Zendesk vs Intercom: An Honest Comparison in 2024

When it comes to which company is the better fit for your business, there’s no clear answer. It really depends on what features you need and what type of customer service strategy you plan to implement. You can use both Zendesk and Intercom simultaneously to leverage their respective strengths and provide comprehensive customer support across different channels and touchpoints. 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. Email marketing, for example, is a big deal, but less so when it comes to customer service.

Say what you will, but Intercom’s design and overall user experience leave all its competitors far behind. To resolve common customer questions with the vendor’s new tool, Fin bot, you must pay $0.99 per resolution per month. Besides, the prices differ depending on the company’s size and specific needs. We conducted a little study of our own and found that all Intercom users share different amounts of money they pay for the plans, which can reach over $1000/mo. Like Zendesk, Intercom offers its Operator bot, which automatically suggests relevant articles to clients right in a chat widget.

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. Our proactive tools help your support team solve problems before customers even need to reach out. What better way to start a Zendesk vs. Intercom than to compare their features? It allows you to chat with visitors on your website and convert them into customers. It allows you to anticipate customers questions and offer help when and where they need it.

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Intercom’s automation features enable businesses to deliver a personalized experience to customers and scale their customer support function effectively. Zendesk offers simple chatbots and provides businesses with straightforward chatbot creation tools, allowing them to set up automated responses and assist customers with common queries. With Intercom, businesses can engage in real-time chats, schedule meetings, and strategically deploy chat boxes to specific customer segments.

While Zendesk’s emphasis is entirely on customer support, Intercom’s features extend into marketing and sales. Zendesk started as a customer support request SaaS, a legacy that continues today with its robust ticketing and customer messaging solutions. In contrast, Intercom aims to provide an all-in-one business communication platform to support, engage, and convert customers with sales and marketing functions.

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)? Powered by Explore, Zendesk’s reporting capabilities are pretty impressive. Right out of the gate, you’ve got dozens of pre-set report options on everything from satisfaction ratings and time in status to abandoned calls and Answer Bot resolutions. You can create articles, share them internally, group them for users, and assign them as responses for bots—all pretty standard fare. Intercom can even integrate with Zendesk and other sources to import past help center content.

There are two options there — Professional for $109 or Enterprise for $179 if you pay monthly. The difference between the two is that the Professional subscription lacks some things like chat widget unbranding, custom agent roles, multiple help centers, etc. You can publish your knowledge base articles and divide them by categories and also integrate them with your messenger to accelerate the whole chat experience. Intercom is 4 years younger than Zendesk and has fancied itself as a messaging platform right from the beginning. On one hand, Zendesk offers a great many features, way more than Intercom, but it lacks in-app messenger and email marketing tools. ProProfs Live Chat Editorial Team is a diverse group of professionals passionate about customer support and engagement.

This live chat service provider offers 200+ integrations to its user base. With a mix of productivity, collaboration, eCommerce, CRM, analytics, email marketing, social media, and other tools, you get the option to create an omnichannel suite. 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.

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. If you thought Zendesk prices were confusing, let me introduce you to Intercom prices. At first glance, they seem like simple three packages for small, medium, and big businesses. But it’s virtually impossible to predict what you’ll pay for Intercom at the end of the day.

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. Luckily, a range of customer service solutions is available that enables you to communicate directly with your customers in real-time. These tools are ideal for personalizing the customer experience and building better customer relationships. Zendesk facilitates efficient ticketing, live chat, and knowledge base management, ensuring timely issue resolution.

Best Reamaze Alternative Tools for Customer Support in 2023

You can publish your self-service resources, divide them by categories, and integrate them with your messenger to accelerate the whole chat experience. Well, I must admit, the tool is gradually transforming from a platform for communicating with users to a tool that helps you automate every aspect of your routine. Intercom primarily focuses on messaging but offers limited channel breadth compared to Zendesk, requiring paid add-ons for critical channels like WhatsApp. Zendesk is designed with the agent in mind, delivering a modern, intuitive experience. The customizable Zendesk Agent Workspace enables reps to work within a single browser tab with one-click navigation across any channel.

For example, you can read in many Zendesk Sell reviews how adding sales tools benefits Zendesk Support users. HubSpot helps seamlessly integrate customer service tools that you and your team already leverage. And that’s why it offers a long list of customization options like workflow automation, ticket management system, and layouts. Zendesk also has an Answer Bot, which instantly takes your knowledge base game to the next level.

