Zendesk vs Intercom: In-Depth Features & Price Comparison

If compared to Intercom’s chatbot, Zendesk offers a relatively latest platform that makes support automation possible. So far, the chatbot can transfer chats to agents or resolve less complex queries in seconds. That means all you have to do is add the code to your website and enable it right away. Intercom offers a simplistic dashboard with a detailed view of all customer details in one place. Operators will find its dashboard quite beneficial as it will take them seconds to find necessary features during an ongoing chat with the customers.

From the inbox, live agents and chatbots can refer to and link knowledge base articles, to elaborate on replies and help customers locate answers. While administrators can automatically assign tickets to certain agents or teams, they can also manually assign tickets to members of sales or customer service teams. Team inboxes aggregate tickets applicable to the whole team–or a specific department–that any agent can address. Intercom built additional tools to aid in marketing and engagement to supplement its customer service solution. But we doubled down and created a truly full-service CX solution capable of handling any support request. Here are our top reporting and analytics features and an overview of where Intercom’s reporting limitations lie.

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. Overall, both Intercom and Zendesk are reliable and effective customer support tools, and the choice between the two ultimately depends on the specific needs and priorities of the user. Intercom also offers an API enabling businesses to build custom integrations with their tools.

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. Winner of our Supreme Software Award, Zendesk is a customer support solution that helps boost customer service and improve customer retention.

There is a Starter plan for small businesses at $74 per month billed annually, and there are add-ons like a WhatsApp add-on at $9 per user per month or surveys at $49 per month. The Zendesk Admin Center panels allow administrators to control settings, accessibility, automations, and workflows for everything from chatbots to integrations and custom APIs. 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)? 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.

Best 10 Zoho Desk Alternative Tools for Support Teams in 2023

Everything, from the tools to the website, reflects their meticulous attention 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. It can be classified as a chatbox for average users, just like the ones found on a variety of websites. Intercom’s native mobile apps are good for iOS, Android, React Native, and Cordova, while Zendesk only has mobile apps for iPhones, iPads, and Android devices. Every single bit of business SaaS in the world needs to leverage the efficiency power of workflows and automation. 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.

Intercom wins the reporting and analytics category due to its unique visualization and display formats for contact center and article data. The Sell dashboard, different from the Service dashboard, features pre-built widgets that agents can organize however they want, to view the metrics they care most about. Agents can participate in forums and turn forum posts into tickets; they also can turn community-post replies into articles for future customers. Intercom’s help center allows you to draft and organize collections of articles, accessible to customers via a search bar in the Messenger widget.

Although you cannot be with your customers all the time in real-time, through Desku’s live chatting, you can actually have their back. One of the most significant downsides of Intercom is its customer support. Existing customers have complained consistently about how they aren’t available at the right time to offer support to customers. There are even instances where customers don’t receive the first response in more than seven days. Zendesk has also introduced its chatbot to help its clients send automated answers to some frequently asked questions to stay ahead in the competitive marketplace. What’s more, it helps its clients build an integrated community forum and help center to improve the support experience in real-time.

User Satisfaction

This site does not include all software companies or all available software companies offers. 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.

Customers appreciate the platform’s ease of use, customization options, and robust reporting capabilities. However, some users have reported issues with the platform’s customer support and pricing. When it comes to customer support and services, both Intercom and Zendesk offer robust solutions. In this section, we will take a closer look at the customer support options provided by each platform.

• Intercom’s live chat reports aren’t just offering what your customers are doing or whether they are satisfied with your services.
• But keep in mind that Zendesk is viewed more as a support and ticketing solution, while Intercom is CRM functionality-oriented.
• In conclusion, Intercom and Zendesk have implemented robust security measures to protect their clients’ data.
• After this live chat software comparison, you’ll get a better picture of what’s better for your business.
• This exploration aims to provide a detailed comparison, aiding businesses in making an informed decision that aligns with their customer service goals.

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. 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.

