Zendesk vs Intercom: An Honest Comparison in 2024

There are many powerful integrations included, such as Salesforce, HubSpot, Mailchimp, Slack, and Zapier. With all accounted for, it seems that Zendesk still has a number of user interface issues. 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 highlight of Zendesk is its help desk ticketing system, which brings several customer communication channels to one location. 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. That being said, while both platforms offer extensive features, they can be costly, especially for smaller enterprises. Ultimately, your choice should reflect whether your priority is comprehensive customer support (Zendesk) or a blend of CRM and sales support (Intercom).

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. HubSpot helps seamlessly integrate customer service tools that you and your team already leverage. Intercom isn’t as great with sales, but it allows for better communication.

Robust integrations

At Zendesk, we know how important it is for you to get up and running quickly—that’s why our software is ready to go in days, not months. Our software is also flexible, reliable, and easy to use, so you can adapt to changing business Chat GPT needs as you go, without hiring an army of developers or worrying about dependability. In contrast, it’s been noted that Spiceworks can be clunky and potentially unreliable when trying to execute routine tasks like updating a ticket.

Pipedrive also has security measures baked into its solution, offering SSO for its users. Pipedrive also includes lead management features like automatic lead nurturing, labeling, and bulk imports. However, Pipedrive does not include native desktop text messaging features.

So if an agent needs to switch from chat to phone to email (or vice versa) with a customer, it’s all on the same ticketing page. There’s even on-the-spot translation built right in, which is extremely helpful. If you own a business, you’re in a fierce battle to deliver personalized customer experiences that stand out.

When it comes to Intercom, it reserves SSO and identity management for its higher-priced tier plan as an add-on. Moreover, it lacks native content redaction for sensitive information. Discover how this Shopify store used Tidio to offer better service, recover carts, and boost sales.

At the same time, Zendesk looks slightly outdated and can’t offer some features. When deciding on choosing between Zendesk or Pipedrive for your business, there is a lot to keep in mind. With Zendesk, you can connect your sales and support teams, empowering them with the information they need to deliver better customer experiences. On the other hand, Pipedrive doesn’t offer a customer service solution, limiting users to third-party integrations. The company’s products include a ticketing system, live chat software, knowledge base software, and a customer satisfaction survey tool. Zendesk also offers a number of integrations with third-party applications.

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. Moreover, these are new prices as they’re in the middle of changing their pricing policy right now (and they’re definitely not getting cheaper). If you thought Zendesk’s pricing was confusing, let me introduce you to Intercom’s pricing. It’s virtually impossible to predict what you’re going to pay for Intercom at end of the day. To sum things up, one can get really confused trying to make sense of Zendesk’s pricing, let alone to calculate costs.

That means all you have to do is add the code to your website and enable it right away. 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. 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.

Platform

Pop-up chat, in-app messaging, and notifications are some of the highly-rated features of this live chat software. 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.

• Pipedrive has workflow automation features, like setting triggers and desired actions, scheduling customer interactions, and automating lead assignment.
• Both Zendesk and Intercom have their own “app stores” where users can find all of the integrations for each platform.
• Additionally, we prioritize an intuitive experience that infuses intelligence into every touchpoint to help teams unlock productivity.

Zendesk Sunshine is a separate feature set that focuses on unified customer views. When it comes to self-service portals for things like knowledgebases, Intercom has a useful set of resources. Intercom also has a community forum where users can help one another with questions and solutions. Your typical Zendesk review will often praise the platform’s simplicity and affordability, as well as its constant updates and rolling out of new features, like Zendesk Sunshine. For example, you can read in many Zendesk Sell reviews how adding sales tools benefits Zendesk Support users.

In this paragraph, let’s explain some common issues users usually ask about when choosing between Zendesk and Intercom platforms. Though the Intercom chat window says that their customer success team typically replies in a few hours, don’t expect to https://chat.openai.com/ receive any real answer in chat for at least a couple of days. 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.

Small Business Bundle

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. You can also contact Zendesk support 24/7, whereas Intercom support only has live agents during business hours. It’s divided into about 20 topics with dozens of articles each, so navigating through it can be complicated. 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.

On the other hand, Intercom’s cutting-edge AI capabilities and in-app messaging features help companies provide a more intuitive and on-the-go customer support. Intercom is a customer messaging platform that enables businesses to engage with customers through personalized and real-time communication. 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.

For instance, Zendesk’s automation rules can help support teams automatically assign tickets based on specific criteria – like subject line or specific keywords. It offers robust features for automating routine tasks such as ticket routing, creating queues, creating ticket statuses and more. Features like macros, triggers, and automations allow businesses to create custom workflows tailored to their specific needs. By integrating seamlessly into your app, it offers an intuitive in-app chat experience that fosters direct customer engagement. What sets Zendesk apart is its user-friendly interface, customizable workflows, and scalability. It caters to a wide range of industries, particularly excelling in e-commerce, SaaS, technology, and telecommunications.

Zendesk would be a perfect option for businesses that are searching for a well-integrated support system. It offers a suite that compiles help desk, live chat, and knowledge base to their user base. This enables them to speed up the support process and build experiences that customers like.

The top-tier Suite Professional plan, available at $149 per agent, provides the full range of Zendesk’s capabilities, including custom reporting, advanced AI features, and enterprise-grade support. When it’s intelligent and accessible, reporting can provide deep insights into your customer interactions, agent efficiency, and service quality at a glance. Zendesk’s reporting tools are arguably more advanced while Intercom is designed for simplicity and ease of use. Zendesk also prioritizes operational metrics, while Intercom focuses on behavior and engagement.

