Zendesk vs Intercom: Which is better?

Zendesk is distinguished by its robust and versatile customer support solutions. It provides a comprehensive platform for managing customer inquiries, support tickets, and interactions across multiple channels. On the other hand, Intercom shines in its focus on conversational engagement and real-time communication with customers. You can foun additiona information about ai customer service and artificial intelligence and NLP. It offers a chat-first approach, making it ideal for companies looking to prioritize interactive and personalized customer interactions. Overall, Appy Pie Connect powered by AI offers a user-friendly interface and affordable pricing plans, with a wide range of app integrations and multi-step integrations.

Sure, Intercom allows you to create articles and deliver a bot that answers customer questions with specific articles and resolves issues faster. DragApp is a productivity software designed to simplify email and task management for teams that use Gmail. It does this by transforming your Gmail into a centralized workspace…. Zendesk also has a clear and customizable interface, but it has more features, so it might take a bit longer to learn. And you would be surprised to know that the Intercom does not have a VOIP call service.

Triggers should prove especially useful for agents, allowing them to do things like automate notifications for actions like ticket assignments, ticket closing/reopening, or new ticket creation. Their template triggers are fairly limited with only seven options, but they do enable users to create new custom triggers, which can be a game-changer for agents with more complex workflows. Integrations are the best way to enhance the toolkit of your apps by connecting them for interoperable actions and features. Both Zendesk and Intercom have integration libraries, and you can also use a connecting tool like Zapier for added integrations and add-ons. There are pre-built workflows to help with things like ticket sharing, as well as conversation routing based on metrics like agent skill set or availability. There are even automations to help with things like SLAs, or service level agreements, to do things like send out notifications when headlights are due.

Chat agents also get a comprehensive look at their entire customer’s journey, so they will have a better idea of what your customers need, without needing to ask many questions. Since Intercom doesn’t offer a CRM, its pricing is divided into basic messaging and messaging with automations. It’s divided into about 20 topics with dozens of articles each, so navigating through it can be complicated. After signing up and creating your account, you can start filling in your information, such as your company name and branding and your agents’ profiles and information.

Given that both of these platforms seem aimed at one sort of market or another, it shouldn’t surprise you that we might find a few gaps in the sorts of services they provide. But it’s also a given that many people will approach their reviews to Zendesk and Intercom with some specific missions in mind, and that’s bound to change how they feel about the platforms. However, it’s essential to consider the strengths of Zendesk, which offers a comprehensive and versatile customer support platform.

Zendesk vs Intercom: 2024 Explicit Comparison

That not only saves them the headache of having to constantly switch between dashboards while streamlining resolution processes—it also leads to better customer and agent experience overall. You can also connect your HubSpot account to email providers such as Gmail and Microsoft 365. However, remember HubSpot’s email send limits, which can hamper high-volume campaigns. HubSpot is known to serve businesses of different sizes, offering basic functionalities and advanced features via various plans. Intercom, of course, allows its customer support team to collaborate and communicate too, but overall, Zendesk wins this group. Zendesk has a help center that is open to all to find out answers to common questions.

And considering how appropriate Zendesk is for larger companies, there’s a good chance you may need to take them up on that. If you go through Zendesk’s reviews and ratings section, you will get to see a long list of positive appraisals. And we all know that receiving such continuous positive Customer feedback isn’t easy at all.

Here is what you need to know about multichannel vs omnichannel customer support. They have a 2-day SLA, no phone support, and the times I have had to work with them they have been incredibly difficult to work with. Very rarely do they understand the issue (mostly with Explore) that I am trying to communicate to them. When comparing the omnichannel support functionalities of Zendesk and Intercom, both platforms show distinct strengths and weaknesses. When it comes to customer communication, Intercom has a perfect layout and customer information storage system.

Because of the app called Intercom Messenger, one can see that their focus is less on the voice and more on the text. This is fine, as not every customer support team wants to be so available on the phone. Intercom has a full suite of email marketing tools, although they are part of a pricier package. With Intercom, you get email features like targeted and personalized outbound emailing, dynamic content fields, and an email-to-inbox forwarding feature.

