Zendesk vs Intercom: Which Is Right For Your Business in 2023? Centro Universitario de Baja Verapaz

As a conversational relationship platform, Zendesk gives you the option of live chatting with customers via your website, mobile, and messaging. You can foun additiona information about ai customer service and artificial intelligence and NLP. 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.

Just like Intercom, Zendesk can also integrate with multiple messaging platforms and ensure that your business never misses out on a support opportunity. Intercom’s app store has popular integrations for things like WhatsApp, Stripe, Instagram, and Slack. There is a really useful one for Shopify to intercom versus zendesk provide customer support for e-commerce operations. Intercom’s pricing typically includes different plans designed to accommodate businesses of various sizes and needs. While Intercom offers a free trial, it’s important to note that the cost can increase as you scale and add more features or users.

These products range from customer communication tools to a fully-fledged CRM. Zendesk boasts incredibly robust sales capabilities and security features. 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.

In short, Zendesk is perfect for large companies looking to streamline their customer support process; Intercom is great for smaller companies looking for advanced customer service features. Its sales CRM software starts at $19 per month per user, but you’ll have to pay $49 to get Zapier integrations and $99 for Hubspot integrations. Finally, you can pay $199 per month per user for unlimited sales pipelines and advanced reporting along with other features. Zendesk has strong positive reviews especially since the software has mobile apps for access. Though some complained that it’s not easy to check the tickets using the apps. Intercom calculates the price based on the number of seats (users) you request.

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. 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. There is also something called warm transfers, which let one rep add contextual notes to a ticket before transferring it to another rep. You also get a side conversation tool. 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. Overall, Zendesk empowers businesses to deliver exceptional customer support experiences across channels, making it a popular choice for enhancing support operations.

Plan Flexibility: Which One Has More Flexible Pricing Options?

Zendesk, with its extensive toolkit, is often preferred by businesses seeking an all-encompassing customer support solution. ThriveDesk is a help desk software tailor-made for businesses seeking extensive features and a powerful yet simple live chat assistant. If money is limited for your business, a help desk that can be a Zendesk alternative or an Intercom alternative is ThriveDesk. Intercom’s live chat reports aren’t just offering what your customers are doing or whether they are satisfied with your services. They offer more detailed insights like lead generation sources, a complete message report to track customer engagement, and detailed information on the support team’s performance. A collection of these reports can enable your business to identify the right resources responsible for bringing engagement to your business.

This option is useful for those who are looking for a smooth switch from Zendesk to Intercom. There are several notable alternatives to Intercom in the customer support and engagement space, including Zendesk, Freshdesk, Help Scout, HubSpot, and Zoho Desk. There are several notable alternatives to Zendesk in the customer support and engagement space, including Intercom, Freshdesk, Help Scout, and Zoho Desk. When comparing Zendesk and Intercom, various factors come into play, each focusing on different aspects, strengths, and weaknesses of these customer support platforms. Intercom, on the other hand, is ideal for those focusing on CRM capabilities and personalized customer interactions.

The Intercom vs. Zendesk pricing may be justified by the value-added services and minor features that they have for their all-in-one pricing. For example, for businesses that want just a couple of features, there are subscription packages. Each of such packages contains a set of tools from basic to advanced features.

Live chat add-on provides you with personal customer communication (via the web, mobile, and messaging) without interrupting their experience. Once you add live chat to your website, your visitors will be able to reach you through the chat widget. 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. Both Intercom and Zendesk have proven to be valuable tools for businesses looking to provide excellent customer support. Evaluate their features, compare them based on your business needs, and choose the one that aligns best with your goals and objectives.

Intercom:

Ultimately, it’s important to consider what features each platform offers before making a decision, as well as their pricing options and customer support policies. Since both are such well-established market leader companies, you can rest assured that whichever one you choose will offer a quality customer service solution. It enables businesses to have real-time conversations with their customers through their website or mobile app. In contrast, Zendesk offers a more diverse range of communication channels, including email, social media, phone, and live chat.

With Intercom workload management tools, administrators can ensure that incoming conversations, traffic, and workload are evenly distributed among team members. While Intercom lacks some common customer-service channels like voice calling and video conferencing, it supports other unique features that transfer across channels. Intercom and Zendesk, two of the most popular customer service platforms have gained popularity and unique clientele for themselves since their launch. While both are customer-centric, it is worth mentioning that when we dig even a little deeper, the differences and similarities become quite apparent, even to a casual observer. The best way, however, to maximize their potential is through Intercom Zendesk integrations on Appy Pie Connect.

