Intercom vs Zendesk: Comparing features, integrations, and pricing

💡 88 percent of customer service teams score conversations by “Solution”. 💡 7 percent of customer service teams score conversations according to ‘Greeting’. 💡 49 percent of customer service teams score conversations by ‘Empathy’. 💡 63 percent of customer service teams score conversations by “Tone”. However, manual reviews are still vital in the customer service QA process. You can foun additiona information about ai customer service and artificial intelligence and NLP. As your quality assurance copilot, Auto QA ensures that any time you dedicate to manual quality assurance is time well spent.

This scale allows us to gauge the emotional resonance of the conversation, providing valuable insights into the customer-agent interaction. In our Auto QA, the ‘Solution’ category assesses whether an agent offered a solution during the conversation. By reviewing conversations highlighted by Spotlight, you can ensure your QA efforts are focused on conversations that are critical to review and contain the most influential learning moments.

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. You could technically consider Intercom a CRM, but it’s really more of a customer-focused communication product. 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. According to the Customer Service Quality Benchmark Report, a third of all customer service teams surveyed already use AI to assist in the selection of conversations for review.

Choose the plan that suits your support requirements and budget, whether you’re a small team or a growing enterprise. 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 https://chat.openai.com/ the power to connect your helpdesk solution with a wide range of tools and applications that your team already uses. Whether it’s syncing data with your CRM, enhancing communication via messaging platforms, or automating tasks with productivity apps, Zendesk makes it possible.

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.

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 is a complete customer communication platform for small businesses. Still, considering that such companies do not have a large budget for investing in CRM software, they should carefully consider all plans. Intercom’s AI has the transformative power to enhance customer service by offering multilingual support and contextual responses.

Robust integrations

Let’s talk about the division of labor and define the roles of automated QA, AI, and human—in other words, your reviewers—in customer service quality assurance. A messenger platform that helps engage customers on your website or app. It provides bots and chats automation features to make communication with clients more efficient.

While not included with its customer service suite, it offers a full-fledged standalone CRM called Zendesk Sell. While it’s a separate product with separate costs, it does integrate seamlessly with Zendesk’s customer service platform. 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. The Zendesk chat tool has most of the necessary features, like shortcuts (saved responses), automated triggers, and live chat analytics. It’s nothing fancy; it covers just basic customer communication needs.

However, businesses must choose between Zendesk vs Intercom based on their needs and requirements. Intercom bills itself first and foremost as a platform to make the business of customer service more personalized, among other things. They offer an advanced feature for customer data management that goes beyond basic CRM stuff.

Zendesk and Intercom each have their own marketplace/app store where users can find all the integrations for each platform. 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.

As an avid learner interested in all things tech, Jelisaveta always strives to share her knowledge with others and help people and businesses reach their goals. Now that we know the differences between Intercom vs. Zendesk, let’s analyze which one is the better service option. When it comes to Intercom, it reserves SSO and identity management for its higher-priced tier plan as an add-on.

• One of the things that sets Zendesk apart from other customer service software providers is its focus on design.
• With both tools, you can also use support bots to automatically suggest specific articles, track customers’ ratings, and localize help center content to serve your customers in their native language.
• When it comes to utility, Zendesk’s utility may not be as robust as a pure CRM solution.
• Intercom offers an easy way to nurture your qualified leads (prospects) into customers with Intercom Series.

It works out-of-the-box and is easy to modify when changes arise, helping businesses move faster. In leveraging cutting-edge AI, Zendesk empowers service teams to resolve customer issues more quickly and accurately. 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. Agents can quickly grasp the context of customer interaction through these support tickets and sentiment analysis that AI facilitates. Zendesk offers its users consistently high ROI due to its comprehensive product features, firm support, and advanced customer support, automation, and reporting features.

CAPABILITIES

Its messaging also has real-time notifications and automated responses, enhancing customer communication. A customer service department is only as good as its support team members, and these highly-prized employees need to rely on one another. Tools that allow support agents to communicate and collaborate are important aspect of customer service software. 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.