Intercom, on the other hand, was built for business messaging, so communication is one of their strong suits. Combine that with their prowess in automation and sales solutions, and you’ve got a really strong product that can handle myriad customer relationship needs. I tested both options (using Zendesk’s Suite Professional trial and Intercom’s Support trial) and found clearly intercom versus zendesk defined differences between the two. Here’s what you need to know about Zendesk vs. Intercom as customer support and relationship management tools. If you’d want to test Intercom vs Zendesk before deciding on a tool for good, they both provide free trials for 14 days. But sooner or later, you’ll have to decide on the subscription plan, and here’s what you’ll have to pay.

Zendesk vs Intercom in 2023: Detailed Analysis of Features, Pricing, and More

When it comes to integrations, Zendesk and Intercom both offer diverse possibilities, but here, Zendesk takes the lead. Zendesk boasts an extensive array of integration options, with over 1,500 apps in its ecosystem. Intercom is a customer support platform known for its effective messaging and automation, enhancing in-context support within products, apps, or websites. It features the Intercom Messenger, which works with existing support tools for self-serve or live support. Intercom is praised as an affordable option with high customization capabilities, allowing businesses to create a personalized support experience.

Intercom bills itself first and foremost as a platform to make the business of customer service more personalized, among other things. They offer an advanced feature for customer data management that goes beyond basic CRM stuff. It gives detailed contact profiles enriched by company data, behavioral data, conversation data, and other custom fields. Intercom focuses on real-time customer messaging, while Zendesk provides a comprehensive suite for ticketing, knowledge base, and self-service support. They have a dedicated help section that provides instructions on how to set up and effectively use Intercom. Intercom provides an extensive range of automation tools and workflows, allowing businesses to automate repetitive tasks and streamline their customer support processes.

Managing everything manually is becoming increasingly difficult, and you need a robust customer support platform to streamline your operations. If compared to Intercom’s chatbot, Zendesk offers a relatively latest platform that makes support automation possible. So far, the chatbot can transfer chats to agents or resolve less complex queries in seconds. That means all you have to do is add the code to your website and enable it right away. A lot can be gleaned from a customer support tool’s ticketing features. These features help support reps manage and organize support requests and ongoing communications so they are vital tools that will be used every day.

Higher-tier plans in Zendesk come packed with advanced functionalities such as chatbots, customizable knowledge bases, and performance dashboards. These features can add significant value for businesses aiming to implement more sophisticated support capabilities as they scale. Zendesk and Intercom offer help desk management solutions to their users. To begin with, putting help desk platforms “side by side” is a thankless job as software differs in functionality, price, and purposes. The compared vendors share a strategy of delivering their services as either separate add-ons or all-in-one tools. Intercom also offers scalability within its pricing plans, enabling businesses to upgrade to higher tiers as their support needs grow.

On the other hand, Zendesk’s customer database may not offer the same level of depth and richness as Intercom. On top of this, this Zendesk integration promises to help users grow ROI by automating chat and even providing over-the-phone customer service through conversational AI. Tymeshift lets you create shifts and assign them to agents inside Zendesk. You can then monitor the status of each shift, including which agents are currently working it and whether they’re on time or late.

• On the other hand, Zendesk offers plans based on the number of support agents, making it more suitable for businesses that have a dedicated support team.
• Zendesk is a ticketing system before anything else, and its ticketing functionality is overwhelming in the best possible way.
• Determining whether Zendesk is better than Intercom hinges on your unique customer support and engagement requirements.
• But this also means the customer experience ROI tends to be lower than what it would be if you went with a best-in-class solution like Zendesk.
• Now, when it comes to customizing your dashboard and making it suitable for your unique needs, Zendesk does a good job.

When comparing Zendesk and Intercom, evaluating their core features and functionalities is essential to determine which platform best suits your organization’s customer support needs. Let’s explore how Zendesk and Intercom stack up in terms of basic functionalities required by a helpdesk software. Designed for all kinds of businesses, from small startups to giant enterprises, it’s the secret weapon that keeps customers happy. So, get ready for an insightful journey through the landscapes of Zendesk and Intercom, where support excellence converges with AI innovation. Welcome to another blog post that helps you gauge which live chat solution is compatible with your customer support needs. And in this post, we will analyze two popular names in the SaaS industry – Intercom & Zendesk.

