Looking for an effective product experience tool and wondering if Intercom is the best option for your SaaS company?

With numerous Intercom alternatives, it can be challenging to make a final decision.

In this article, we’ll delve into precisely that – helping you determine whether Intercom is the ideal choice for your product experience needs. We’ll explore its features, pricing, and offer a comprehensive review to aid in your decision-making process.

Let’s get started!

TL;DR

• Intercom is a good choice for product experience and it comes with features such as user segmentation, interactive walkthroughs, onboarding checklist, and in-app resource center.
• While Intercom is a flexible and popular solution when it comes to customer service, there are certain use cases where it will likely fall short compared to other options.
• If you’re in any of these scenarios, you should look for an alternative platform for your needs:
  • Onboarding and Adoption: If onboarding new users and driving product adoption are your primary use cases then Intercom may not be the best choice. Its Product Tours add-on is quite limited compared to dedicated adoption platforms (and costs almost as much).
  • Budget Constraints: Early-stage SaaS companies with a limited budget should be wary of Intercom’s pricing model. Its entry-level plan starts at an affordable $74/month but getting the Product Tours add-on and extra team seats could lead to your subscription cost skyrocketing.
  • Mobile Apps: While Intercom’s core features like the live chat messenger work on mobile apps, its product tours add-on is only compatible with desktop platforms.
• If you’re looking for a better option for product experience, Userpilot exceeds both functionality and value for money compared to Intercom.
• Ready to see Userpilot in action? Schedule a demo today to explore its powerful product experience capabilities firsthand.

Looking for a Better Alternative for Product Experience? Try Userpilot

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What is Intercom?

Intercom is a customer service platform. It offers customizable live chat widgets, omnichannel support capabilities, and integrations with over 300 apps. While Intercom is primarily a support solution, it does have add-ons that offer other functionalities such as product tours.

The Product Tours add-on contains features that aid onboarding, adoption, and feature discovery. Intercom’s product tours can include UI patterns like modals and tooltips as well as other media formats such as microvideos.

Must have features of product experience tools

The right tool will help creating and optimizing product experiences a breeze. Here are the essential features that such tools must have:

• Streamlined onboarding: Simplifies the introduction of your product to new users with automated walkthroughs, tailored in-app messages, and feedback-driven engagement.
• Customer segmentation: Allows for customized interactions tailored to different user groups for optimal experiences.
• Direct user feedback: Utilizes in-app surveys to gather insights on user sentiment and satisfaction regarding the product experience.
• Product analytics: Helps identify user behavior trends and patterns for better decision-making.
• Integration capabilities: It should seamlessly blend with your existing technology. The more it can integrate, the more valuable it becomes.
• A/B testing: This allows you to compare two versions of a product flow to determine which produces the best results in terms of optimizing product experiences.
• Scalability: As your business grows, the platform should adapt accordingly without causing significant costs or operational hiccups.

Intercom features for product experience

User onboarding educates new customers, teaches them how to use your product, and helps them get the most value in the least amount of time.

Intercom’s Product Tours add-on includes UI patterns and onboarding analytics that can prove helpful (if you’re willing to pay extra for them).

This will cost you an additional $199/month on top of what you’re currently paying for your base Intercom subscription. This puts its pricing on par with dedicated onboarding/adoption tools despite lacking feature parity.

Here’s an overview of Intercom’s Product Tours add-on:

• UI Patterns: Intercom’s product tours for onboarding come with an expansive selection of UI patterns like tooltips, banners, surveys, in-app checklists, and multi-step flows. You can also use communication features in your tours such as SMS messages or live chat widgets.
• Onboarding Analytics: Intercom shows you detailed analytics for each product tour such as the total number of views, overall completion rate, percentage of users who achieved a particular goal, and how many issues were encountered during the tour.

Intercom’s user segmentation

User segmentation lets you divide customers based on their needs and use cases then deliver a personalized experience to each one. Intercom has three pre-defined segments, AND/OR filtering, and detailed company profiles that lets you analyze your entire user base.

