Zendesk vs Intercom Head to Head Comparison in 2024

There are even automations to help with things like SLAs, or service level agreements, to do things like send out notifications when headlights are due. 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. Zendesk is quite famous for designing its platform to be intuitive and its tools to be quite simple to learn. This is aided by the fact that the look and feel of Zendesk’s user interface are neat and minimal, with few cluttering features.

In this article, we’ll compare Zendesk vs Intercom to find out which is the right customer support tool for you. For small companies and startups, Zendesk offers a six-month free trial of up to 50 agents redeemable for any combination of Zendesk Support and Sell products. Zendesk has over 1,300 integrations, compared to Intercom’s 300+ apps, making it the leader in this category. However, you can browse their respective sites to find which tools each platform supports. Zendesk also offers a sales pipeline feature through its Zendesk Sell product.

Similarly, if you require Fin AI Agent – to resolve customer queries without human intervention, you’ll need to pay an additional $0.99 per resolution. Some of the links that appear on the website are from software companies from which CRM.org receives compensation. 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. Some startups and small businesses may prefer one app, while large companies and enterprise operations will have their own requirements. There is a simple email integration tool for whatever email provider you regularly use. This gets you unlimited email addresses and email templates in both text form and HTML.

Many businesses turn to customer relationship management (CRM) software to help improve customer relations and assist in sales. They also have an integrated capability where you see everything related to the one customer in one spot – all their interactions with you, and can move the customer through your custom stages. If you do go with ActiveCampaign, I HIGHLY recommend that you take their paid training. It will really help you get up faster and understand the product deeper, and not waste time. ActiveCampaign is difficult to learn on your own since it is so full featured.

These pricing structures are flexible enough to cater to all business sizes and types. Moreover, the pricing model ensures customer transparency and reveals the costs that businesses will incur. Businsses need to do a cost analysis whenever they select customer service software for their business. You cannot invest much in this software if you are a small business, as it would exceed the budget requirements. Intercom also provides fast time to value for smaller and mid-sized businesses with limitations for large-scale companies.

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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. Intercom’s reporting is less focused on getting a fine-grained understanding of your team’s performance, and more on a nuanced understanding of customer behavior and engagement. 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. Automated triggers, saved responses, and live chat analytics are all baked in.

It is also not too difficult to program your own bot rules using Intercon’s system. 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 Sunshine is a separate feature set that focuses on unified customer views.

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. 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.

Resolutions in minutes—not months

With Zendesk, even our most basic plans include a robust selection of features, including custom data fields, sales triggers, email tracking, text messaging, and call tracking and recording. The Zendesk sales CRM offers tiered pricing plans designed to support businesses of all sizes, from startups to enterprises. The Professional and Enterprise plans offer advanced features that build on those in the Team and Growth plans, including lead scoring, call scripts, and unlimited email sequences. The Zendesk sales CRM hits all of the functions you’d expect from CRM software, like reporting and analytics tools that can deliver key sales metrics with pre-built dashboards right out of the box. On top of that, you can use drag-and-drop widgets to create custom CRM reports with the data most important to your goals. With Pipedrive, users have access to visual reporting dashboards, but adding custom fields is limited to their Professional, Power, and Enterprise plans.

Customers of Zendesk can purchase priority assistance at the enterprise tier, which includes a 99.9% uptime service level agreement and a 1-hour service level goal. At all tiers, there is an additional fee to work with a member of the Zendesk success team on unique engagements. 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 has excellent reporting and analytics tools that allow you to decipher the underlying issues behind your help desk metrics. Discover how to awe shoppers with stellar customer service during peak season. Provide a clear path for customer questions to improve the shopping experience you offer.

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Let us look at the type and size of business for which Zednesk and Intercom are suitable. The Essential customer support plan for individuals, startups, and businsses costs $39. This plan includes a shared inbox, unlimited articles, proactive support, and basic automation.

