Intercom vs Zendesk: Which Is Better?

Intercom’s solution aims to streamline high-volume ticket influx and provide personalized, conversational support. It also includes extensive integrations with over 350 CRM, email, ticketing, and reporting tools. The platform is recognized for its ability to resolve a significant portion of common questions automatically, ensuring faster response times. 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.

No matter what Zendesk Suite plan you are on, you get workflow triggers, which are simple business rules-based actions to streamline many tasks. 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. You get call recording, muting and holding, conference calling, and call blocking. Zendesk also offers callback requests, call monitoring and call quality notifications, among other telephone tools.

Intercom vs Zendesk: What are Key Differences?

Winner — Intercom edges out Zendesk here due mainly to its customizable workflow capabilities. If your company is looking for customer support software, you have likely heard of Intercom and Zendesk. You can contact the sales team if you’re just looking around, but you will not receive decent customer support unless you buy their service. Here is a Zendesk vs. Intercom based on the customer support offered by these brands. However, the best way to find the perfect match is to take a demo or a free trial.

Whether agents are facing customers via chat, email, social media, or good old-fashioned phone, they can keep it all confined to a single, easy-to-navigate dashboard. 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. Get the best of both worlds with Dixa’s Human + AI approach, which combines human intuition and AI efficiency. This allows your team to concentrate on important conversations while our system takes care of routine inquiries. Our AI-driven self-serve options significantly reduce response times, providing customers with speedy solutions. Gone are the days when your team had to manually sift through a pile of customer inquiries.

In addition, Intercom offers omnichannel inbox, robust reporting, and automated workflows. The bot feeds customers and employees the relevant articles upon making a query. The main difference is its connectivity with the Intercom Team Inbox.

Startups usually have low budgets for such investments, making it easier for these small businesses to choose the right plan. The features in Zendesk can scale with growing companies, so Startups can easily customize their plan to changing needs. The final prices are revealed after engaging in sales demos and are not revealed upfront. This lack of transparency can create budgeting problems for businesses.

This breadth of options ensures that businesses can effectively engage with their customers through their preferred communication method. In the realm of automation and workflow management, Zendesk truly shines as a frontrunner. It empowers businesses with a robust suite of automation tools, enabling them to streamline their support processes seamlessly. Zendesk allows for the creation of predefined rules and workflows that efficiently route tickets to the appropriate agents, ensuring swift and precise issue resolution. Moreover, Zendesk excels in sending automated responses and escalating critical issues with precision. While there can be add-ons, such as premium customer support, you can generally anticipate what you’ll be paying for your Zendesk subscription.

The top products based on usability and customer satisfaction, as rated by user reviews. So, by now, you can see that according to this article, Zendesk inches past Intercom as the better customer support platform. Zendesk’s mobile app is also good for ticketing, helping you create new support tickets with macros and updates. It’s also good for sending and receiving notifications, as well as for quick filtering through the queue of open tickets.

Intercom vs. Zendesk: Which Customer Support Solution is Right For Your Business?

The compared vendors share a strategy of delivering their services as either separate add-ons or all-in-one tools. However, businesses must choose between Zendesk vs Intercom based on their needs and requirements. Ultimately, it’s important to consider what features each platform offers before making a decision, as well as their pricing options and customer support policies.

So it will transmit the live data on the users and what they are doing in your app. This option is useful for those who are looking for a smooth switch from Zendesk to Intercom. Formerly known as Insights, Zendesk now uses Explore to provide analytics to help businesses tailor their services to increase customer satisfaction.

This customized dashboard will help you see metrics that you’d like to focus on regularly. If that’s not detailed enough, then surely their visitor browsing details will leave you surprised. This enables your operators to understand visitor intent faster and provide them with a personalized experience. With ThriveDesk, you can supercharge your website’s growth and streamline customer interactions like never before.

