Zendesk vs Intercom: Which One Is Right for You?

With mParticle, you can connect your Zendesk and Intercom data with other marketing, analytics, and business intelligence platforms without any custom engineering effort. Because Intercom started as a live chat service, its messenger functionality is very robust. It feels very modern, and Intercom offers some advanced messenger features that Zendesk does not.

HubSpot and Salesforce are also available when support needs to work with marketing and sales teams. Compared to Zendesk and Intercom, Helpwise offers competitive and transparent pricing plans. Its straightforward pricing structure ensures businesses get access to the required features without complex tiers or hidden costs, making it an attractive option for cost-conscious organizations. Zendesk has a help center that is open to all to find out answers to common questions.

As your business grows, so does the volume of customer inquiries and support tickets. Managing everything manually is becoming increasingly difficult, and you need a robust customer support platform to streamline your operations. For smaller teams that have to handle multiple tasks, do not forget to check JustReply.ai, which is a user-friendly customer support tool. It will seamlessly integrate with Slack and offers everything you need for your favorite communication platform. Intercom’s AI capabilities extend beyond the traditional chatbots; Fin is renowned for solving complex problems and providing safer, accurate answers.

Best Reamaze Alternative Tools for Customer Support in 2023

In this article, we’ll compare Zendesk vs Intercom to find out which is the right customer support tool for you. Use HubSpot Service Hub to provide seamless, fast, and delightful customer service. Zendesk has a broad range of security and compliance features to protect customer data privacy, such as SSO (single sign-on) and native content redaction for sensitive data.

Right off the bat, Intercom’s Chatbot is more advanced and customizable. If you prioritize seamless, personalized customer interactions, it’s arguably the better option of the two. As the more recent of the two, offering a modern look-and-feel and frictionless experience is a key magnet for Intercom. It effortlessly brings together in-app chat, automated chatbots, and a unified inquiry inbox in its help center. One of Zendesk’s other key strengths has also been its massive library of integrations. It works seamlessly with over 1,000 business tools, like Salesforce, Slack, and Shopify.

It can automatically suggest your customer relevant articles reducing the workload for your support agents. Whichever solution you choose, mParticle can help integrate your data. 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.

Multichannel messaging capabilities

Intercom also does not offer a free trial period for users to examine the software prior to joining up for their services. Although the Intercom chat window claims that their team responds within a few hours, user reviews have stated that they had to wait for a few days. That being said the customer support for both Zendesk and Intercom is lacking. Whatever you think of Intercom’s design and general user experience, you can’t deny that it outperforms all of its competitors.

It has a more sophisticated user interface and a wide range of features, such as an in-app messenger, an email marketing tool, and an AI-powered chatbot. At the same time, Zendesk looks slightly outdated and can’t offer some features. There are many features to help bigger customer service teams collaborate more effectively, such as private notes or a real-time view of who’s handling a given ticket at the moment. At the same time, the vendor offers powerful reporting capabilities to help you grow and improve your business. 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 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. 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. 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. Lastly, Intercom offers an academy that offers concise courses to help users make the most out of their Intercom experience.

Overview of Zendesk

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’s customer support is also very fast, though their live chat is only available for registered users. 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.

• Intercom’s CRM features include customer journey tracking, custom data parameters, and list segmentation, which are useful for targeted marketing and engagement.
• If, for example, a solution was offered but it didn’t happen to align with internal standards.
• And considering how appropriate Zendesk is for larger companies, there’s a good chance you may need to take them up on that.

Not only does Zendesk offer a free trial, it’s actually sort of a freemium tool, which means you can choose one their tools (live chat, knowledge base, call center software) and use it for free forever. As any free tool, the functionalities there are quite limited, but nevertheless. If you’re a really small business or a startup, you can benefit big time from such free tools.

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. Intercom’s large series of bots obviously run on automations as well. As mentioned before, the bot builder is a visual drag-and-drop system that requires no coding knowledge; this is also how other basic workflows are designed. The more expensive Intercom plans offer AI-powered content cues, triage, and conversation insights. Intercom, of course, allows its customer support team to collaborate and communicate too, but overall, Zendesk wins this group. Zendesk has many amazing team collaboration and communication features, like whisper mode, which lets multiple agents chime in to help each other without the customer knowing.

Not to brag 😏, but we specifically developed our platform to address the shortcomings in the current market. By going with Customerly for your customer service needs, you can get the best of both worlds (Zendesk and Intercom), plus some extra features and benefits you haven’t even thought of, yet. Just keep in mind that, while Intercom’s upfront pricing may seem cheaper, there are additional https://chat.openai.com/ 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. Plus, Intercom’s modern, smooth interface provides a comfortable environment for agents to work in. It even has some unique features, like office hours, real-time user profiles, and a high-degree of customization.

Honestly, when it comes to Zendesk, it is not the most modern tool out there. You’d probably want to know how much it costs to get Zendesk or Intercom for your business, so let’s talk money now. Learn more about the differences between leading chat support solutions Intercom and Zendesk so that you can choose the right tool for your needs. We hope this zendesk and intercom list has provided you with a better grasp of each platform and its features. Remember that there is no one-size-fits-all solution, and the optimal platform for you will be determined by your individual demands. Many users complain that Intercom’s help is unavailable the majority of the time, forcing them to repeatedly ask the same question to a bot.

