Zendesk vs Intercom: In-Depth Features & Price Comparison

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• December 1, 2023
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Zendesk vs Intercom Comparison 2024: Which One Is Better?

This becomes the perfect opportunity to personalize the experience, offer assistance to prospects as per their needs, and convert them into customers. This live chat software provider also enables your business to send proactive chat messages to customers and engage effectively in real-time. This is one of the best ways to qualify high-quality leads for your business and improve your chances of closing a sale faster. Messagely’s live chat platform is smooth, effective, and easy to set up. With Messagely, you can increase your customer satisfaction and solve customers’ issues while they’re still visiting your site. Zendesk chat allows you to talk with your visitors in real time through a small chat bar at the bottom of your site.

You can then add automations and triggers, such as automatically closing a ticket or sending a message to a user. Although it can be pricey, Zendesk’s platform is a very robust one, with powerful reporting and insight tools, a large number of integrations, and excellent scalability features. Zendesk is a customer service platform that allows you to communicate with customers via any channel. See for yourself how transforming your customer support can help improve ROI. Easily reply to customer conversations and manage workload in a smart & automated way. Personalized messaging, in-app messaging, product tours, and chatbot capabilities set Intercom apart from Zendesk.

Zendesk vs Intercom: customer support

SaaS help desks offer flexibility, scalability, and accessibility, allowing organizations to efficiently manage customer inquiries and support operations without needing on-premise infrastructure. The best help desk simplifies the process of providing fast and easy support options to both internal and external customers. An omnichannel ticketing system, for example, consolidates customer requests and IT support tickets in a single location. This eliminates the need to toggle between systems and channels, enabling agents to deliver quick, efficient service. Intercom offers an integrated knowledge base functionality to its user base.

Remote customer service teams need the flexibility to operate from different locations. Web-based help desks let teams manage tickets quickly, access customer data securely, and provide excellent customer service from anywhere. They’re also often customizable and scalable, so your team can tailor the solution to their needs and add features and capabilities as customer service demands increase. Zoho Desk offers integration with other Zoho applications and third-party tools. Zendesk would be a perfect option for businesses that are searching for a well-integrated support system. It offers a suite that compiles help desk, live chat, and knowledge base to their user base.

Here is a Zendesk vs. Intercom based on the customer support offered by these brands. Learn how top CX leaders are scaling personalized customer service at their companies. Choose Zendesk for a scalable, team-size-based pricing Chat GPT model and Intercom for initial low-cost access with flexibility in adding advanced features. Zendesk’s per-agent pricing structure makes it a budget-friendly option for smaller teams, allowing costs to scale with team growth.

Founded as a business messenger, it now extends to enabling support, engagement, and conversion. SolarWinds Service Desk can help users manage and track support tickets in one centralized interface. It features reporting tools that allow users to analyze business metrics and agent performance. It’s also an incident management software, letting users manage tickets from different channels, including mobile apps, phone calls, and live chats. Both Zendesk and Intercom are customer support management solutions that offer features like ticket management, live chat and messaging, automation workflows, knowledge centers, and analytics.

Zendesk customers are switching to Intercom every single day

If you’re already using Intercom and want to continue using it as the front-end CRM experience, integrating with Zendesk can improve it. Check out our chart that compares the capabilities of Zendesk vs. Intercom.

Intercom also has a mobile app available for both Android and iOS, which makes it easy to stay connected with customers even when away from the computer. The app includes features like automated messages and conversation routing — so businesses can manage customer conversations more efficiently. Zendesk has an app available for both Android and iOS, which makes it easy to stay connected with customers while on the go. The app includes features like push notifications and real-time customer engagement — so businesses can respond quickly to customer inquiries. Intercom’s app store has popular integrations for things like WhatsApp, Stripe, Instagram, and Slack. There is a really useful one for Shopify to provide customer support for e-commerce operations.

The company’s products include a ticketing system, live chat software, knowledge base software, and a customer satisfaction survey tool. Zendesk also offers a number of integrations with third-party applications. Zendesk is renowned for its comprehensive toolset that aids in automating customer service workflows and fine-tuning chatbot interactions. Its strengths are prominently seen in multi-channel support, with effective email, social media, and live chat integrations, coupled with a robust internal knowledge base for agent support. Intercom’s ticketing system and help desk SaaS is also pretty great, just not as amazing as Zendesk’s. Their customer service management tools have a shared inbox for support teams.

Zendesk wins the major category of help desk and ticketing system software. It lets customers reach out via messaging, a live chat tool, voice, and social media. Zendesk supports teams that can then field these issues from a nice unified dashboard. Zendesk has great intelligent routing and escalation protocols as well.

