How to Connect Intercom to MySQL for Business Growth?

In today’s business landscape, retaining ones customers is the biggest challenge that companies face. This is where Intercom comes into play. You can leverage the complete customer module provided by intercom to acquire, engage and retain customers.

Now imagine how important the data stored in intercom is for business growth? That’s right, having this data for analysis helps businesses in making better decisions. In this blog we will discuss how you can migrate the data from Intercom to MySQL for better analysis to keep your business up and running. So let’s dive in!

Introduction to Intercom

Intercom is a popular Business Messenger service that helps companies acquire, engage, and retain customers. A Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) offering like Intercom provides companies with a complete customer engagement module without having to actually build it. Intercom helps in Lead Generation as well as Lead Conversion through its variety of services that includes automated workflows and chatbots. Intercom’s Messenger service allows users to perform various activities in their customer journey from the chatbox itself. 

More information about Intercom can be found here.

Understanding the Key Features of Intercom

The key features of Intercom are as follows:

• Business Messenger: Intercom allows businesses to engage with and support customers via chat, conversational bots, self-service tools, interactive apps, proactive product tours, etc.
• Management Tools: Intercom gives businesses the ability to efficiently manage customer interactions across numerous channels in one place with collaborative inboxes, automated workflows, reporting, etc.
• Customer Data Platform: Businesses can use customer, company, and behavioral data in Intercom to help personalize and target customer interactions based on requirements.
• Apps & Integrations: Intercom offers 250+ out-of-the-box applications that can be used to automate actions, keep data in sync, and improve efficiency.

Introduction to MySQL

MySQL is considered to be one of the most popular Open-Source Relational Database Management Systems (RDBMS). MySQL implements a simple Client-Server Model that helps its users manage Relational Databases i.e. data stored in the form of rows and columns across tables. It uses the well-known query language, Structured Query Language (SQL) that allows users to perform all required CRUD (Create, Read, Update, Delete) operations.

More information about MySQL can be found here.

Understanding the Key Features of MySQL

Some of the key features of MySQL are as follows:

• Robust Transactional Support: Implementation of ACID (Atomicity, Consistency, Isolation, Durability) properties that ensures no data loss or inconsistency.
• Ease of Use: Considering that it makes use of SQL for querying data, anyone with basic knowledge of SQL can perform the required tasks easily.
• Security: Implements a complex data security layer that ensures that only authorized users can access sensitive data.
• Scalable: Considered to be highly scalable due to support for multi-threading. 
• Roll-back Support: MySQL supports roll-backs, commits, and crash recovery for all transactions.
• High Performance: Houses various fast load utilities along with Table Index Partitioning and Distinct Memory Caches that can ensure high performance.

Methods to Set up Intercom to MySQL Migration

Users can set up Intercom to MySQL Migration by implementing one of the following methods:

• Method 1: Easiest Way to Connect Intercom to MySQL Migration-Using Hevo Data
• Method 2: Manual Intercom to MySQL Migration

Method 1: Best Way to Connect Intercom to MySQL

Step 1: Configure Intercom as your source.

Step 2: Configure MySQL as your destination.

Method 2: Manual Intercom to MySQL Migration

Users can manually set up Intercom to MySQL Migration by implementing the following steps:

• Step 1: Exporting Data from Intercom as CSV
• Step 2: Creating MySQL Table
• Step 3: Importing Data into MySQL

Step 1: Exporting Data from Intercom as CSV

• Log in to your Intercom account.
• Click on People in the top Menu bar and select All Users.

• You will now be able to see the list of all users in your Intercom account.
• Select the list of users whose data you wish to export.
• Click on the Displayed User Attributes in the upper right corner and select all user attributes you wish to export.

• Click on More and select Export.

• Select one of the two options displayed based on your requirements.

• A background job will now start preparing your file, and you will receive a download link via Email once it’s complete.
• Click the link in the Email you receive to download the CSV file containing the required data.

Step 2: Creating MySQL Table

You now have to create a MySQL table based on the attributes that you exported in the last step. The following query can be used as a reference, and a query based on the attributes exported can be executed:

CREATE TABLE intercom_users
(
  id INT(6) UNSIGNED AUTO_INCREMENT PRIMARY KEY,
  contact_id BIGINT,
  name VARCHAR(50),
  email VARCHAR(50),
  location  VARCHAR(50)
)

Step 3: Importing Data into MySQL

Once the CSV with the user data has been downloaded, and the table has been created in MySQL, you can import the data from the file by running the following SQL query:

LOAD DATA LOCAL INFILE intercom_users.csv’ 
INTO TABLE intercom_users
FIELDS TERMINATED BY ',' 
LINES TERMINATED BY 'n'
(contact_id, name, email, location);

That concludes the building blocks of loading data from Intercom to MySQL. As already evident, this is a very simplified version of the tasks at hand in implementing this process. In a real-life scenario, there are numerous other factors and challenges that will make the job harder for developers.

Limitations of Manual Intercom to MySQL Migration

The limitations of manual Intercom to MySQL Migration are as follows:

• Data transformation is a typical requirement during such a load process. The steps mentioned here do not handle it. In reality, most load processes will need transformations according to the destination database structure and design. 
• Manual Intercom to MySQL Migration is a complex process that might be tough to perform for someone who does not have enough technical knowledge of Intercom and MySQL.
• The process of exporting the data from Intercom and importing it into MySQL has to be done manually every time the data has to be updated in the database.

Use Cases of Connecting Intercom to MySQL from Business Perspective

• Churn Prediction: Leverage MySQL to combine Intercom data with product usage metrics to predict customer churn and take proactive measures.
• Customer Data Centralization: Make the Intercom data(conversations and user events) centrally located and synchronized into MySQL.  
• Customer Support Analytics: Analyze support interaction on MySQL to infer response time, customer satisfaction, and performance of support agents.
• Personalized Marketing: Store and Analyze Intercom User Behavior Data in MySQL for Personalized and Targeted Campaigns.

Conclusion

This article provided you with a step-by-step guide on how you can set up Intercom to MySQL Migration manually or using Hevo. However, there are certain limitations associated with the manual method. If those limitations are not a concern to your operations, then using it is the best option but if it is, then you should consider using automated Data Integration platforms like Hevo.

Sign up here for a 14-day free trial and experience the feature-rich Hevo suite first hand. You can also have a look at our unbeatable pricing that will help you choose the right plan for your business needs!

Share your experience of moving data from Intercom to MySQL. Tell us in the comments below!

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