Zendesk vs Intercom: Which Solution to Choose in 2024?

In the world of customer service, setting clear expectations is key to maintaining customer satisfaction and loyalty. Choose Zendesk for a scalable, team-size-based pricing model and Intercom for initial low-cost access with flexibility in adding advanced features. Both Zendesk and Intercom offer varying flavors when it comes to curating the whole customer support experience. Gain valuable insights with Intercom’s analytics and reporting capabilities. Track key metrics, measure campaign success, and optimize customer engagement strategies.

You can do this by going to your settings within Zendesk (click on the cog on the left hand side), and navigating to API in the ‘Channels’ section. As customers come closer to purchasing, they often find themselves weighing the same pros and cons. In our experience, when future clients start thinking about the advantages and disadvantages of Intercom vs. Zendesk, these are the questions they want answers to. Sendcloud is a software-as-a-service (SaaS) company that allows users to generate packing slips and labels to help online retailers streamline their shipping process.

• Intercom has a unique pricing structure, offering three separate solutions, each intended for a distinct use case.
• It can be classified as a chatbox for average users, just like the ones found on a variety of websites.
• 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.

Customer service systems like Zendesk and Intercom should provide a simple workflow builder as well as many pre-built automations which can be used right out of the box. 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. Intercom’s dashboards may not be as aesthetically pleasing as Zendesk’s, but they still allow users to navigate their tools with few distractions.

Its AI Chatbot, Fin, is particularly noted for handling complex queries efficiently. Streamline support processes with Intercom’s ticketing system and knowledge base. Efficiently manage customer inquiries and empower customers to find answers independently. Intercom’s messaging system enables real-time interactions through various channels, including chat, email, and in-app messages. 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.

Zendesk vs Intercom – A Detailed Comparison

View your users’ Zendesk tickets in Intercom and create new ones directly from conversations. You can collect ticket data from customers when they fill out the ticket, update them manually as you handle the conversation. This means you can use the Help Desk Migration product to import data from a variety of source tools (e.g. Zendesk, ZOHOdesk, Freshdesk, SFDC etc) to Intercom tickets.

Zendesk is designed to fit your business needs whether you’re a fast-growing startup or a well-established company. Messagely pulls together all of the information about the customer contacting you and gives your representatives information on each interaction they’ve had with them, all within a streamlined platform. This way, zendesk intercom your clients will never have to repeat themselves or get frustrated because their new representative doesn’t know their background. You don’t have to pay per contact on your database, and you there are many free features you can use. With all accounted for, it seems that Zendesk still has a number of user interface issues.

This is not a huge difference; however, it does indicate that customers are generally more satisfied with Intercom's offerings than Zendesk's. Zendesk is a much larger company than Intercom; it has over 170,000 customers, while Intercom has over 25,000. While this may seem like a positive for Zendesk, it's important to consider that a larger company may not be as agile or responsive to customer needs as a smaller company.

Like Zendesk, Intercom allows you to chat with online visitors and assist with their issues. Check out our list of unified communications providers for more information. Companies looking for a more complete customer service product–without niche bells and whistles, but with all the basic channels you want–should look to Zendesk. Small businesses who prioritize collaboration will also enjoy Zendesk for Service.

Messagely also provides you with a shared inbox so anyone from your team can follow up with your users, regardless of who the user was in contact with first. 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.

What Sets HubSpot Apart

Besides, the prices differ depending on the company’s size and specific needs. We conducted a little study of our own and found that all Intercom users share different amounts of money they pay for the plans, which can reach over $1000/mo. The price levels can even be much higher if we’re talking of a larger company. If you’d want to test Intercom vs Zendesk before deciding on a tool for good, they both provide free trials for 14 days. But sooner or later, you’ll have to decide on the subscription plan, and here’s what you’ll have to pay. So yeah, all the features talk actually brings us to the most sacred question — the question of pricing.

It is great to have CRM functionality inside your customer service platform because it helps maintain great customer experiences by storing all past customer engagements and conversation histories. This method helps offer more personalized support as well as get faster response and resolution times. Zendesk wins the major category of help desk and ticketing system software. It lets customers reach out via messaging, a live chat tool, voice, and social media. Zendesk supports teams that can then field these issues from a nice unified dashboard.

Respond to all conversations across different messaging platforms in one place and avoid juggling between dozens of tabs. Collaborate with your teammates by easily assigning the right rep to best handle a customer query. Zendesk’s Suite Team plan (the cheapest plan) costs $49 per user per month. You get multiple support channels at no extra cost with over 1000 APIs and integrations. They also offer several other features such as pre-defined responses, custom rules, and customizable online forms.

