Zendesk vs Intercom: Which Solution to Choose in 2024?

Zendesk chat vs Intercom offers similar chat features but still has a couple of differences. In any case, if you choose Zendesk or Intercom, you get wide chatting possibilities. Learn more about the differences between leading chat support solutions Intercom and Zendesk so that you can choose the right tool for your needs.

• So yeah, all the features talk actually brings us to the most sacred question — the question of pricing.
• Let’s explore how Zendesk and Intercom stack up in terms of basic functionalities required by a helpdesk software.
• It can automatically suggest relevant articles for agents during business hours to share with clients, reducing your support agents’ workload.
• I’ll dive into their chatbots more later, but their bot automation features are also stronger.
• The company was founded in 2011 and is headquartered in San Francisco, California.

Ultimately, the choice between Intercom and Zendesk depends on your specific needs and priorities. If you prioritize real-time messaging and customer engagement, Intercom may be the better option for you. On the other hand, if you require robust ticketing and support management features, Zendesk might be the more suitable choice. Consider your budget, team size, and integration requirements before making a decision. Intercom is a customer support platform known for its effective messaging and automation, enhancing in-context support within products, apps, or websites.

Uncomplicate email management and support, right from your Inbox

Intercom can even integrate with Zendesk and other sources to import past help center content. 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.

MParticle is a Customer Data Platform offering plug-and-play integrations to Zendesk and Intercom, along with over 300 other marketing, analytics, and data warehousing tools. With mParticle, you can connect your Zendesk and Intercom data with other marketing, analytics, and business intelligence platforms without any custom engineering effort. Both tools also allow you to connect your email account and manage it from within the application to track open and click-through rates. In addition, Zendesk and Intercom feature advanced sales reporting and analytics that make it easy for sales teams to understand their prospects and customers more deeply. Intercom is a customer relationship management (CRM) software company that provides a suite of tools for managing customer interactions. The company was founded in 2011 and is headquartered in San Francisco, California.

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. As a conversational relationship platform, Zendesk gives you the option of live chatting with customers via your website, mobile, and messaging. Though, if you compare Zendesk chat vs Intercom, the plugin is a bit hard to use as reviewed by customers. Installing it might take some technical skill and even when installed, could malfunction a bit. It uses artificial intelligence (AI) to assist customers through self-help options or access to the relevant articles before connecting them to your team.

When comparing the reporting and analytics features of Zendesk and Intercom, both platforms offer robust tools, but with distinct focuses and functionalities. The Zendesk chat tool has most of the necessary features like shortcuts (saved responses), automated triggers, and live chat analytics. Staying updated with the future prospects and developments of Zendesk and Intercom is crucial for anticipating upcoming features and advancements. Examining the roadmap of both platforms helps businesses envision how their customer support needs can align with the evolving market trends and technological innovations.

Real-world case studies illustrate how businesses leverage Zendesk and Intercom to enhance their customer support operations and drive business growth. Analyzing these case studies provides practical insights into the tangible benefits and outcomes achieved by implementing either platform. As businesses expand and evolve, the scalability and flexibility of their customer support platform becomes important.

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 takes the slight lead here because it offers some advanced help desk features, which Intercom does not. Zendesk and Intercom also both offer analytics and reporting capabilities that allow businesses to analyze and monitor customer agents’ productivity. As a result, companies can identify trends and areas for improvement, allowing them to continuously improve their support processes and provide better service to their customers. Today, both companies offer a broad range of customer support features, making them both strong contenders in the market.

Does Zendesk have Intercom integration?

To that end, you can import themes or apply your own custom themes to brand your help center the way you want it. From there, you can include FAQs, announcements, and article guides and then save them into pre-set lists for your customers to explore. You can even moderate user content to leverage your customer community.

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 Chat PG even save custom dashboards for a more tailored reporting experience. Zendesk’s help center tools should also come in handy for helping customers help themselves—something Zendesk claims eight out of 10 customers would rather do than contact support.

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. Use HubSpot Service Hub to provide seamless, fast, and delightful customer service. 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.

However, the right fit for your business will depend on your particular needs and budget. If you’re looking for a comprehensive solution with lots of features and integrations, then Zendesk would be a good choice. On the other hand, if you need something that is more tailored to your customer base and is less expensive, then Intercom might be a better fit. ThriveDesk empowers small businesses to manage real-time customer communications. Intercom is praised as an affordable option with high customization capabilities, allowing businesses to create a personalized support experience. Although the interface may require a learning curve, users find the platform effective and functional.

