Zendesk vs Intercom: Which One Is Right for You?

Picking customer service software to run your business is not a decision you make lightly. 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. This organization is important because it brings together customer interactions from all channels in this one place. And, Zendesk is nothing if not geared for helping agents deal with large ticket volumes efficiently.

Zendesk fully utilizes AI tools to enhance user experiences at every stage of the customer journey. Its AI chatbots leverage machine learning to gain a deeper understanding of customer interactions. Intercom’s CRM features include customer journey tracking, custom data parameters, and list segmentation, which are useful for targeted marketing and engagement.

With Pipedrive, you’ll have access to pipeline visualization features that allow you to monitor your sales cycle and help determine ways your sales team can remove roadblocks and improve their performance. Zendesk helps you manage and update your leads, analyze your pipeline, and create customizable reports on the go with our mobile CRM app. Plus, visit tagging and geolocation features allow your sales team to effortlessly log in-person sales visits, letting you monitor all your sales interactions in one centralized place. Pipedrive provides a mobile app to manage sales leads, view your calendar, and access your to-do list. And while Pipedrive’s mobile app can help you look at where your leads are on the map, you won’t be able to log sales visits using geolocation features.

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. 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.

It provides a real-time feed and historical data, so agents can respond instantly to consumer queries, as well as learn from past CX trends. By using its workforce management functionality, businesses can analyze employee performance, and implement strategies to improve them. On the other hand, Intercom enables agents to convert a conversation into a ticket with one click. This helps support teams to resolve customer issues without losing context. It also provides seamless navigation between a unified inbox, teams, and customer interactions, while putting all the most important information right at your fingertips.

Intercom, on the other hand, is designed to be more of a complete solution for sales, marketing, and customer relationship nurturing. Zendesk is popular due to its user-friendly interface, extensive customization options, scalability, multichannel support, robust analytics, and seamless integration capabilities. These features make it suitable for businesses of all sizes, helping them streamline their support operations and enhance the overall customer experience. Pipedrive offers five total plans, with their entry-level Essential plan offering significantly fewer features than the others.

However, for more advanced CRM needs like lead management and sales forecasting, Intercom may not make the cut, unfortunately. What’s even cooler is its ability to use AI to forecast customer behavior. Agents can use this to anticipate and proactively address issues before the escalate, or even arise in the first place. It goes without saying that you can generate custom reports to hone in on particular areas of interest. Whether you’re into traditional bar charts, pie charts, treemaps, word clouds, or any other type of visualization, Zendesk is a data “nerd’s” dream. It makes sure that you don’t miss a single inquiry by queuing tickets for agent handling.

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.

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.

You can try Customerly without any risk to you as we offer a 14-day free trial. G2 ranks Intercom higher than Zendesk for ease of setup, and support quality—so you can expect a smooth transition, effortless onboarding, and continuous success. Whether you’re starting fresh with Intercom or migrating from Zendesk, set up is quick and easy.

Sales Hub

Some of the links that appear on the website are from software companies from which CRM.org receives compensation. Visit either of their app marketplaces and look up the Intercom Zendesk integration. Like with many other apps, Zapier seems to be the best and most simple way to connect Intercom to Zendesk. No matter what Zendesk Suite plan you are on, you get workflow triggers, which are simple business rules-based actions to streamline many tasks.

Some startups and small businesses may prefer one app, while large companies and enterprise operations will have their own requirements. 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. 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.

It offers comprehensive customer data management and lead-tracking features. Some businesses may require supplemental products to meet specific needs. Intercom’s CRM utility is a solid foundation for managing customer relationships and sales in one platform. In today’s business world, customer service is fast-paced, and customers have higher expectations. To enhance customer satisfaction, businesses must equip their teams with customer support solutions and customer service software. With a multi-channel ticketing system, Zendesk Support helps you and your team to know exactly who you’re talking to and keep track of tickets throughout all channels without losing context.

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.

Since, its name has become somewhat synonymous with customer service and support. 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 offers reporting and analytics tools with limited capabilities for custom reporting, user behavior metrics, and advanced visualization. It also lacks advanced features like collaboration reporting, custom metrics, metric correlation, and drill-in attribution.

Managing Customer Relationships Using Advanced AI

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. You can foun additiona information about ai customer service and artificial intelligence and NLP. 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.

Having only appeared in 2011, Intercom lacks a few years of experience on Zendesk. It also made its name as a messaging-first platform for fostering personalized conversational experiences for customers. 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.

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. 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.

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.

Zendesk has many amazing team collaboration and communication features, like whisper mode, which lets multiple agents chime in to help each other without the customer knowing. There is also something called warm transfers, which let one rep add contextual notes to a ticket before transferring it to another rep. You also get a side conversation tool. 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.

Zendesk and Intercom offer help desk management solutions to their users. It allows businesses to organize and share helpful documentation or answer customers’ common questions. Self-service resources always relieve the burden on customer support teams, and both of our subjects have this tool in their packages. 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.

Plus, our transparent pricing doesn’t have hidden fees or endless add-ons, so customers know exactly what they’re paying for and can calculate the total cost of ownership ahead of time. In comparison, Intercom’s confusing pricing structure that features multiple add-ons may be unsuitable for small businesses. If you thought Zendesk prices were confusing, let me introduce you to Intercom prices. At first glance, they seem like simple three packages for small, medium, and big businesses. But it’s virtually impossible to predict what you’ll pay for Intercom at the end of the day. They charge not only for customer service representative seats but also for feature usage and offer tons of features as custom add-ons at additional cost.