I mean I stumbled upon this article where people from Outreach.io were telling why they’d switched from Intercom to Zendesk, then I saw this comparison, where Zendesk seemed to beat Intercom at the end. Zendesk and Intercom both have an editor preview feature that makes it easier to add images, videos, call-to-action buttons, and interactive guides to your help articles. Rated 5 stars out of 5 on G2, ThriveDesk is highly regarded by users.

So, by now, you can see that according to this article, Zendesk inches past Intercom as the better customer support platform. The main idea here is to rid the average support agent of a slew of mundane and repetitive tasks, giving them more time and mental energy to help customers with tougher issues. 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. When it comes to self-service portals for things like knowledgebases, Intercom has a useful set of resources.

All customer questions, whether via phone, chat, email, social media, or any other channel, are landed in one dashboard, where your agents can solve them quickly and efficiently. This guarantees continuous omnichannel support that meets customer expectations. What’s really nice about this is that even within a ticket, you can switch between communication modes without changing views.

Now, autoscoring is not the same as sentiment analysis or automatically generated conversation summaries. Auto QA can analyze every conversation based upon set categories, many of the common categories that might already be on your customer service scorecard. Spotlight is a unique conversation discovery feature that automatically samples the conversations critical for review. These are selected through a multilevel statistical analysis of your own communications metadata.

• Finally, you can pay $199 per month per user for unlimited sales pipelines and advanced reporting along with other features.
• Simplicity is an important consideration when selecting the best customer service software.
• However, reading the reviews, it’s probably more accurate to say that Zendesk is “mixed” on customer support, whereas Intercom doesn’t have a stellar record.
• The offers that appear on the website are from software companies from which CRM.org receives compensation.

You can create dozens of articles in a simple, intuitive WYSIWYG text editor, divide them by categories and sections, and customize them with your custom themes. 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. Often, it’s a centralized platform for managing inquiries and issues from different channels.

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. However, if you’re looking for a streamlined, all-in-one messaging platform, there is no better option than Messagely. You can also contact Zendesk support 24/7, whereas Intercom support only has live agents during business hours.

I found that if I wanted to work most productively I’d need to have all four main Zendesk products opened in different browser tabs as there is no option of having all of them within a single dashboard. What can be really inconvenient about Zendesk, though is how their tools integrate with each other when you need to use them simultaneously. 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. To sum things up, one can get really confused trying to make sense of Zendesk’s pricing, let alone to calculate costs. As I’ve already mentioned, they started as a help desk/ticketing tool, and honestly, they perfected every bit of it over the years. As it turns, it’s quite difficult to compare Zendesk against Intercom as they serve different purposes and will fit different businesses.

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. 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)? 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. Zendesk’s help center tools should also come in handy for helping customers help themselves—something Zendesk claims eight out of 10 customers would rather do than contact support.

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. Respond to all conversations across different messaging platforms in one place and avoid juggling between zendesk and intercom dozens of tabs. Collaborate with your teammates by easily assigning the right rep to best handle a customer query. In today’s hyper-competitive, hyper-connected globalized economy, customer experience has become a fundamental differentiator.

Zendesk’s Answer Bot is capable of helping customers with common queries by providing canned responses and links to relevant help articles. It relies on fairly basic automation while routing more complex issues to live agents. While most of Intercom’s ticketing features come with all plans, it’s most important AI features come at a higher cost, including its automated workflows. However, after patting yourself on the back, you now realize you’re faced with the daunting task of choosing between the two. With so many features to consider, not to mention pricing, user experience, and scalability, we don’t blame you if you feel your head spinning. Intercom is an all-in-one solution, and compared to Zendesk, Intercom has a less intuitive design and can be complicated for new users to learn.

Here’s what you need to know about Zendesk vs. Intercom as customer support and relationship management tools. When it comes to which company is the better fit for your business, there’s no clear answer. It really depends on what features you need and what type of customer service strategy you plan to implement. For example, an interaction in which there is a quick back-and-forth between agent and customer tells you nothing new about performance and processes. If only 2 percent of conversations are being reviewed, highlighting a conversation like this for manual review is a waste of your reviewers’ time.

