Should you choose Intercom, Drift or HubSpot Service Hub?

We have already explained the differences between Zendesk and Freshdesk, and then compared Intercom with Zendesk. Now it is time for Intercom versus Drift.

Choosing the right customer service software is crucial for your customers and your customer service staff. In this blog we compare Intercom with Drift, to help you better assess which system fits the wishes and needs of your business. Both platforms offer a range of packages, features and benefits that help you deliver the best service focused customer experience.

What is Intercom?

Intercom launched 4 years before Drift and is one of the first chatbot software providers. From that point on, Intercom has positioned itself as a conversational relationship platform. Intercom makes it possible to deliver personalised, messenger based experiences. The platform allows for in depth conversations, but within the platform you can also handle your support, you have marketing capabilities at your disposal, and Intercom also offers a number of self service options, such as a knowledge base.

Intercom includes a customer data platform with people and company lists and custom events, but it does not offer a full CRM platform like Zendesk Sunshine. Intercom customers generally maintain a separate CRM that can integrate with it. Integration with, for example, HubSpot is available within the Intercom Grow plan.

What is Drift?

Drift launched in 2015 and can be placed in the ‘conversational marketing’ category, which was later expanded with conversational sales and revenue acceleration. Drift is a mobile and web messaging app for sales, marketing and support teams, with a focus on live chat and in app messaging, combined with an AI chatbot to streamline the customer experience by, among other things, directing certain standard questions to available articles. Today, Drift helps companies connect with buyers in real time via chat, video, voice or email to build trust and accelerate revenue.

The combination of conversational marketing and conversational sales drives revenue acceleration, and Drift has combined this into a single package. The idea is that revenue generating teams, such as sales and marketing, should work together to deliver timely communication with their customers. Within the conversation suite, Drift offers chat, email, video and voice tools that can then be synchronised with your CRM, sales and account based marketing tools. Drift customers often have a separate CRM system to run their business. Integration with HubSpot is available from the Drift Premium packages onward. Although revenue acceleration is still in its early stages, the idea differs from Intercom’s product led approach.

Drift Chat and Intercom Chat

Drift chat is the functionality that drives the Drift platform. It connects to your inbox within Drift, so marketing and sales can approach customers on the website. With Drift Intel, companies can store customer information, so representatives and marketers have the information they need to give the right response. Directly from Drift Chat, companies can start quick conversations via Zoom or schedule meetings for a later date. Drift customers can take notes on conversations, use templates for specific texts and, through the information gathered, really understand who they are talking to. There are also automation options with the AI chatbot that will qualify prospects and customer questions. Drift’s self service capabilities are less robust than what Intercom offers.

Intercom chat is bundled within Business Messenger. It offers similar functionality to Drift Chat, such as access to chat in real time via the Inbox. You also have the option of automation by working with chatbots via Ticketing Workflows, personalising chats with available customer information, and you can target specific segments directly. Intercom extends its chat capabilities beyond just sales and marketing. You have the option to let your customers use self service directly or choose a representative. With Intercom, for example, you have the option of using bots to directly present a self service article that matches the question your customer is asking. Intercom’s chat functionality goes beyond reactive support and offers proactive, in app suggestions, such as product tours, mobile carousels and outbound messages.

What about pricing?

Drift offers a free version with a basic live chat feature. Beyond this free package, Drift also offers a Premium and Enterprise package, available from 4,800 dollars per year. The free, Premium and Enterprise packages each include 1 user. Every additional user costs you an extra 80 dollars per month. 

Intercom has two paid packages for small businesses, namely Start and Grow. These let you apply simple chat and messaging. Start and Grow packages start at a price of 39 and 99 dollars per month. Intercom’s packages come with a fixed number of users, and extra users can be added at an additional cost, depending on the package. Each plan includes the capacity to reach 2,000 people per month, and it costs an extra 50 dollars per month per 1,000 customers. These prices can rise quickly as an organisation scales, and Intercom charges most businesses 499 dollars per month for 10 users. Do keep in mind that product tours, account based marketing, multi channel campaigns and reporting are all add-ons available at an additional cost.

What extensions and integrations are possible?

Drift offers 39 integrations within the platform. Notable integrations include Slack, Google Analytics, Zapier, HubSpot, Salesforce and Zendesk. Drift integrates and synchronises to and from Drift with Salesforce, Pardot, Marketo, Outreach and Eloqua.

Intercom offers more integrations than Drift, with various popular solutions. Think of Stripe, Salesforce, Slack, HubSpot, Jira and Segment. For support teams there are around 20 options such as Jira, Zendesk Support, Statuspage and Survicate Customer Surveys.

