Zendesk vs Intercom: Which Solution to Choose in 2024?

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. Choose Zendesk for a scalable, team-size-based pricing model and Intercom for initial low-cost access with flexibility in adding advanced features. Zendesk’s per-agent pricing structure makes it a budget-friendly option for smaller teams, allowing costs to scale with team growth.

Using any plan, this integration is available to all customers, making the customer support experience and onboarding smooth. When comparing the cost of Intercom to Zendesk, it’s important to consider the pricing structures and potential variations based on your specific customer support and engagement needs. 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.

If agents want to offer their customers a great experience, they can spend an additional $50 to have the AI add-on. Intercom also charges additional charges for specific features, such as charging $0.99 for every resolution. This eventually adds to overall business costs, so they carefully need to consider all plans and budgets before making a decision. The Expert plan, which offers collaboration, real-time dashboard, security, and reporting tools for large teams, costs $139. The Essential customer support plan for individuals, startups, and businsses costs $39.

One place Intercom really shines as a standalone CRM is its data utility. As with just about any customer support software, you can easily view standard user data within the messenger related to customer journey—things like recent pages viewed, activity, or contact information. Overall, I actually liked Zendesk’s user experience better than Intercom’s in terms of its messaging dashboard.

Zendesk’s AI capabilities provide a comprehensive suite of features, including support ticket summaries, user sentiment analysis, a help center, and a side panel, all conveniently integrated into the app. Agents can quickly grasp the context of customer interaction through these support tickets and sentiment analysis that AI facilitates. You can foun additiona information about ai customer service and artificial intelligence and NLP. Zendesk offers robust reporting capabilities, providing businesses with detailed insights into consumer interactions, ticketing systems, agent performance, and more.

Zendesk allows businesses to group their resources in the help center, providing customers with self-service personalized support. The platform has various customization options, allowing businesses personalized experiences according to their branding. Help Center in Zendesk also will enable businesses to organize their tutorials, articles, and FAQs, making it convenient for customer to find solutions to their queries.

When comparing the reporting and analytics features of Zendesk and Intercom, both platforms offer robust tools, but with distinct focuses and functionalities. Understanding the unique attributes of Zendesk and Intercom is crucial in this comparison. Zendesk is renowned for its comprehensive range of functionalities, including advanced email ticketing, live chat, phone support, and a vast knowledge base.

Zendesk vs. Intercom: FAQ

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 competitively priced services with similar features as those provided by other companies but at a lower cost. Integrating AI in the help center helps agents find answers to customer inquiries, providing a seamless customer experience. Zendesk’s AI offers automated responses to customer inquiries, increasing the team’s productivity, as they can spend time on the most crucial things.

If delivering an outstanding customer experience and employee experience is your top priority, Zendesk should be your top pick over Intercom. Zendesk has the CX expertise to help businesses of all sizes scale their service experience without compromise. Talking about the Intercom, it has flexible pricing plans that its experts can help adjust as per your requirements to match contacts and number of seats. The good news is that you enjoy a generous free 14-day trial by opting to get an idea if the particular service is suitable for your business or not. You will be able to find the most common chatting system with a single communication channel. So, communicating with customers on different communication channels would be difficult on Intercom.

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. It guarantees continuous omnichannel support that meets customer expectations. What’s really nice about this is that even within a ticket, you can switch between communication modes without changing views. So if an agent needs to switch from chat to phone to email (or vice versa) with a customer, it’s all on the same ticketing page.

Determining whether Intercom can effectively replace Zendesk depends on your specific customer support and engagement requirements. Whether Zendesk can fully replace Intercom depends on your specific customer support and engagement requirements. It tends to perform well on the marketing and sales side of things, which is key for a growing company. 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. Intercom offers an easy way to nurture your qualified leads (prospects) into customers with Intercom Series.

Zendesk has a slight edge when it comes to ticketing, but Intercom’s automation makes up for it

Just like Zendesk, Intercom also offers its Operator bot, which will automatically suggest relevant articles to clients right in a chat widget. The Help Center software by Intercom is also a very efficient tool. You can publish your self-service resources, divide them by categories, and integrate them with your messenger to accelerate the whole chat experience. So you see, it’s okay to feel dizzy when comparing Zendesk vs Intercom platforms. You could say something similar for Zendesk’s standard service offering, so it’s at least good to know they have Zendesk Sell, a capable CRM option to supplement it.

They need to comprehensively analyze if they are getting the value of the invested money. We give the edge to Zendesk here, as it’s typically aimed for more complex environments. It’s also more exclusively focused on providing help support, whereas Intercom sometimes moonlights as being part-time sales. The result is that Zendesk generally wins on ratings when it comes to support capacity.

Proactive support means fewer questions for your team and much happier customers. The two essential things that Zendesk lacks in comparison to Intercom are in-app messages and email marketing tools. On the other hand, Intercom lacks many ticketing functionality that can be essential for big companies with a huge client support load. If you thought Zendesk prices were confusing, let me introduce you to the Intercom charges. It’s virtually impossible to predict what you’ll pay for Intercom at the end of the day. They charge for customer service representative seats and people reached, don’t reveal their prices, and offer tons of custom add-ons at additional cost.

