Zendesk vs Intercom: Which Is Right For Your Business in 2023?

If you require a robust helpdesk with powerful ticketing and reporting features, Zendesk is the better choice, particularly for complex support queries. Customerly is a forward-thinking, all-in-one customer service platform. Similar to Zendesk, Intercom’s pricing reserves its most powerful automations for higher-paying customers, the good news is that Fin AI comes with all plans.

The dashboard follows a streamlined approach with a single inbox for customer inquiries. Here, agents can deal with customers directly, leave notes for each other to enable seamless handovers, or convert tickets into self-help resources. As the place where your agents will be spending most of their time, a functional and robust Helpdesk will be critical to their overall performance and experience.

You get call recording, muting and holding, conference calling, and call blocking. Zendesk also offers callback requests, call monitoring and call quality notifications, among other telephone tools. 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. As for Intercom’s general pricing structure, there are three plans, but you’ll have to contact them to get exact prices.

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. Intercom is the clear victor in terms of user experience, leaving all of its competitors in the dust. Zendesk is designed to fit your business needs whether you’re a fast-growing startup or a well-established company.

Smooth migration. Simple integration.

Intercom doesn’t really provide free stuff, but they have a tool called Platform, which is free. The free Intercom Platform lets you see who your customers are and what they do in your workspace. If you’d want to test Zendesk and Intercom before deciding on a tool for good, they both provide free trials.

If you want to get to the nitty-gritty of your customer service team’s performance, Zendesk is the way to go. When it’s intelligent and accessible, reporting can provide deep insights into your customer interactions, agent efficiency, and service quality at a glance. Zendesk’s reporting tools are arguably more advanced while Intercom is designed for simplicity and ease of use.

Intercom Weaknesses

There is a conversation routing bot, an operator bot, a lead qualification bot, and an article-suggesting bot, among others. It is also not too difficult to program your own bot rules using Intercon’s system. Customerly’s Helpdesk is designed to boost efficiency and collaboration with the help of AI. Agents can easily view ongoing interactions, and take over from Aura AI at any moment if they feel intervention is needed.

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. Zendesk’s customer support is also very fast, though their live chat is only available for registered users. For smaller teams that have to handle multiple tasks, do not forget to check JustReply.ai, which is a user-friendly customer support tool.

Key help desk features, like automated ticket assignments and internal collaboration tools, improve your team’s responsiveness and service quality. Zendesk offers its users consistently high ROI due to its comprehensive product features, firm support, and advanced customer support, automation, and reporting features. It allows businesses to streamline operations and workflows, improving customer satisfaction and eventually leading to increased revenues, which justifies the continuous high ROI. Zendesk offers robust reporting capabilities, providing businesses with detailed insights into consumer interactions, ticketing systems, agent performance, and more. Businesses can also track their performance, identify trends, and make informed decisions using its advanced analytics tool and creative dashboards that can customized according to the business needs.

Whether you prioritize ticket management or conversational engagement, this overview will guide you toward making an informed decision. Both platforms cater to diverse needs, so understanding their unique offerings is crucial. While Zendesk features are plenty, someone using it for the first time can find it overwhelming. 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.

Your typical Zendesk review will often praise the platform’s simplicity and affordability, as well as its constant updates and rolling out of new features, like Zendesk Sunshine. For example, you can read in many Zendesk Sell reviews how adding sales tools benefits Zendesk Support users. 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.

This comparison is going to help you understand the features of both tools. Lastly, Intercom offers an academy that offers concise courses to help users make the most out of their Intercom experience. Some of the links that appear on the website are from software companies from which CRM.org receives compensation. One more thing to add, there are ways to integrate Intercom to Zendesk. Visit either of their app marketplaces and look up the Intercom Zendesk integration. Like with many other apps, Zapier seems to be the best and most simple way to connect Intercom to Zendesk.

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. In this article, we comprehensively do a comparison of Zendesk vs Intercom, examining their key features, benefits, and industry Chat GPT use cases. By exploring their distinct offerings, we aim to assist businesses in making informed decisions when selecting a customer service platform. The primary function of Intercom’s mobile app is the business messenger suite, including personalized messaging, real-time support tools, push notifications, in-app messaging and emailing. Intercom also does mobile carousels to help please the eye with fresh designs.

Expert Plan

Plus, advanced reporting capabilities allow you to analyze ticket volume and agent performance, pinpointing areas for improvement. Integrating these systems with other tools can streamline workflows across departments, making your operations seamless. Importantly, Zendesk features extensive knowledge bases and automated responses, improving efficiency in customer service key features of automated systems.