You are all set as soon as pre-finalized trial stage checks out – And now you can set off with the complete Zendesk import process. We do, however, urge you to consider an off-peak period to start the transfer. So, by now, you can see that according to this article, Zendesk inches past Intercom as the better customer support platform. 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. It is none other than the modern customer support software of Helpwise. Customers of Zendesk can purchase priority assistance at the enterprise tier, which includes a 99.9% uptime service level agreement and a 1-hour service level goal.

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. 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.

Its chat-based approach, automation capabilities, and chatbots are ideal for handling routine inquiries efficiently. 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. 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.

And there’s still no way to know how much you’ll pay for them since the prices are only revealed after you go through a few sale demos with the Intercom team. Zendesk is a ticketing system before anything else, and its ticketing functionality is overwhelming in the best possible way. Intercom does have a ticketing dashboard that has omnichannel functionality, much like Zendesk.

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. Here is a Zendesk vs. Intercom based on the customer support offered by these brands. Zendesk pricing is divided between a customer support product called “Zendesk for support”, and a fully-fledged CRM called “Zendesk for sales”. Intercom users often mention how impressed they are with its ease of use and their ability to quickly create useful tasks and set up automations. Even reviewers who hadn’t used the platform highlight how beautifully designed it is and how simple it is to interact with for both users and clients alike.

In comparison to that, you enjoy customized agent roles, sandbox, and skills-based routing, besides offering basic functionalities with the expensive enterprise plan. 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. We can say that Zendesk’s user interface is very clean and clear to understand. Besides its easy navigation, it also offers a mesmerizing ticketing system, multichannel communication, and analytics reporting.

It has a very intuitive design that goes far beyond its platform and into its articles, product guides, and even its illustrations. 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.

Here’s a list of criteria we’ve used to differentiate the two for you. It doesn’t require a team of administrators to manage and its toolset is robust without being complex. When evaluating the cost of any software tool, you have to look beyond the price tag. ROI comes down to getting the most out of the features available, so payment structures that are scaleable and flexible are a must.

It delivers a multi-channel support system with customer service automation. You can set business rules, SLA, and ticket routing based on the agent’s skills, language, and expertise. Each message will have identifiers so that they will be easy to recognize at a glance. As a result, you’ll be able to see the sender, anyone who replied, and the dates of their interaction. As well as Intercom, it allows sharing of private notes with other support agents.

When a ticket is found in Zendesk, create a conversation in Intercom and keep both in sync. Tagging takes away the time they could have spent helping more customers. They also offer several other features such as pre-defined responses, custom rules, and customizable online forms. 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 chat allows you to talk with your visitors in real time through a small chat bar at the bottom of your site.

Integrations

If your business values a feature-rich and customizable solution for customer interactions, Zendesk may be the better choice. 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. Many businesses choose to work with Intercom because of its focus on personalization and flexibility, allowing companies to completely customize their customer service experience. But note that there are a few complaints about HubSpot not displaying integrated apps, requiring users to leave the hub to access them. Just as Zendesk, Intercom also offers its own Operator bot which will automatically suggest relevant articles to customers who ask for help.

Well, I must admit, the tool is gradually transforming from a platform for communicating with users to a tool that helps you automate every aspect of your routine. They’ve been marketing themselves as a messaging platform right from the beginning. 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.

Apart from team conversations, it integrates with the ticketing system. Thus, the inbox is used to refer tickets to other agents who can solve them. Therefore, a helpdesk with a good inbox can make your team efficient in solving problems. It introduces shared inboxes tailored for different teams, such as sales, marketing, and customer success.

Services

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. 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. Learn how top CX leaders are scaling personalized customer service at their companies.

Check out the research-backed comparison below to better understand how each solution can add value to your organization. Compare Zendesk versus Intercom to determine who will be the best partner for your business at every phase of the customer journey. 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.

Intercom’s UI excels in modern design and intuitive functionality, particularly noted for its real-time messaging and advanced features. It is tailored for automation and quick access to insights, offering a user-friendly experience. Nevertheless, the platform’s support consistency can be a concern, and the unpredictable pricing structure might lead to increased costs for larger organizations. They offer an omnichannel live chat solution that integrates with multiple messaging platforms and marketing channels and even automates incoming support processes with bots. It is quite the all-rounder as it even has a help center and ticketing system that completes its omnichannel support cycle.