I just found Zendesk’s help center to be slightly better integrated into their workflows and more customizable. Broken down into custom, resolution, and task bots, these can go a long way in taking repetitive tasks off agents’ plates. 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.

By delving into a detailed comparison, businesses can gain valuable insights into choosing the most suitable customer support software for their specific needs. 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. The setup is designed to seamlessly connect your customer support team with customers across all platforms. Today, both companies offer a broad range of customer support features, making them both strong contenders in the market.

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. Zendesk boasts robust reporting and analytics tools, plus a dedicated workforce management system. On the other hand, it provides call center functionalities, unlike Intercom. Zendesk is billed more as a customer support and ticketing solution, while Intercom includes more native CRM functionality.

If, after the additional prices they charge, the plan works for you, Intercom is a great way to manage your customer relationships. Every CRM software comes with some limitations along with the features it offers. You can analyze if that weakness is something that concerns your business model. The final prices are revealed after engaging in sales demos and are not revealed upfront.

It also provides a marketplace where users can find any platform they need, including CRMs, communication, and more. Intercom also has pre-built integrations that users can connect and use in their workflows. Something to note is that setting up the pre-built integrations is simple. The intercom interface is modern, with ease of navigation from the dashboard. The platform also allows the creation of triggers based on keywords and phrases in offline messages. Agents can also integrate custom chatbots to deliver responses around the clock.

• However, it offers a limited channel scope compared to Zendesk, and users will have to get paid add-ons for channels like WhatsApp.
• You can even improve efficiency and transparency by setting up task sequences, defining sales triggers, and strategizing with advanced forecasting and reporting tools.
• In the realm of user-friendliness, Zendesk clearly emerges as the superior choice.
• Most businesses use live chats as their main customer communication channel.

Intercom on the other hand lacks many ticketing functionality that can be essential for big companies with a huge customer support load. 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.

Overview of all products

Although Zendesk isn’t hard to use, it’s not a perfectly smooth experience either. Users report feeling as though the interface is outdated and cluttered and complain about how long it takes to set up new features and customize existing ones. 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. For early-stage startups who want to improve their customer relationships. For personal websites and anyone who wants a basic chat to communicate with visitors.

While Zendesk incorporates live chat and messaging functionalities to facilitate proactive customer engagement, it falls short of matching Intercom’s level of personalization. Its chat-based approach, automation capabilities, and chatbots are ideal for handling routine inquiries efficiently. As more organizations adopt AI, it will be critical to choose a data model that aligns with how your business operates. Customer experience will be no exception, and AI models that are purpose-built for CX lead to better results at scale. Also, their in-app messenger is worth a separate mention as it’s one of their distinctive tools (especially since Zendesk doesn’t really have one). With Intercom you can send targeted email, push, and in-app messages which can be based on the most relevant time or behavior triggers.

It is an AI-powered assistant that functions as a knowledge base search tool, equipping agents with instant answers when they interact with customers, directly within the Intercom inbox. This helps companies resolve common customer queries without any human intervention. Core features include automated support powered by a knowledge base, a streamlined ticketing system built around messaging, and a powerful inbox to centralize all customer queries. Choosing the right customer service platform is critical for any business.

Drift allows for handoffs between chatbots and human agents in relevant situations. Customers can skip the self-service options and get routed to a live agent through customizable routing rules, templates, and response timers. Agents can also start a voice or video chat with customers from the chat window. HelpCrunch features customer profiles that allow businesses to collect and save relevant customer data. This includes customer location, website visits, preferences, and interaction notes. Its agent actions allow teams to tag, assign, and merge conversations to help keep requests organized.

As for the category of voice and phone features, Zendesk is a clear winner. Zendesk Support has voicemail, text messages, and embedded voice, and it displays the phone number on the widget. The learning and knowledgebase category is another one where it is a close call between Zendesk and Intercom.

Plus, Aura AI’s global, multilingual support breaks down language barriers, making it an ideal solution for businesses with an international customer base. Aura AI transcends the limits of traditional chatbots that typically struggle with anything but the simplest user queries. Instead, Aura AI continuously learns from your knowledge base and canned responses, growing and learning — just like a real-life agent. To make your ticket handling a breeze, Customerly offers an intuitive, all-in-one platform that consolidates customer inquiries from various channels into a unified inbox.

