A complete guide to Intercom surveys in 2025

If you work in customer communications, you’ve probably come across Intercom. It’s a big name in the industry, especially for its live chat Messenger and powerful tools for engaging with users. One of its key features for listening to those users is Intercom surveys, a tool designed to gather feedback and insights directly from your customer base.

But is it the right tool for you? This guide gives you an honest, in-depth look at what Intercom surveys can do, where they might leave you wanting more, and how you can go beyond just collecting data. We'll explore how to build a responsive, AI-powered feedback loop that turns customer opinions into genuine action.

What are Intercom surveys?

Intercom surveys are the platform's built-in way of capturing customer feedback right inside its own environment. You can deliver them through in-app messages, email, or even shareable links, which gives you a bit of flexibility in how you reach your audience. The feature is built around two main formats, and each has its own vibe.

• Small format surveys: Think of these as quick, lightweight pulse checks. They pop up as a subtle banner at the bottom of the screen, so they don't get in the way of what the user is doing. They’re perfect for simple ratings or single-question polls, like getting a quick Net Promoter Score (NPS). It's the digital equivalent of a quick, "Hey, how's everything going?"

• Large format surveys: These are much more front-and-center. They appear as a modal that takes over the screen, so they demand the user's full attention. This makes them a better fit for multi-question feedback, like onboarding questionnaires or detailed forms about a new feature.

Here’s a quick breakdown of how they stack up:

Key features and use cases of Intercom surveys

So, what can you actually do with Intercom's survey tool? Let's get into the practical side of creating them, sending them out, and making sense of the answers.

Collecting different types of feedback

Intercom surveys give you a decent toolkit of question types to gather both hard numbers and the stories behind them.

• Rating Scales (NPS®, Star, Emoji, Numeric): These are your go-to options for a quick mood read. You can use them to track Customer Satisfaction (CSAT) right after a support ticket is closed or keep an eye on overall loyalty with an ongoing NPS survey.

• Text Entry (Short & Long): These open-ended fields are where you get the juicy details. They help you understand the "why" behind the scores. A classic move is to ask, "What’s the main reason for your score?" right after a user drops their NPS rating. This context is often more valuable than the number itself.

• Multiple Choice & Dropdowns: These are great for collecting structured data you can use to slice and dice your user base. For example, when a new user signs up, you could use a dropdown to ask their role or what they hope to accomplish with your product.

With these building blocks, you can create surveys for all sorts of moments in the customer's journey:

• Welcome surveys: Find out who your new users are and what they want to achieve. This helps you personalize their onboarding from day one instead of giving everyone the same generic tour.

• Post-resolution surveys: See how well your support team is doing by asking for feedback immediately after a conversation is closed. This gives you real-time insight into performance.

• Product feedback surveys: Got an idea for a new feature? Before your dev team spends a single second coding, you can send a survey to your power users to see if it’s something they’d actually want.

Targeting and distribution channels

Getting your survey to the right person at just the right moment is half the battle, and Intercom gives you some solid options here. You can trigger surveys based on who the user is (like their subscription plan), what they've done (like completing a checkout), or even the specific page they’re looking at.

You have a few ways to get your surveys out there:

• In-app messages: This is your best bet for reaching active users while they’re logged in and engaged with your product.

• Email: A reliable backup for reaching folks who might not log in every day.

• Shareable links: This gives you the freedom to post your survey just about anywhere, from a support chat to a social media post or a newsletter.

Analyzing responses

Once the answers start coming in, Intercom gives you a basic dashboard to see what’s happening. You’ll find top-level numbers like how many people responded and the completion rate. For specific question types, you get simple visuals, like your overall NPS score or bar graphs for multiple-choice answers.

If you want to do any kind of deeper analysis, you’ll have to export your data as a CSV file and open it up in a spreadsheet.

Where Intercom surveys fall short

While having a survey tool built right into Intercom is convenient, it has some real limitations that can stop you from creating a feedback system that actually drives change.

Limited customization and analysis

The survey builder itself is pretty basic. You’re stuck with a handful of question types and don't get advanced options like matrix or ranking questions. The design customization is also minimal, so it can be tricky to make the surveys look and feel like a natural part of your brand.

But more importantly, the built-in reporting is often too surface-level. It can tell you what people said, but it struggles to give you the deeper insights needed to spot trends without a ton of manual work. You're left to connect the dots yourself in a spreadsheet, which is time-consuming and prone to errors.

