Ask HN: Recommendation for an alternative to Intercom.io? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Recommendation for an alternative to Intercom.io?

11 pointsjoewee7 comments

With the new funding intercom.io announced today they have changed their $50 a month plan to now be a source of leads for their company.

All communications on the $50 plan with your customers will have a promotional link to intercom.

If you want to use the unbranded service you have to upgrade to the $149 plan.

'Unbranded plans don’t include a “Powered by Intercom” link in your messages.'

I'm annoyed that they are using paid customers as a marketing channel, any recommendations for alternatives?

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Build the in-app communication in-house; that's pretty simple. You can use Mixpanel to do a lot of the user tracking stuff for free.

If you just want a way to contact segments of your customers, and don't care that it happens outside your app, try http://customer.io/

Thanks. I actually like customer.io, and only switched to testing intercom.io because it had the in-app communication. But now I think its better sticking with customer.io and building the in-app functionality ourselves, as you mentioned.

Thanks!

The guys at Zapier put together a nifty drip based email program last year.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4714088

Stop.

Being personally annoyed isn't a business case. Before you spend a lot of time evaluating alternatives and migrating spend sometime analyzing what impact it will have to your business (conversions, etc) before deciding what to do about it.

As a startup the single most valuable asset you have is your time; don't waste it on things that don't matter to your business.

Why is it not a business case?

In this case, I decide not to give them my business because they are using me as a marketing channel despite paying them.

Their entire business model is based on transparent customer communications between me and MY customers. Personal communications between me and MY customers don't sound personal when they have "Powered by X SaaS Marketing Platform"

That's enough of a business case for me to use an alternative. And I am early enough into implementing intercom.io that I can switch without much downside.

If it's something that impacts conversions then it's a business case (and something that's clearly measurable), but the fact that it annoys you personally is more-or-less irrelevant.

I'm concerned that having "powered by" in customer communications will give users something else to click on that is not related to my product or driving them into my funnel. I am also concerned that having "powered by" will make the communication look less authentic.

I would like to honestly A/B test it but given that I'm talking about their lowest priced plan, clearly I am a startup and that would mean investing in a platform that could detract from our conversions from the start. If the test shows that it impacts conversions then I not only lost valuable early users, but I also have to invest in a new platform and move the user data I have from intercom into a new system.

Instead I'm looking to evaluate another platform to build my CRM around instead of intercom.io. So here I am asking.

And the fact that intercom.io forces me to make this decision as a paying customer annoys me.

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