Did you know that integrations between Zendesk and Intercom are possible? With the integrations provided through each product, you can make use of both platforms to provide your customers with comprehensive customer service. While Intercom Zendesk integration is uncommon, as they both offer very similar products, it can be useful for unique use cases or during migrations from one platform to the other.

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. You can opt for code via JavaScript or Rails or even integrate directly with the likes of Google Tag Manager, WordPress, or Shopify. 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. From there, you can include FAQs, announcements, and article guides and then save them into pre-set lists for your customers to explore.

If a customer isn’t satisfied with Answer Bot’s response, Answer Bot quickly routes them to an agent best suited to help. Create code-free screencast tours of products, websites, webpages, and applications within your website. The entire thread is saved within the ticket for future agents to reference. Agents can add each other to internal notes within a ticket, looping in team members to collaborate when necessary. For example, you can assign all inbound technical queries to an engineer; or, assign all pricing queries to the sales team. Automation and AI save resources and time–every automated workflow and routing decision frees an agent to work on more complex issues.

Zendesk supports teams that can then field these issues from a nice unified dashboard. 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?).

For example, with this integration, businesses can ask customers for feedback after they have metadialog.com interacted with customer service representatives or completed a purchase on their website. Experience firsthand how our software can transform your customer support strategy and drive overall business success. You can foun additiona information about ai customer service and artificial intelligence and NLP. If you are looking for more integration options and budget is not an issue, Intercom can be the perfect live chat solution for your business. It is also ideal for businesses who are searching for conversational chatbot functionality. Their AI-powered chatbot can enable your business to boost engagement and improve marketing efforts in real-time.

Intercom vs Zendesk features & functionality

The platform is known for its ease of use, customizable workflows, and extensive integrations with other business tools. While Intercom offers a “Starter Plan” for very small businesses, the price for larger companies is scaled upward, too. If you only need the services Intercom offers, then you’ll only spend around $75 a month for two seats. While Zendesk offers a wide array of support features, many more than Intercom, there are a couple of major features it lacks that Intercom has. The first is proactive, in-app messaging, and the second is email marketing capabilities. They’ve been rated as one of the easy live chat solutions with more integrated options.

If a customer starts an interaction by talking to a chatbot and can’t find a solution, our chatbot can open a ticket and intelligently route it to the most qualified agent. 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. 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.

In fact, agents can even add customers to private messaging chats when necessary, and the customer will receive the whole conversation history by email to ensure they’re up to date. Intercom wins the automation and AI category because its chatbots have some impressive capabilities, like lead qualification and advanced routing. An inbound customer message through any of these channels becomes a ticket for your support agents, whose reply reaches the customer through the same channel they originally used.

Inside a ticket, the workspace center console displays the ticket’s conversation. The right side of the screen displays all customer contact information and company interaction history, and the agent can contact the customer via any channel with just a few clicks. The admin and manager dashboard provides a zoomed-out view of all activity taking place in each inbox, for whole departments and individual agents. Agents can respond in any channel by typing in the text box and have access to deep customer experience history and background in the right-hand column. The dashboard’s left-hand column organizes and sorts all tickets by urgency. When an agent clicks on a conversation, the full conversation history populates the middle screen.

A collection of these reports can enable your business to identify the right resources responsible for bringing engagement to your business. Zendesk is another popular customer service, support, and sales platform that enables clients to connect and engage with their customers in seconds. Just like Intercom, Zendesk can also integrate with multiple messaging platforms and ensure that your business never misses out on a support opportunity. Intercom is a customer support messenger, bot, and live chat service provider that empowers its clients to provide instant support in real-time.

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.

• Intercom does have a ticketing dashboard that has omnichannel functionality, much like Zendesk.
• So, communicating with customers on different communication channels would be difficult on Intercom.
• The overall sentiment from users indicates a satisfactory level of support, although opinions vary.
• Manual tagging is also subjective as agents may interpret the content of tickets differently.