Self service options

Drift includes self service articles within what is known as Drift Help. This is available within the Premium and Enterprise packages. Customers can use Drift Help to create supporting content and show that content to users based on their input, or route them to people who can give an answer.

Intercom has a multilingual help centre for self service that is available with the Grow package. Within the Accelerate and Scale packages, a private help centre is available.

Support from the platforms themselves

Drift support is available within the Premium package, where customers get access to help documents, simple chat support, Drift Insider and a dedicated customer success manager. With Drift Enterprise, customers receive optimisation services, technical integration setup and 24/7 priority support via chat. Drift does not offer phone support. If you have the free package, you only have access to the help documents.

With Intercom you have access to training webinars and 24/7 chat and email support for all paying customers. Within the Accelerate and Scale packages, you have the option to get priority support and you are assigned an account manager. Within the Scale package you get the most support from Intercom, with tailored onboarding, direct contact with the customer success team, personalised training and ongoing product advice.

HubSpot Service Hub

HubSpot’s Service Hub offers various tools to help you build more personal relationships with your customers.

What capabilities does Service Hub offer?

1. Knowledge Base

With the Knowledge Base capabilities within HubSpot you can give your customers self service options. A well developed knowledge base allows your team to prioritise the most difficult customer challenges, while your customers have the basics to solve their smaller problems themselves.

2. Ticketing system and helpdesk

When comparing service software, the benefits of HubSpot’s all-in-one solutions come to the fore. The helpdesk and ticketing systems that HubSpot offers keep your team organised and ensure priorities flow into each other seamlessly. This way you can resolve your customers’ problems faster and build a personal relationship with them.

3. Chat functionality

The live chat within Service Hub allows you to connect directly with the people visiting your website. This lets you make a human connection in real time and turn these conversations into leads that ultimately convert into customers. This means you offer excellent service not just to your prospects, but also to your existing customers.

4. Feedback software

Use tools to collect customer feedback such as NPS, CSAT, CES or even custom surveys. These survey results give you insights to build a better relationship with your customers.

An all-in-one CRM platform for a better customer experience

Service Hub is built on HubSpot’s CRM platform. This lets you create a 360 degree view of your customers by connecting marketing, sales and service. HubSpot’s marketplace also offers more than 500 possible integrations, giving you a complete picture of your customers’ interactions across various channels. This means your customer service staff have everything at hand to deliver the right service immediately.

A uniquely human approach

Service Hub is focused on enabling personal contact. This can be through the knowledge base, so customers can solve the problem themselves directly, or directly with your service staff. Service Hub is focused on the customer experience at every service interaction. With tools such as NPS, CSAT and other customer feedback surveys, you get important insights into what matters to customers, and you can keep continuously optimising.

Let your business grow steadily

With Service Hub you get a platform with enormous capabilities, yet with a personal approach. In other words, a platform for large organisations, but with the personal approach of a small business. HubSpot’s CRM system is designed to help customers grow, and Service Hub is an important part of that. With Service Hub you can work more efficiently with ticket automation to add a personal touch faster, with the right context. You can also coach your team and help it grow with tools to deliver a consistent service experience across all channels and among all staff.

Customer reach and engagement that are not expensive

Service Hub is a more complete package for customer reach and engagement than Intercom or Drift. It comes with built in chat, calling and email functionality, in contrast to Intercom’s paid functionality in the form of product tours. If your business wants to buy an all-in-one solution, Service Hub offers a well packaged solution with robust customer reach and engagement included as standard in every package.

A unified view of customer data

HubSpot ensures that your customer data across the various marketing, sales and service applications is unified. Neither Intercom nor Drift offer CRM solutions, so customers need a separate CRM system. This means you do not have a good, unified view of your customer data. Customers who want strong stability, predictability and robustness in their platform are better off with HubSpot. Service Hub includes more features in its ‘core’ package, so fewer add-ons are needed.

Better support for service oriented organisations

Service Hub offers better learning material covering all aspects of the product, in contrast to both Drift and Intercom. All customers receive excellent support, not just Enterprise customers. Service Hub is also easier to learn and more intuitive to optimise, reducing dependency on support. Looking at reviews on G2, both Drift and Service Hub are rated 8.8/10, while Intercom scores 8.5/10.

Switching from Drift/Intercom to HubSpot

Considering switching to HubSpot? Addmark is a HubSpot Gold Partner and we can help you with this. Our team has experience carrying out the migration for you, with as little disruption as possible to your day to day operations.

We look beyond simply ‘copying and pasting’ data. What matters is that the process within HubSpot is set up optimally from the start, so you can easily scale up in the years ahead.

Want to know more?

Still not sure which system is best for your business? Feel free to get in touch with us, and we would be happy to help you think it through.