Starting at $19 per user per month, it’s also on the cheaper end of the spectrum compared to high-end CRMs like ActiveCampaign and HubSpot. Using this, agents can chat across teams within a ticket via email, Slack, or Zendesk’s ticketing system. This packs all resolution information into a single ticket, so there’s no extra searching or backtracking needed to bring a ticket through to resolution, even if it involves multiple agents. What’s really nice about this is that even within a ticket, you can switch between communication modes without changing views.

Intercom Inbox has customer support features that vaguely remind Zendesk Support, but the offered package Acquire customer (Messages and Inbox) is more paralleled with Zendesk Support + Chat. In the domain of customer onboarding, Intercom takes a definitive lead with its distinctive feature – the ability to create interactive product tours. These tours serve as virtual guides, leading customers through a website and product offerings in an engaging and personalized manner.

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. In general, Zendesk offers a wide range of live chat features such as customizable chat widgets, automatic greetings, offline messaging, and chat triggers. In addition to these features, Chat GPT Intercom offers messaging automation and real-time visitor insights. For instance, Zendesk’s automation rules can help support teams automatically assign tickets based on specific criteria – like subject line or specific keywords. It offers robust features for automating routine tasks such as ticket routing, creating queues, creating ticket statuses and more.

ROI comes down to getting the most out of the features available, so payment structures that are scaleable and flexible are a must. Zendesk also includes built-in CSAT and NPS (Net Promoter Score) surveys and even allows you to track the effectiveness of your knowledge base articles and self-service resources. 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. Intercom offers a simplistic dashboard with a detailed view of all customer details in one place.

Let’s compare Zendesk vs. Intercom using the help desk features they have. We are easy-going yet knowledgeable team of experts who will make sure that what’s important gets done skillfully. 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. However, the lack of granular reporting and integration limitations make it lose.

While it is designed to help support agents be efficient,  it might not be as visually appealing or intuitive for users who aren’t very tech-savvy. The platform converts all customer queries into “tickets” that agents can handle with ease and track till the point of resolution. When you’re choosing the right tool that can help you do this, Zendesk and Intercom are two popular names that are likely to come up. Both are known for their range of features – AI, analytics, automation, and ticketing, amongst others. 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.

While Zendesk features are plenty, someone using it for the first time can find it overwhelming. Experts share the strategies that make a big difference when you want to improve customer experience. Customer analytics helps businesses deeply understand their audience to make smarter business decisions and improve CX. With ThriveDesk, you can supercharge your website’s growth and streamline customer interactions like never before. In terms of G2 ratings, Zendesk and Intercom are both well-rated platforms.

You can create a help platform to assist users in guiding themselves, or you can use AI-enabled responses to create a more “human” like effect. 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. The platform offers Zendesk Talk as its call center solution to keep up with other help desks.

Pop-up chat, in-app messaging, and notifications are some of the highly-rated features of this live chat software. 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. Zendesk outshines Intercom for customer support workflows with its core feature, the ticketing system. Zendesk’s ticketing system is renowned for its highly organized approach, which empowers businesses to manage customer support requests with unparalleled efficiency.

Zendesk and Intercom both have an editor preview feature that makes it easier to add images, videos, call-to-action buttons, and interactive guides to your help articles. Starting at just $19/user/month, Hiver https://chat.openai.com/ is a more affordable solution that doesn’t compromise on essential helpdesk functionalities. In this guide, I compare Zendesk and Intercom – on pricing and features – to help you make an informed decision.

However, this may be sufficient for smaller businesses or those using an existing CRM that integrates with Intercom. While Intercom offers a user-friendly interface and solid chat features, it may lack the comprehensive, modular capabilities provided by Zendesk. Intercom’s tools are packaged together, limiting customization and potentially leading to higher costs if you need only specific features. Additionally, Intercom’s call center and advanced analytics rely on third-party integrations, whereas Zendesk offers solutions like Zendesk Sell, Talk and Explore. If you need a highly customizable, all-in-one platform with extensive built-in features, Zendesk may be the better choice. Nevertheless, the platform’s support consistency can be a concern, and the unpredictable pricing structure might lead to increased costs for larger organizations.

Can Zendesk replace Intercom?

Zendesk employs a rather complicated pricing model with tiers in each service. It means that scaling agents will require buying add-on services or upgrading tiers, which can be costly. Zendesk channels for reaching support are also 3, including live chat, phone, and email. The response on Zendesk is average with email and phone, taking up to 2 hours. However, unlike Intercom, Zendesk has many features that make it look cluttered and can overwhelm users. It also alerts the agents of an incoming handoff, which is handy in emergencies.