The platform is recognized for its ability to resolve a significant portion of common questions automatically, ensuring faster response times. Why don’t you try something equally powerful yet more affordable, like HelpCrunch? Zendesk is among the industry’s best ticketing and customer support software, and most of its additional functionality is icing on the proverbial cake. This approach not only enhances user understanding but also significantly boosts user engagement. While Zendesk is a widely used and versatile customer support and engagement platform, it’s important to consider whether there might be a better software solution tailored to your specific needs. Both Zendesk and Intercom have AI capabilities that deserve special mention.

It calculates the cost of its Pro and Premium plans based on the number of AI resolutions, people reached, and seats (or users). This can make it challenging to estimate the cost yourself during your research and you need to speak with Intercom for more information. Also, this software offers a feature called ‘Business Messenger’ that comes with its own AI chatbot. However, it’s essential to recognize that Zendesk has its own array of strengths, particularly in its comprehensive and versatile customer support platform. Determining whether Zendesk is better than Intercom hinges on your unique customer support and engagement requirements. Zendesk excels as a robust and versatile customer support platform, offering comprehensive tools for managing customer inquiries and support operations across various channels.

Choose the plan that suits your support requirements and budget, whether you’re a small team or a growing enterprise. As you dive deeper into the world of customer support and engagement, you’ll discover that Zendesk and Intercom offer some distinctive features that set them apart. While the pricing can be flexible, it may become more costly as your organization’s requirements and usage increase.

What better way to start a Zendesk vs. Intercom than to compare their features? When you migrate your articles from Zendesk, we’ll retain your organizational structure for you. First, here’s an overview of how concepts you’re familiar with in Zendesk map to Intercom. As expected, the right choice between Zendesk and Intercom will depend on your budget, your company, and your needs. This way, your clients will never have to repeat themselves or get frustrated because their new representative doesn’t know their background. Zendesk, on the other hand, has revamped its security since its security breach in 2016.

In contrast, while Zendesk does offer some automation capabilities, it may not be as robust and customizable as Intercom. Now that we’ve covered a bit of background on both Zendesk and Intercom, let’s dive into the features each platform offers. Intercom is a popular customer relationship platform with a chat widget that’s usually located in bottom right-hand corner of sites. To integrate an external service with a Refined site, you can use the custom HTML setting located on the Site Configuration page in Refined admin.

It was later that they started adding all kinds of other features, like live chat for customer conversations. They bought out the Zopim live chat solution and integrated it with their toolset. But they also add features like automatic meeting booking (in the Convert package), and their custom inbox rules and workflows just feel a little more, well, custom. I’ll dive into their chatbots more later, but their bot automation features are also stronger. While Zendesk features are plenty, someone using it for the first time can find it overwhelming. Intercom has a community forum where users can engage with each other and gain insights from their experiences.

Once you add them all to the picture, their existing plans can turn out to be quite expensive. After this live chat software comparison, you’ll get a better picture of what’s better for your business. This multichannel approach is especially important for companies that support customers in different regions and countries as access to communication tools can vary. While Intercom is great for tracking user-centric metrics, Zendesk can provide a more comprehensive look at overall customer support performance. Chat tools are the foundation of customer support software in 2023 and can serve as a key differentiator when choosing the right vendor.

In today’s world of fast-paced customer service and high customer expectations, it’s essential for business leaders to equip their teams with the best support tools available. Zendesk and Intercom both offer noteworthy tools, but if you’re looking for a full-service solution, there is one clear winner. Founded in 2007, Zendesk started as a ticketing tool for customer success teams.

With the integrations provided through each product, you can make use of both platforms to provide your customers with comprehensive customer service. While Intercom Zendesk integration is uncommon, as they both offer very similar products, it can be useful for unique use cases or during migrations from one platform to the other. Intercom’s user interface is also quite straightforward and easy to understand; it includes a range of features such as live chat, messaging campaigns, and automation workflows. Additionally, the platform allows for customizations such as customized user flows and onboarding experiences. Apps and integrations are critical to creating a 360 view of the customer across the company and ensuring agents have easy access to key customer context. When agents don’t have to waste time toggling between different systems and tools to access the customer details they need, they can deliver faster, more personalized customer service.

When you see pricing plans starting for $79/month, you should get a clear understanding of how expensive other plans can become for your business. What’s worse, Intercom doesn’t offer a free trial to its prospect to help them test the product before onboarding with their services. Instead, they offer a product demo when prospects reach out to learn more about their pricing structure. It enables them to engage with visitors who are genuinely interested in their services. You get to engage with them further and get to know more about their expectations. This becomes the perfect opportunity to personalize the experience, offer assistance to prospects as per their needs, and convert them into customers.

