Intercom vs Zendesk 2023: A Comprehensive Comparison

While both Zendesk and Intercom offer robust features, their pricing models might still be a hurdle for businesses looking to just start out with a help desk on a comparatively smaller budget. If you prioritize detailed support performance metrics and the ability to create custom reports, Zendesk’s reporting capabilities are likely to be more appealing. Zendesk Explore allows you to create custom reports and visualizations in order to gain deeper insights into your support operations and setup.

However, if you’re interested in understanding customer behavior, product usage, and in need of AI-powered predictive insights, Intercom’s user analytics might be a better fit. With Explore, you can share and collaborate with anyone customer service reports. You can share these reports one-time or on a recurring basis with anyone in your organization.

Reports & Analytics

Built on billions of customer experience interactions, the AI capabilities can be integrated across the entire service experience, from self-service to agent support, optimizing operations at scale. 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. With a multi-channel ticketing system, Zendesk Support helps you and your team to know exactly who you’re talking to and keep track of tickets throughout all channels without losing context. The setup is designed to seamlessly connect your customer support team with customers across all platforms. Both tools also allow you to connect your email account and manage it from within the application to track open and click-through rates.

The software allows agents to switch between tickets seamlessly, leading to better customer satisfaction. Whether an agent wants to transition from live chat to phone or email with a customer, it’s all possible on the same ticketing page. 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.

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. You can try Customerly without any risk to you as we offer a 14-day free trial.

The platform is known for its ease of use, customizable workflows, and extensive integrations with other business tools. Messagely’s pricing starts at just $29 per month, which includes live chat, targeted messages, shared inbox, mobile apps, and over 750 powerful integrations. Intercom isn’t as great with sales, but it allows for better communication.

Its ability to scale with the businesses makes it an attractive option for growing companies. Its customizable options enable businesses to quickly gain value from its features by enhancing agility. However, it is a great option for businesses seeking efficient customer interactions, as its focus on personalized messaging compensates for its lack of features. Tracking the ticket progress enables businesses to track what part of the resolution customer complaint has reached. On the other hand, Intercom catches up with Zendesk on ticket handling capabilities but stands out due to its automation features. Intercom offers fewer integrations, supporting just over 450 third-party apps.

As two of the giants of the industry, it’s only natural that you’d reach a point where you’re comparing Zendesk vs Intercom. Zendesk AI is the intelligence layer that infuses CX intelligence into every step of the customer journey. In addition to being pre-trained on billions of real support interactions, our AI powers bots, agent and admin assist, and intelligent workflows that lead to 83 percent lower administrative costs. Customers have also noted that they can implement Zendesk AI five times faster than other solutions. Intercom offers just over 450 integrations, which can make it less cost-effective and more complex to customize the software and adapt to new use cases as you scale. The platform also lacks transparency in displaying reviews, install counts, and purpose-built customer service integrations.

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. Intercom and Zendesk are excellent customer support tools offering unique features and benefits.

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. 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. 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.

It really depends on what features you need and what type of customer service strategy you plan to implement. In a nutshell, none of the customer support software companies provide decent user assistance. Their help desk software has a single inbox to handle customer inquiries. Your customer service agents can leave private notes for each other and enjoy automatic ticket assignments to the right specialists. It’s designed so well that you really enjoy staying in their inbox and communicating with clients.

Customers often call or chat with us multiple times prior to the purchase and post-purchase, as these are emotional, time-sensitive purchases. This live chat software provider also enables your business to send proactive chat messages to customers and engage effectively in real-time. This is one of the best ways to qualify high-quality leads for your business and improve your chances of closing a sale faster. 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. They offer an omnichannel chat solution that integrates with multiple messaging platforms and marketing channels and even automates incoming support processes with bots.

The clean and professional design focuses on bold typography and contrasting colors. 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. 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. Intercom works with any website or web-based product and aims to be your one-way stop for all of your customer communication needs.

Zendesk also allows Advanced AI and Advanced data privacy and protection plans, which cost $50 per month for each Advanced add-on. Let us dive deeper into the offerings of Zendesk and Intercom to make a comparison at a glance. This comparison is going to help you understand the features of both tools. Boost your lead gen and sales funnels with Flows – no-code automation paths that trigger at crucial moments in the customer journey. For standard reporting like response times, leads generated by source, bot performance, messages sent, and email deliverability, you’ll easily find all the metrics you need. Beyond that, you can create custom reports that combine all of the stats listed above (and many more) and present them as counts, columns, lines, or tables.

App Marketplace

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. Zendesk Sell provides robust CRM features such as lead tracking, task management, and workflow automation.

The latter offers a chat widget that is simple, outdated, and limited in customization options, while the former puts all of its resources into its messenger. Often, it’s a centralized platform for managing inquiries and issues from different channels. Let’s look at how help desk features are represented in our examinees’ solutions. The Intercom versus Zendesk conundrum is probably the greatest problem in customer service software. They both offer some state-of-the-art core functionality and numerous unusual features. CoinJar is one of the longest-running cryptocurrency exchanges in the world.