Here are the types of user segmentation you can use on Intercom:

• Pre-Defined Segments: Intercom has three built-in segments. The “Active” segment is for any users who have been active in the last 30 days, “New” includes anyone who has signed up in the past 24 hours, and “Slipping away” is for those who haven’t been active in the past 30 days.
• Segmentation Filters: Intercom lets you create custom segments using AND/OR rules to combine attributes. Do note that overly complex segments may take longer to display results (or in some cases fail altogether and ask you to simplify your filter settings).
• Company Profiles: Intercom’s segmentation capabilities also let you view users on a company level. You’ll be able to view all the people from a certain company, see their email, monitor engagement metrics, and review all conversations that they’ve been a part of.

Intercom’s interactive walkthroughs

To create interactive walkthroughs with Intercom, you’ll need to get the Product Tours add-on which costs an additional $199/month on top of your current subscription fee.

Here’s how you can use Intercom’s interactive walkthroughs to improve onboarding:

• UI Patterns: When building interactive walkthroughs with Intercom, you can choose from a myriad of UI patterns such as banners, tooltips, checklists, surveys, and announcements. There are also mobile-specific features like carousels, push notifications, and SMS messages.
• Targeting Settings: Intercom’s targeting settings let you adjust when interactive walkthroughs will appear, how often, and to which users. You can use its event tracking capabilities and frequency/scheduling options to make sure walkthroughs only appear contextually.
• Walkthrough Analytics: When you build an interactive walkthrough within Intercom, you’ll be able to see how its performance changes over time. Tracked metrics include total view count, completion rate, percentage of goal accomplishment, and frequency of issues encountered.

Intercom’s onboarding checklist

User onboarding checklists are the best way to guide new users towards the next step of their journey and encourage them to try core features. Intercom has a no-code checklist builder, multiple targeting rules, and two templates to get you started.

You’ll need to get the Product Tours add-on which costs $199/month on top of your existing Intercom subscription, to use checklists.

Here’s how you can use Intercom to create onboarding checklists:

• Intercom’s no-code checklist builder lets you add tasks, add completion time estimates for users, and set the criteria for certain tasks to automatically be marked as completed. You can also add a seemingly unlimited number of tasks (our testing exceeded 100 tasks).
• Intercom’s targeting rules let you adjust when your checklists will appear based on the page a user is on, which segment they’re in, and other attributes such as company, country, signup date, etc. You can also trigger checklists by embedding the code snippet in a webpage.
• When building Intercom checklists, you have the option of starting from scratch or using one of the pre-built templates. There’s one template for onboarding new users and another template for feature discovery.

Intercom’s in-app resource center

In-app resource centers make it possible for users to access help articles from within the product itself so they can solve problems themselves.

While Intercom doesn’t have a dedicated in-app resource center, it does let you enable searches through the chat messenger widget.

• Widget: To let users search through help center articles through the chat widget, you’ll need to go to Messenger > Platforms > Web > Content > Spaces and toggle the help center on. You can also enable this feature on your mobile app through Mobile SDKs > Content > Spaces.

• Features: The Intercom help center lets you upload resources in multiple languages, use custom domains, and style the interface to align it with your product UI or brand palette. These help center articles will also be used as a reference by chatbots when answering user questions.

Note: Intercom’s multilingual help centers are only available on the Pro tier and higher which means users on the entry-level Starter plan ($74/month) won’t be able to use this feature. Help articles aren’t automatically translated so you’ll need to rewrite them manually as well.

What are the pros and cons of Intercom?

Intercom’s pros

• Robust Live Chat: Intercom’s live chat widget is the most popular feature on the platform. You’ll be able to style the widget in accordance with your brand colors, choose which support options customers will see, and insert apps to create a self-serve experience.
• Product Tours Add-On: In addition to Intercom’s customer service capabilities, its Product Tours add-on offers support to new users during the onboarding and adoption phases. Features include a no-code builder, audience targeting, analytics reporting, and more.
• Extensive Integration Gallery: If Intercom’s built-in support/onboarding features aren’t enough, you can expand its native functionality using third-party integrations. Intercom’s App Store has over 300 tools to choose from with new solutions being added regularly.

Intercom’s cons

• Buggy Search Function: Searching through support tickets is a core task for Intercom users but this process is often laggy or refuses to work altogether by freezing the page. Intercom’s searchability shortcomings have been present for years with no fixes released.
• Confusing Navigation Interface: While Intercom does have a wide array of features, its user interface isn’t intuitive and it’ll take a lot of memorization (or trial-and-error) to figure out where everything is. There are many features that can (and should) be combined into one page.
• Support Response Times: Intercom is a customer service platform which is why it’s ironic that their support team isn’t able to reliably respond in a timely manner. Numerous customers have noted slow response times from support representatives when reviewing Intercom.

