Intercom vs Zendesk: Comparing features, integrations, and pricing

Chatbots are automated customer support tools that can assist with low-level ticket triage and ticket routing in real-time. How easy it is to program a chatbot and how effective a chatbot is at assisting human reps is an important factor for this category. 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. For smaller teams that have to handle multiple tasks, do not forget to check JustReply.ai, which is a user-friendly customer support tool.

In-app messages and email marketing tools are two crucial features that Zendesk lacks when compared to Intercom. Intercom, on the other hand, lacks key ticketing features that are critical for large firms with a high volume of customer assistance. To automate operations and reduce your employees’ workload, it is critical that customer support systems allow integration with other products. This enables organizations to work more efficiently and easily integrate their software without having to alter their present business processes. Simplicity is an important consideration when selecting the best customer service software. Having easy-to-use software is far more controllable and saves time whether you’re a tiny and growing business or a massive multinational.

Intercom, on the other hand, offers more advanced automation features than Zendesk. 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. Both software solutions offer core customer service features like live chat for sales, help desk management capabilities, and customer self-service options like a knowledge base. They’re also known for their user-friendly interfaces and reliable support team. 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. At the same time, Zendesk looks slightly outdated and can’t offer some features. Zendesk offers simple chatbots and provides businesses with straightforward chatbot creation tools, allowing them to set up automated responses and assist customers with common queries. Zendesk may be unable to give the agents more advanced features or customization options for chatbots.

Zendesk also offers a number of integrations with third-party applications. 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 and Intercom are the leading providers of customer service software (despite there being a ton of other alternatives) and offer a range of features and capabilities that enhance user satisfaction. However, businesses must choose between Zendesk vs Intercom based on their needs and requirements. Intercom is better for smaller companies that are looking for a simple and capable customer service platform.

Though Zendesk now considers itself to be a "service-first CRM company," since its founding in 2007, their bread and butter offering has leaned much more heavily toward the "service" part of that equation. 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. 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. A sales CRM allows sales reps to seamlessly and easily deliver value to prospects at every stage of the sales process.

Since Intercom doesn’t offer a CRM, its pricing is divided into basic messaging and messaging with automations. 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. 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. Since Zendesk has many features, it takes a while to learn how to use the options you’ll be needing. Zendesk has over 150,000 customer accounts from 160 countries and territories.

An alternative to Zendesk and Intercom that is future-oriented: discover Customerly

Customers want speed, anticipation, and a hyper-personalized experience conveniently on their channel of choice. Intelligence has become key to delivering the kinds of experiences customers expect at a lower operational cost. 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.

Some aspects give an edge or create differentiation in the operations of both software, which users may oversee while making a choice. We will discuss these differentiating factors to help you make the right choice for your business and help it excel in offering extraordinary customer service. 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. First, you can only talk to the support team if you are a registered user.

In comparison, Intercom’s reporting and analytics are limited in scope when it comes to consumer behavior metrics, custom reporting, and custom metrics. Discover how to awe shoppers with stellar customer service during peak season. Provide a clear path intercom and zendesk for customer questions to improve the shopping experience you offer. It’s definitely something that both your agents and customers will feel equally comfortable using. However, you won’t miss out on any of the essentials when it comes to live chat.

Intercom also offers a 14-day free trial, after which customers can upgrade to a paid plan or use the basic free plan. Unlike Zendesk, the prices for Intercom are based on the number of seats and contacts, with each plan tailored to each customer, meaning that the pricing can be quite flexible. This is especially helpful for smaller businesses that may not need a lot of features. Intercom is a customer relationship management (CRM) software company that provides a suite of tools for managing customer interactions. The company was founded in 2011 and is headquartered in San Francisco, California. Intercom's products are used by over 25,000 customers, from small tech startups to large enterprises.

You can also set up interactive product tours to highlight new features in-product and explain how they work. 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. In addition to all these features, Suite Growth Plan offers light agents, multilingual support, multiple ticket forms, and a self-service customer portal. On the other hand, Intercom may have a lower ROI when compared to Zendesk due to the limited depth of features it offers.

Zendesk vs. Intercom: Head to Head Comparison

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. 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. Easily reply to customer conversations and manage workload in a smart & automated way.

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. Easily track your service team's performance and unlock coaching opportunities with AI-powered insights. 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.

Intercom or Zendesk: Voice and phone tools

It is favored by customer support, helpdesk, IT service management, and contact center teams. Two leading contenders in the customer service platform space, Zendesk and Intercom, have transformed businesses’ customer engagement by offering powerful software solutions that enhance support systems. To select the ideal fit for your business, it is crucial to compare these industry giants and assess which aligns best with your specific requirements.

However, you can connect Intercom with over 40 compatible phone and video integrations. 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. Integrations are the best way to enhance the toolkit of your apps by connecting them for interoperable actions and features.

The app includes features like push notifications and real-time customer engagement — so businesses can respond quickly to customer inquiries. The last thing you want is your sales data or the contact information of potential customers to end up in the wrong hands. Because of this, you’ll want to make sure you’re selecting a cloud-based CRM, like Zendesk, with strong security features.