Its automation tools help companies see automated responses and triggers based on the customer journey and response time. Intercom’s automation features enable businesses to deliver a personalized experience to customers and scale their customer support function effectively. On the contrary, Intercom’s pricing is far less predictable and can cost hundreds/thousands of dollars per month. But this solution wins because it’s an all-in-one tool with a modern live chat widget, allowing you to improve your customer experiences easily. It has a more sophisticated user interface and a wide range of features, such as an in-app messenger, an email marketing tool, and an AI-powered chatbot.

ProProfs Live Chat Editorial Team is a diverse group of professionals passionate about customer support and engagement. We update you on the latest trends, dive into technical topics, and offer insights to elevate your business. When choosing the right customer support tool, pricing is an essential factor to consider. In this section, we will compare the pricing structures of Intercom and Zendesk. In today’s environment, where customer expectations are constantly evolving, choosing the right ticketing tool that aligns with your business needs is crucial. This comparison will delve into the features, similarities, differences, pros, cons, and use cases of Zendesk and Intercom, providing you with the insights needed to make an informed decision.

The software is known for its agile APIs and proven custom integration references. This helps the service teams connect to applications like Shopify, Jira, Salesforce, Microsoft Teams, Slack, etc., all through Zendesk’s service platform. 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)? One place Intercom really shines as a standalone CRM is its data utility.

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. Zendesk and Intercom offer basic features, including live chat, a help desk, and a pre-built knowledge base. They have great UX and a normal pricing range, making it difficult for businesses to choose one, as both software almost looks similar in their offerings. Overall, Zendesk has a slight edge over Intercom when it comes to ticketing capabilities. It provides a variety of customer service automation features like auto-closing tickets, setting auto-responses, and creating chat triggers to keep tickets moving automatically. The highlight of Zendesk is its help desk ticketing system, which brings several customer communication channels to one location.

There’s even on-the-spot translation built right in, which is extremely helpful. Customerly’s Helpdesk is designed to boost efficiency and collaboration with the help of AI. Agents can easily view ongoing interactions, and take over from Aura AI at any moment if they feel intervention is needed. Our AI also accelerates query resolution by intelligently routing tickets and providing contextual information to agents in real-time. Simply put, we believe that our Aura AI chatbot is a game-changer when it comes to automating your customer service. Just keep in mind that, while Intercom’s upfront pricing may seem cheaper, there are additional costs to factor in.

Intercom or Zendesk: Chatbot features

It goes without saying that you can generate custom reports to hone in on particular areas of interest. Whether you’re into traditional bar charts, pie charts, treemaps, word clouds, or any other Chat GPT type of visualization, Zendesk is a data “nerd’s” dream. If you’re already using Intercom and want to continue using it as the front-end CRM experience, integrating with Zendesk can improve it.

• You can use both Zendesk and Intercom simultaneously to leverage their respective strengths and provide comprehensive customer support across different channels and touchpoints.
• In addition, they provide a comprehensive knowledge base that includes articles, videos, and tutorials to help users get the most out of the platform.
• And while many other chatbots take forever to set up, you can set up your first chatbot in under five minutes.
• It is designed for larger enterprises and offers more comprehensive features than Intercom.
• We also adhere to numerous industry standards and regulations, such as HIPAA, SOC2, ISO 27001, HDS, FedRAMP LI-SaaS, ISO 27018, and ISO 27701.

Now that we know the differences between Intercom vs. Zendesk, let’s analyze which one is the better service option. Grow faster with done-for-you automation, tailored optimization strategies, and custom limits. Automatically answer common questions and perform recurring tasks with AI. Understanding these fundamental differences should go a long way in helping you pick between the two, but does that mean you can’t use one platform to do what the other does better? These are both still very versatile products, so don’t think you have to get too siloed into a single use case.

Tools that allow support agents to communicate and collaborate are important aspect of customer service software. 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.

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 a sales module.

It also provides seamless navigation between a unified inbox, teams, and customer interactions, while putting all the most important information right at your fingertips. This makes it easy for teams to prioritize tasks, stay aligned, and deliver superior service. Aura AI also excels in simplifying complex tasks by collecting data conversationally intercom vs. zendesk and automating intricate processes. When things get tricky, Aura AI smartly escalates the conversation to a human agent, ensuring that no customer is left frustrated. Plus, Aura AI’s global, multilingual support breaks down language barriers, making it an ideal solution for businesses with an international customer base.

Zendesk has over 150,000 customer accounts from 160 countries and territories. They have offices all around the world including countries such as Mexico City, Tokyo, New York, Paris, Singapore, São Paulo, London, and Dublin. Use HubSpot Service Hub to provide seamless, fast, and delightful customer service. Zendesk and Intercom each have their own marketplace/app store where users can find all the integrations for each platform. Intercom allows visitors to search for and view articles from the messenger widget.