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. But it’s designed and crafted so well that I can’t seem to get enough of it. It’s highly customizable, so you can adjust it according to your website or product’s style. So when I realized lots of companies actually prefer Zendesk over Intercom, I was surprised.

Another advantage of using Intercom is that it not only enhances customer engagement but is also a great way to increase customer support teams’ productivity. 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.

Intercom also has a community forum where users can help one another with questions and solutions. 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. Personalized messaging, in-app messaging, product tours, and chatbot capabilities set Intercom apart from Zendesk.

This approach provides an efficient and scalable way to ensure high-quality customer service across a large volume of interactions. Zendesk’s pricing structure provides increasing levels of features and capabilities as businesses move up the tiers. This scalability allows organizations to adapt their support operations to their expanding customer base. Higher-tier plans in Zendesk come packed with advanced functionalities such as chatbots, customizable knowledge bases, and performance dashboards. These features can add significant value for businesses aiming to implement more sophisticated support capabilities as they scale.

Intercom, on the other hand, is designed to be more of a complete solution for sales, marketing, and customer relationship nurturing. You can use it for customer support, but that’s not its core strength. It’s an opportunity for Zendesk to differentiate itself, but unfortunately it didn’t get very high marks from users, either. Reviewers were frustrated by how long it took for their tickets to get resolved, as well as the complexity with which they were tossed around from department to department. Given that these are two services predicated on making you better at customer support, you’d think they’d be able to handle it better themselves.

With custom correlation and attribution, you can dive deep into the root cause behind your metrics. We also provide real-time and historical reporting dashboards so you can take action at the moment and learn from past trends. Meanwhile, our WFM software enables businesses to analyze employee metrics and performance, helping them identify improvements, implement strategies, and set long-term goals.

Like with many other apps, Zapier seems to be the best and most simple way to connect Intercom to Zendesk. The Zendesk marketplace is also where you can get a lot of great add-ons. There are also several different Shopify integrations to choose from, as well as CRM integrations like HubSpot and Salesforce. As for the category of voice and phone features, Zendesk is a clear winner. Zendesk Support has voicemail, text messages, and embedded voice, and it displays the phone number on the widget.

Whether you’re starting fresh with Intercom or migrating from Zendesk, set up is quick and easy. If you’re already using Intercom and want to continue using it as the front-end CRM experience, integrating with Zendesk can improve it. Check out our chart that compares the capabilities of Zendesk vs. Intercom. Zendesk is a ticketing system before anything else, and its ticketing functionality is overwhelming in the best possible way. Currently based in Albuquerque, NM, Bryce Emley holds an MFA in Creative Writing from NC State and nearly a decade of writing and editing experience. When he isn’t writing content, poetry, or creative nonfiction, he enjoys traveling, baking, playing music, reliving his barista days in his own kitchen, camping, and being bad at carpentry.

These products range from customer communication tools to a fully-fledged CRM. Zendesk boasts incredibly robust sales capabilities and security features. The highlight of Zendesk is its help desk ticketing system, which brings several customer communication channels to one location.

Zendesk TCO is lower than Intercom due to its ability to scale, which does not require additional cost to update the software for a growing business. It also has a transparent pricing model so businesses know the price they will incur. Lastly, the tool is easy to set up and implement, meaning no additional knowledge or expertise makes the businesses incur additional costs. Some aspects give an edge or create differentiation in the operations of both software, which users may oversee while making a choice.

Designed for all kinds of businesses, from small startups to giant enterprises, it’s the secret weapon that keeps customers happy. While some of these functionalities related to AI are included in the Zendesk suite, others are part of advanced AI add-ons. If agents want to offer their customers a great experience, they can spend an additional $50 to have the AI add-on. The help center in Intercom is also user-friendly, enabling agents to access content creation easily.

However, Intercom’s real strength lies in generating insights into areas like customer journey mapping, product performance, and retention. It’s built for function over form — the layout is highly organized and clearly designed around ticket management. You get an immediate overview of key metrics, such as ticket volume and agent performance as well as a summary of key customer data points.

