ll be keen to start putting your ideas into practice so
you can start making your support more personal and How will the messenger look and feel on your website?
efficient right away. But where do you begin? With this four- Aesthetics and user-friendliness are very important for
step checklist: establishing trust and making it delightful for customers to
interact with your support.
Step 1. Choose the right software
Choosing the right conversational support tool for your Will the platform grow with your business? For example, does
business can be overwhelming. With so many tools and it have a growing library of apps and integrations your team
shiny new features emerging in the market, decision can plug into as your business scales?
paralysis can easily kick in. Identifying your team’s
individual needs up front will help. Ask questions like:

Step 2. Plan your funnel

Next, it’s time to plan your Conversational Support Make a copy of the worksheet. Use it as your North Star, but
Funnel. We created this Coda worksheet to help you make sure to tweak it based on your customers’ needs and
plan how you’ll address your customers’ most common the tools you have in your tech stack.
questions through the funnel in the quickest, easiest, and
most empathetic way.

Step 3. Embrace automation

The key to scaling your conversational support strategy Set up your support workflows to automatically route urgent
without hiring additional staff or taxing your team is to and VIP messages to the right teams and flag them as priority.
embrace automation. Here are some impactful areas you
should automate right away to supercharge your support: Set up an FAQ bot to almost-instantly answer common
customer questions.
Create an onboarding product tour to help

new customers learn the ins and outs of
getting started with your product or service.

Step 4. Support and train your team

As a support leader, it’s unlikely that you’ll be doing the Provide your team with the training and support they need to
day-to-day work of dealing with emotionally-charged resolve VIP and complex conversations.
complaints and managing complex and commercial
conversations. To set your team up for success you’ll Ask your team what meaningful work they’d like to do with
need to give them the tools, training, and support they the extra time they’ll have. Would they like to manage the
require to deliver exceptional customer service and stay proactive side of your support, for example?
satisfied in their roles. For example, you'll want to:
And of course, share this guide
with your team, so they can
start putting some of these
ideas into action.
Our learning platform, Intercom Academy

has a dedicated conversational support
course designed to help your team become
conversational support experts with
Intercom. You can sign them up here.

Scale your "Intercom has unleashed the
conversational power of conversational support
support with across Medallia's growing suite

of products. What used to be a
Intercom disjointed customer experience
is now unified, consistent, and
At this stage you’re probably excited to implement
personalized."
conversational support in your company, so you can
start providing customers with the fast, personal support
they expect and free your team up to take on even more
meaningful work. The great news is you can achieve Kennen Warmack, VP of Global Customer
everything in this guide with Intercom. Support & Operations at Medallia
Interested in trying Intercom to deliver the best support in the business?

Go ahead and chat with us through the Intercom Messenger here and we’ll
provide you with tailored help ASAP.

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The Ultimate Guide to

The future of support Help customers in context

The Ultimate Guide to Conversational Support 2

The future of support

The Ultimate Guide to Conversational Support 4

to answer more questions from everything your team needs to thrive in

The Ultimate Guide to Conversational Support 5

Both customers and More personal interactions

The Ultimate Guide to Conversational Support 7

Take your support to

Support Funnel excel and provide customers with the

customer dissatisfaction. Not to simple, repetitive queries through

mention team burnout! automated bots and contextual help

Instead, what you need is a clear • Human support to resolve complex

The Ultimate Guide to Conversational Support 9

With the funnel, most simple Moving from a

The Ultimate Guide to Conversational Support 10

managers revealed that 30% plan This shift in customer support

The Ultimate Guide to Conversational Support 11

The Ultimate Guide to Conversational Support 12

Get ahead of known

The Ultimate Guide to Conversational Support 14

Identify common effectiveness, improve resolution

The Ultimate Guide to Conversational Support 15

• Quickly see how effective your team is at resolving each

• Unlock trends and insights from customer conversations

"Intercom's Conversation Topics feature enables

The Ultimate Guide to Conversational Support 16

2. Partner cross-functionally For example, at Intercom our Support

eye-opening, critical insights that help customer experience and to

The Ultimate Guide to Conversational Support 17

3. Create a customer feedback loop One of the best ways to do this is

If you’re using Intercom you can quickly collect qualitative

The Ultimate Guide to Conversational Support 18

Ideas for proactive experience a steep learning curve.

The Ultimate Guide to Conversational Support 19

2. Address common stumbling blocks

By proactively identifying these stumbling blocks ahead

The Ultimate Guide to Conversational Support 20

3. Educate customers on new features

The Ultimate Guide to Conversational Support 21

4. Alert customers to known issues

For example, if you’ve recently experienced a vulnerability

The Ultimate Guide to Conversational Support 22

Characteristics of a powerful proactive message

The Ultimate Guide to Conversational Support 23

• How can I return an item I bought?

The Ultimate Guide to Conversational Support 25

Create help conversation volume in the process.

delivers real value Map your help content to

The Ultimate Guide to Conversational Support 26

We recommend planning out the different types of articles

• Best practice guides and troubleshooting articles are

The Ultimate Guide to Conversational Support 27

Getting started guide

Define your funnel vision

The Ultimate Guide to Conversational Support 28

Mirror your customers’ language paragraphs of text when you can

The Ultimate Guide to Conversational Support 29

Use real-life examples questions customers are most often

Optimize articles to work harder

The Ultimate Guide to Conversational Support 30

Ideas for support 1. FAQ bot