Siloed feedback and manual action

This is the real kicker. The feedback you collect with Intercom surveys lives in its own little world. It doesn't automatically connect to your other workflows. A terrible NPS score or a scathing comment about a bug just sits in a report. It doesn't automatically:

• Ping a customer success manager about an account that's about to churn.

• Create a high-priority ticket for your engineering team to investigate a bug.

• Flag a gap in your help center documentation that's causing confusion.

So, it's up to someone on your team to play detective, constantly checking the results, trying to figure out what's important, and then manually deciding what to do next. It’s slow, inefficient, and important feedback can easily slip through the cracks.

A reactive, not proactive, approach to feedback

Because the analysis is manual and the data is siloed, the whole process ends up being reactive. You’re always looking in the rearview mirror, finding out about problems long after your customer has already been frustrated by them.

A truly effective system should work in real time. It should be able to spot issues the moment feedback comes in and proactively start the resolution process, whether that means escalating to a human or using automation to solve the problem on the spot.

Intercom surveys pricing

Let's talk money. Intercom's pricing can feel a bit like a puzzle. The main platform is sold in three plans: Essential, Advanced, and Expert, with prices based on how many "seats" (or users) you need. The starter "Essential" plan is listed at $29 per seat, per month.

Here’s the catch: Intercom surveys are not included in any of those base plans. To unlock them, you have to buy the Proactive Support Plus add-on, which tacks on an extra $99 per month. This add-on also includes other features like Product Tours and Checklists, whether you need them or not.

This add-on model means the true cost of using Intercom for surveys is quite a bit higher than the per-seat price suggests. When you also consider potential usage-based charges for channels like SMS or WhatsApp, your monthly bill can get pretty unpredictable.

How to turn Intercom surveys feedback into action with AI

So, what's the solution? You don't necessarily have to ditch Intercom surveys. The goal is to make the feedback you collect with them infinitely more valuable. This is where an intelligent automation layer like eesel AI comes in. By connecting with the tools you already use, eesel AI tackles the biggest weaknesses of native survey features.

Instantly analyze and act on feedback

Instead of waiting for a human to read through all the open-text responses, eesel AI can figure out the sentiment and intent behind them the second they arrive.

For example, imagine a user gives you a low NPS score and leaves a comment about a "confusing billing statement." Normally, that feedback would sit in a report until someone noticed it. With eesel AI, the system instantly analyzes the text, automatically tags the user as "at-risk," creates a high-priority ticket in Intercom, and assigns it directly to the finance team. This all happens in seconds, turning a slow, reactive process into a proactive one and solving customer issues before they escalate.

A workflow diagram showing how eesel AI can automate the process of acting on feedback from Intercom surveys.

Unify feedback with your entire knowledge base

One of the coolest things about eesel AI is its ability to break down information silos. While Intercom keeps survey data separate, eesel AI connects to all of your company's knowledge sources.

It learns from your helpdesk history, internal wikis in Confluence, project docs in Google Docs, and more. This creates a single, unified brain for your entire support operation. So, if a customer has a follow-up question after submitting a survey, your AI agent can give them an answer using the full context of their feedback and your company's entire knowledge base.

An infographic demonstrating how eesel AI unifies knowledge from various sources, including Intercom surveys, to provide comprehensive support.

Automatically close knowledge gaps using feedback

A smart system doesn't just solve problems; it learns from them. eesel AI's analytics are designed to help you build a self-improving support system.

The platform spots trends in survey feedback and support tickets to identify gaps in your knowledge base. But it doesn't just point out the problems. eesel AI can also analyze successful resolutions and positive feedback to generate draft articles for your help center. This helps ensure your documentation is always up-to-date and reflects what actually helps your customers. Better yet, you can use its powerful simulation mode to test the AI on thousands of historical tickets and feedback responses, letting you see exactly how it will perform before you ever switch it on for live customers.

A screenshot of the eesel AI simulation mode, which can be used to test how the AI will handle various Intercom surveys feedback scenarios.

From collecting feedback to acting on it

Look, Intercom surveys are a decent, convenient tool for collecting feedback. They're built-in, and they get the basic job done. But as we've seen, just collecting data is only the first step. The real value comes from what you do with it, and that’s where native tools often stumble. Siloed data, manual analysis, and reactive workflows mean teams can't act on insights quickly or effectively.

By layering an intelligent platform like eesel AI on top of your existing helpdesk, you can transform your feedback process. You can instantly analyze responses, automate actions, and create a support system that actually learns and improves with every single customer interaction. It's time to stop just listening and start acting.

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