It can also handle complex interactions and provide real-time insight to customer support agents. Overall, Intercom is a better option if personalized and robust chatbots are something you are looking for when managing customer support strategy. Zendesk excels in its ticketing system, offering users an intuitive platform for collaboration among support agents. Its robust workflows streamline the ticket resolution system and efficiently handle all customer complaints.

It offers more support features and includes more advanced analytics and reports. 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 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. 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.

Messagely’s live chat platform is smooth, effective, and easy to set up. With Messagely, you can increase your customer satisfaction and solve customers’ issues while they’re still visiting your site. Zendesk chat allows you to talk with your visitors in real time through a small chat bar at the bottom of your site. When visitors click on it, they’ll be directed to one of your customer service teammates. Meanwhile, Intercom excels with its comprehensive AI automation capabilities, all built on a unified AI system.

Its analytics do not provide deeper insights into consumer interactions as well. Zendesk offers robust reporting capabilities, providing businesses with detailed insights into consumer interactions, ticketing systems, agent performance, and more. Businesses can also track their performance, identify trends, and make informed decisions using its advanced analytics tool and creative dashboards that can customized according to the business needs.

When they do respond, they’re usually unhelpful or want to immediately transfer you to the sales department. While both offer a wide number of integration options, Zendesk wins the top spot in this category. Zendesk is designed to fit your business needs whether you’re a fast-growing startup or a well-established company.

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. Zendesk offers your agents a unified workspace to collaborate on support tickets. This single window allows your team members to combine several channels for better efficiency and improved customer experience.

While both Chat GPT offer ways to track your sales pipeline, each platform handles the process a bit differently. On the other hand, it’s nearly impossible to foresee how much Intercom will cost at the end of the day. They charge for agent seats and connections, don’t disclose their prices, and package add-ons at a premium. Intercom is the clear victor in terms of user experience, leaving all of its competitors in the dust. This website is using a security service to protect itself from online attacks.

This lack of transparency can create budgeting problems for businesses. 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 enables organizations to work more efficiently and easily integrate their software without having to alter their present business processes. Zendesk is a customer service platform that allows you to communicate with customers via any channel. On the other hand, if you prioritize customer engagement, sales, and personalized messaging, Intercom is a compelling option, especially for startups and rapidly scaling businesses. If you are looking for a comprehensive customer support solution with a wide range of features, Zendesk is a good option. So, get ready for an insightful journey through the landscapes of Zendesk and Intercom, where support excellence converges with AI innovation. In today’s environment, where customer expectations are constantly evolving, choosing the right ticketing tool that aligns with your business needs is crucial.

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. That being said, in your search for the best customer support tool, you must have come across Zendesk and Intercom. Customer support and security are vital aspects to consider when evaluating helpdesk solutions like Zendesk and Intercom. Let’s examine and compare how each platform addresses these crucial areas to ensure effective support operations and data protection.

Whether you’re a small startup or a large enterprise, understanding the differences and strengths of Zendesk vs Intercom will empower you to take an informed decision. Before you make your choice, check out Messagely’s features and compare them to discover which platform is best for you. You don’t have to pay per contact on your database, and you there are many free features you can use. Zendesk, on the other hand, has revamped its security since its security breach in 2016.

With ThriveDesk, you can supercharge your website’s growth and streamline customer interactions like never before. Experience targeted communication with Intercom’s automation and segmentation features. Create personalized messages for specific customer segments, driving engagement and satisfaction.

Both Zendesk and Intercom have integration libraries, and you can also use a connecting tool like Zapier for added integrations and add-ons. 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. 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. Help desk SaaS is how you manage general customer communication and for handling customer questions.

Zendesk and Intercom also both offer analytics and reporting capabilities that allow businesses to analyze and monitor customer agents’ productivity. As a result, companies can identify trends and areas for improvement, allowing them to continuously improve their support processes and provide better service to their customers. A helpdesk solution’s user experience and interface are crucial in ensuring efficient and intuitive customer support. Let’s evaluate the user experience and interface of both Zendesk and Intercom, considering factors such as ease of navigation, customization options, and overall intuitiveness.