It may have limited abilities regarding the scalability or support of an enterprise-level company. Thus, due to its limited agility, businesses with complex business models may not find it appropriate. Zendesk has a broad range of security and compliance features to protect customer data privacy, such as SSO (single sign-on) and native content redaction for sensitive data. If you own a business, you’re in a fierce battle to deliver personalized customer experiences that stand out. Keep up with emerging trends in customer service and learn from top industry experts.

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. With all accounted for, it seems that Zendesk still has a number of user interface issues. Since Zendesk has many features, it takes a while to learn how to use the options you’ll be needing. Zendesk which is less user-friendly and charges more for quality support, might not work for smaller businesses. What differentiates them is the kind of reports they equip your teams with.

These products range from customer communication tools to a fully-fledged CRM. Zendesk boasts incredibly robust sales capabilities and security features. This feature ensures that each customer request is handled by the best-suited agent, improving the overall efficiency of the support team.

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. 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. Utilizing modern CRM software can help your sales team boost their productivity and sales performance. Pipedrive also has security measures baked into its solution, offering SSO for its users. We hope that this Intercom VS Zendesk comparison helps you choose one that matches your support, marketing, and sales needs. But in case you are in search of something beyond these two, then ProProfs Chat can be an option.

It has a direct integration with Shopify and other tools including powerful B2B customer handling. It also satisfies all the requirements you’ve outlined including order history, interaction history, notes, tickets etc. Along with Omni channel integrations with chat (their own or other chat solutions), email, phone and so on. 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. In terms of pricing, both Intercom and Zendesk offer a range of plans to fit different business needs and budgets. However, Zendesk’s pricing is generally more affordable for smaller businesses, while Intercom’s pricing tends to be higher but offers more advanced features and capabilities.

• A customer service department is only as good as its support team members, and these highly-prized employees need to rely on one another.
• Starting at just $19/user/month, Hiver is a more affordable solution that doesn’t compromise on essential helpdesk functionalities.
• Intercom also offers extensive integrations with over 350 tools that include Salesforce, HubSpot, Google Analytics, Amplitude, Zoho, JIRA, and more.
• Our robust, no-code integrations enable you to adapt our software to new and growing use cases.
• While it is designed to help support agents be efficient,  it might not be as visually appealing or intuitive for users who aren’t very tech-savvy.
• If your business requires a centralized platform to manage a high volume of customer inquiries across various channels, Zendesk is a solid choice.

Meanwhile, Intercom excels with its comprehensive AI automation capabilities, all built on a unified AI system. Intercom also uses AI and features a chatbot called Fin, but negative reviews note basic reporting and a lack of customization. Fin is priced at $0.99 per resolution, so companies handling large volumes of queries might find it costly. In comparison, Zendesk customers pay a fixed price of $50 per agent—and only Zendesk AI is modeled on the world’s largest CX-specific dataset. Intercom also offers a 14-day free trial, after which customers can upgrade to a paid plan or use the basic free plan.

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

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. While the company is smaller than Zendesk, Intercom has earned a reputation for building high-quality customer service software. The company’s products include a messaging platform, knowledge base tools, and an analytics dashboard.

Other customer service add-ons with Zendesk include custom training and professional services. 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. Intercom’s reporting is average compared to Zendesk, as it offers some standard reporting and analytics tools. Its analytics do not provide deeper insights into consumer interactions as well.

Its AI-powered tools and virtual assistants make it a formidable CRM-powered software. Zendesk is billed more as a customer support and ticketing solution, while Intercom includes more native CRM functionality. Intercom isn’t quite as strong as Zendesk in comparison to some of Zendesk’s customer support strengths, but it has more features for sales and lead nurturing.

On the other hand, Zendesk is a more comprehensive customer support tool that offers a broader range of features, including ticket management, knowledge base creation, and reporting and analytics. Its robust ticketing system and automation capabilities make it an excellent option for businesses with high-volume customer support needs. Additionally, Zendesk’s customizable dashboards and reporting features provide valuable insights into customer support performance. 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.

Is Zendesk better than Intercom? Our final points

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. Intercom’s ticketing Chat GPT system and help desk SaaS is also pretty great, just not as amazing as Zendesk’s. Their customer service management tools have a shared inbox for support teams. When you combine the help desk with Intercom Messenger, you get added channels for customer engagement.