What do users say about Intercom?

Intercom users were impressed with the interaction features such as emojis, GIFs, and avatars:

“I really like the fact that you can send emojis, have an avatar, interact with the client and know what their tastes are as such, it is very interactive to the point that you can jump between chats recognizing each of the clients/agents.”

Of course, other customers were upset by the lack of transparent billing, inadequate support experience, constant upsells, and restrictive feature limitations:

“Purposely opaque and dishonest billing systems.

Incompetent staff.

Once you have it installed they exploit you for CONSTANT fee hikes.

Constant pitches to upgrade plans and required extra fees.

Unnecessary limitations on features”

Intercom’s pricing

Intercom’s plans start at $74/month on the entry-level plan and use custom pricing for the Pro tier or higher. There’s no free version available, but Intercom does offer a 14-day free trial that lets you test all features on the Starter tier before upgrading to a paid subscription.

Intercom has three paid plans to choose from and different add-ons priced separately:

• Starter: Starts at $74/month and includes two team seats, and features like the messenger widget, automated chatbots, shared inbox, real-time tickets, help center, macros, and basic analytics reporting capabilities.
• Pro: Custom pricing based on the number of team seats and MAUs. It includes features like multiple inboxes, assignment rules, ticketing systems, localized help centers, and advanced automation/analytics.
• Premium: Custom pricing based on the number of team seats and MAUs. It includes features like a real-time dashboard, custom analytics, workload management, and a service level agreement.

In addition to the base subscription cost, you’ll need to pay an additional $199/month if you want to use the Product Tours add-on. This means that, even on the Starter plan, you’d still be paying almost $300/month in total if you get the Product Tours add-on to go with it.

3 Reasons why you might need a Intercom alternative

While Intercom is a flexible and popular solution when it comes to customer service, there are certain use cases where it will likely fall short compared to other options.

If you’re in any of these scenarios, you should look for an alternative platform for your needs:

• Onboarding and Adoption: If onboarding new users and driving product adoption are your primary use cases then Intercom may not be the best choice. Its Product Tours add-on is quite limited compared to dedicated adoption platforms (and costs almost as much).
• Budget Constraints: Early-stage SaaS companies with a limited budget should be wary of Intercom’s pricing model. Its entry-level plan starts at an affordable $74/month but getting the Product Tours add-on and extra team seats could lead to your subscription cost skyrocketing.
• Mobile Apps: While Intercom’s core features like the live chat messenger work on mobile apps, its product tours add-on is only compatible with desktop platforms.

Userpilot – A better alternative for product experience

User onboarding is a crucial part of the customer journey as it speeds up the adoption process and increases retention rates. Onboarding is one of Userpilot’s core use cases along with product growth analytics and user feedback, so it has plenty of features that you can utilize.

Here are some Userpilot features you can use when onboarding new users:

• No-code builder: Creating flows with Userpilot is as simple as installing the Chrome extension, selecting the UI patterns you’d like to use, and then editing the content/settings to suit your use case. You can also use templates to create modals, slideouts, tooltips, and driven actions.

• Native tooltips: Userpilot lets you create native tooltips that show up when users hover over an element or click on an information badge. Since these native tooltips attach to the element itself, they aren’t page-dependent and will show up on any screen where that element is visible.

• Funnel analytics: Userpilot’s advanced analytics lets you create funnel reports that track the onboarding journey. You can also add filters (like name, user ID, signup date, operating system, country, etc.) and monitor the total conversion rate from the first step of the funnel to the last.

• User segmentation: Userpilot lets you segment users based on the device they’re using, where they’re located, their engagement data, or which NPS rating they selected on the latest survey. You can then filter your analytics dashboards to see which segments struggle with onboarding.

Userpilot’s user segmentation

User segmentation is essential for creating a personalized and contextual onboarding experience. Userpilot can segment users based on demographics, product usage data, NPS scores, and more. You can then trigger flows or filter analytics based on segments.