Meanwhile, Intercom excels with its comprehensive AI automation capabilities, all built on a unified AI system. That being said, while both platforms offer extensive features, they can be costly, especially for smaller enterprises. Ultimately, your choice should reflect whether your priority is comprehensive customer support (Zendesk) or a blend of CRM and sales support (Intercom).

Intercom’s messaging system enables real-time interactions through various channels, including chat, email, and in-app messages. Connect with customers wherever they are for timely assistance and personalized experiences. The Essential customer support plan for individuals, startups, and businsses costs $39. This plan includes a shared inbox, unlimited articles, proactive support, and basic automation. Some aspects give an edge or create differentiation in the operations of both software, which users may oversee while making a choice. We will discuss these differentiating factors to help you make the right choice for your business and help it excel in offering extraordinary customer service.

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. zendesk chat vs intercom Their reports are attractive, dynamic, and integrated right out of the box. You can even finagle some forecasting by sourcing every agent’s assigned leads.

Automated service to migrate your data between help desk platforms without programming skills — just follow simple Migration Wizard. Sure, Intercom allows you to create articles and deliver a bot that answers customer questions with specific articles and resolves issues faster. If I had to describe Intercom’s helpdesk, I would say it’s rather a complementary tool to their chat tools. All customer questions, be it via phone, chat, email, social media, or any other channel, are landing in one dashboard, where your agents can solve them quickly and efficiently. And in this post, we will analyze two popular names in the SaaS industry – Intercom & Zendesk.

Unlike Zendesk, which requires more initial setup for advanced automation, Customerly’s out-of-the-box automation features are designed to be user-friendly and easily customizable. Just keep in mind that, while Intercom’s upfront pricing may seem cheaper, there are additional costs to factor in. When factoring in AI-first tools for all agents, multi-channel campaigns, and proactive support, it could easily cost significantly more than Zendesk.

The integration of apps plays a significant role in creating a seamless experience or a 360-degree view of customers across the company. Zendesk allows the integration of 1300 apps ranging from billing apps, marketing tools, and other software, adding overall to the value of the business. It also excels in the silo approach in a company and allows easy access to information to anyone in the company through this integration. Zendesk’s automation features are limited to offering basic automation to streamline repetitive tasks. While Zeendesk provides automation services for ticket support systems, notifications, chatbots, etc., it may not be an extensive feature compared to Intercom. Considering that Zendesk and Intercom are leading the market for customer service software, it becomes difficult for businesses to choose the right tool.

Intercom integrates with various communication and analytics platforms but linking needs an API. It allows businesses to create targeted campaigns and provide a personalized experience to customers. The data makes it easy to create personalized support and targeted communication. However, unlike Zendesk, Intercom lacks granular reporting and analytics on metrics like session duration or page views.

Intelligent automated ticketing helps streamline customer service management and handling inquiries while reducing manual work. If you’re here, it’s safe to assume that you’re looking for a new customer service solution to support your teams and delight your audience. As two of the giants of the industry, it’s only natural that you’d reach a point where you’re comparing Zendesk vs Intercom. Intercom offers an easy way to nurture your qualified leads (prospects) into customers with Intercom Series. Research by Zoho reports that customer relationship management (CRM) systems can help companies triple lead conversion rates.

Some users also report difficulty keeping track of cases, with conversation threads becoming mixed in the system. You can foun additiona information about ai customer service and artificial intelligence and NLP. In summary, choosing Zendesk and Intercom hinges on your business’s unique requirements and priorities. If you seek a comprehensive customer support solution with a strong emphasis on traditional ticketing, Zendesk is a solid choice, particularly for smaller to mid-sized businesses. Zendesk receives positive feedback for its intuitive interface, wide range of integrations, and robust reporting tools.

Businesses across various industries rely on these platforms to manage and streamline customer interactions, enhance communication, and provide timely assistance. With Zendesk, you get next-level AI-powered support software that’s intuitively designed, scalable, and cost-effective. Zendesk Sell provides robust CRM features such as lead tracking, task management, and workflow automation. Not to mention its advanced reporting capabilities, customizable dashboards, and seamless mobile app experience for an always-on approach to service. Far from impersonalizing customer service, chatbots offer an immediate and efficient way to address common queries that end in satisfaction.