Intercom is ideal for personalized messaging, while Zendesk offers robust ticket management and self-service options. Intercom’s CRM features include customer journey tracking, custom data parameters, and list segmentation, which are useful for targeted marketing and engagement. You can use these features to create custom funnels, segment users based on specific behaviors, and automate personalized communications.

Zendesk TCO is lower than Intercom due to its ability to scale, which does not require additional cost to update the software for a growing business. It also has a transparent pricing model so businesses know the price they will incur. Lastly, the tool is easy to set up and implement, meaning no additional knowledge or expertise makes the businesses incur additional costs. 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.

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. You’d probably want to know how much it costs to get Zendesk or Intercom for your business, so let’s talk money now.

Test any of HelpCrunch pricing plans for free for 14 days and see our tools in action right away. Say what you will, but Intercom’s design and overall user experience are leaving all its competitors far behind. It’s beautifully crafted and thought through, and their custom-made illustrations are just next level stuff. You can see their attention to detail in everything — from their tools to their website.

It works out-of-the-box and is easy to modify when changes arise, helping businesses move faster. In leveraging cutting-edge AI, Zendesk empowers service teams to resolve customer issues more quickly and accurately. Built on billions of customer experience interactions, the AI capabilities can be integrated across the entire service experience, from self-service to agent support, optimizing operations at scale. 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. When you combine the help desk with Intercom Messenger, you get added channels for customer engagement.

Ultimately, the choice between Zendesk and Intercom depends on your business needs. If you need a solution that can rapidly scale and offer strong self-service features, Zendesk may be the best fit. However, if your focus is on creating a seamless, automated customer service experience with proactive engagement, Intercom could be the ideal choice. Intercom’s AI has the transformative power to enhance customer service by offering multilingual support and contextual responses. AI-driven chatbot Fin is designed to automate consumer interactions. Fin uses seamless communication across customer bases, breaking language barriers and catering to global audiences.

Lead management

Sometimes, businesses do not even realize the importance of various aspects you must consider while making this choice. What sets Zendesk apart is its user-friendly interface, customizable workflows, and scalability. It caters to a wide range of industries, particularly excelling in e-commerce, zendesk or intercom SaaS, technology, and telecommunications. It is favored by customer support, helpdesk, IT service management, and contact center teams. To select the ideal fit for your business, it is crucial to compare these industry giants and assess which aligns best with your specific requirements.

It’s where customers ask the questions that may result in the largest sales in your company’s history. Given that both of these platforms seem aimed at one sort of market or another, it shouldn’t surprise you that we might find a few gaps in the sorts of services they provide. But it’s also a given that many people will approach their reviews to Zendesk and Intercom with some specific missions in mind, and that’s bound to change how they feel about the platforms. But Intercom’s friendliness for growing companies is something you can’t afford to ignore. If your business is established and you need to cut down on those ticket resolution times, Zendesk may be worth it. Both Zendesk and Intercom have knowledge bases to help customers get the most out of their platforms.

As I’ve already mentioned, they started as a help desk/ticketing tool, and honestly, they perfected every bit of it over the years. As it turns, it’s quite difficult to compare Zendesk against Intercom as they serve different purposes and will fit different businesses. While doing my research for this article, I’ve not only tested both Intercom and Zendesk myself, but also read a pile of different articles, comparisons, guides, showdowns and all this kind of stuff. What really struck me though is that people seemed to like Zendesk more. Struck not in a bad way, more like in a very neutral ‘huh, this may be interesting’ way. While Zendesk’s costs might seem higher initially, its straightforward approach can save you money in the long run with no hidden fees.

You can access detailed customer data at a glance while chatting, enabling you to make informed decisions in real time. The customer journey timeline provides a clear view of customer activities, helping you understand behaviors and tailor your responses accordingly. Your agents will love the seamless assistance Aura AI provides throughout the entire customer interaction.

It’s also highly customizable, so you can adjust it according to the style of your website or product. The Intercom versus Zendesk conundrum is probably the greatest problem in customer service software. They both offer some state-of-the-art core functionality and numerous unusual features. Basically, if you have a complicated support process, go with Zendesk for its help desk functionality.