Intercom is a customer-focused communication platform with basic CRM capabilities. While we wouldn’t call it a full-fledged CRM, it should be capable enough for smaller businesses that want a simple and streamlined CRM without the additional expenses or complexity. Plus, Intercom’s modern, smooth interface provides a comfortable environment for agents to work in.

Zapier Automation Platform

With Intercom you can send targeted email, push, and in-app messages which can be based on the most relevant time or behavior triggers. It’s clear that both of these tools are designed for different use cases. Intercom is geared toward sales, whereas Zendesk includes everything a customer service rep desires. You can foun additiona information about ai customer service and artificial intelligence and NLP. 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 set up email sequences that specify how and when leads and contacts are engaged. With Zendesk Sell, you can also customize how deals move through your pipeline by setting pipeline stages that reflect your sales cycle. The offers that appear on the website are from software companies from which CRM.org receives compensation. This compensation may impact how and where products appear on this site (including, for example, the order in which they appear). This site does not include all software companies or all available software companies offers.

Zendesk is primarily a ticketing system, and its ticketing capability is overwhelming in the best conceivable manner. All client contacts, whether via phone, chat, email, social media, or any other channel, land in one dashboard, where your agents can quickly and efficiently resolve them. For small companies and startups, Zendesk offers a six-month free trial of up to https://chat.openai.com/ 50 agents redeemable for any combination of Zendesk Support and Sell products. Zendesk and Intercom each have their own marketplace/app store where users can find all the integrations for each platform. However, this is somewhat subjective, and depending on your business needs and favorite tools, you may argue we got it all mixed up, and Intercom is truly superior.

App Ecosystem

The learning and knowledgebase category is another one where it is a close call between Zendesk and Intercom. However, we will say that Intercom just edges past Zendesk when it comes to self-service resources. Intercom has a community forum where users can engage with each other and gain insights from their experiences. With only the Enterprise tier offering round-the-clock email, phone, and chat help, Zendesk support is sharply separated by tiers.

• While the company is smaller than Zendesk, Intercom has earned a reputation for building high-quality customer service software.
• With Intercom, you can keep track of your customers and what they do on your website in real time.
• It was later when they started adding all kinds of other tools like when they bought out Zopim live chat and just integrated it with their toolset.
• It’s virtually impossible to predict what you’re going to pay for Intercom at end of the day.
• Zendesk is among the industry's best ticketing and customer support software, and most of its additional functionality is icing on the proverbial cake.

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. The best thing about this plan is that it is eligible for an advanced AI add-on, has integrated community forums, side conversations, skill-based routing, and is HIPAA-enabled. Zendesk offers various features, which may differ according to the plan.

User experience

That being said, it sometimes lacks the advanced customization and automation offered by other AI-powered chatbots, like Intercom’s. Zendesk lacks in-app messages and email marketing tools, which are essential for big companies Chat GPT with heavy client support loads. Conversely, Intercom lacks ticketing functionality, which can also be essential for big companies. Zendesk also has an Answer Bot, instantly taking your knowledge base game to the next level.

Zendesk offers so much more than you can get from free CRMs or less robust options, including sales triggers to automate workflows. For example, you can set a sales trigger to automatically change the owner of a deal based on the specific conditions you select. That way, your sales team won’t have to worry about manually updating these changes as they work through a deal. MParticle is a Customer Data Platform offering plug-and-play integrations to Zendesk and Intercom, along with over 300 other marketing, analytics, and data warehousing tools. With mParticle, you can connect your Zendesk and Intercom data with other marketing, analytics, and business intelligence platforms without any custom engineering effort.

You’d probably want to know how much it costs to get each platform for your business, so let’s talk money now. You can publish your self-service resources, divide them by categories, and integrate them with your messenger to accelerate the whole chat experience. 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 puff.

Instead, using it and setting it up is very easy, and very advanced chatbots and predictive tools are included to boost your customer service. Zendesk excels with its powerful ticketing and customer support capabilities, making it ideal for streamlining service operations. The Suite Team plan, priced at $69 per agent, adds features like live chat and messaging, while the Suite Growth plan at $115 per agent introduces automation and advanced analytics.

• With Intercom you can send targeted email, push, and in-app messages which can be based on the most relevant time or behavior triggers.
• Their customer service management tools have a shared inbox for support teams.
• Let us look at the type and size of business for which Zednesk and Intercom are suitable.
• 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.

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. The highlight of Zendesk's ticketing software is its omnichannel-ality (omnichannality?). Whether agents are facing customers via chat, email, social media, or good old-fashioned phone, they can keep it all confined to a single, easy-to-navigate dashboard. That not only saves them the headache of having to constantly switch between dashboards while streamlining resolution processes—it also leads to better customer and agent experience overall. Zendesk's user face is quite intuitive and easy to use, allowing customers to quickly find what they are looking for.