Intercom is an all-in-one business communications tool that offers support, marketing, and sales features. It is known for its automation options and customizable capabilities, making it a popular choice for small-to-medium businesses. On the other hand, Zendesk is primarily a customer service platform that now offers intercom vs. zendesk a sales module. It is designed for larger enterprises and offers more comprehensive features than Intercom. 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.

App Marketplace

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. 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. And while many other chatbots take forever to set up, you can set up your first chatbot in under five minutes. You can also follow up with customers after they have left the chat and qualify them based on your answers. It’s divided into about 20 topics with dozens of articles each, so navigating through it can be complicated. 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.

When you are talking to customers via the in-app chat, you can type like it’s facebook messenger and it feels natural. Intercom is an excellent option for businesses prioritizing personalized communication and customer engagement. Its live chat feature and ability to send targeted messages and notifications make it a powerful tool for customer engagement. Intercom’s user-friendly interface and easy integration with other tools make it a popular choice for many businesses. One of the standout features of Zendesk’s customer support is its ticketing system.

The Agent Workspace highlights tickets based on the issue and urgency, assigning each one a priority–agents can also tag tickets based on recency, hold-vs-open status, and urgency. Zendesk for Service transforms customer queries and conversations from all channels–call, web chat, tweet, text, or email–into tickets in the Agent Workspace. Pre-selected assignment rules customize each ticket’s destination, assigning routing paths to agents or departments based on customer priority status, query type, or issue details. Intercom has more customization features for features like bots, themes, triggers, and funnels. What’s really nice about this is that even within a ticket, you can switch between communication modes without changing views.

The Zendesk chat tool has most of the necessary features like shortcuts (saved responses), automated triggers, and live chat analytics. 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 also has a mobile app available for both Android and iOS, which makes it easy to stay connected with customers even when away from the computer. The app includes features like automated messages and conversation routing — so businesses can manage customer conversations more efficiently. 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. So, Zendesk’s users are always going to have a smooth experience with it.

Welcome to another blog post that helps you gauge which live chat solution is compatible with your customer support needs. And in this post, we will analyze two popular names in the SaaS industry – Intercom & Zendesk. When comparing Zendesk and Intercom, various factors come into play, each focusing on different aspects, strengths, and weaknesses of these customer support platforms.

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. Now that we know a little about both tools, it is time to make an in-depth analysis and identify which one of these will be perfect for your business. Zendesk shines with its scalability and comprehensive tools, ideal for larger businesses. Pricing for both services varies based on the specific needs and scale of your business.

Zendesk offers more advanced automation capabilities than Intercom, which may be a deciding factor for businesses that require complex workflows. Zendesk is a customer service software company that provides businesses with a suite of tools to manage customer interactions. The company was founded in 2007 and today serves over 170,000 customers worldwide. Zendesk’s mission is to build software designed to improve customer relationships.

This gets you unlimited email addresses and email templates in both text form and HTML. Intercom has a full suite of email marketing tools, although they are part of a pricier package. With Intercom, you get email features like targeted and personalized outbound emailing, dynamic content fields, and an email-to-inbox forwarding feature.

When visitors click on it, they’ll be directed to one of your customer service teammates. For basic chat and messaging, Intercom charges a flat fee of $39 per month for its basic plan with one user and $99 per month for its team plan with up to 5 users. If you want automated options, Intercom starts at either $499 or $999 per month for up to ten users, depending on the level of automation you’re looking for. 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. In a nutshell, none of the customer support software companies provide decent assistance for users.

So, if you have customers who prefer to call service with an Intercom, it wouldn’t be possible. You would rather have to integrate it with third-party apps like Appy Pie Connect. Moreover, research says that companies can reduce customer resolution times upto a great percentage through the helpdesk software. Today, thanks to the virtual technology revolution, you can find numerous help desk software, but our vote goes for Zendesk and Intercom. Overall, Intercom and Zendesk offer intuitive and user-friendly user interfaces, prioritizing ease of use and customization. The choice between the two may be personal preference or specific feature requirements.