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. There are many features to help bigger customer service teams collaborate more effectively — like private notes or a real-time view of who’s handling a given ticket at the moment, etc. At the same time, the vendor offers powerful reporting capabilities to help you grow and improve your business. 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.

Spiceworks Cloud Help Desk is a web-based ticketing system designed to assist IT professionals in managing and tracking support requests. The platform allows users to create, prioritize, and assign tickets. Users can also set alerts and customize ticket attributes and rules to receive ticket activity and status notifications. Jira offers conversational ticketing, meaning agents have a single view of requests from email, chat, and its service desk. Users can triage, track, and route incoming requests to agents or teams and use bulk ticket actions to group similar tickets.

Zendesk pricing is divided between a customer support product called “Zendesk for support”, and a fully-fledged CRM called “Zendesk for sales”. Intercom users often mention how impressed they are with its ease of use and their ability to quickly create useful tasks and set up automations. Even reviewers who hadn’t used the platform highlight how beautifully designed it is and how simple it is to interact with for both users and clients alike. After this, you’ll have to set up your workflows, personalizing your tickets and storing them by topic.

Adding apps like Slack, Zoom, or WhatsApp can enhance internal collaboration and streamline workflows, so support teams can resolve issues more efficiently. If you are looking for more integration options and budget is not an issue, Intercom can be the perfect live chat solution for your business. It is also ideal for businesses who are searching for conversational chatbot functionality. Their AI-powered https://chat.openai.com/ chatbot can enable your business to boost engagement and improve marketing efforts in real-time. They offer an omnichannel chat solution that integrates with multiple messaging platforms and marketing channels and even automates incoming support processes with bots. It is quite the all-rounder as it even has a help center and ticketing system that completes its omnichannel support cycle.

On-premise help desks, however, do require regular maintenance that your business must handle internally. Just like Intercom, Zendesk’s customer service is quite disappointing. The only relief is that they do reach out to customers, but it gets too late. In terms of customer service, Zendesk fails to deliver an exceptional experience. This can be a bummer for many as they can always stumble upon an issue. One of the most significant downsides of Intercom is its customer support.

In a nutshell, none of the customer support software companies provide decent assistance for users. Intercom is more for improving sales cycle and customer relationships, while Zendesk has everything a customer support representative can dream about, but it does lack wide email functionality. On the other hand, it provides call center functionalities, unlike Intercom. Use ticketing systems to manage the influx and provide your customers with timely responses. Intercom offers just over 450 integrations, which can make it less cost-effective and more complex to customize the software and adapt to new use cases as you scale. The platform also lacks transparency in displaying reviews, install counts, and purpose-built customer service integrations.

It helps support reps better understand the customer journey so they can focus on delivering an exceptional customer experience at every touchpoint. It also gives IT teams a comprehensive view of the employee journey, facilitating a seamless EX. With context and data, tracking software, reporting and analytics tools, and easy-to-automate workflows all in one place, your business will stay in sync. Founded in 2007, Zendesk started off as a ticketing tool for customer support teams. It was later when they started adding all kinds of other tools like when they bought out Zopim live chat and just integrated it with their toolset.

Zendesk also offers callback requests, call monitoring and call quality notifications, among other telephone tools. Zendesk can also save key customer information in their platform, which helps reps get a faster idea of who they are dealing with as well as any historical data that might assist in the support. Zendesk Sunshine is a separate feature set that focuses on unified customer views. Help desk SaaS is how you manage general customer communication and for handling customer questions. For Intercom’s pricing plan, on the other hand, there is much less information on their website. There is a Starter plan for small businesses at $74 per month billed annually, and there are add-ons like a WhatsApp add-on at $9 per user per month or surveys at $49 per month.

It offers more support features and includes more advanced analytics and reports. Zendesk is a customer service software offering a comprehensive solution for managing customer interactions. It integrates customer support, sales, and marketing communications, aiming to improve client relationships. Known for its scalability, Zendesk is suitable for various business sizes, from startups to large corporations. 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.

Like with many other apps, Zapier seems to be the best and most simple way to connect Intercom to Zendesk. Zendesk is quite famous for designing its platform to be intuitive and its tools to be quite simple to learn. This is aided by the fact that the look and feel of Zendesk’s user interface are neat and minimal, with few cluttering features. When it comes to self-service portals for things like knowledgebases, Intercom has a useful set of resources.

