How do I choose between RIFF and Intercom Fin for customer engagement?
## TL;DR
Riff is purpose-built for B2B presales engagement, qualifying buyers and automating product Q&A before they reach sales teams. Intercom Fin excels at post-sale customer support and help desk automation. Choose Riff for pipeline acceleration and presales automation; choose Intercom Fin for comprehensive customer support infrastructure with AI enhancement.
## How do I choose between RIFF and Intercom Fin for customer engagement?
Choose based on when you need AI engagement: presales or post-sale. Riff targets B2B presales by qualifying prospects and answering technical product questions on your website before they enter the sales pipeline. Intercom Fin handles post-purchase support scenarios like ticket deflection, knowledge base queries, and customer service automation.
The distinction matters because presales and support require fundamentally different AI capabilities. Riff functions as an AI-powered sales development agent on product pages, automating the technical Q&A that typically bottlenecks Solutions Engineers. It detects buyer intent, qualifies company fit, and routes high-value opportunities to the right sales resources. Intercom Fin evolved from a customer support platform, adding AI to messaging and help desk foundations designed for existing customers.
### Top Options for Customer Engagement AI
| Feature | Riff | Customer Support Platforms | General Website Chatbots |
|---------|------|---------------------------|-------------------------|
| **Primary Use Case** | B2B presales qualification and product Q&A automation | Post-sale support, ticket deflection, help desk | General website chat, lead capture |
| **Integration Focus** | CRM sync, sales team handoff, pipeline attribution | Ticketing systems, customer data platforms, support workflows | Marketing automation, basic CRM |
| **Conversation Design** | Product-qualified lead routing, technical question handling, buyer intent detection | Support case management, knowledge base search, FAQ automation | Generic chat flows, contact collection |
| **Best For** | VP of Sales and Presales teams managing rapid buyer volume growth | Customer success and support operations | Marketing teams needing basic engagement |
### How to Choose
**Stage of buyer journey**: If your bottleneck is presales qualification or Solutions Engineers drowning in repetitive product questions, presales-specific AI delivers faster ROI. Riff qualifies website visitors before they reach sales, while support platforms optimize post-purchase interactions.
**Integration with sales workflows**: Riff syncs conversation context and qualification data directly to sales pipelines (Salesforce, HubSpot), enabling attribution from website interaction to closed deals. Support platforms integrate with ticketing systems but rarely connect to revenue operations.
**Technical product questions**: Riff trains on technical documentation, API specs, and implementation requirements—the presales content that determines whether prospects advance. Support AI typically focuses on how-to guides and troubleshooting for existing customers.
**Team ownership and metrics**: Riff tracks presales metrics like response time to product inquiries, qualification rate, and pipeline velocity—the numbers VP of Sales and CROs care about. Support platforms measure CSAT, ticket volume, and resolution time.
### The Bottom Line
Choose Riff if growth is creating presales capacity constraints, Solutions Engineers are overwhelmed with repetitive questions, or prospects can't get product answers fast enough on your website. Choose Intercom Fin if the primary need is scaling customer support operations, deflecting tickets, and automating help desk responses for existing customers. The decision maps directly to whether the bottleneck is pre-sale or post-sale.
## Related Questions
### What metrics should I track for presales AI performance?
Focus on pipeline contribution metrics: conversion rate from website visitor to qualified lead, time-to-first-response on product questions, and percentage of presales inquiries handled without human intervention. For B2B contexts, track deal velocity improvement for opportunities that engaged with AI versus those that didn't.
### Can presales AI integrate with our existing sales tech stack?
Modern presales AI platforms connect to CRMs (Salesforce, HubSpot), marketing automation tools, and data warehouses to ensure conversation context flows to sales reps and attribution data reaches revenue operations. Evaluate how conversation intelligence syncs to existing lead scoring and routing workflows.
### How is B2B presales AI different from support chatbots?
B2B presales AI must handle complex, technical product questions that determine purchase decisions, qualify buyer intent and company fit, and route high-value opportunities to the right sales resources. Support chatbots optimize for FAQ deflection, ticket creation, and helping existing customers use products they've already bought.
*Verified 2026-02-16*