Reporting and Analytics

To help explore these gaps, we decided to check out the reviews of both Zendesk and Intercom and get a sense of where the complaints pointed. KindGeek was founded in Ukraine; our co-founders are from Ukraine, and all of our team members call Ukraine home. There is also an opinion that Zendesk’s interface and design are slightly less convenient in comparison to Intercom’s, which provides a more streamlined user interface.

It is a reliable and effective software for businesses of all sizes. In today’s business world, customer service is fast-paced, and customers have higher expectations. To enhance customer satisfaction, businesses must equip their teams with customer support solutions and customer service software. With a multi-channel ticketing system, Zendesk Support helps you and your team to know exactly who you’re talking to and keep track of tickets throughout all channels without losing context. The setup is designed to seamlessly connect your customer support team with customers across all platforms.

Yes, you can continue using Intercom as the consumer-facing CRM experience, but integrate with Zendesk for customer service in the back end for more customer support functionality. It provides a real-time feed and historical data, so agents can respond instantly to consumer queries, as well as learn from past CX trends. By using its workforce management functionality, businesses can analyze employee performance, and implement strategies to improve them. Keep up with emerging trends in customer service and learn from top industry experts.

No matter what Zendesk Suite plan you are on, you get workflow triggers, which are simple business rules-based actions to streamline many tasks. The learning and knowledgebase category is another one where it is a close call between Zendesk and Intercom. However, we will say that Intercom just edges past Zendesk when it comes to self-service resources. As for Intercom’s general pricing structure, there are three plans, but you’ll have to contact them to get exact prices. While Zendesk features are plenty, someone using it for the first time can find it overwhelming.

In this detailed comparison, we’ll explore the features and characteristics of Intercom and Zendesk, highlighting each of their unique capabilities, so you can identify the right solution for your needs. In-app messages and email marketing tools are two crucial features that Zendesk lacks when compared to Intercom. Intercom, on the other hand, lacks key ticketing features that are critical for large firms with a high volume of customer assistance. It’s clear that both of these tools are designed for different use cases.

Overall, Zendesk wins out on plan flexibility, especially given that it has a lower price plan for dipping your toes in the water. And considering how appropriate Zendesk is for larger companies, there’s a good chance you may need to take them up on that. During the full-scale russian invasion, we continue developing high-quality innovative technological products while volunteering and donating funds. We work for Ukraine’s economy as our army resists the unprovoked Russian war against Ukraine. Even though Zendesk’s site does not clearly specify the duration of the free trial, other web resources state that it lasts for 30 days, which is twice as long as Intercom’s free trial.

Compared to Zendesk, Intercom offers few integrations, which may hinder its scalability. Both Chat GPT offer customer service software with AI capabilities—however, they are not created equal. With Zendesk, you get next-level AI-powered support software that’s intuitively designed, scalable, and cost-effective. Compare Zendesk vs. Intercom and future-proof your business with reliable, easy-to-use software. Intercom is a customer relationship management (CRM) software company that provides a suite of tools for managing customer interactions.

Intercom is a customer messaging platform that enables businesses to engage with customers through personalized and real-time communication. 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.

After this, you’ll have to set up your workflows, personalizing your tickets and storing them by topic. 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. That being said, Intercom has an impressive array of features as well.

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. 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.

Although it provides businesses with valuable messaging and automation tools, they may require more than this to achieve a higher level of functionality. Companies might assume that using Intercom increases costs, potentially impacting businesses’ ROI. Zendesk offers fast time to value, especially at the enterprise level. Its ability to scale with the businesses makes it an attractive option for growing companies. Its customizable options enable businesses to quickly gain value from its features by enhancing agility.

You can use this support desk to help customers or you can forward potential new users to your sales department. You can foun additiona information about ai customer service and artificial intelligence and NLP. 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. Help desk software creates a sort of “virtual front desk” for your business. That means automating customer service and sales processes so the people visiting your website don’t actually have to interact with anyone before they take action.

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. After signing up and creating your account, you can start filling in your information, such as your company name and branding and your agents’ profiles and information. The setup can be so complex that there are tutorials by third parties to teach new users how to do it right. Zendesk has excellent reporting and analytics tools that allow you to decipher the underlying issues behind your help desk metrics.

• Zendesk is more robust in terms of its ticket management capabilities, it offers more customization options and advanced features like a virtual call center app.
• That being said, in your search for the best customer support tool, you must have come across Zendesk and Intercom.
• Their agent was always trying to convert me into a lead along the way, but heck, that’s a side effect of our job.
• Since Intercom doesn’t offer a CRM, its pricing is divided into basic messaging and messaging with automations.

Aura AI also excels in simplifying complex tasks by collecting data conversationally and automating intricate processes. When things get tricky, Aura AI smartly escalates the conversation to a human agent, ensuring that no customer is left frustrated. Plus, Aura AI’s global, multilingual support breaks down language barriers, making it an ideal solution for businesses with an international customer base. Zendesk offers a slightly broader selection of plans, with an enterprise solution for customers with bespoke needs. Intercom is a customer-focused communication platform with basic CRM capabilities. While we wouldn’t call it a full-fledged CRM, it should be capable enough for smaller businesses that want a simple and streamlined CRM without the additional expenses or complexity.

Intercom has a community forum where users can engage with each other and gain insights from their experiences. With only the Enterprise tier offering round-the-clock email, phone, and chat help, Zendesk support is sharply separated by tiers. While both Zendesk and Intercom are great and robust platforms, none of them are able to provide you with the same value Messagely gives you at such an  affordable price.