In-App Messaging Explained (With Examples and Best Practices)

Customers have also noted that they can implement Zendesk AI five times faster than other solutions. Zendesk provides comprehensive security and compliance features, ensuring customer data privacy. This includes secure login options like SAML or JWT SSO (single sign-on) and native content redaction for sensitive information. We also adhere to numerous industry standards and regulations, such as HIPAA, SOC2, ISO 27001, HDS, FedRAMP LI-SaaS, ISO 27018, and ISO 27701.

This makes it easier for support teams to handle customer interactions without switching between different systems. Plus, Zendesk’s integration with various channels ensures customers can always find a convenient way to reach out. We provide a platform for organizations to manage customer support and service requests efficiently.

• Both Zendesk and Intercom offer robust solutions, but the choice ultimately depends on specific business needs.
• Also, it’s the pioneer in the support and communication tools market.
• NovoChat, on the other hand, is great for businesses that primarily engage with their clients through messaging apps.
• This SaaS leader entered into the competition in 2011, intending to help its clients reach their target audiences and engage them in a conversation right away.
• Customers rated Intercom 4.4 on G2 Crowd, while Zendesk scored 4.3.

The software includes automation tools, such as prewritten responses and automated ticket routing. Additionally, LiveAgent provides a knowledge base for help center articles, FAQs, and self-service resources. The platform also offers collaboration tools, reporting and analytics software, and integrations with third-party applications. The platform provides ticketing functionality, allowing users to log, prioritize, and track support requests. SysAid can help teams with asset management, enabling businesses to manage and monitor their IT assets throughout their life cycle.

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. The cheapest (aka Essential) ‘All of Intercom’ package will cost you $136 per month, but if you only need their essential chat tools only, you can get them for $49 per month. To sum things up, one can get really confused trying to make sense of Zendesk’s pricing, let alone to calculate costs.

Their chat widget looks and works great, and they invest a lot of effort to make it a modern, convenient customer communication tool. The Zendesk chat tool has most of the necessary features like shortcuts (saved responses), automated triggers, and live chat analytics. The Intercom versus Zendesk conundrum is probably the greatest problem in the customer service software world.

Creating an AI-powered knowledge base can enhance the experience by surfacing personalized, relevant content based on the search query. It also continuously reviews existing content and identifies trending topics to ensure information is accurate, relevant, and up to date. We hope that this Intercom VS Zendesk comparison helps you choose one that matches your support, marketing, and sales needs. But in case you are in search of something beyond these two, then ProProfs Chat can be an option.

It gives detailed contact profiles enriched by company data, behavioral data, conversation data, and other custom fields. Zendesk is billed more as a customer support and ticketing solution, while Intercom includes more native CRM functionality. You can foun additiona information about ai customer service and artificial intelligence and NLP. 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.

HubSpot and Salesforce are also available when support needs to work with marketing and sales teams. 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 really shines in its modern messenger interface, making real-time chat a breeze. Its multichannel support is more focused on engaging customers through its chat and messaging systems, including mobile carousels and interactive communication tools. However, compared to Zendesk, Intercom might not offer the same breadth in terms of integrating a wide range of external channels. A SaaS help desk refers to a software as a service solution designed to provide cloud-based support for customer service and issue resolution. Instead of installing and maintaining software on local servers, users access the help desk functionality through a web browser.

Before you make your choice, check out Messagely’s features and compare them to discover which platform is best for you. You don’t have to pay per contact on your database, and you there are many free features you can use. With this kind of organization, you will not only find your favorite apps but also discover new ones to meet your needs. However, the Intercom app store is far more intuitive and is much easier to navigate. It not only shows you all of the apps you can use, but it also divides these into topics and categories. With all accounted for, it seems that Zendesk still has a number of user interface issues.

Our Agent Workspace is intuitively designed to unlock your team’s potential. It gives your agents a unified view of the data and context needed to deliver personalized support across the entire customer and employee journey. A service level agreement (SLA) is a written agreement that defines support standards and is a critical feature that enables businesses to define, monitor, and meet standards with their customers.

When you combine the help desk with Intercom Messenger, you get added channels for customer engagement. Zendesk, unlike Intercom, is a more affordable and predictable customer service platform. Also, it’s the pioneer in the support and communication tools market. You can always count on it if you need a reliable customer support platform to process tickets, support users, and get advanced reporting. Other features of Help Scout’s help desk include a help center, live chat and messaging software, automation, custom workflows, pre-built reporting dashboards, and collaboration tools.

