A complete guide to Intercom Phone partners in 2025

Let's be real, even with chat and email running the show, sometimes you just need to pick up the phone. For those tricky, urgent, or sensitive problems, a real conversation is still the quickest way to connect with a customer and sort things out. If you're running your support on Intercom, that leaves you with a pretty big question: do you stick with Intercom's built-in phone feature, or plug in a dedicated phone partner?

You're basically choosing between the convenience of an all-in-one setup and the raw power of a specialized tool. This guide is here to help you make that call. We'll walk through what Intercom's native Phone solution can do, check out its main partners, and then explore a more modern, AI-first approach that could help you cut down on calls altogether.

What is Intercom Phone?

Intercom Phone is the platform's own, homegrown solution for voice calls. Its biggest advantage is that it’s built to live inside Intercom, meaning your phone support sits right alongside your chats, emails, and tickets. No more flipping between tabs or trying to piece together a customer's history from different apps.

Here's a look at its main features:

• Omnichannel Inbox: The big win here is having everything in one place. You can take and make calls directly from the same shared inbox your team already uses. The customer's entire conversation history, no matter the channel, is right there.

• IVR Workflows: Intercom gives you a no-code visual builder to set up those "press 1 for sales" menus (interactive voice response, or IVR). You can create custom greetings and routing rules to get callers to the right team without needing to bother a developer.

• Messenger Calls: This is a pretty slick feature. You can jump from a regular chat to a voice or video call with screen sharing, all without leaving the Intercom Messenger. If typing back and forth isn't getting the job done, you can escalate to a call with a single click.

• Call Management Tools: It has all the basics you’d expect, like call recording, automatic transcriptions, voicemail, and a dashboard for keeping an eye on call performance.

For teams already living and breathing Intercom, the native Phone feature is the most direct way to add voice support. It’s convenient, keeps your workspace tidy, and handles standard support needs without a fuss.

A look at key Intercom Phone partners

While the built-in option is great for simplicity, some teams just need more firepower or are already using a phone system they love. That’s where Intercom’s integrations with specialized partners come in. These tools can add some serious enterprise-level call center features to your setup.

Aircall: A key integration for Intercom Phone partners

Aircall is a popular cloud phone system that connects deeply with Intercom, bridging the gap between your calls and your digital channels. It’s really built for teams that spend a lot of time on the phone and need robust call management.

The integration makes a few key things possible:

• Automatic Logging: Every call, text message, and voicemail from Aircall gets automatically saved as a conversation in Intercom. This keeps your customer records up to date without anyone having to do manual data entry.

• Synced Tags: You can tag calls in Aircall to categorize them (e.g., "billing issue," "technical problem"), and those tags will sync right over to your Intercom conversations. This is a huge help for spotting trends and reporting on why people are calling.

• Context at a Glance: When a call comes in, an Aircall pop-up appears with the customer's contact info and conversation history pulled straight from Intercom. Your agents can see everything they need before they even say hello.

• Seamless Channel Switching: With a feature called Aircall Now, agents can drop a link into an Intercom chat that lets the customer start a live phone call instantly. It’s a smooth way to move from text to voice.

The main catch is that you’re adding another tool and another subscription to your monthly bill. It’s a separate interface for agents to learn, and it might be overkill if you're not running a full-blown call center.

Dialpad: An AI-powered choice among Intercom Phone partners

Dialpad offers something a little different. It’s a communication platform that uses AI to analyze your voice conversations, which makes it a really interesting choice for teams focused on improving agent performance.

Here’s what makes its integration cool:

• Voice Intelligence (Vi™): This is Dialpad's crown jewel. It gives you real-time call transcription, analyzes customer sentiment, and can even pop up live coaching tips for your agents while they're on a call.

• One-Click Calling: Agents can start a Dialpad call right from an Intercom chat or ticket, making it easy to switch to a voice conversation when needed.

• Detailed Logging: After a call ends, the recording and a full summary from the AI, including the transcript and important moments, are automatically saved in the Intercom conversation.

