Intercom hires Google user research veteran Sian Townsend

Irish software firm Intercom, which raised $23 million (€16.8 million) in new funding in January, has hired Google veteran Sian Townsend as director of research.

The hiring is part of Intercom's continuing expansion plans after it recently opened an office in the former headquarters of Anglo Irish Bank on St Stephen's Green in Dublin.

Ms Townsend left Google after 7½ years to join the Irish-founded company, which employs 100 people and is also based in San Francisco.

Intercom sells software that allows web-based business to see who is using their products and interact with them, which fits Ms Townsend’s expertise.

“I was a user experience researcher in Google,” she said. “I led international user experience research for Mobile Search for three years, based in London.”

She then moved to Google's headquarters in Mountain View, California, where she worked in user research developing the first contactless mobile wallet to allow users buy items using their phones. "For the last two years I led research to redesign Google Maps worldwide," she added.

Customer experience

In Intercom, she said: “We’re trying to help web businesses offer the same kind of great customer experience that a brick and mortar shop can offer.”

“A big part of my job is to figure out how web businesses want to build these kind of relationships with customers they may never meet in person and how they can make their customers feel they’re getting the same type of personalised customer care as they’d get in an amazing local pub or boutique, for example,” she said.

“Part of my job will be analysing how businesses are currently using Intercom to do this and understanding how we can address their needs even better.”

Ms Townsend said leaving Google was "very difficult" but she believed Intercom was an exciting business. "Intercom has a strong team full of recruits who've cut their teeth at big names like Facebook, Google and Amazon. They've also brought in talented people who've worked at smaller companies or who are straight out of university. It's an energetic mix," she said.

‘Insight and vision’

“I’d worked with

Paul Adams

, Intercom’s VP of product, back at Google and I was excited by the chance to work with him again. I admire his insight and vision.”

Ms Townsend said she was attracted too by chance of being involved in a company at an earlier stage.

“To be one of a small team of employees compared to Google’s 52,069 voices, that’s why I’m so excited to have joined Intercom,” she said.