Sign up for a trial through a salesperson and then ask if it is possible to get in the class for less money. It enables them to engage with visitors who are genuinely interested in their services. You get to engage with them further and get to know more about their expectations. This becomes the perfect opportunity to personalize the experience, offer assistance to prospects as per their needs, and convert them into customers. Intercom offers a simplistic dashboard with a detailed view of all customer details in one place.

Basically, if you have a complicated support process, go with Zendesk for its help desk functionality. If you’re a sales-oriented corporation, use Intercom for its automation options. Both tools can be quite heavy on your budget since they mainly target big enterprises and don’t offer their full toolset at an affordable price. Zendesk supports sales team productivity https://chat.openai.com/ 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. When selecting a sales CRM, you’ll want to consider its total cost of ownership (TCO).

Meanwhile, our WFM software enables businesses to analyze employee metrics and performance, helping them identify improvements, implement strategies, and set long-term goals. Zendesk is built to grow alongside your business, resulting in less downtime, better cost savings, and the stability needed to provide exceptional customer support. Many customers start using Zendesk as small or mid-sized businesses (SMBs) and continue to use our software as they scale their operations, hire more staff, and serve more customers. Our robust, no-code integrations enable you to adapt our software to new and growing use cases.

Intercom’s AI capabilities extend beyond the traditional chatbots; Fin is renowned for solving complex problems and providing safer, accurate answers. Fin’s advanced algorithm and machine learning enable the precision handling of queries. Fin enables businesses to set new standards for offering customer service. Integrating AI in the help center helps agents find intercom vs. zendesk answers to customer inquiries, providing a seamless customer experience. Zendesk’s AI offers automated responses to customer inquiries, increasing the team’s productivity, as they can spend time on the most crucial things. The integration of apps plays a significant role in creating a seamless experience or a 360-degree view of customers across the company.

Starting at just $19/user/month, Hiver is a more affordable solution that doesn’t compromise on essential helpdesk functionalities. But you also need to consider the fact that Intercom has many add-ons that cost extra, especially their AI features. Both Zendesk and Intercom have very different and distinct user interfaces.

Both of these tools have unique strengths and weaknesses, and choosing between them can be difficult for businesses of all sizes. Ultimately, the choice between Zendesk and Intercom depends on your business needs. If you need a solution that can rapidly scale and offer strong self-service features, Zendesk may be the best fit. However, if your focus is on creating a seamless, automated customer service experience with proactive engagement, Intercom could be the ideal choice.

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. 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.

On the other hand, Intercom’s chatbots have more advanced features but do not sacrifice simplicity and ease of use. It helps businesses create highly personalized chatbots for interactive customer communication. Zendesk allows businesses to group their resources in the help center, providing customers with self-service personalized support. The platform has various customization options, allowing businesses personalized experiences according to their branding.

Zendesk, just like its competitor, offers a knowledge base solution that is easy to customize. 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.

Customers won’t need to leave your app or website to find the help they need.Zendesk, on the other hand, will redirect the customer to a new web page. The business landscape of 2024 is more customer-centric than ever before. In this environment, understanding and managing customer interactions isn’t just a nice-to-have;… However, for businesses seeking a more cost-effective and user-friendly solution, Hiver presents a compelling alternative.

The best help desks are also ticketing systems, which lets support reps create a support ticket out of issues that can then be tracked. There are 3 Basic support plans at $19, $49 and $99 per user per month billed annually, and 5 Suite plans at $49, $79, $99, $150, and $215 per user per month billed annually. Overall, Zendesk empowers businesses to deliver exceptional customer support experiences across channels, making it a popular choice for enhancing support operations. You can foun additiona information about ai customer service and artificial intelligence and NLP. These weaknesses are not as significant as the features and functionalities Zendesk offers its users. The Expert plan, which offers collaboration, real-time dashboard, security, and reporting tools for large teams, costs $139. Zendesk and Intercom offer a free trial of 14 days, but you will eventually have to choose once the trial ends.