With industry-leading AI that infuses intelligence into every interaction, robust integrations, and exceptional data security and compliance, it’s no wonder why Zendesk is a trusted leader in CX. Intercom offers reporting and analytics tools with limited capabilities for custom reporting, user behavior metrics, and advanced visualization. It also lacks advanced features like collaboration reporting, custom metrics, metric correlation, and drill-in attribution. Intercom does not have a dedicated workforce management solution, either.

Intercom features

It actively collects and utilizes customer data to facilitate highly personalized conversations. For instance, it can use past interactions and behaviors to tailor recommendations or responses. While Zendesk offers a comprehensive set of features, other platforms may excel in certain areas or provide more tailored solutions that align better with your customer support strategy and objectives.

Each of such packages contains a set of tools from basic to advanced features. One study found that 67% of customers prefer calling an agent to help solve their queries. Some help desk software provides call center tools as one of customer communication channels.

Choosing the right tool for your business can be a daunting task, but fear not! Let’s dive into the showdown of Zendesk vs. Intercom as Dominic walks us through the essential aspects. It enables businesses to have real-time conversations with their customers through their website or mobile app.

It’s an opportunity for Zendesk to differentiate itself, but unfortunately it didn’t get very high marks from users, either. Reviewers were frustrated by how long it took for their tickets to get resolved, as well as the complexity with which they were tossed around from department to department. Given that these are two services predicated on making you better at customer support, you’d think https://chat.openai.com/ they’d be able to handle it better themselves. However, reading the reviews, it’s probably more accurate to say that Zendesk is “mixed” on customer support, whereas Intercom doesn’t have a stellar record. Although many people tout it as the solution for large businesses, its bottom pricing tier is a nice entry for any small business looking to add customer service to its front page.

One of Zendesk’s standout features that we need to shine a spotlight on is its extensive marketplace of third-party integrations and extensions. Imagine having the power to connect your helpdesk solution with a wide range of tools and applications that your team already uses. Whether it’s Chat GPT syncing data with your CRM, enhancing communication via messaging platforms, or automating tasks with productivity apps, Zendesk makes it possible. This feature ensures that each customer request is handled by the best-suited agent, improving the overall efficiency of the support team.

Understanding the unique attributes of Zendesk and Intercom is crucial in this comparison. Zendesk is renowned for its comprehensive range of functionalities, including advanced email ticketing, live chat, phone support, and a vast knowledge base. Its ability to seamlessly integrate with various applications further amplifies its versatility. Here comes Desku as the strong competitor, which can effectively substitute Zendesk and Intercom.

On the other hand, if you prioritize customer engagement, sales, and personalized messaging, Intercom is a compelling option, especially for startups and rapidly scaling businesses. Streamline support processes with Intercom’s ticketing system and knowledge base. Efficiently manage customer inquiries and empower customers to find answers independently. 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. With help centers in place, it’s easier for your customers to reliably find answers, tips, and other important information in a self-service manner.

Consider your budget, team size, and integration requirements before making a decision. Intercom’s pricing typically includes different plans designed to accommodate businesses of various sizes and needs. While Intercom offers a free trial, it’s important to note that the cost can increase as you scale and add more features or users. However, if your organization heavily relies on Intercom’s real-time communication features, in-app messaging, and chat-based support, transitioning entirely to Zendesk may not cover all your needs. Intercom’s focus on instant interactions and personalized engagement is particularly valuable for businesses prioritizing chat-first customer support and real-time communication.

Customer Movements for this month

The result is that Zendesk generally wins on ratings when it comes to support capacity. You can foun additiona information about ai customer service and artificial intelligence and NLP. Databeys Consultant expert will be knowledgeable about a variety of available products and can assist you in selecting the ideal one for your unique business requirements. Integration capabilities are vital for ensuring a smooth workflow across various business processes. Assessing how Zendesk and Intercom integrate with other systems and tools used within the organization is critical for achieving operational synergy and efficiency.

