Intercom vs Zendesk: Which One is Right for Your Business? Cable Exchange Group

It isn't as adept at purer sales tasks like lead management, list engagement, advanced reporting, forecasting, and workflow management as you'd expect a more complete CRM to be. 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.

But this also means the customer experience ROI tends to be lower than what it would be if you went with a best-in-class solution like Zendesk. However, as Monese grew and eyed a European expansion, it became clear that the company needed to centralize data in a single solution that would scale along with them. Monese is another fintech company that provides a banking app, account, and debit card to make settling in a new country easier. By providing banking without boundaries, the company aims to provide users with quick access to their finances, wherever they happen to be. 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 vs. Intercom: FAQ

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 tends to perform well on the marketing and sales side of things, which is key for a growing company. And considering that its tools (including live chat options) are so easy to use, it’s probably going to be easier for a small business to get integrated and set up. Intercom's pricing typically includes different plans designed to accommodate businesses of various sizes and needs. While Intercom offers a free trial, it's important to note that the cost can increase as you scale and add more features or users. However, if your organization heavily relies on Intercom's real-time communication features, in-app messaging, and chat-based support, transitioning entirely to Zendesk may not cover all your needs.

However, my understanding is those bigger businesses like Zendesk exactly because of its complexity and lack of coordination. When you leave a message in Freshdesk’s live chat, you can always see an indication of how fast you can expect their answer. When I was leaving mine, it said ‘Currently replying in under 15 minutes.’ 3 hours later – and I’m still waiting for someone to get back to me. 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.

• In the domain of customer onboarding, Intercom takes a definitive lead with its distinctive feature – the ability to create interactive product tours.
• Intercom is fully integrated, omnichannel, and easy to use—so you can deliver quality, conversational support from start to finish.
• It provides a comprehensive platform for managing customer inquiries, support tickets, and interactions across multiple channels.
• 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.
• Gain valuable insights with Intercom’s analytics and reporting capabilities.
• The compared vendors share a strategy of delivering their services as either separate add-ons or all-in-one tools.

Intercom also offers a few features that are unique to its platform – one of these being the ability to segment users based on their behavior. This means that you can send targeted messages to different groups of users based on how they interact with your product. Intercom also offers a suite of tools for customer support, including a knowledge base, a help center, and a community forum. This scalability ensures businesses can align their support infrastructure with their evolving requirements, ensuring a seamless customer experience. One of Zendesk’s standout features that we need to shine a spotlight on is its extensive marketplace of third-party integrations and extensions. Imagine having the power to connect your helpdesk solution with a wide range of tools and applications that your team already uses.

Is Intercom better than Zendesk?

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. To sum things up, one can get really confused trying to make sense of the Zendesk suite pricing, let alone calculate costs. Zendesk is a ticketing system before anything else, and its ticketing functionality is overwhelming in the best possible way. Their reports are attractive, dynamic, and integrated right out of the box. You can even finagle some forecasting by sourcing every agent's assigned leads.

This exploration aims to provide a detailed comparison, aiding businesses in making an informed decision that aligns with their customer service goals. Both Zendesk and Intercom offer robust solutions, but the choice ultimately depends on specific business needs. While both platforms have a significant presence in the industry, they cater to varying business requirements. Zendesk, with its extensive toolkit, is often preferred by businesses seeking an all-encompassing customer support solution. Choosing the right customer service platform is pivotal for enhancing business-client interactions. In this context, Zendesk and Intercom emerge as key contenders, each offering distinct features tailored to dynamic customer service environments.

However, a fundamental difference between them is their scope and focus. While Zendesk’s emphasis is entirely on customer support, Intercom’s features extend into marketing and sales. Zendesk started as a customer support request SaaS, a legacy that continues today with its robust ticketing and customer messaging solutions.