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. To sum things up, Zendesk is a great customer support oriented tool which will be a great choice for big teams with various departments. Intercom feels more wholesome and is more customer success oriented, but can be too costly for smaller companies.

Zendesk directly competes with Intercom when it comes to integrations. This live chat service provider offers 200+ integrations to its user base. With a mix of productivity, collaboration, eCommerce, CRM, analytics, email marketing, social media, intercom versus zendesk and other tools, you get the option to create an omnichannel suite. Zendesk is an AI-powered service solution that’s easy to set up, use, and scale. It works out-of-the-box and is easy to modify when changes arise, helping businesses move faster.

• It enables you to streamline all incoming customer queries, and ensure your support team is equipped to provide prompt, efficient solutions.
• The software helps you to keep track of all support requests, quickly respond to questions, and track the effectiveness of your customer service reps.
• It’s also good for sending and receiving notifications, as well as for quick filtering through the queue of open tickets.
• Plus, Intercom’s modern, smooth interface provides a comfortable environment for agents to work in.

First, you can only talk to the support team if you are a registered user. 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. You can create articles, share them internally, group them for users, and assign them as responses for bots—all pretty standard fare. Intercom can even integrate with Zendesk and other sources to import past help center content.

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 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.

Zendesk, on the other hand, has revamped its security since its security breach in 2016. With Zendesk, you can anticipate customer questions, allowing for shorter reply periods. With its CRM, you have the ability to place your clients in your sales funnels and follow through with them until conversion.

Multilingual content and other advanced features come with a $49 price per agent per month. 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. You can foun additiona information about ai customer service and artificial intelligence and NLP. Zendesk’s mission is to build software designed to improve customer relationships. Zendesk for sales makes integrating with the tools you already use easy. Whether you want to integrate Slack for internal team communication or PandaDoc to send and track sales proposals, Zendesk supports easy-to-set-up app integrations to help boost employee productivity.

Their users can create a knowledge repository to create articles or edit existing ones as per the changes in the services or product. It also provides detailed reports on how each self-help article performs in your knowledge base and helps you identify how each piece can be improved further. Intercom is better for smaller companies that are looking for a simple and capable customer service platform. Instead, using it and setting it up is very easy, and very advanced chatbots and predictive tools are included to boost your customer service. When comparing Zendesk and Intercom, it’s essential to understand their core features and their differences to choose the right solution for your customer support needs. These include ticketing, chatbots, and automation capabilities, to name just a few.Here’s a side-by-side comparison to help you identify the strengths and weaknesses of each platform.

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. It is quite the all-rounder as it even has a help center and ticketing system that completes its omnichannel support cycle. Intercom is a customer support messenger, bot, and live chat service provider that empowers its clients to provide instant support in real-time.

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 generally has the edge when it comes to user interface and design. With its in-app messenger, the UI resembles a chat interface, making interactions feel conversational. This makes it a strong choice for businesses prioritizing customer engagement. It’s characterized by a clear, organized layout with a strong focus on ticket management.

Instead, Aura AI continuously learns from your knowledge base and canned responses, growing and learning — just like a real-life agent. The dashboard follows a streamlined approach with a single inbox for customer inquiries. Here, agents can deal with customers directly, leave notes for each other to enable seamless handovers, or convert tickets into self-help resources. Use ticketing systems to efficiently manage high ticket volume, deliver timely customer support, and boost agent productivity. Zendesk provides comprehensive security and compliance features, ensuring customer data privacy. This includes secure login options like SAML or JWT SSO (single sign-on) and native content redaction for sensitive information.

Pipedrive uses historical data to help predict cash flow and provide performance metrics for your sales team. Zendesk supports sales team productivity by syncing with your email to provide valuable data, like when your prospect opens, clicks, or replies to your email. You can also use Zendesk to automatically track and record sales calls, allowing you to focus your full attention on your customer rather than taking notes.

Some startups and small businesses may prefer one app, while large companies and enterprise operations will have their own requirements. Integrations are the best way to enhance the toolkit of your apps by connecting them for interoperable actions and features. Both Zendesk and Intercom have integration libraries, and you can also use a connecting tool like Zapier for added integrations and add-ons.

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. If I had to describe Intercom’s help desk, I would say it’s rather a complementary tool to their chat tools. It’s great, it’s convenient, it’s not nearly as advanced as the one by Zendesk. Guru GPT integrates your company’s internal knowledge with ChatGPT, making it easy to access and use information from Guru and connected apps. Also, all of Hiver’s pricing plans come with a 7-day free trial, and no credit card is required to sign up for the trial.

As the place where your agents will be spending most of their time, a functional and robust Helpdesk will be critical to their overall performance and experience. While there are some universal things to look out for, like the range of features, ease of use, and a seamless omnichannel experience, it’s also about your subjective experience. While both Zendesk and Intercom tick both those boxes, they each have their own distinct style. Zendesk’s automation is centered around streamlining ticket management by bringing together customer inquiries from various sources—email, phone, web, chat, and social media—into a single platform.

We update you on the latest trends, dive into technical topics, and offer insights to elevate your business. Picking customer service software to run your business is not a decision you make lightly. 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.

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. In the world of business, customer relationships are a valuable asset. Many businesses turn to customer relationship management (CRM) software to help improve customer relations and assist in sales.