This includes secure login options like SAML or JWT SSO (single sign-on) and native content redaction for sensitive information. We also adhere to numerous industry standards and regulations, such as HIPAA, SOC2, ISO 27001, HDS, FedRAMP LI-SaaS, ISO 27018, and ISO 27701. In a nutshell, none of the customer support software companies provide decent user assistance. Intercom live chat is modern, smooth, and has many advanced features that other chat tools lack. It’s also highly customizable, so you can adjust it according to the style of your website or product. Basically, if you have a complicated support process, go with Zendesk for its help desk functionality.

It comes with a unified omnichannel dashboard, custom reports, and an advanced ticketing system. However, if you aim to nurture leads and grow sales, then Intercom is the better option. Its AI-powered tools and virtual assistants make it a formidable CRM-powered software. Conversely, Intercom has a shared inbox tool that routes conversations from every channel, https://chat.openai.com/ including live chat, email, SMS, and more, into one place. However, it offers a limited channel scope compared to Zendesk, and users will have to get paid add-ons for channels like WhatsApp. When it’s intelligent and accessible, reporting can provide deep insights into your customer interactions, agent efficiency, and service quality at a glance.

It divides all articles into a few main topics so you can quickly find the one you’re looking for. It also includes a list of common questions you can browse through at the bottom of the knowledge base home page so you can find answers to common issues. Intercom offers fewer integrations, supporting just over 450 third-party Chat GPT apps. This makes it challenging to customize the software as your business grows. Furthermore, data on customer reviews, installation numbers, and ecommerce integrations is not readily available. That being said, while both platforms offer extensive features, they can be costly, especially for smaller enterprises.

Overall impression (aka very subjective take on user experience):

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.

• 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.
• This single window allows your team members to combine several channels for better efficiency and improved customer experience.
• 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.
• Later, they started adding all kinds of other features, like live chat for customer conversations.
• After this, you’ll have to set up your workflows, personalizing your tickets and storing them by topic.

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.

Still, for either of these platforms to have some email marketing or other email functionality is common sense. 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.

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.

Zendesk vs Intercom for customer support: How they support their clients

Although it provides businesses with valuable messaging and automation tools, they may require more than this to achieve a higher level of functionality. Companies might assume that using Intercom increases costs, potentially impacting businesses’ ROI. Zendesk’s automation features are limited to offering basic automation to streamline repetitive tasks.

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. These weaknesses are not as significant as the features and functionalities Zendesk offers its users. If having a less modern interface, less customization if you have a lower tier plan, and lack of access to centralized information is not an issue for your business requirements, you should go for Zendesk. Intercom also charges additional charges for specific features, such as charging $0.99 for every resolution.

For example, bulk email send, email templates, email scheduling, and automation features are only available to those who purchase the Advanced plan and above. 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 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. What makes Intercom stand out from the crowd are their chatbots and lots of chat automation features that can be very helpful for your team.

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.

What is a sales CRM, and how does it help businesses grow?

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.

In addition to these features, Intercom offers messaging automation and real-time visitor insights. Intercom’s app store has popular integrations for things like WhatsApp, Stripe, Instagram, and Slack. There is a really useful one for Shopify to provide customer support for e-commerce operations. HubSpot and Salesforce are also available when support needs to work with marketing and sales teams.

• This automation enhances support teams’ productivity as they do not have to spend too much responding to similar complaints they have already dealt with.
• Whatever you think of Intercom’s design and general user experience, you can’t deny that it outperforms all of its competitors.
• 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.
• Some businesses may require supplemental products to meet specific needs.
• Although Intercom offers an omnichannel messaging dashboard, it has slightly less functionality than Zendesk.

It will seamlessly integrate with Slack and offers everything you need for your favorite communication platform. 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 intercom and zendesk of queries. Fin enables businesses to set new standards for offering customer service. Intercom’s AI has the transformative power to enhance customer service by offering multilingual support and contextual responses. Fin uses seamless communication across customer bases, breaking language barriers and catering to global audiences.

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.

Premiere Zendesk plans have 24/7 proactive support with faster response times. Other customer service add-ons with Zendesk include custom training and professional services. Intercom is also a customer service software that integrates entirely with third-party vendors, especially those offering messaging services.

Both tools also allow you to connect your email account and manage it from within the application to track open and click-through rates. In addition, Zendesk and Intercom feature advanced sales reporting and analytics that make it easy for sales teams to understand their prospects and customers more deeply. Zendesk also offers digital support during business hours, and their website has a chatbot.

It also enables agents to perform customized workflow management, assign tickets to the right agent for request handling, and track the ticket’s progress. Zendesk and Intercom offer basic features, including live chat, a help desk, and a pre-built knowledge base. They have great UX and a normal pricing range, making it difficult for businesses to choose one, as both software almost looks similar in their offerings.

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.

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. Whether you’ve just started searching for a customer support tool or have been using one for a while, chances are you know about Zendesk and Intercom. The former is one of the oldest and most reliable solutions on the market, while the latter sets the bar high regarding innovative and out-of-the-box features. You can create articles, share them internally, group them for users, and assign them as responses for bots—all pretty standard fare.

On the other hand, Pipedrive doesn’t offer a customer service solution, limiting users to third-party integrations. Considering all the features of Zendesk, including robust ticketing, messaging, a help center, and chatbots, we can say that Zendesk excels in being the top customer support platform. If you’re still on the fence about which platform to choose, consider exploring Tidio as a strong alternative.

Tidio stands out with its advanced AI-powered chatbots and seamless automated workflows, making customer interactions efficient and personalized. It also features an AI-driven ticketing system, an omnichannel dashboard to manage all customer communications in one place, and customizable chat widgets to enhance user engagement. You can also use Intercom as a customer service platform, but given its broad focus, you may not get the same level of specialized expertise. 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.

Automated triggers, saved responses, and live chat analytics are all baked in. The only other downside is that the chat widget can feel a bit static and outdated. When comparing chatbots, it’s important to consider their level of intelligence, “trainability,” and customization.