Zendesk vs Pipedrive: A Comprehensive Comparison Guide for 2023

Overall, I actually liked Zendesk’s user experience better than Intercom’s in terms of its messaging dashboard. Intercom has a dark mode that I think many people will appreciate, and I wouldn’t say it’s lacking in any way. But I like that Zendesk just feels slightly cleaner, has easy online/away toggling, more visual customer journey notes, and a handy widget for exploring the knowledge base on the fly. Zendesk also packs some pretty potent tools into their platform, so you can empower your agents to do what they do with less repetition.

Ultimately, your choice should reflect whether your priority is comprehensive customer support (Zendesk) or a blend of CRM and sales support (Intercom). Your agents will love the seamless assistance Aura AI provides throughout the entire customer interaction. From handling multiple questions to avoiding dreaded customer-stuck loops, Aura AI is the Swiss Army Knife of customer service chatbots. You’ll still be able to get your eyes on basic support metrics, like response times and bot performance, that will help you improve your service quality. However, Intercom’s real strength lies in generating insights into areas like customer journey mapping, product performance, and retention. If you’re here, it’s safe to assume that you’re looking for a new customer service solution to support your teams and delight your audience.

The customer support platform starts at just $5 per agent per month, which is a very basic customer support tool. If you want dashboard reporting and integrations, you’ll need to pay $19 per agent per month. Multilingual content and other advanced features come with a $49 price per agent per month.

Suite Growth Plan

The features in Zendesk can scale with growing companies, so Startups can easily customize their plan to changing needs. Before choosing the customer support software, it is crucial to consider the size of the business. Some software only works best for startups, while others have offerings only for large enterprises. Let us look at the type and size of business for which Zednesk and Intercom are suitable. 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.

• 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.
• Intercom offers reporting and analytics tools with limited capabilities for custom reporting, user behavior metrics, and advanced visualization.
• Zendesk Support has voicemail, text messages, and embedded voice, and it displays the phone number on the widget.
• This plan includes a shared inbox, unlimited articles, proactive support, and basic automation.

But they also add features like automatic meeting booking (in the Convert package), and their custom inbox rules and workflows just feel a little more, well, custom. I’ll dive into their chatbots more later, but their bot automation features are also stronger. Today, both companies offer a broad range of customer support features, making them both strong contenders in the market. Zendesk offers more advanced automation capabilities than Intercom, which may be a deciding factor for businesses that require complex workflows. The company’s products include a ticketing system, live chat software, knowledge base software, and a customer satisfaction survey tool.

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Intercom also provides fast time to value for smaller and mid-sized businesses with limitations for large-scale companies. 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. Personalized messaging, in-app messaging, product tours, and chatbot capabilities set Intercom apart from Zendesk.

While Zeendesk provides automation services for ticket support systems, notifications, chatbots, etc., it may not be an extensive feature compared to Intercom. It allows businesses to automate repetitive tasks, such as ticket routing and in-built responses, freeing up time for support agents to deal with more crucial cases requiring more agent attention. This automation enhances support teams’ productivity as they do not have to spend too much responding to similar complaints they have already dealt with. Intercom focuses on real-time customer messaging, while Zendesk provides a comprehensive suite for ticketing, knowledge base, and self-service support.

It can be classified as a chatbox for average users, just like the ones found on a variety of websites. Learn more about the differences between leading chat support solutions Intercom and Zendesk so that you can choose the right tool for your needs. This website is using a security service to protect itself from online attacks. There are several actions that could trigger this block including submitting a certain word or phrase, a SQL command or malformed data.

Zendesk excels with its AI-enhanced user experience and robust omnichannel support, making it ideal for businesses focused on customer service. 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. And according to research, brands adopting omnichannel customer service software experience a decline in cost per contact by 7.5% every year, so having this feature is definitely a plus.

You’d probably want to know how much it costs to get Zendesk or Intercom for your business, so let’s talk money now. 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. While doing my research for this article, I’ve not only tested both Intercom and Zendesk myself, but also read a pile of different articles, comparisons, guides, showdowns and all this kind of stuff.

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.

The help center in Intercom is also user-friendly, enabling agents to access content creation easily. It does help you organize and create content using efficient tools, but Zendesk is more suitable if you want a fully branded customer-centric experience. However, it is a great option for businesses seeking efficient customer interactions, as its focus on personalized messaging compensates for its lack of features. Intercom’s messaging platform is very similar to Zendesk’s dashboard, offering seamless integration of multiple channels in one place for managing customer interactions. Although Intercom offers an omnichannel messaging dashboard, it has slightly less functionality than Zendesk.

If delivering an outstanding customer experience and employee experience is your top priority, Zendesk should be your top pick over Intercom. Zendesk has the CX expertise to help businesses of all sizes scale their service experience without compromise. What can be really inconvenient about Zendesk is how its tools integrate with each other when you need to use them simultaneously. So yeah, all the features talk actually brings us to the most sacred question — the question of pricing.

AI is integral to customer relationship management software and facilitates consumer interactions. AI helps businesses gain detailed insight into consumer data in real-time. It also helps promote automation in routine tasks by automating repetitive processes and helps agents save time and errors. The integration of apps plays a significant role in creating a seamless experience or a 360-degree view of customers across the company.