Operators will find its dashboard quite beneficial as it will take them seconds to find necessary features during an ongoing chat with the customers. Admins will also like the fact that they can see the progress of all their teams and who all are actively answering a customer’s query in real-time. As two of the most popular and effective customer support solutions on the market, Intercom and Zendesk often compete head-to-head to win the business of companies like yours. Zendesk’s Help Center and Intercom’s Articles both offer features to easily embed help centers into your website or product using their web widgets, SDKs, and APIs.

Zendesk and Intercom each have their own marketplace/app store where users can find all the integrations for each platform. Zendesk also offers a sales pipeline feature through its Zendesk Sell product. You can set up email sequences that specify how and when leads and contacts are engaged. With Zendesk Sell, you can also customize how deals move through your pipeline by setting pipeline stages that reflect your sales cycle. Learn more about the differences between leading chat support solutions Intercom and Zendesk so that you can choose the right tool for your needs. Now that we’ve covered a bit of background on both Zendesk and Intercom, let’s dive into the features each platform offers.

This feature enables support agents to proactively engage with customers and provide assistance. Zendesk may not offer the same level of real-time tracking capabilities. While both Zendesk and Intercom are great and robust platforms, none of them are able to provide you with the same value Messagely gives you at such an  affordable price. And while many other chatbots take forever to set up, you can set up your first chatbot in under five minutes.

By the end of the article, you’ll not only know all of the main differences between Zendesk and Intercom, but you’ll know which is the right tool for you. Sure, you can have a front desk—but you don’t necessarily have to plunk down the cost it would take to buy that desk, train an employee, and add them to your payroll. Groove has put together an informative review of both brands to highlight the similarities and differences to allow you to make the right choice. Let’s compare Intercom and Zendesk using the help desk features they have. Rest assured, ThriveDesk’s lightweight design and speed won’t impact the performance of your Wix-powered eCommerce website. The optimized agent interface ensures rapid responses for maximum efficiency, all while keeping your website running smoothly.

These shared inboxes facilitate seamless customer interactions across multiple channels, ensuring that teams can collaborate efficiently and maintain consistent, top-notch support. In contrast, Intercom follows a pricing structure that can be straightforward for businesses looking for specific functionalities. However, it’s important to note that Intercom’s pricing can vary depending on factors such as the number of users, conversations, and additional features you require. In some cases, Zendesk may be considered a more cost-effective option compared to Intercom, particularly for businesses with smaller budgets or those looking for more predictable pricing. Zendesk and Intercom are prominent players in the field of customer support and engagement platforms, each offering unique capabilities and advantages to address varying user requirements.

The main idea here is to rid the average support agent of a slew of mundane and repetitive tasks, giving them more time and mental energy to help customers with tougher issues. Every single bit of business SaaS in the world needs to leverage the efficiency power of workflows and automation. Customer service systems like Zendesk and Intercom should provide a simple workflow builder as well as many pre-built automations which can be used right out of the box. Help desk SaaS is how you manage general customer communication and for handling customer questions. As for Intercom’s general pricing structure, there are three plans, but you’ll have to contact them to get exact prices.

Zendesk provides limited customer support for its basic plan users, along with costly premium assistance options. On the other hand, Intercom is generally praised for its support features, despite facing challenges with its AI chatbot and the complexity of its help articles. Intercom generally receives positive feedback for its customer support, with users appreciating the comprehensive features and team-oriented tools. However, there are occasional criticisms regarding the effectiveness of its AI chatbot and some interface navigation challenges.

Based on such information, you can easily communicate with your customers and resolve their queries instantly. Its easy navigability allows you to switch between different sections smoothly. But, you would not be able to experience such a good in-app messaging service on Zendesk. Amid tight budgeting times, Desku proves to be the buddy for excellent worth and without any costly expenditure.

Agents can easily find resources for customers from their agent workspace. Intercom’s integration capabilities are limited, and some apps don’t integrate well with third-party customer service technology. This can make it more difficult to import CRM data and obtain complete context from customer data. For example, Intercom’s Salesforce integration doesn’t create a view of cases in Salesforce. But it’s designed so well that you really enjoy staying in their inbox and communicating with clients. Intercom live chat is modern, smooth, and has many advanced features that other chat tools don’t.