Struck not in a bad way, more like in a very neutral ‘huh, this may be interesting’ way. And while many other chatbots take forever to set up, you can set up your first chatbot in under five minutes. However, if you’re looking for a streamlined, all-in-one messaging platform, there is no better option than Messagely. Since Intercom doesn’t offer a CRM, its pricing is divided into basic messaging and messaging with automations.

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. So yeah, all the features talk actually brings us to the most sacred question — the question of pricing. You’d probably want to know how much it costs to get each of the platforms for your business, so let’s talk money now. Just like Zendesk, Intercom also offers its Operator bot, which will automatically suggest relevant articles to clients right in a chat widget.

Their help desk is a single inbox to handle customer requests, where your customer support agents can leave private notes for each other and automatically assign requests to the right people. In short, Zendesk is perfect for large companies looking to streamline their customer support process; Intercom zendesk vs intercom is great for smaller companies looking for advanced customer service features. However, you’ll likely end up paying more for Zendesk, and in-app messenger and other advanced customer communication tools will not be included. Intercom isn’t as great with sales, but it allows for better communication.

I tested both of their live chats and their support agents were answering in very quickly and right to the point. Zendesk team can be just a little bit faster depending on the time of the day. Intercom is better for smaller companies that are looking for a simple and capable customer service platform. Instead, using it and setting it up is very easy, and very advanced chatbots and predictive tools are included to boost your customer service. Zendesk is a great option for large companies or companies that are looking for a very strong sales and customer service platform.

Discover customer and product issues with instant replays, in-app cobrowsing, and console logs. Now that we’ve covered a bit of background on both Zendesk and Intercom, let’s dive into the features each platform offers. Zendesk, less user-friendly and with higher costs for quality vendor support, might not suit budget-conscious or smaller businesses. 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.

Zendesk has received a rating of 4.4 out of 5 from 2,693 reviewers. They’ve been rated as one of the easy live chat solutions with more integrated options. 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. Zendesk has also introduced its chatbot to help its clients send automated answers to some frequently asked questions to stay ahead in the competitive marketplace.

• The right help desk solution enables you to adapt to evolving expectations so you can continuously provide a great customer and employee experience at scale.
• Zendesk provides comprehensive security and compliance features, ensuring customer data privacy.
• You can see their attention to detail in everything — from their tools to their website.
• Is it as simple as knowing whether you want software strictly for customer support (like Zendesk) or for some blend of customer relationship management and sales support (like Intercom)?
• With all your key customer data and context in one, unified agent workspace, you have the information you need to tailor and personalize the support experience.

We stay ahead of the curve on trends, tackle technical hurdles, and provide practical tips to boost your business. With our commitment to quality and integrity, you can be confident you’re getting the most reliable resources to enhance your customer support initiatives. Intercom’s live chat reports aren’t just offering what your customers are doing or whether they are satisfied with your services. They offer more detailed insights like lead generation sources, a complete message report to track customer engagement, and detailed information on the support team’s performance. A collection of these reports can enable your business to identify the right resources responsible for bringing engagement to your business.

While in Intercom, advanced chatbots, a modern and well-developed chat widget, email marketing services, product demonstrations, and in-app messaging all contribute to a better customer experience. Whether your customers prefer to communicate via phone, chat, email, social media, or any other channel, Zendesk unifies all of your customer interactions into one platform. The software helps you to keep track of all support requests, quickly respond to questions, and track the effectiveness of your customer service reps. Zendesk is popular due to its user-friendly interface, extensive customization options, scalability, multichannel support, robust analytics, and seamless integration capabilities.

Intercom on the other hand lacks many ticketing functionality that can be essential for big companies with a huge customer support load. Zendesk’s customer support is also very fast, though their live chat is only available for registered users. What makes Intercom stand out from the crowd are their chatbots and lots of chat automation features that can be very helpful for your team. You can integrate different apps (like Google Meet or Stripe among others) with your messenger and make it a high end point for your customers. 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.

Once you add them all to the picture, their existing plans can turn out to be quite expensive. Zendesk also offers a straightforward interface to operators that helps them identify the entire interaction pathway with the customers. Compared to being detailed, Zendesk gives a tough competition to Intercom. Operators can easily switch from one conversation to another, therefore helping operators manage more interactions simultaneously. As time passes by, the line between Intercom and Zendesk becomes more blurred as they try to keep up with one another and implement new features, services, and pricing policies.

Zendesk is a ticketing system before anything else, and its ticketing functionality is overwhelming in the best possible way. They’ve been marketing themselves as a messaging platform right from the beginning. Yes, Zendesk has an Intercom integration that you can find in the Zendesk Marketplace—it’s free to install. So, you can get the best of both worlds without choosing between Intercom or Zendesk.