Zendesk vs Intercom: Which Solution to Choose in 2024?

The more expensive Intercom plans offer AI-powered content cues, triage, and conversation insights. In the category of customer support, Zendesk appears to be just slightly better than Intercom based on the availability of regular service and response times. However, it is possible Intercom’s support is superior at the premium level. 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. In-app messages and email marketing tools are two crucial features that Zendesk lacks when compared to Intercom.

Currently based in Albuquerque, NM, Bryce Emley holds an MFA in Creative Writing from NC State and nearly a decade of writing and editing experience. 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. 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. Yes—as your business’s needs grow, you will require a more sophisticated case management system. But that doesn’t mean you have to completely switch from your current provider if you’re not quite ready.

Use ticketing systems to manage the influx and provide your customers with timely responses. When it comes to advanced workflows and ticketing systems, Zendesk boasts a more full-featured solution. Due to our intelligent routing capabilities and numerous automated workflows, our users can free up hours to focus on other tasks. Intercom’s integration capabilities are limited, and some apps don’t integrate well with third-party customer service technology. This can make it more difficult to import CRM data and obtain complete context from customer data.

Operators will find its dashboard quite beneficial as it will take them seconds to find necessary features during an ongoing chat with the customers. Admins will also like the fact that they can see the progress of all their teams and who all are actively answering a customer’s query in real-time. Zendesk is billed more as a customer support and ticketing solution, while Intercom includes more native CRM functionality.

Company fit: Zendesk Vs. Intercom

Zendesk lets you chat with customers through email, chat, social media, or phone. Intercom assists with the onboarding and retention of customers through targeted email and in-app messages triggered by time or behavior. It allows you to anticipate customers questions and offer help when and where they need it.

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. Zendesk, on the other hand, is another top customer service platform that uses strong security steps to keep customer data safe.

• As customers’ needs are constantly evolving, businesses must adapt and keep up to guarantee the best customer experience and satisfaction.
• Automatic assignment rules establish criteria that automatically route tickets to the right agent or team, based on message or user data.
• Intercom wins the reporting and analytics category due to its unique visualization and display formats for contact center and article data.
• This live chat software provider also enables your business to send proactive chat messages to customers and engage effectively in real-time.

Whether you’re starting fresh with Intercom or migrating from Zendesk, set up is quick and easy. We have numerous customers that do this and benefit greatly from our out-of-the-box integration with Intercom. Our integration with Intercom enables bi-directional contact and case synchronization, so you can continue using Intercom as your front-end digital experience and use Zendesk for case management. 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. With over 100,000 customers across all industries and regions, Zendesk knows what it takes to interact with customers while retaining and growing relationships.

Whether it’s syncing data with your CRM, enhancing communication via messaging platforms, or automating tasks with productivity apps, Zendesk makes it possible. Intercom also excels in real-time chat solutions, making it a strong contender for businesses seeking dynamic customer interaction. 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​​​​. Zendesk is a great option for large companies or companies that are looking for a very strong sales and customer service platform. It offers more support features and includes more advanced analytics and reports.

Zendesk vs Intercom for pricing

It enables you to get quality product feedback from the right customers at the right time through the app or by email. The chat enables you to send targeted, behavior based Zendesk messages to customers. Zendesk chat provides a personal connection with customers who need support. Zendesk Chat shows up as a chat bar docked at the bottom of your site. Zendesk, on the other hand, only has online support and a knowledge base.

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. HelpScout, Freshdesk, Drift, and LiveChat are some other popular choices. During the full-scale russian invasion, we continue developing high-quality innovative technological products while volunteering and donating funds.

“All of Intercom” (Messages + Inbox + Articles)

First, you can only talk to the support team if you are a registered user. In this article, we comprehensively do a comparison of Zendesk vs Intercom, examining their key features, benefits, and industry use cases. By exploring their distinct offerings, we zendesk chat vs intercom aim to assist businesses in making informed decisions when selecting a customer service platform. Messagely’s pricing starts at just $29 per month, which includes live chat, targeted messages, shared inbox, mobile apps, and over 750 powerful integrations.

You don’t have to pay per contact on your database, and you there are many free features you can use. You can also contact Zendesk support 24/7, whereas Intercom support only has live agents during business hours. 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.

Tidio Alternatives for Better Customer Service in 2024

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. You can foun additiona information about ai customer service and artificial intelligence and NLP. Zendesk has a help center that is open to all to find out answers to common questions. Apart from this feature, the customer support options at Zendesk are quite limited.

And in this post, we will analyze two popular names in the SaaS industry – Intercom & Zendesk. 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 even save custom dashboards for a more tailored reporting experience.

However, we will say that Intercom just edges past Zendesk when it comes to self-service resources. Intercom is great, but is quite expensive for what you get, and it’s super live chat focused. On the other hand, it’s nearly impossible to foresee how much Intercom will cost at the end of the day.