Tracking the ticket progress enables businesses to track what part of the resolution customer complaint has reached. On the other hand, Intercom catches up with Zendesk on ticket handling capabilities but stands out due to its automation features. Messagely’s pricing starts at just $29 per month, which includes live chat, targeted messages, shared inbox, mobile apps, and over 750 powerful integrations. Messagely’s live chat platform is smooth, effective, and easy to set up.

The platform is evolving from a platform for engaging with consumers to a tool that assists you in automating every element of your daily routine. That being said, in your search for the best customer support tool, you must have come across Zendesk and Intercom. In today’s hyper-competitive, hyper-connected globalized economy, customer experience has become a fundamental differentiator. As customers’ needs are constantly evolving, businesses must adapt and keep up to guarantee the best customer experience and satisfaction. Zendesk also offers a sales pipeline feature through its Zendesk Sell product.

On the other hand, Intercom has all its (fewer) tools and features integrated with each other way better, which makes your experience with the tool as smooth as silk. NovoChat, on the other hand, is https://chat.openai.com/ great for businesses that primarily engage with their clients through messaging apps. The program is simple to use and includes all of the necessary capabilities for providing good customer service.

So when I realized lots of companies actually prefer Zendesk over Intercom, I was surprised. 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. 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. It also offers a Proactive Support Plus as an Add-on with push notifications, a series campaign builder, news items, and more. For large-scale businesses, the budget for such investments is usually higher than for startups, but they need to analyze if the investment is worth it.

Compared to Zendesk and Intercom, Helpwise offers competitive and transparent pricing plans. Its straightforward pricing structure ensures businesses get access to the required features without complex tiers or hidden costs, making it an attractive option for cost-conscious organizations. 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.

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.

What are the differences between Intercom and Zendesk?

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 intercom and zendesk (and many more) and present them as counts, columns, lines, or tables. Learn how top CX leaders are scaling personalized customer service at their companies. Test any of HelpCrunch pricing plans for free for 14 days and see our tools in action right away.

It even has some unique features, like office hours, real-time user profiles, and a high-degree of customization. Right off the bat, Intercom’s Chatbot is more advanced and customizable. If you prioritize seamless, personalized customer interactions, it’s arguably the better option of the two.

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This structure may appeal to businesses with specific needs but could be less predictable for budget-conscious organizations. Zendesk Sell provides robust CRM features such as lead tracking, task management, and workflow automation. Not to mention its advanced reporting capabilities, customizable dashboards, and seamless mobile app experience for an always-on approach to service. While not included with its customer service suite, it offers a full-fledged standalone CRM called Zendesk Sell.

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. As the more recent of the two, offering a modern look-and-feel and frictionless experience is a key magnet for Intercom. It effortlessly brings together in-app chat, automated chatbots, and a unified inquiry inbox in its help center. One of Zendesk’s other key strengths has also been its massive library of integrations. It works seamlessly with over 1,000 business tools, like Salesforce, Slack, and Shopify.

Moreover, the pricing model ensures customer transparency and reveals the costs that businesses will incur. Zendesk and Intercom offer a free trial of 14 days, but you will eventually have to choose once the trial ends. The pricing strategies are covered below so you can analyze the pricing structure and select your customer service software. Its ability to scale with the businesses makes it an attractive option for growing companies. Its customizable options enable businesses to quickly gain value from its features by enhancing agility.

Zendesk is a customer service platform that allows you to communicate with customers via any channel. 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 Chat GPT platform supports. Using Zendesk, you can create community forums where customers can connect, comment, and collaborate, creating a way to harness customers’ expertise and promote feedback. Community managers can also escalate posts to support agents when one-on-one help is needed.

Both Zendesk and Intercom have integration libraries, and you can also use a connecting tool like Zapier for added integrations and add-ons. There are pre-built workflows to help with things like ticket sharing, as well as conversation routing based on metrics like agent skill set or availability. 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. Email marketing, for example, is a big deal, but less so when it comes to customer service.

You can use both Zendesk and Intercom simultaneously to leverage their respective strengths and provide comprehensive customer support across different channels and touchpoints. Zendesk provides its partners with quality support and educational resources, including online training and certification programs, helping turn any salesperson into a Zendesk expert. Conversely, some Pipedrive users have issues working with Pipedrive, with users describing their support and onboarding experiences as slow and limited. Just as Zendesk, Intercom also offers its own Operator bot which will automatically suggest relevant articles to customers who ask for help. It’s modern, it’s smooth, it looks great and it has so many advanced features.

When factoring in AI-first tools for all agents, multi-channel campaigns, and proactive support, it could easily cost significantly more than Zendesk. 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.

This has helped to make Zendesk one of the most popular customer service software platforms on the market. CoinJar is one of the longest-running cryptocurrency exchanges in the world. To help keep up with its growing customer base, CoinJar turned to Zendesk for a user-friendly and easily scalable solution after testing other CRMs, including Pipedrive and HubSpot. Leveraging the sequencing and bulk email features of the Zendesk sales CRM, CoinJar increased its visibility and productivity at scale. A sales CRM should also provide you with the benefits of pipeline management software. Zendesk gives you a bird’s-eye view of all of your deals in one place, allowing you to see what stage each deal is in and quickly identify any bottlenecks in your sales cycle that you may need to address.

You can foun additiona information about ai customer service and artificial intelligence and NLP. Here is a Zendesk vs. Intercom based on the customer support offered by these brands. 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. Depending on your needs, you can set up Intercom on your website or mobile app and add your automations. Setting up Intercom help centers is also very easy and intuitive, with no previous knowledge required.