The flip side is that you're bringing a separate AI into your workflow. Dialpad's voice AI is impressive, but it’s its own thing. It doesn't learn from your help center articles, past tickets, or other documents. This means your voice intelligence is walled off from the rest of your support knowledge, which can limit how helpful it can truly be.

Dialpad's Voice Intelligence (Vi™) provides real-time coaching and sentiment analysis, a key feature offered by some Intercom Phone partners.

Native phone vs. Intercom Phone partners: A comparison

So, which one should you pick? It really boils down to what your team actually needs. Here’s a quick table to help you weigh your options.

The limitations of Intercom Phone partners (and a smarter alternative)

Choosing the right phone tool is a big step, but it only solves half the puzzle. The bigger issue with any kind of voice support is that it’s not very efficient. An agent has to give it their full, undivided attention, which makes it expensive to scale. Plus, it doesn’t take advantage of all the helpful articles and guides you’ve already written.

This is where adding a strategic AI layer can make a huge difference. The most efficient support teams don’t just find better ways to handle calls; they find ways to stop unnecessary calls from happening in the first place.

That’s exactly what a tool like eesel AI is built for. It works alongside your phone strategy to answer common questions automatically, before a customer ever feels the need to call.

• Unify All Your Knowledge: eesel AI doesn't just learn from a call script. It connects to your Intercom helpdesk, past support tickets, Confluence pages, Google Docs, and pretty much anywhere else you store information. It uses your entire "business brain" to give complete answers.

• Go Live in Minutes: You can forget about long sales demos and complicated setups. eesel AI is completely self-serve. You can connect it to your helpdesk and have an AI agent up and running in minutes.

• You're in Control: You decide what the AI handles. You can start small by letting it answer simple, repetitive questions, and have it escalate the truly tough issues to a human agent for a phone call. This frees your team up to focus on the conversations that really matter.

An infographic showing how eesel AI unifies knowledge from various sources like helpdesks, tickets, and documents to provide complete answers and reduce call volume for teams using Intercom phone partners.

Intercom Phone pricing explained

Price is obviously a huge piece of the puzzle. Intercom Phone uses a purely pay-as-you-go model. You aren't paying a flat fee for the feature, but you are paying for every call.

Here’s how it breaks down:

• Per-minute rates: You get charged for every minute of calls, both inbound and outbound. The rates change depending on the region and whether the number is local or toll-free.

• Monthly number fees: You also pay a small monthly fee for each phone number you have.

• Plan availability: It's worth noting that Intercom Phone is only available on their newer pricing plans. If you signed up before November 15, 2023, you might need to update your plan to get access.

This usage-based model can be great if your call volume is low, but it can get unpredictable and pricey as you grow. One busy month could leave you with a surprisingly big bill.

This is a big difference from how a tool like eesel AI works. eesel AI offers clear, predictable pricing based on the features you choose, not how many questions it answers for you. There are no per-resolution fees, so you can automate more and more conversations without worrying about your costs spiraling out of control.

eesel AI offers clear, predictable pricing, unlike the usage-based models of many phone systems, helping you scale support automation without unpredictable costs.

Choosing the right Intercom Phone partners strategy

When it comes to your phone strategy on Intercom, you've really got three main paths you can take.

Intercom's native Phone feature is the go-to choice for teams that want a simple, clean, and fully baked-in way to handle a moderate number of calls. If keeping everything in one place is your top priority, it's a great option.

Intercom Phone partners like Aircall and Dialpad bring specialized, powerful features to the table for teams with more complex needs. If you’re running a high-volume call center or want deep AI insights into your voice calls, these integrations are definitely worth exploring.

But the most forward-thinking strategy involves thinking beyond just the phone tool itself. By bringing in smart AI automation, you can make every support channel, including voice, much more efficient and scalable. Instead of just adding another channel for your team to juggle, what if you could reduce the overall workload? eesel AI can act as your intelligent front line, handling repetitive questions across chat and email. This frees up your human agents to focus on the complex conversations that are best handled over the phone.

Ready to cut down your call volume and empower your support team? Get started with eesel AI for free.