Here’s an overview of Userpilot’s customer segmentation capabilities:

• Segment conditions: Userpilot lets you form segments by adding different conditions like user data, company data, features and events, etc. You can then use these segments as analytics filters or flow triggers later on.

• Analytics filters: Userpilot’s product analytics and user insights dashboards can be filtered to only display data from specific segments (or companies). This will help you extract insights from certain cohorts and compare how adoption or activation varies from one segment to the next.
• Flow triggers: Userpilot’s audience settings let you trigger flows for specific segments or target users that meet certain conditions. You can combine this with page-specific or event-occurrence triggers to show relevant flows to the right users at the most contextual moments.

• External data: Userpilot integrates with tools like Amplitude, Google Analytics, Mixpanel, and Segment using a one-way integration. This means you can use the data inside Userpilot to build advanced segmentation and trigger contextual experiences. For more advanced use cases, the two-way integration with Hubspot lets you send and receive data, unlocking a full set of use cases.

Userpilot’s interactive walkthroughs

Interactive walkthroughs are better than linear product tours because they let new users learn by doing instead of dumping a ton of information on them all at once. Userpilot’s no-code features let you build advanced interactive walkthroughs and create personalized flows for each segment.

Here are the Userpilot features you can use to create interactive walkthroughs:

• No-code builder: Installing the Userpilot Chrome extension makes it possible to build interactive walkthroughs with zero coding needed. You’ll be able to use every UI pattern — such as modals, slideouts, tooltips, and driven actions — regardless of which plan you’re on.

• Welcome surveys: Userpilot lets you create welcome screens that survey users on what their primary use cases, roles, needs, etc., are. You can create different walkthroughs depending on their responses to ensure that there’s a personalized experience for all.

• Audience settings: The audience settings on Userpilot flows help you trigger or hide walkthroughs from specific users and segments. This makes it possible to create interactive walkthroughs that target a particular segment or trigger a flow when certain conditions are met.

Userpilot’s onboarding checklist

Onboarding checklists help new users learn about a product and reduce their time-to-value (TTV). Userpilot checklists can be created using the no-code builder, used to trigger specific actions, and tracked using the analytics dashboard to gauge overall engagement.

Here’s how you can use Userpilot to create an advanced onboarding checklist:

• No-code builder: Userpilot’s checklist creator lets you edit the content of checklists, add tasks, style icons, and configure the triggers for when your checklist should appear. You’ll also be able to choose from five widget icons (or upload your own) and recolor the widget to match your UI.

• Smart tasks: Checklist tasks can be set to trigger specific actions upon being completed, such as redirecting a user to a different page, launching an in-app flow, or running a custom JavaScript function. You can also set the conditions for when a task and action will be marked as complete.

• Checklist analytics: The Checklists dashboard shows you all relevant metrics. These include the number of live checklists you have, how many views they’ve gotten, and how many have been completed. You can also sort these analytics by segment or time period to identify trends.

Userpilot’s in-app resource center

In-app resource centers help users find answers to their questions without needing to leave your product. Userpilot’s resource centers leverage advanced segmentation to target specific customers or use cases, have detailed analytics, and can be built using the no-code editor.

Here’s a closer look at Userpilot’s resource center editor:

• No-code editor: Userpilot lets you build in-app resource centers without needing to write any code. You can add modules like internal/external links, tutorial videos, in-app flows, custom JavaScript functions, and checklists — or group multiple modules into a single section.

• Targeted modules: Userpilot’s module segmentation features let you show/hide specific resources depending on which segment a user is in. This helps you personalize your in-app resource center and only show the resources that are most relevant to a particular user.

• Analytics dashboard: Userpilot’s resource center analytics can show you key metrics like the total number of visitors, how many modules have been clicked, and changes in the click rate to help you gauge performance. You can also sort data by a specific time period if needed.

What are the pros and cons of Userpilot?