Intercom, on the other hand, is ideal for those focusing on CRM capabilities and personalized customer interactions. So, whether you’re a startup or a global giant, Zendesk’s got your back for top-notch customer support. Zendesk lets you chat with customers through email, chat, social media, or phone. That being said the customer support for both Zendesk and Intercom is lacking. 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.

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. Intercom's chatbot feels a little more robust than Zendesk's (though it's worth noting that some features are only available at the Engage and Convert tiers). You can set office hours, live chat with logged-in users via their user profiles, and set up a chatbot. Customization is more nuanced than Zendesk's, but it's still really straightforward to implement.

Updated Ticket

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. However, compared to Zendesk, Intercom might not offer the same breadth in terms of integrating a wide range of external channels. While it excels in interactive and engaging communication, especially on mobile, some businesses might find its focus on chat-based interfaces limiting if they need extensive email or voice call support. The company's products include a ticketing system, live chat software, knowledge base software, and a customer satisfaction survey tool.

Intercom has your back if you’re looking to supercharge your sales efforts. It’s like having a toolkit for lead generation, customer segmentation, and crafting highly personalized messages. This makes it an excellent choice if you want to engage with support and potential and existing customers in real time. Messagely’s chatbots are powerful tools for qualifying and converting leads while your team is otherwise occupied or away. With chatbots, you can generate leads to hand over to your sales team and solve common customer queries without the need of a customer service representative behind a keyboard.

Zendesk offers more advanced automation capabilities than Intercom, which may be a deciding factor for businesses that require complex workflows. As a customer support specialist, you may need to manage multiple tools to provide excellent support to your customers. If you use both Intercom and Zendesk, you can streamline your workflow and improve customer service by integrating them through Custom Actions. In this article, we will show you step-by-step guidelines on how to create tickets in Zendesk from a conversation in Intercom using Custom Actions. They have a dedicated help section that provides instructions on how to set up and effectively use Intercom.

There are many powerful integrations included, such as Salesforce, HubSpot, Mailchimp, Slack, and Zapier. 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. By the end of the article, you’ll not only know all of the main differences between Zendesk and Intercom, but you’ll know which is the right tool for you. While Intercom does not offer free trials, they do offer demo versions of each plan.

Create or update Intercom leads when new Zendesk users are added

In terms of pricing, Intercom is considered one of the most expensive tools on the market. 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. 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.

In an omnichannel contact center, agents can manage customer interactions across channels, no matter which channel a customer uses to contact the company. Zendesk for Service transforms customer queries and conversations from all channels–call, web chat, tweet, text, or email–into tickets in the Agent Workspace. This article will compare Intercom vs Zendesk, outlining each tool’s features, ease-of-use, pricing and plans, pros and cons, and user-support options. Intercom and Zendesk are two of the most popular customer service platforms, each with its own set of distinct advantages and drawbacks. There are pre-built workflows to help with things like ticket sharing, as well as conversation routing based on metrics like agent skill set or availability.

Intercom User Assistance and Support

In this article, we’ll compare Zendesk vs Intercom to find out which is the right customer support tool for you. While Intercom offers unique feature options that weave together well into campaigns and series, it lacks voice calling–a critical feature–and spreads its more advanced features out too much among plans. However, customers can purchase multiple Intercom plans to use together, or purchase add-ons to select just the features they want. Intercom has a unique pricing structure, offering three separate solutions, each intended for a distinct use case. We wish some of their great features were offered in multiple plans, but none features overlap among plans.

• You can always count on it if you need a reliable customer support platform to process tickets, support users, and get advanced reporting.
• Their customer service management tools have a shared inbox for support teams.
• Simplicity is an important consideration when selecting the best customer service software.
• 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.

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 for Sales offers three plans, ranging from $19 to $99 monthly per user, with free trials available for each plan.

Check out this tutorial to import ticket types and tickets data into your Intercom workspace. 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. Like so many others, Monese determined that Zendesk was the best solution to provide seamless, omnichannel support because of its scalability and reliability. With over 100,000 customers across all industries and regions, Zendesk knows what it takes to interact with customers while retaining and growing relationships. Compare Zendesk versus Intercom to determine who will be the best partner for your business at every phase of the customer journey.

Just like Zendesk, Intercom also offers its Operator bot, which will automatically suggest relevant articles to clients right in a chat widget. You can publish your self-service resources, divide them by categories, and integrate them with your messenger to accelerate the whole chat experience. Once connected, you can add Zendesk Support to your inbox, and start creating Zendesk tickets from Intercom conversations. Yes, you can install the Messenger on your iOS or Android app so customers can get in touch from your mobile app. Use HubSpot Service Hub to provide seamless, fast, and delightful customer service. Monese is another fintech company that provides a banking app, account, and debit card to make settling in a new country easier.

Here's what you need to know about Zendesk vs. Intercom as customer support and relationship management tools. 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.