Intercom or Zendesk: Voice and phone tools

It has a direct integration with Shopify and other tools including powerful B2B customer handling. It also satisfies all the requirements you’ve outlined including order history, interaction history, notes, tickets etc. Along with Omni channel integrations with chat (their own or other chat solutions), email, phone and so on. 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.

• Now that we’ve covered a bit of background on both Zendesk and Intercom, let’s dive into the features each platform offers.
• We specialize in importing data to Zendesk, utilizing our state-of-the-art Zendesk data importer.
• Both offer powerful solutions for businesses looking to enhance their customer service capabilities.

While it offers a range of advanced features, the overall costs and potential inconsistencies in support could be a concern for some businesses​​​​. 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.

It’s highly customizable, too, so you can adjust it according to your website or product’s style. Intercom is more for improving sales cycle and customer relationships, while Zendesk has everything a customer support representative can dream about, but it does lack wide email functionality. On the other hand, it provides call center functionalities, unlike Intercom. The Intercom versus Zendesk conundrum is probably the greatest problem in the customer service software world. They both offer some state-of-the-art core functionality and numerous unusual features.

For example, you can have Zendesk Chat analyze how long someone is on your checkout page, and once it hits a certain limit, start a conversation with them to see if they need assistance. Before you make your choice, check out Messagely’s features and compare them to discover which platform is best for you. 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. 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. The three tiers—Suite Team, Suite Growth, and Suite Professional—also give you more options outside of Intercom’s static structure. Suite Team is more affordable than Intercom’s $79/month tier; Suite Professional is more expensive.

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. A helpdesk solution’s user experience and interface are crucial in ensuring efficient and intuitive customer support. Let’s evaluate the user experience and interface of both Zendesk and Intercom, considering factors such as ease of navigation, customization options, and overall intuitiveness.

However, additional costs for advanced features can quickly increase the total expense. Intercom stands out for its modern and user-friendly messenger functionality, which includes advanced features with a focus on automation and real-time insights. Its AI Chatbot, Fin, is particularly noted for handling complex queries efficiently. Key offerings include automated support with help center articles, a messenger-first ticketing system, and a powerful inbox to centralize customer queries. We take into consideration the resourcefulness of customer data migration. However, it is possible Intercom’s support is superior at the premium level.

Zendesk’s AI (Fin) helps with automated responses, ensuring your customers get quick answers. On the other hand, Intercom’s AI-powered chatbots and messaging are designed to enhance your marketing and sales efforts, giving you an edge in the competitive market. Experience the comprehensive power of Intercom for effective customer communication, automation, support tools, integrations, and analytics.

Intercom is great for talking to customers in real-time, like through live chats or in-app messages. Zendesk is more about organizing customer requests with a ticketing system and talking to customers through many channels like email, phone, or chat. Suppose you are thinking that Intercom isn’t offering any attractive features, but it’s actually not true. There is one mind-boggling feature in Intercom, and that is its in-app messaging serving. It’s a very good way of communicating with customers through multi-platform apps. Moreover, the best part is it also lets you send customized messages to various customers on the basis of their actions.

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. Intercom, on the other hand, is designed to be more of a complete solution for sales, marketing, and customer relationship nurturing. Now that customers know how AI can improve their support experience, they’re not willing to wait around for anything less. Customer expectations for customer service have reached an all-time high, with 87% of support teams reporting that customer service expectations have increased in the past year.

Founded in 2011, Intercom has quickly become one of the most versatile and comprehensive customer support tools on the market and they are showing no signs of slowing down. While both tools offer top-of-field feature sets that can simplify your customer support processes dramatically, identifying which is right for you can take time and effort. Zendesk and Intercom are robust tools with a wide range of customer service and CRM features. For small companies and startups, Intercom offers a Starter plan — with a balanced suite of features from each of the solutions below — at $74 per month per user, billed annually. You can create an omnichannel CRM suite with a mix of productivity, collaboration, eCommerce, CRM, analytics, email marketing, social media, and other tools. Both app stores include many popular integrations, such as Salesforce, HubSpot, Mailchimp, and Zapier.