| Functionality | 8 <p>HubSpot offers all of the support functionality most SMBs will need. It supports most channels, and you can also create help centres. It also has sophisticated automation and reporting functionalities.</p><p>However, it lacks some features like AI context suggestion, creation of community forums, and sophisticated chat functionality the likes of Intercom.</p> | 9 <p>Intercom provides most of the essential support functionality needed by SMBs, covering a wide range of communication channels (excluding Twitter, Slack, and Discord) and offering industry-leading live chat capabilities. It also includes advanced AI, automation, and reporting features. However, some features that larger teams may find valuable, such as approval workflows, community forum management, and advanced telephony capabilities (e.g., group routing and overflow handling), are not currently supported.</p> |
| Ease of Use | 3 <p>HubSpot Service Hub is a powerful tool, though it takes time to implement. This is particularly true if you're setting up complex workflows automations which connects with third-party apps.</p><p>The inbox view is cluttered, and there are no keyboard shortcuts and macros that could help speed up support agents' workflows.</p> | 7 <p>Due to its rich functionality and customisability, Intercom has a moderate learning curve but is generally user-friendly. An average SMB employee can become proficient with the platform after 1-2 days and some guidance.</p><p>The interface is intuitive, making daily use straightforward for most team members. </p> |
| Look and feel | 5 <p>HubSpot's inbox is cluttered and overwhelming. Too much information is displayed without color-coding, making it hard to find key details. While page load times are acceptable at 2-3 seconds, the interface could be more intuitive and smooth.</p> | 7 <p>We find Intercom's interface modern, sleek, with just the right touch of colour. However, page load times can be a bit slow, sometimes taking 2-3 seconds.</p> |
| Customisability | 7 <p>HubSpot offers great customisability for workflows but lacks some customisation for user-facing elements.</p><p>You can create custom fields, views, objects, and customer segments. Combined with custom event tracking, this allows for highly personalised customer experiences.</p><p>However, the customisation options for the Help Centre are limited compared to some competitors.</p> | 9 <p>Intercom is one of the most customisable Customer Support we've come across. User-facing elements (e.g. live chat, help centre) allow for deep customisation in appearance and layout.</p><p>Intercom also allows you to create custom data objects and track custom events about your customers to create highly personalised proactive messages and workflows.</p> |
| Ease of Setup | 4 <p><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">Despite offering a self-serve free trial, we get the impression that HubSpot is not optimised for a smooth self-serve onboarding process. Initial setup was clunky, taking over 10 minutes. Connecting your first channels is an obscure process. It's clear that though HubSpot Service Hub is a powerful tool, it takes time to implement when it comes to setting up integrations, getting familiar with its sales oriented interface and implementing any workflow automations you need.</span></p> | 7 <p>Intercom offers a simple, self-service free trial for their platform. Initial setup is relatively simple, taking less than 10 minutes to complete. Connecting your initial channels is fairly simple too with simple scripts for live widget integrations and easy email connection options. However, when it comes to deeper customization, there are a number of rabbit holes within which you could spend days e.g. setting up FinAI or customizing help centre appearances. </p> |
| Customer Support | 6 <p>HubSpot's customer support is decent. Non-discounted paying customers get access to phone/video support. Discounted or non-paying customers have access to articles and live chat support, which is available 24/7 and generally provides good answers.</p> | 8 <p>Intercom provides in-app live chat with Fin AI and their support team. We’ve found that while Fin AI delivers helpful responses, and it's possible to connect with a human agent - although this can take up to 6 business hours which can be painfully long in our experience.</p> |
| Integratability | 8 <p>HubSpot offers hundreds of pre-built integrations with common third-party tools that SMBs use, including CRMs, email marketing tools, and project management systems. It also has an extensive marketplace for additional integrations and an API for custom integrations.</p> | 10 <p>Intercom boasts a robust integrations ecosystem that includes popular CRMs like HubSpot and Pipedrive, project management tools such as JIRA, and email marketing platforms like Mailchimp. They also offer an API for custom integrations and are continually expanding their integration offerings, with the flexibility to develop new ones upon request.</p> |
| Ease of Migration | 8 <p>HubSpot allows users to export key data (e.g. ticket and agent volume) via self-serve. Export of most other data are also available via API.</p> | 8 <p>Users can export key data independently through self-serve options, while most other data can be accessed via API or provided upon request. Additionally, Intercom enables seamless data exports to relevant third-party vendors through pre-built integrations.</p> |