That being said, in your search for the best customer support tool, you must have come across Zendesk and Intercom. Just as Zendesk, Intercom also offers its own Operator bot which will automatically suggest relevant articles to customers who ask for help. Basically, you can create new articles, divide them by categories and sections — make it a high end destination for customers when they have questions or issues. If you’re a huge corporation with a complicated customer support process, go Zendesk for its help desk functionality.

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. Zendesk provides its partners with quality support and educational resources, including online training and certification programs, helping turn any salesperson into a Zendesk expert. Conversely, some Pipedrive users have issues working with Pipedrive, with users describing their support and onboarding experiences as slow and limited. Don’t miss out on the latest tips, tools, and tactics at the forefront of customer support.

The result is that Zendesk generally wins on ratings when it comes to support capacity. 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. You can also contact Zendesk support 24/7, whereas Intercom support only has live agents during business hours. Finally, you’ll have to choose your reporting preferences including details about what you’ll be tracking and how often you want to be reported of changes. Since Zendesk has many features, it takes a while to learn how to use the options you’ll be needing.

Today, both companies offer a broad range of customer support features, making them both strong contenders in the market. Zendesk offers more advanced automation capabilities than Intercom, which may be a deciding factor for businesses that require complex workflows. The Zendesk sales CRM hits all of the functions you’d expect from CRM software, like reporting and analytics tools that can deliver key sales metrics with pre-built dashboards right out of the box. On top of that, you can use drag-and-drop widgets to create custom CRM reports with the data most important to your goals.

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. Pipedrive also has security measures baked into its solution, offering SSO for its users.

You can foun additiona information about ai customer service and artificial intelligence and NLP. In contrast, Intercom’s limited integrations might restrict your ability to connect with existing tools, which could impact your business’s growth and efficiency. Intercom empowers you to create meaningful customer connections, making it a standout choice for your support needs. You’ll appreciate how its user-friendly interface simplifies navigation, allowing agents to resolve issues with just one click. Plus, Zendesk’s focus on scalability means it grows with your business effortlessly. Choose wisely, as these insights are essential for optimizing your customer experience.

This user interface improves user behavior analysis by providing clear insights into customer interactions, so you can give personalized support effectively. Both platforms offer valuable analytics tools, but your choice should hinge on whether you need in-depth support metrics or a stronger emphasis on customer interaction. Zendesk excels in detailed reporting, allowing you to track key metrics like ticket volume and customer satisfaction. Its custom reports provide tailored insights that can improve your support performance. Zendesk offers a robust ticketing system and transparent pricing, ensuring a reliable ROI without hidden fees, unlike Intercom.

Intercom vs Zendesk: What are Key Differences?

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 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. 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 construct an omnichannel suite by combining productivity, e-commerce, CRM, analytics, social media, and other applications. Having more connectors accessible gives organizations the flexibility to select software that meets their specific needs. Zendesk is a customer service platform that allows you to communicate with customers via any channel.

Intercom has a standard trial period for a SaaS product which is 14 days, while Zendesk offers a 30-day trial. It’s modern, it’s smooth, it looks great and it has so many advanced features. It has very limited customization options in comparison to its competitors. Novo also reported faster ROI, thanks to Zendesk’s AI capabilities and automation features that cut administrative costs.

Whatever you think of Intercom’s design and general user experience, you can’t deny that it outperforms all of its competitors. Everything, from the tools to the website, reflects their meticulous attention https://chat.openai.com/ to detail. When it comes to the design and simplicity of the software for customer use, Zendesk’s interface is somewhat antiquated and cluttered, especially when it comes to customizing the chat widget.

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)? Zendesk is billed more as a customer support and ticketing solution, while Intercom includes more native CRM functionality. Intercom isn’t quite as strong as Zendesk in comparison to some of Zendesk’s customer support strengths, but it has more features for sales and lead nurturing. Powered by Explore, Zendesk’s reporting capabilities are pretty impressive.

It also includes a list of common questions you can browse through at the bottom of the knowledge base home page so you can find answers to common issues. NovoChat, on the other hand, is great for businesses that primarily engage with their clients through messaging apps. The program is simple to use and includes all of the necessary capabilities for providing good customer service.

• Here, agents can deal with customers directly, leave notes for each other to enable seamless handovers, or convert tickets into self-help resources.
• There is a really useful one for Shopify to provide customer support for e-commerce operations.
• While no area of concern really stands out, there are some complaints about the company’s billing practices.
• Connecting Zendesk Support and Zendesk Sell allows its customer service and sales-oriented wholesale team to work together effortlessly.
• 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.