Here comes Desku as the strong competitor, which can effectively substitute Zendesk and Intercom. Desku provides a user-friendly platform with robust features that enable easy transition during the migration from other support systems. AI is integral to customer relationship management software and facilitates consumer interactions. AI helps businesses gain detailed insight into consumer data in real-time.

Streamline support processes with Intercom’s ticketing system and knowledge base. Efficiently manage customer inquiries and empower customers to find answers independently. Intercom has more customization features for features like bots, themes, triggers, and funnels. 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.

Zendesk’s help center tools are slightly better, but Intercom’s chatbot is more robust

Community managers can also escalate posts to support agents when one-on-one help is needed. Intercom recently ramped up its features to include helpdesk and ticketing functionality. Zendesk, on the other hand, started as a ticketing tool, and therefore has one of the market’s best help desk and ticket management features.

Zendesk started in 2007 as a web-based SaaS product for managing incoming customer support requests. Since then, it has evolved into a full-fledged CRM that offers a suite of software applications to its over 160,000 customers like Uber, Siemens, and Tesco. While both platforms have a significant presence in the industry, they cater to varying business requirements. Zendesk, with its extensive toolkit, is often preferred by businesses seeking an all-encompassing customer support solution. ThriveDesk empowers small businesses to manage real-time customer communications.

Intercom, on the other hand, was built for business messaging, so communication is one of their strong suits. 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. Zendesk provides comprehensive security and compliance features, ensuring customer data privacy. This includes secure login options like SAML or JWT SSO (single sign-on) and native content redaction for sensitive information.

In this context, Zendesk and Intercom emerge as key contenders, each offering distinct features tailored to dynamic customer service environments. Intercom has a wider range of uses out of the box than Zendesk, though by adding Zendesk Sell, you could more than make up for it. Both options are well designed, easy to use, and share some pretty key functionality like behavioral triggers and omnichannel-ality (omnichannel-centricity?). But with perks like more advanced chatbots, automation, and lead management capabilities, Intercom could have an edge for many users.

Those same tools also increase customer retention by 27% while saving 23% on sales and marketing costs. These plans make Hiver a versatile tool, catering to a range of business sizes and needs, from startups to large enterprises looking for a comprehensive customer support solution within Gmail. 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. The platform is recognized for its ability to resolve a significant portion of common questions automatically, ensuring faster response times. When making your decision, consider factors such as your budget, the scale of your business, and your specific growth plans.

As a result, customers can implement the help desk software quickly—without the need for developers—and see a faster return on investment. Plus, our transparent pricing doesn’t have hidden fees or endless add-ons, so customers know exactly what they’re paying for and can calculate the total cost of ownership ahead of time. In comparison, Intercom’s confusing pricing structure that features multiple add-ons may be unsuitable for small businesses.

ThriveDesk is a feature-rich helpdesk solution that offers a comprehensive set of tools to manage customer support effectively. 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. However, Intercom has fewer integration options than Zendesk, which may limit its capabilities for businesses seeking extensive integrations.

You can also use Intercom as a customer service platform, but given its broad focus, you may not get the same level of specialized expertise. Intercom offers advanced customer service through its automated functions and is suitable for businesses looking for a sophisticated customer support solution. Another advantage of using Intercom is that it not only enhances customer engagement but is also https://chat.openai.com/ a great way to increase customer support teams’ productivity. Considering all the features of Zendesk, including robust ticketing, messaging, a help center, and chatbots, we can say that Zendesk excels in being the top customer support platform. It is a reliable and effective software for businesses of all sizes. On the other hand, Intercom brings a dynamic approach to customer support.

When comparing Zendesk and Intercom, Zendesk stands out with its robust and versatile customer support solutions. It offers a comprehensive platform for managing customer inquiries and support tickets across multiple channels, providing businesses with a powerful toolset for customer service management. Zendesk’s extensive feature set and customizable workflows are particularly appealing to organizations looking to streamline and scale their customer support operations efficiently. Zendesk is distinguished by its robust and versatile customer support solutions. It provides a comprehensive platform for managing customer inquiries, support tickets, and interactions across multiple channels. On the other hand, Intercom shines in its focus on conversational engagement and real-time communication with customers.

Some issues are so crucial that they need to be solved on the spot. If not, then you should because it will ease much of your workload as you would not have to waste your precious time in finding the helpdesk operator, plus zero management issues. We’d also recommend checking out this blog on suspended ticket management in ZenDesk.

It’s well-suited for organizations aiming to enhance customer engagement through real-time communication. Zendesk and Intercom are tailored to enhance your customer support and engagement, providing robust tools for managing customer inquiries, automating responses, and facilitating communication. However, a fundamental difference between them is their scope and focus. While Zendesk’s emphasis is entirely on customer support, Intercom’s features extend into marketing and sales.