• This makes it an excellent choice if you want to engage with support and potential and existing customers in real time.
• It delivers a multi-channel support system with customer service automation.
• When comparing the user interfaces (UI) of Zendesk and Intercom, both platforms exhibit distinct characteristics and strengths catering to different user preferences and needs.
• The sophisticated nature of its chatbot makes it more than a task automation tool — it takes customer interactions to the next level.
• Zendesk and Intercom both offer noteworthy tools, but if you’re looking for a full-service solution, there is one clear winner.

Using Zendesk, you can create community forums where customers can connect, comment, and collaborate, creating a way to harness customers’ expertise and promote feedback. Community managers can also escalate posts to support agents when one-on-one help is needed. Picking customer service software to run your business is not a decision you make lightly. Learn how top CX leaders are scaling personalized customer service at their companies. Intercom has flexible prices that can change based on what your business needs, and they offer a 14-day free trial.

Ready to switch to Zendesk?

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. Yes, you can find the Intercom integration in the Zendesk Marketplace—and it’s free to install. Fintech startup Novo had to pivot to new ways of working in 2020, just like everyone else. But the company’s story isn’t just one of pandemic-induced change—in the first half of the year, Novo’s client base grew from 2,000 to tens of thousands.

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 has traditionally been more focused on customer support management, while Intercom has been more focused on live support solutions like its chat solution. 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. Both solutions provide a campaign tool, live chat, and a knowledge base.

Provide self-service alternatives so customers can resolve their own issues. This serves the dual benefit of adding convenience to the customer experience and lightening agents’ workloads. 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. Intercom has more customization features for features like bots, themes, triggers, and funnels.

So you see, it’s okay to feel dizzy when comparing Zendesk vs Intercom platforms. 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. However, some users remarked that a developer is needed to properly install the software or run the risks of problems in the future.

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. 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. Yes, you can replace Zendesk with Intercom as both platforms have a rich set of features and integrations.

You can foun additiona information about ai customer service and artificial intelligence and NLP. Zendesk is more about organizing customer requests with a ticketing system and talking to customers through many channels like email, phone, or chat. Because of its easy navigation and interface, Intercom has always received positive words from its users. The best part about Zendesk is that, along with its amazing features, it also provides its users with a magical wand for customizing them. Whether it’s the ticketing system, knowledge base corner, or branding elements, you get the full right to use them as per your brand’s need. When choosing between Zendesk and Intercom for your customer support needs, it’s essential to consider various factors that align with your business goals, operational requirements, and budget. Both platforms offer distinct strengths, catering to customer support and engagement aspects.

Customer Feedback and reviews

In the dynamic landscape of customer support platforms, choosing between Zendesk and Intercom depends on various factors such as budget, specific business requirements, and long-term goals. Businesses should carefully evaluate their needs and consider scalability, user-friendliness, and integration capabilities before deciding on the platform that best suits their requirements. Zendesk is a leading customer service software that offers a comprehensive suite of tools for businesses to manage customer support, engagement, and relationships.

Evaluate their features, compare them based on your business needs, and choose the one that aligns best with your goals and objectives. The strength of Zendesk’s UI lies in its structured and comprehensive environment, adept at managing numerous customer interactions and integrating various channels seamlessly. However, compared to the more contemporary designs like Intercom’s, Zendesk’s UI may appear outdated, particularly in aspects such as chat widget and customization options. This could impact user experience and efficiency for new users grappling with its complexity​​​​​​. 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.

But if you’re not familiar with them, think of the software as online human resource departments. For instance, customers and staff alike can channel messages through it. The methods that help desks use, however, are meant to cater to possibly thousands to millions of messages. Because there could be a thousand customers complaining at any given hour to all your staff having problems with business protocols.

Besides its easy navigation, it also offers a mesmerizing ticketing system, multichannel communication, and analytics reporting. So, Zendesk’s users are always going to have a smooth experience with it. 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 https://chat.openai.com/ competitively priced services with similar features as those provided by other companies but at a lower cost. ThriveDesk is a help desk software tailor-made for businesses seeking extensive features and a powerful yet simple live chat assistant. Even better, it’s the most cost-effective, lightweight, and speedy live chat solution available for Shopify business owners.

Desku provides a user-friendly platform with robust features that enable easy transition during the migration from other support systems. 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. Both Intercom and Zendesk have proven to be valuable tools for businesses looking to provide excellent customer support.

However, Intercom has fewer integration options than Zendesk, which may limit its capabilities for businesses seeking extensive integrations. 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 intercom vs zendesk having the power to connect your helpdesk solution with a wide range of tools and applications that your team already uses. Whether it’s syncing data with your CRM, enhancing communication via messaging platforms, or automating tasks with productivity apps, Zendesk makes it possible.