Userpilot pros

As a full-suite digital adoption platform, Userpilot has all the features you need to onboard users, track analytics, and gather feedback from customers without writing a single line of code. Here are a few pros of using Userpilot as your product growth solution:

• No-code builder: Userpilot’s Chrome extension lets you build flows, add UI elements, and tag features without writing a single line of code.
• UI patterns: There are plenty of UI patterns to choose from when using Userpilot, such as hotspots, tooltips, banners, slideouts, modals, and more!
• Startup-friendly: Userpilot’s entry-level plan gives you access to all available UI patterns so you can hit the ground running.
• Walkthroughs and flows: Build engaging interactive walkthroughs and personalized onboarding flows that target specific segments of your user base.
• Self-service support: Build an in-app resource center to help users solve problems, customize its appearance to align it with your brand, and insert various types of content (videos, flows, or chatbots) to keep your customers satisfied.
• A/B testing: Userpilot’s built-in A/B testing capabilities will help you split-test flows, iterate on the best-performing variants, and continually optimize based on user behavior.
• Feedback collection: Userpilot has built-in NPS surveys with its own unified analytics dashboard and response tagging to help you retarget users. There are other survey types to choose from and you can even create your own custom survey.
• Survey templates: There are 14 survey templates to choose from so you can gather feedback on specific features or run customer satisfaction benchmarking surveys like CSAT and CES.
• Advanced analytics: Userpilot lets you analyze product usage data, monitor engagement on all in-app flows, and use the data to create user segments that are based on behaviors instead of demographics.
• Event tracking: Userpilot’s no-code event tracking lets you tag UI interactions (hovers, clicks, or form fills) and group them into a custom event that reflects feature usage.
• Third-party integrations: Userpilot has built-in integrations with tools like Amplitude, Mixpanel, Kissmetrics, Segment, Heap, HubSpot, Intercom, Google Analytics, and Google Tag Manager so you can share data between all the solutions in your tech stack.

Userpilot’s cons

Of course, no tool is perfect and there are a few cons to consider before choosing Userpilot as your user onboarding or product growth solution:

• Employee onboarding: Currently, Userpilot only supports in-app customer onboarding.
• Mobile apps: Userpilot doesn’t have any mobile compatibility which could make it difficult for developers with cross-platform applications to create a consistent user experience for both versions of their product.
• Freemium plan: There’s no freemium Userpilot plan so those bootstrapping their startup and need sub-$100 solutions should consider more affordable onboarding platforms like UserGuiding or Product Fruits.

What do users say about Userpilot?

Most users laud Userpilot for its versatile feature set, ease of use, and responsive support team:

I recently had the pleasure of using Userpilot, and I must say it exceeded all my expectations. As a product manager, I’m always on the lookout for tools that can enhance user onboarding and improve overall user experience. Userpilot not only delivered on these fronts but also went above and beyond with its impressive new features, unparalleled ease of use, and truly exceptional customer support.

What truly sets Userpilot apart is its outstanding customer support. Throughout my journey with Userpilot, the support team has been responsive, knowledgeable, and genuinely dedicated to helping me succeed. Whenever I had a question or encountered an issue, their support team was always there to assist promptly, going above and beyond to ensure my concerns were addressed effectively.

Source: G2.

Of course, other users are also kind enough to share constructive criticism regarding specific features like event tracking filters:

“The filtration while analyzing specific events is a little confusing. Understanding of custom properties and data management configuration could have been more organised.”

Source: G2.

Userpilot’s pricing

Userpilot’s transparent pricing ranges from $249/month on the entry-level end to an Enterprise tier for larger companies.

Furthermore, Userpilot’s entry-level plan includes access to all UI patterns and should include everything that most mid-market SaaS businesses need to get started.

Userpilot has three paid plans to choose from:

• Starter: The entry-level Starter plan starts at $249/month and includes features like segmentation, product analytics, reporting, user engagement, user feedback, and customization.
• Growth: The Growth plan starts at $499/month and includes features like resource centers, advanced event-based triggers, unlimited feature tagging, AI-powered content localization, EU hosting options, and a dedicated customer success manager.
• Enterprise: The Enterprise plan uses custom pricing and includes all the features from Starter + Growth plus custom roles/permissions, access to premium integrations, priority support, custom contract, SLA, SAML SSO, activity logs, security audit and compliance (SOC 2/GDPR).

Conclusion

There you have it.

It should be easier now to make an informed decision whether Intercom is your go-to option for Product experience. Ultimately, the best choice will depend on your product and current needs.

If you’re looking for a better alternative to Intercom for Product experience, book a Userpilot demo today to experience firsthand how it can enhance your user experience and drive product growth!

Looking for a Better Alternative for Product Experience? Try Userpilot

GET A DEMO

• 14 Day Trial
• No Credit Card Required