To guide your decision-making, we explain the key features and qualities of each, and the role that a omnichannel conversational AI platform (Netomi!) can play, for the ultimate CX strategy. The primary function of Intercom’s mobile app is the business messenger suite, including personalized messaging, real-time support tools, push notifications, in-app messaging and emailing. Intercom also does mobile carousels to help please the eye with fresh designs. A customer service department is only as good as its support team members, and these highly-prized employees need to rely on one another. Tools that allow support agents to communicate and collaborate are important aspect of customer service software. Chatbots are automated customer support tools that can assist with low-level ticket triage and ticket routing in real-time.

This makes it an excellent choice if you want to engage with support and potential and existing customers in real time. It tends to perform well on the marketing and sales side of things, which is key for a growing company. And considering that its tools (including live chat options) are so easy to use, it’s probably going to be easier for a small business to get integrated and set up. Zendesk facilitates efficient ticketing, live chat, and knowledge base management, ensuring timely issue resolution. Intercom focuses on personalized messaging, effective lead nurturing, and streamlined communication, fostering a more engaging customer experience.

It guarantees continuous omnichannel support that meets customer expectations. What’s really nice about this is that even within a ticket, you can switch between communication modes without changing views. So if an agent needs to switch from chat to phone to email (or vice versa) with a customer, it’s all on the same ticketing page. There’s even on-the-spot translation built right in, which is extremely helpful. If delivering an outstanding customer experience and employee experience is your top priority, Zendesk should be your top pick over Intercom. Zendesk has the CX expertise to help businesses of all sizes scale their service experience without compromise.

Intercom on the other hand lacks many ticketing functionality that can be essential for big companies with a huge customer support load. All interactions with customers be it via phone, chat, email, social media, or any other channel are landing in one dashboard, where your agents can solve them fast and efficiently. There’s a plethora of features to help bigger teams collaborate more effectively — like private notes or real-time view of who’s handling a given ticket at intercom vs zendesk the moment, etc. These plans make Hiver a versatile tool, catering to a range of business sizes and needs, from startups to large enterprises looking for a comprehensive customer support solution within Gmail. This exploration aims to provide a detailed comparison, aiding businesses in making an informed decision that aligns with their customer service goals. Both Zendesk and Intercom offer robust solutions, but the choice ultimately depends on specific business needs.

Intercom has a rating of 4.5 out of 5 stars, based on over 2700 reviews. See how leading multi-channel consumer brands solve E2E customer data challenges with a real-time customer data platform. Leave your email below and a member of our team will personally get in touch to show you how Fullview can help you solve support tickets in half the time. Whether Intercom is cheaper than Zendesk depends on your specific usage, feature requirements, and the number of users in your organization.

Intercom’s dashboards may not be as aesthetically pleasing as Zendesk’s, but they still allow users to navigate their tools with few distractions. As for Intercom’s general pricing structure, there are three plans, but you’ll have to contact them to get exact prices. For those of you who have been waiting for the big showdown between these two customer support heavyweights, we are glad to present the ultimate Zendesk vs Intercom comparison article. Automated service to migrate your data between help desk platforms without programming skills — just follow simple Migration Wizard. As a rule, Intercom reviews are positive as many users praise the interface, the ease of use, and the deployment of the software.

These pricing structures are flexible enough to cater to all business sizes and types. Moreover, the pricing model ensures customer transparency and reveals the costs that businesses will incur. Zendesk and Intercom offer a free trial of 14 days, but you will eventually have to choose once the trial ends. The pricing strategies are covered below so you can analyze the pricing structure and select your customer service software.

• That’s why it would be better to review where both the options would be ideal to use.
• Though some complained that it’s not easy to check the tickets using the apps.
• To that end, you can import themes or apply your own custom themes to brand your help center the way you want it.
• Known for its scalability, Zendesk is suitable for various business sizes, from startups to large corporations.
• This can make it challenging to estimate the cost yourself during your research and you need to speak with Intercom for more information.

Zendesk has more pricing options, and its most affordable plan is likely cheaper than Intercom’s, although without exact Intercom numbers, it is not easy to truly know the cost. But, if you just need a secure and quick data transfer, opt for Help Desk Migration. Pricing starts at $39 and varies based on the number of records you want to migrate. Our team is experienced in consolidating Zendesk instances and merging instances of other help desk and service desk systems.