Users can benefit from using Intercom’s CX platform and AI software as a standalone tool for business messaging. We make it easy for anyone within your company to access contextual customer information—including their conversation and purchase history—to provide better experiences. In fact, the Zendesk Marketplace has 1,300+ apps and integrations, from billing software to marketing automation tools.

When it comes to customer support and engagement, choosing the right software can make a world of difference. Both offer powerful solutions for businesses looking to enhance their customer service capabilities. In this article, we will compare Intercom and Zendesk, highlighting their features, benefits, and drawbacks. Zendesk directly competes with Intercom when it comes to integrations.

Broken down into custom, resolution, and task bots, these can go a long way in taking repetitive tasks off agents' plates. I tested both options (using Zendesk's Suite Professional trial and Intercom's Support trial) and found clearly defined differences between the two. Here's what you need to know about Zendesk vs. Intercom as customer support and relationship management tools. 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. However, customers can purchase multiple Intercom plans to use together, or purchase add-ons to select just the features they want.

Although Zendesk does not have an in-app messaging service, it does have one unique feature, and that is its built-in virtual call assistant, Zendesk Talk. It is a totally cloud-based service; you can operate this VOIP technology by sitting in any corner of the world. Zendesk also includes built-in CSAT and NPS (Net Promoter Score) surveys and even allows you to track the effectiveness of your knowledge base articles and self-service resources. Reporting tools are essential to helping support leaders analyze and improve their customer support operations.

Intercom pricing

They may be utilized to alert consumers about product updates, provide assistance, and promote specials that are relevant to them. The primary function of Intercom’s mobile app is the business messenger suite, including personalized messaging, real-time support tools, push notifications, in-app messaging and emailing. Intercom also does mobile carousels to help please the eye with fresh designs. Intercom bills itself first and foremost as a platform to make the business of customer service more personalized, among other things.

When making your decision, consider factors such as your budget, the scale of your business, and your specific growth plans. Explore alternative options like ThriveDesk if you’re looking for a more budget-conscious solution that aligns with your customer support needs. Experience targeted communication with Intercom’s automation and segmentation features. Create personalized messages for specific customer segments, driving engagement and satisfaction. You get a dashboard that makes creating, tracking, and organizing tickets easy. So, get ready for an insightful journey through the landscapes of Zendesk and Intercom, where support excellence converges with AI innovation.

You can foun additiona information about ai customer service and artificial intelligence and NLP. 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. 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. Intercom isn’t as great with sales, but it allows for better communication.

Plan Flexibility: Which One Has More Flexible Pricing Options?

Sure, Intercom allows you to create articles and deliver a bot that answers customer questions with specific articles and resolves issues faster. But, if you just need a secure and quick data transfer, opt for Help Desk Migration. Pricing starts at $39 and varies based on the number of records you want to migrate. Our team is experienced in consolidating Zendesk instances and merging instances of other help desk and service desk systems. The cheapest (aka Essential) ‘All of Intercom’ package will cost you $136 per month, but if you only need their essential chat tools only, you can get them for $49 per month.

Among the many challenges facing businesses today is the pressing need to meet their customers where they are. 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.

Front is typically used by multiple customer-facing organizations, so its integrations are designed to be used within the Front application to minimize context and window switching. This requires two-way data sync between Front and the integration partner. Front is a multi-channel solution, so you can reply to customers using multiple channels but can only respond on the channel the inbound message was received. The offers that appear on the website are from software companies from which CRM.org receives compensation. Both Zendesk and Intercom have integration libraries, and you can also use a connecting tool like Zapier for added integrations and add-ons. 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’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.
• This can make it challenging to estimate the cost yourself during your research and you need to speak with Intercom for more information.
• If you seek a comprehensive customer support solution with a strong emphasis on traditional ticketing, Zendesk is a solid choice, particularly for smaller to mid-sized businesses.
• Zendesk wins the major category of help desk and ticketing system software.
• Zendesk excels as a robust and versatile customer support platform, offering comprehensive tools for managing customer inquiries and support operations across various channels.