While Zendesk incorporates live chat and messaging functionalities to facilitate proactive customer engagement, it falls short of matching Intercom’s level of personalization. However, if your organization heavily relies on Intercom’s real-time communication features, in-app messaging, and chat-based support, transitioning entirely to Zendesk may not cover all your needs. Intercom’s focus on instant interactions and personalized engagement is particularly valuable for businesses prioritizing chat-first customer support and real-time communication.

Connect with customers wherever they are for timely assistance and personalized experiences. Designed for all kinds of businesses, from small startups to giant enterprises, it’s the secret weapon that keeps customers happy. In a nutshell, none of the customer support software companies provide decent assistance for users. Intercom live chat is modern, smooth, and has many advanced features that other chat tools don’t. It’s highly customizable, too, so you can adjust it according to your website or product’s style.

• Besides its easy navigation, it also offers a mesmerizing ticketing system, multichannel communication, and analytics reporting.
• It also offers a confusing pricing structure and fewer integrations, making it less scalable and cost-effective.
• Zendesk also packs some pretty potent tools into their platform, so you can empower your agents to do what they do with less repetition.
• Check out our chart that compares the capabilities of Zendesk vs. Intercom.
• Both Zendesk and Intercom offer varying flavors when it comes to curating the whole customer support experience.

However, it’s essential to consider the strengths of Zendesk, which offers a comprehensive and versatile customer support platform. While Intercom excels in certain aspects of customer communication, Zendesk offers its own set of strengths that cater to different aspects of customer support and engagement. Zendesk and Intercom are prominent players in the field of customer support and engagement platforms, each offering unique capabilities and advantages to address varying user requirements. 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.

In terms of pricing, Intercom is considered one of the most expensive tools on the market. 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. Check out our chart that compares the capabilities of Zendesk vs. Intercom. G2 ranks Intercom higher than Zendesk for ease of setup, and support quality—so you can expect a smooth transition, effortless onboarding, and continuous success. Whether you’re starting fresh with Intercom or migrating from Zendesk, set up is quick and easy.

If your business values a feature-rich and customizable solution for customer interactions, Zendesk may be the better choice. The comparison of whether Intercom is better than Zendesk depends on your specific customer support and engagement needs and objectives. If you seek to enhance customer engagement through chat-based support, in-app messaging, and proactive outreach, Intercom may be the superior option. While both Intercom and Zendesk excel in customer support and engagement, the decision between the two depends on your specific requirements.

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. The best part about Zendesk is that, along with its amazing features, it also provides its users with a magical wand for customizing them.

This could impact user experience and efficiency for new users grappling with its complexity​​​​​​. Zendesk is built to grow alongside your business, resulting in less downtime, better cost savings, and the stability needed to provide exceptional customer support. Many customers start using Zendesk as small or mid-sized businesses (SMBs) and continue to use our software as they scale their operations, hire more staff, and serve more customers. Our robust, no-code integrations enable you to adapt our software to new and growing use cases. Compared to Zendesk, Intercom offers few integrations, which may hinder its scalability.

You need a complete customer service platform that’s seamlessly integrated and AI-enhanced. That their customers are fully satisfied with their products and services, and so is the motto of our Desku chatbots. So, by holding Desku’s hand, you can open doors for a long list of happy and fully satisfied customers. The pricing structure of Intercom is complex, making it difficult for Intercom users to understand their final costs. Intercom charges the price based on representative seats and people reached, with additional expenses for add-ons. Zendesk offers various features, which may differ according to the plan.

It’s an invaluable tool for businesses aiming to enhance customer satisfaction, increase conversions, and build lasting relationships. While Zendesk offers a comprehensive set of features, other platforms may excel in certain areas or provide more tailored solutions that intercom vs zendesk align better with your customer support strategy and objectives. Intercom and Zendesk are both powerful support solutions with unique features. Intercom excels in real-time messaging and customer engagement, while Zendesk focuses on ticketing and strong customer support.

With its robust ticketing system, versatile automation capabilities, and extensive reporting tools, Zendesk empowers businesses to handle customer inquiries effectively and improve support efficiency. It’s best used when you need a centralized platform to manage customer support operations, whether Chat PG 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. Another critical difference between Zendesk and Intercom is their approach to CRM.

However, if you are looking for a robust messaging solution with customer support features, go for Intercom. Its intuitive messenger can help your business boost engagement and improve sales and marketing efforts. Both Zendesk Messaging and Intercom Messenger offer live chat features and AI-enabled chatbots for 24/7 support to customers.

But, you would not be able to enjoy such a live tracking experience on Intercom. These pricing structures are flexible enough to cater to all business sizes and types. Moreover, the pricing model ensures customer transparency and reveals the costs that businesses will incur. Businsses need to do a cost analysis whenever they select customer service software for their business. You cannot invest much in this software if you are a small business, as it would exceed the budget requirements.