If you are looking for a comprehensive customer support solution with a wide range of features, Zendesk is a good option. 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. Let’s explore these unique offerings and see how they can benefit your business. Now that we’ve discussed the customer service-focused features of Zendesk and Intercom, let’s turn our attention to how these platforms can support sales and marketing efforts. Research by Zoho reports that customer relationship management (CRM) systems can help companies triple lead conversion rates. Those same tools also increase customer retention by 27% while saving 23% on sales and marketing costs.

Other chatbots don’t sit natively within the agent desk, but with Netomi, virtual and human agents work alongside each other, creating an efficient and ultra-powerful customer service team. Zendesk offers tiered pricing based on the level of service you need, the size of your teams, and other factors. Every feature is available in the broadest option, Zendesk Suite, which is the version most companies would be implementing. After all, most businesses find it easier to use one solution for all of their needs rather than parceling duties out to different tools. Whatever people are using to communicate with each other, whether it be online or over the phone, they expect to also be able to talk to the businesses they use with those same tools and platforms.

It uses artificial intelligence (AI) to assist customers through self-help options or access to the relevant articles before connecting them to your team. And this, undoubtedly, leaves your customer support agents free to solve urgent matters. Both Zendesk and Intercom provide a campaign tool, live chat, and a knowledge base. We will compare those customer service solutions in terms of functionality and price. Zendesk offers its users consistently high ROI due to its comprehensive product features, firm support, and advanced customer support, automation, and reporting features. It allows businesses to streamline operations and workflows, improving customer satisfaction and eventually leading to increased revenues, which justifies the continuous high ROI.

Among the many challenges facing businesses today is the pressing need to meet their customers where they are. It is great to have CRM functionality inside your customer service platform because it helps maintain great customer experiences by storing all past customer engagements and conversation histories. This method helps offer more personalized support as well as get faster response and resolution times. Zendesk also offers digital support during business hours, and their website has a chatbot. Premiere Zendesk plans have 24/7 proactive support with faster response times. Other customer service add-ons with Zendesk include custom training and professional services.

Amid tight budgeting times, Desku proves to be the buddy for excellent worth and without any costly expenditure. However, the approach is far much wider than merely focusing on what would be more cost-effective but instead exploring ways through which a solution that would suit you best could be realized. Essentially, Desku is not an option but a reliable replacement for Zendesk and Intercom that companies can rely on at lower costs and improved performance.

It offers automated agent training, automated orders and returns centre, agents marketplace, UGC collection, review identification, and other helpdesk functionalities. Having the two presented side by side, which is the best CRM solution? The answer, as with most things in life, is that it depends on your specific needs and ultimate goals. Intercom is better designed for smaller companies and teams, while Zendesk is suitable for large companies to skyrocket customer support.

While the company is smaller than Zendesk, Intercom has earned a reputation for building high-quality customer service software. The company’s products include a messaging platform, knowledge base tools, and an analytics dashboard. Many businesses choose to work with Intercom because of its focus on personalization and flexibility, allowing companies to completely customize their customer service experience.

This integration enables you to access live customer data from Intercom within Zendesk, customize the information displayed, and sync user tags between the two platforms. Additionally, you can forward Intercom conversations to Zendesk as tickets. Intercom calculates the price based on the number of seats (users) you request. Depending on the seat type (subscription plan), users get access to different features. For example, the Messaging feature is not available in the Support plan, while Articles aren’t available in the Engage and Conver plans. Unfortunately, you can’t calculate the price by yourself since Intercom hid its pricing table.

For standard reporting like response times, leads generated by source, bot performance, messages sent, and email deliverability, you’ll easily find all the metrics you need. Beyond that, you can create custom reports that combine all of the stats listed above (and many more) and present them as counts, columns, lines, or tables. You could say something similar for Zendesk’s standard service offering, so it’s at least good to know they have Zendesk Sell, a capable CRM option to supplement it. You can use Zendesk Sell to track tasks, streamline workflows, improve engagement, nurture leads, and much more. Intercom primarily focuses on messaging but offers limited channel breadth compared to Zendesk, requiring paid add-ons for critical channels like WhatsApp. When it comes to customer communication, Intercom has a perfect layout and customer information storage system.