With so many solutions to choose from, finding the right option for your business can feel like an uphill battle. After an in-depth analysis such as this, it can be pretty challenging for your business to settle with either option. That’s why it would be better to review where both the options would be ideal to use.

• Intercom, of course, allows its customer support team to collaborate and communicate too, but overall, Zendesk wins this group.
• Which means it’s rather a customer relationship management platform than anything else.
• Whether it’s syncing data with your CRM, enhancing communication via messaging platforms, or automating tasks with productivity apps, Zendesk makes it possible.
• 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.

So, by now, you can see that according to this article, Zendesk inches past Intercom as the better customer support platform. Integrations are the best way to enhance the toolkit of your apps by connecting them for interoperable actions and features. Both Zendesk and Intercom have integration libraries, and you can also use a connecting tool like Zapier for added integrations and add-ons. Respond to all conversations across different messaging platforms in one place and avoid juggling between dozens of tabs.

However, compared to Zendesk, Intercom might not offer the same breadth in terms of integrating a wide range of external channels. Winner of our Supreme Software Award, Zendesk is a customer support solution that helps boost customer service and improve customer retention. The platform’s modules include chat support, call center solutions, help desk applications, and knowledge base, so you’ll cover all the bases of efficient customer services.

The years of experience in business messaging have helped Intercom develop features that address nearly all the problems that employees have to face while interacting with customers. Intercom is another SaaS company that was founded in 2011 with the aim to help businesses build better customer relationships through personalized, messenger-based experiences. The company caters to businesses across the globe and has offices in San Francisco, Dublin, Sydney, etc. When making your decision, consider factors such as your budget, the scale of your business, and your specific growth plans. Explore alternative options like ThriveDesk if you’re looking for a more budget-conscious solution that aligns with your customer support needs.

In terms of G2 ratings, Zendesk and Intercom are both well-rated platforms. Zendesk has a rating of 4.3 out of 5 stars, based on over 5,600 reviews. Intercom has a rating of 4.5 out of 5 stars, based on over 2700 reviews.

It guarantees continuous omnichannel support that meets customer expectations. As time passes by, the line between Intercom and Zendesk becomes more blurred as they try to keep up with one another and implement new features, services, and pricing policies. At the end of the day, there is not a universally better option, just one that suits your needs and preferences the most. ProProfs takes knowledge management to a whole different level by allowing you to create an online knowledge base, user manuals, documentation, and more. The overall design of Zendesk’s chat widget looks outdated and offers very limited customization options. Intercom can be a good choice for medium to large businesses that wish to go for aesthetics/user experience over pricing as the tool is quite heavily priced.

Similarly, read the terms carefully for information on hidden fees, such as, setup cost, separate helpdesk support, upgrade fees, storage fees, and other similar charges. With a very streamlined design, Intercom’s interface is far better than many alternatives, including Zendesk. It has a very intuitive design that goes far beyond its platform and into its articles, product guides, and even its illustrations. 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.

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. Broken down into custom, resolution, and task bots, these can go a long way in taking repetitive tasks off agents’ plates. 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.

This feature is great for keeping communication clear and organised because it lets team members work together on jobs, projects, or interactions with clients without any problems. In addition, some of the services Zendesk offers have a free plan (find them below in the tables). The difference in prices between plans is so significant because of the features each of them provides. When we compare Intercom and Zendesk, we realize that both the tools are quite expensive and may not be the right option for startups or small businesses, or for that matter, any business on a budget.

The best help desks are also ticketing systems, which lets support reps create a support ticket out of issues that can then be tracked. Ticket routing helps to send the ticket to the best support team agent. When it comes to self-service portals for things like knowledgebases, Intercom has a useful set of resources. Intercom also has a community forum where users can help one another with questions and solutions. For Intercom’s pricing plan, on the other hand, there is much less information on their website.

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.

You can add individual operator greetings, create canned responses, and engage potential leads by giving them product tours. In this section, we will be doing an in-depth analysis of the various help desk, live chat, and knowledge base features of these tools. With Zendesk, businesses can build a dedicated help center and a community forum to encourage customers to resolve issues at their own pace- while reducing the ticket volume. Moreover, agents can collaborate with other members or teams and get real-time updates about who is viewing a ticket at any given moment. 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.

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. Zendesk offers more advanced automation capabilities than Intercom, which may be a deciding factor for businesses that require complex workflows. But they also add features like automatic meeting booking (in the Convert package), and their custom inbox rules and workflows just feel a little more, well, custom. I’ll dive into their chatbots more later, but their bot automation features are also stronger. Managers can choose to automatically route tickets and agents can prioritize conversations that need immediate attention.

This makes it an excellent choice if you want to engage with support and potential and existing customers in real time. These products are able to integrate with each other, which offers customers more personalized customer experiences. Zendesk also offers tons of APIs to customize the software to the users’ needs.