Zendesk is renowned for its comprehensive toolset that aids in automating customer service workflows and fine-tuning chatbot interactions. 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. Both Zendesk and Intercom are customer support management solutions that offer features like ticket management, live chat and messaging, automation workflows, knowledge centers, and analytics. Zendesk has traditionally been more focused on customer support management, while Intercom has been more focused on live support solutions like its chat solution. While the company is smaller than Zendesk, Intercom has earned a reputation for building high-quality customer service software.

Its $99 bracket includes advanced options, such as customer satisfaction prediction and multi-brand support, and in the $199 bracket, you also get advanced security and other very advanced features. Depending on your needs, you can set up Intercom on your website or mobile app and add your automations. Setting up Intercom help centers is also very easy and intuitive, with no previous knowledge required. 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.

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. Zendesk Sunshine is a separate feature set that focuses on unified customer views. Learn how top CX leaders are scaling personalized customer service at their companies. You can create dozens of articles in a simple, intuitive WYSIWYG text editor, divide them by categories and sections, and customize with your custom themes. If you create a new chat with the team, land on a page with no widget, and go back to the browser for some reason, your chat will go puff. Intercom has more customization features for features like bots, themes, triggers, and funnels.

Intercom is a customer messaging platform that enables businesses to engage with customers through personalized and real-time communication. Intercom, while differing from Zendesk, offers specialized features aimed at enhancing customer relationships. Founded as a business messenger, it now extends to enabling support, engagement, and conversion. On the contrary, Intercom is far less predictable when it comes to pricing and can cost hundreds/thousands of dollars per month. But this solution is great because it’s an all-in-one tool with a modern live chat widget, allowing you to easily improve your customer experiences. At the same time, Zendesk looks slightly outdated and can’t offer some features.

Lastly, Intercom offers an academy that offers concise courses to help users make the most out of their Intercom experience. 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. At all tiers, there is an additional fee to work with a member of the Zendesk success team on unique engagements. To sum up this Intercom vs Zendesk battle, the latter is a great support-oriented tool that will be a good choice for big teams with various departments.

By providing banking without boundaries, the company aims to provide users with quick access to their finances, wherever they happen to be. The support team faced spiking ticket volumes, numerous new customer accounts, and the need to shift to remote work. Track customer service metrics to gain valuable insights and improve customer service processes and agent performance. Prioritize the agent experience to maximize productivity and customer satisfaction while reducing employee turnover. The internal notes tool makes working together even better by giving team members a place to add context, share insights, or talk about specifics within the platform.

Rest assured, ThriveDesk’s lightweight design and speed won’t impact the performance of your Wix-powered eCommerce website. The optimized agent interface ensures rapid responses for maximum efficiency, all while keeping your website running smoothly. Before you make your choice, check out Messagely’s features and compare them to discover which platform is best for you. With this kind of organization, you will not only find your favorite apps but also discover new ones to meet your needs. However, the Intercom app store is far more intuitive and is much easier to navigate. It not only shows you all of the apps you can use, but it also divides these into topics and categories.

Brian Kale, the head of customer success at Bank Novo, describes how Zendesk helped Bank Novo boost productivity and streamline service. Sendcloud adopted these solutions to replace siloed systems like Intercom and a local voice support provider in favor of unified, omnichannel support. Businesses should always consider a tool’s TCO before committing to a purchase. Many software vendors aren’t upfront about the cost of using their products, maintenance costs, or integration fees. In order to obtain an idea of the financial consequences that will be incurred by your team as well as the predicted number of clients, it is essential to compare their plans in a meticulous manner.

If that sounds good to you, sign up for a free demo to see our software in action and get started. Here are our top reporting and analytics features and an overview of where Intercom’s reporting limitations lie. Intercom’s integration capabilities are limited, and some apps don’t integrate well with third-party customer service technology.

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. You get a dashboard that makes creating, tracking, and organizing tickets easy. Whether your customers prefer to communicate via phone, chat, email, social media, or any other channel, Zendesk unifies all of your customer interactions into one platform.

It will allow you to leverage some Intercom capabilities while keeping your account at the time-tested platform. You can foun additiona information about ai customer service and artificial intelligence and NLP. Though the Intercom chat window says that their customer success team typically replies in a few hours, don’t expect to receive any real answer in chat for at least a couple of days. 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. Intercom does have a ticketing dashboard that has omnichannel functionality, much like Zendesk. Their reports are attractive, dynamic, and integrated right out of the box.

Intercom feels more wholesome and is more client-success-oriented, but it can be too costly for smaller companies. In this paragraph, let’s explain some common issues that users usually ask about when choosing between Zendesk and Intercom platforms. Say what you will, but Intercom’s design and overall user experience leave all its competitors far behind. What can be really inconvenient about Zendesk is how their tools integrate with each other when you need to use them simultaneously.