But that doesn’t mean you have to completely switch from your current provider if you’re not quite ready. Like so many others, Monese determined that Zendesk was the best solution to provide seamless, omnichannel support because of its scalability and reliability. Brian Kale, the head of customer success at Bank Novo, describes how Zendesk helped Bank Novo boost productivity and streamline service. In terms of pricing, Intercom is considered one of the most expensive tools on the market.

Also, it’s the pioneer in the support and communication tools market. You can always count on it if you need a reliable customer support platform to process tickets, support users, and get advanced reporting. Zendesk is a comprehensive CRM and support suite that offers a variety of features for customer support, sales, and marketing.

Zendesk identifies itself as a growth-enabling, all-in-one solution. Many use cases call for different approaches, and Zendesk and Intercom are but two software solutions for each case. 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. No matter what Zendesk Suite plan you are on, you get workflow triggers, which are simple business rules-based actions to streamline many tasks. As for the category of voice and phone features, Zendesk is a clear winner.

Intercom is the new guy on the block when it comes to help desk ticketing systems. This means the company is still working out some kinks and operating with limited capabilities. Yes, you can integrate the Intercom solution into your Zendesk account. It will allow you to leverage some Intercom capabilities while keeping your account at the time-tested platform.

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. While Intercom does not offer free trials, they do offer demo versions of each plan. Intercom’s Inbox organizes all of an agent’s core functions into one interface.

Additionally, the platform allows users to customize their experience by setting up automation workflows, creating ticket rules, and utilizing analytics. Check this ultimate Intercom vs Drift comparison to choose the best messaging platform for your customer support, marketing, and sales. The two essential things that Zendesk lacks in comparison to Intercom are in-app messages and email marketing tools.

However, the right fit for your business will depend on your particular needs and budget. If you're looking for a comprehensive solution with lots of features and integrations, then Zendesk would be a good choice. On the other hand, if you need something that is more tailored to your customer base and is less expensive, then Intercom might be a better fit. 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.

In the category of customer support, Zendesk appears to be just slightly better than Intercom based on the availability of regular service and response times. However, it is possible Intercom’s support is superior at the premium level. For Intercom’s pricing plan, on the other hand, there is much less information on their website.

Zendesk has more pricing options, which means you’re free to choose your tier from the get-go. With Intercom, you’ll have more customizable options with the enterprise versions of the software, but you’ll have fewer lower-tier choices. Founded in 2007, Zendesk started off as a ticketing tool for customer support teams.

Collaboration tools enable agents to work together in resolving customer tickets and making sales. Automatic assignment rules establish criteria that automatically route tickets to the right agent or team, based on message or user data. Operator, Intercom’s automation engine, empowers Intercom chatbots to gather key information from each website visitor to qualify leads and route customers to the right destination. The Help Center is designed to give you a complete self-service support option (knowledge base).

Agents can easily find resources for customers from their agent workspace. Further, if companies plan to create multi-channel campaigns, Intercom makes a great fit. Zendesk offers a built-in chat option zendesk vs. intercom (paid separately), a mobile app (both for iOS and Android) integrated apps so that you can offer fully scalable customer support. Having the two presented side by side, which is the best CRM solution?

We will also consider customer feedback and reviews to provide insights into the usability of each platform. Intercom's user interface is also quite straightforward and easy to understand; it includes a range of features such as live chat, messaging campaigns, and automation workflows. Additionally, the platform allows for customizations such as customized user flows and onboarding experiences.

While there can be add-ons, such as premium customer support, you can generally anticipate what you’ll be paying for your Zendesk subscription. It calculates the cost of its Pro and Premium plans based on the number of AI resolutions, people reached, and seats (or users). This can make it challenging to estimate the cost yourself during your research and you need to speak with Intercom for more information. Novo has been a Zendesk customer since 2019 but didn’t immediately start taking full advantage of all our features and capabilities.