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. 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.

Use ticketing systems to efficiently manage high ticket volume, deliver timely customer support, and boost agent productivity. However, the latter is more of a support and ticketing solution, while Intercom is CRM functionality-oriented. This means it’s a customer relationship management platform rather than anything else.

It really depends on what features you need and what type of customer service strategy you plan to implement. CoinJar is one of the longest-running cryptocurrency exchanges in the world. To help keep up with its growing customer base, CoinJar turned to Zendesk for a user-friendly and easily scalable solution after testing other CRMs, including Pipedrive and HubSpot.

Ultimately, your choice should reflect whether your priority is comprehensive customer support (Zendesk) or a blend of CRM and sales support (Intercom). Traditional ticketing systems are one of the major customer service bottlenecks companies want to solve with automation. Intelligent automated ticketing helps streamline customer service management and handling inquiries while reducing manual work. If your goal is to deliver outstanding customer support to your audience, then Zendesk is a good option. It comes with a unified omnichannel dashboard, custom reports, and an advanced ticketing system.

With Pipedrive, users have access to visual reporting dashboards, but adding custom fields is limited to their Professional, Power, and Enterprise plans. 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. 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. I tested both of their live chats and their support agents were answering in very quickly and right to the point.

Choose a platform that fits your budget and enhances customer experience. Explore the strengths of each to make the best decision for your business. In today’s environment, where customer expectations are constantly evolving, choosing the right ticketing tool that aligns with your business needs is crucial. This comparison will delve into the features, similarities, differences, pros, cons, and use cases of Zendesk and Intercom, providing you with the insights needed to make an informed decision. Intercom has limited scalability compared to Zendesk, which is unsuitable for large-scale enterprises.

Customer experience will be no exception, and AI models that are purpose-built for CX lead to better results at scale. So when it comes to chatting features, the choice is not really Intercom vs Zendesk. The latter offers a chat widget that is simple, outdated, and limited in customization options, while the former puts all of its resources into its messenger. Their help desk software has a single inbox to handle customer inquiries.

Combine that with their prowess in automation and sales solutions, and you’ve got a really strong product that can handle myriad customer relationship needs. 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. Zendesk offers a free 30-day trial, after which customers will need to upgrade to one of their paid plans.

Agents can use this to anticipate and proactively address issues before the escalate, or even arise in the first place. It goes without saying that you can generate custom reports to hone in on particular areas of interest. Whether you’re into traditional bar charts, pie charts, treemaps, word clouds, or any other type of visualization, Zendesk is a data “nerd’s” dream. It makes sure that you don’t miss a single inquiry by queuing tickets for agent handling. You can configure it to assign tickets using various methods, such as skills, load balancing, and round-robin to ensure efficient handling.

Additional payment per active user or seat depends on a chosen service and a plan. Also, Intercom has a special proposition for early-stage startups, which can get Intercom’s pro products for $49/month for up to one year. Intercom does not have a built-in call center solution, but you can integrate Intercom with other call center software. 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. You can also follow up with customers after they have left the chat and qualify them based on your answers. Chat agents also get a comprehensive look at their entire customer’s journey, so they will have a better idea of what your customers need, without needing to ask many questions.

Since Intercom doesn’t offer a CRM, its pricing is divided into basic messaging and messaging with automations. Since Intercom is so intuitive, the time you’ll need to spend training new users on how to interact with the platform is greatly reduced. Users also point out that it can take a couple of hours to get used to the flow of tickets, which doesn’t happen in CRM, and they aren’t pleased with the product’s downtime. 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. Then, you can begin filling in details such as your account’s name and icon and your agents’ profiles and security features.

They have great UX and a normal pricing range, making it difficult for businesses to choose one, as both software almost looks similar in their offerings. They have a dedicated help section that provides instructions on how to set up and effectively use Intercom. Intercom’s app store has popular integrations for things like WhatsApp, Stripe, Instagram, and Slack.

Master Tidio with in-depth guides and uncover real-world success stories in our case studies. Discover the blueprint for exceptional customer experiences and unlock new pathways for business success. Handle conversations, manage tickets, and resolve issues quickly to improve your CSAT. Intercom is an all-in-one solution, and compared to Zendesk, Intercom has a less intuitive design and can be complicated for new users to learn. It also offers a confusing pricing structure and fewer integrations, making it less scalable and cost-effective. Zendesk provides comprehensive security and compliance features, ensuring customer data privacy.