But unlike the Zendesk sales CRM, Pipedrive does not seamlessly integrate with native customer service software and relies on third-party alternatives. ProProfs Live Chat Editorial Team is a passionate group of customer service experts dedicated to empowering your live chat experiences with top-notch content. We stay ahead of the curve on trends, tackle technical hurdles, and provide practical tips to boost your business. With our commitment to quality and integrity, you can be confident you’re getting the most reliable resources to enhance your customer support initiatives. Pop-up chat, in-app messaging, and notifications are some of the highly-rated features of this live chat software.

Intercom, on the other hand, is a better choice for those valuing comprehensive and user-friendly support, despite minor navigation issues. 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. 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. 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.

But their support and quality is not as good, they feel like a new product even though they have been in business a while. You keep having to get around their bugs, which you can, it is just annoying. Finally, we also have some B2B customers (funeral homes) and expect this part of our business to grow significantly in 2021.

This packs all resolution information into a single ticket, so there’s no extra searching or backtracking needed to bring a ticket through to resolution, even if it involves multiple agents. If you require a robust helpdesk with powerful ticketing and reporting features, Zendesk is the better choice, particularly for complex support queries. Unlike Zendesk, which requires more initial setup for advanced automation, Customerly’s out-of-the-box automation features https://chat.openai.com/ are designed to be user-friendly and easily customizable. To make your ticket handling a breeze, Customerly offers an intuitive, all-in-one platform that consolidates customer inquiries from various channels into a unified inbox. As the name suggests, it’s a more sales-oriented solution with robust contact and deal management tools as well. This organization is important because it brings together customer interactions from all channels in this one place.

Zendesk offers its users consistently high ROI due to its comprehensive product features, firm support, and advanced customer support, automation, and reporting features. It allows businesses to streamline operations and workflows, improving customer satisfaction and eventually leading to increased revenues, which justifies the continuous high ROI. Zendesk excels with its AI-enhanced user experience and robust omnichannel support, making it ideal for businesses focused on customer service. On the other hand, Intercom shines with its advanced AI-driven automation and insightful analytics, perfect for those who value seamless communication and in-app messaging. Consider which features align best with your business needs to make the right choice.

Help desk SaaS is how you manage general customer communication and for handling customer questions. For Intercom’s pricing plan, on the other hand, there is much less information on their website. 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.

And according to research, brands adopting omnichannel customer service software experience a decline in cost per contact by 7.5% every year, so having this feature is definitely a plus. 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. Pipedrive is limited to third-party customer service integrations and, unlike Zendesk, does not offer customer service software.

Customer experience will be no exception, and AI models that are purpose-built for CX lead to better results at scale. You can foun additiona information about ai customer service and artificial intelligence and NLP. You can use both Zendesk and Intercom simultaneously to leverage their respective strengths and provide comprehensive customer support across different channels and touchpoints. Zendesk lacks in-app messages and email marketing tools, which are essential for big companies with heavy client support loads. Conversely, Intercom lacks ticketing functionality, which can also be essential for big companies.

The help center in Intercom is also user-friendly, enabling agents to access content creation easily. It does help you organize and create content using efficient tools, but Zendesk is more suitable if you want a fully branded customer-centric experience. Zendesk is an all-in-one omnichannel platform offering various channel integrations in one place.

• So, you can get the best of both worlds without choosing between Intercom or Zendesk.
• The dashboard also provides insights into user behavior and engagement metrics.
• The Intercom versus Zendesk conundrum is probably the greatest problem in customer service software.
• The API is well-documented and easy to use, making it a popular choice for companies that want to create their integrations.

For example, you can create a smart list that only includes leads that haven’t responded to your message, allowing you to separate prospects for lead nurturing. You can then leverage customizable sequences, email automation, and desktop text messaging to help keep these prospects engaged. Whether you’re looking for a CRM for small businesses or an enterprise, the Zendesk sales CRM has the flexibility to grow with you, supporting up to 2 million deals across all of our plans. On the other hand, entry-level Pipedrive users are limited to only 3,000 open deals per company, making it an insufficient CRM for enterprises and growing companies. We need a solution that allows whoever picks up the chat or phone to quickly see the history of that customer, their request, notes, and the status of their order.

With only the Enterprise tier offering round-the-clock email, phone, and chat help, Zendesk support is sharply separated by tiers. For large-scale businesses, the budget for such investments is usually higher than for startups, but they need to analyze if the investment is worth it. They need to comprehensively analyze if they are getting the value of the invested money.

When visitors click on it, they’ll be directed to one of your customer service teammates. Zendesk’s Help Center and Intercom’s Articles both offer features to easily embed help centers into your website or product using their web widgets, SDKs, and APIs. With help centers in place, it’s easier for your customers to reliably find answers, tips, and other important information in a self-service manner. 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.