This unpredictability in pricing might lead to higher costs, especially for larger companies. While it offers a range of advanced features, the overall costs and potential inconsistencies in support could be a concern for some businesses​​​​. 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. Why don’t you try something equally powerful yet more affordable, like HelpCrunch? Both Zendesk and Intercom facilitate sales automation, but Intercom’s sales automation tools are notably more sophisticated and comprehensive.

Gmail-Based Interface

Intercom understands very well that email marketing is no more than a magic wand for building strong customer relations. Customer support and security are vital aspects to consider when evaluating helpdesk solutions like Zendesk and Intercom. Let’s examine and compare how each platform addresses these crucial areas to ensure effective support operations and data protection. Zendesk, less user-friendly and with higher costs for quality vendor support, might not suit budget-conscious or smaller businesses.

Easily track your service team’s performance and unlock coaching opportunities with AI-powered insights. 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. With ThriveDesk, you can supercharge your website’s growth and streamline customer interactions like never before. Rated 5 stars out of 5 on G2, ThriveDesk is highly regarded by users.

You can always count on it if you need a reliable customer support platform to process tickets, support users, and get advanced reporting. 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. Zendesk is a customer service software offering a comprehensive solution for managing customer interactions.

Due to our intelligent routing capabilities and numerous automated workflows, our users can free up hours to focus on other tasks. Basically, if you have a complicated support process, go with Zendesk, an excellent Intercom alternative, for its help desk functionality. If you’re a sales-oriented corporation, use Intercom for its automation options. Both tools can be quite heavy on your budget since they mainly target big enterprises and don’t offer their full toolset at an affordable price. You need a complete customer service platform that’s seamlessly integrated and AI-enhanced. 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)?

One place Intercom really shines as a standalone CRM is its data utility. Zendesk also packs some pretty potent tools into their platform, so you can empower your agents to do what they do with less repetition. Agents can use basic automation (like auto-closing tickets or setting auto-responses), apply list organization to stay on top of their tasks, or set up triggers to keep tickets moving automatically. I tested both options (using Zendesk’s Suite Professional trial and Intercom’s Support trial) and found clearly defined differences between the two. Here’s what you need to know about Zendesk vs. Intercom as customer support and relationship management tools.

What makes it different from other help desk tools is the Answer Bot. This is an AI assistant that will help anyone navigate Guide by providing results as you type your query. The bot also ensures that the customer or employee will find the right article before contacting an agent.

Customers won’t need to leave your app or website to find the help they need.Zendesk, on the other hand, will redirect the customer to a new web page. With both tools, you can also use support bots to automatically suggest specific articles, track customers’ ratings, and localize help center content to serve your customers in their native language. When it comes to which company is the better fit for your business, there’s no clear answer.

Sendcloud is a software-as-a-service (SaaS) company that allows users to generate packing slips and labels to help online retailers streamline their shipping process. Track customer service metrics to gain valuable insights and improve customer service processes and agent performance. Prioritize the agent experience to maximize productivity and customer satisfaction while reducing employee turnover. To sum up this Intercom vs Zendesk battle, the latter is a great support-oriented tool that will be a good choice for big teams with various departments.

On the other hand, Intercom is more focused on conversational customer support, and has more help desk features suited for live chat and messaging. It’s known for its unified agent workspace which combines different communication methods like email, social media messaging, live chat, and SMS, all in one place. 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. On the contrary, Intercom is far less predictable when it comes to pricing and can cost hundreds/thousands of dollars per month. But this solution is great because it’s an all-in-one tool with a modern live chat widget, allowing you to easily improve your customer experiences.

When he isn’t writing content, poetry, or creative nonfiction, he enjoys traveling, baking, playing music, reliving his barista days in his own kitchen, camping, and being bad at carpentry. Intercom does have a ticketing dashboard that has omnichannel functionality, much like Zendesk. Keeping this general theme in mind, I’ll dive deeper into how each software’s features compare, so you can decide which use case might best fit your needs. Let’s compare Intercom and Zendesk using the help desk features they have. In this case, we’ll see what their similarities and differences are.

In a nutshell, none of the customer support software companies provide decent assistance for users. The cheapest plan for small businesses – Essential – costs $39 monthly per seat. But that’s not it, if you want to resolve customer common questions with the help of the vendor’s new tool – Fin bot, you will have to pay $0.99 per resolution per month. Their chat widget looks and works great, and they invest a lot of effort to make it a modern, convenient customer communication tool. Zendesk also has an Answer Bot, which instantly takes your knowledge base game to the next level. It can automatically suggest relevant articles for agents during business hours to share with clients, reducing your support agents’ workload.