Zendesk is billed more as a customer support and ticketing solution, while Intercom includes more native CRM functionality. Intercom isn’t quite as strong as Zendesk in comparison to some of Zendesk’s customer support strengths, but it has more features for sales and lead nurturing. Intercom’s chatbot feels a little more robust than Zendesk’s (though it’s worth noting that some features are only available at the Engage and Convert tiers). You can set office hours, live chat with logged-in users via their user profiles, and set up a chatbot. Customization is more nuanced than Zendesk’s, but it’s still really straightforward to implement.

Its messaging also has real-time notifications and automated responses, enhancing customer communication. Zendesk excels in its ticketing system, offering users an intuitive platform for collaboration among support agents. Its robust workflows streamline the ticket resolution system and efficiently handle all customer complaints.

Intercom has limited scalability compared to Zendesk, which is unsuitable for large-scale enterprises. If transparency in pricing is not an issue for you and you are a small business, contact Intercom. If, after the additional prices they charge, the plan works for you, Intercom is a great way to manage your customer relationships.

Intercom users will need to integrate a CRM externally, which can be inconvenient. Intercom focuses more on streamlining customer communication to help brands serve proactive support. Zendesk, on the other hand, focuses on multiple aspects like automating ticketing, analytics, self-service, etc. 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. Every CRM software comes with some limitations along with the features it offers.

Dixa is the only customer service platform that centralizes tools, processes, and data into one cohesive omnichannel ecosystem. Tailored for modern businesses, we provide an Intercom alternative that effortlessly aligns with customer expectations in 2023 and beyond. The sophisticated nature of its chatbot makes it more than a task automation tool — it takes customer interactions to the next level. What makes Desku unique is that it has competitively priced services with similar features as those provided by other companies but at a lower cost.

While this may seem like a positive for Zendesk, it’s important to consider that a larger company may not be as agile or responsive to customer needs as a smaller company. In terms of pricing, Intercom is considered one of the hardest on your pocket. Zendesk can be more flexible and predictable in this area as you can buy different tools separately (or even use their limited versions for free). Though Intercom chat window says that their team typically replies in a few hours, I received the answer in a couple of minutes. Their agent was always trying to convert me into a lead along the way, but heck, that’s a side effect of our job.

Zendesk is a leading customer service software that offers a comprehensive suite of tools for businesses to manage customer support, engagement, and relationships. Its user-friendly interface, robust ticketing system, and extensive integration options make it popular for businesses seeking efficient customer service solutions. With its robust ticketing system, versatile automation capabilities, and extensive reporting tools, Zendesk empowers businesses to handle customer inquiries effectively and improve support efficiency. It’s best used when you need a centralized platform to manage customer support operations, whether through email, chat, social media, or phone. Zendesk is ideal for businesses seeking to enhance their customer service processes and maintain a high level of customer satisfaction across all communication channels.

As it turns, it’s quite difficult to compare Zendesk against Intercom as they serve different purposes and will fit different businesses. Though the Intercom chat window says that their customer success team typically replies in a few hours, don’t expect to receive any real answer in chat for at least a couple of days. Zendesk is a ticketing system before anything else, and its ticketing functionality is overwhelming in the best possible way. Intercom does have a ticketing dashboard that has omnichannel functionality, much like Zendesk.

On one hand, Zendesk offers a great many features, way more than Intercom, but it lacks in-app messenger and email marketing tools. On the other hand, Intercom has all its (fewer) tools and features integrated with each other way better, which makes your experience with the tool as smooth as silk. On the other hand, Intercom, starting at a lower price point, could be more attractive for very small teams or individual users. However, additional costs for advanced features can quickly increase the total expense. 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.