Zendesk vs Intercom in 2023: Detailed Analysis of Features, Pricing, and More

The top-tier plan includes SSO and identity management integrations for secure data access. 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. Podium simplifies customer interactions with tools for text marketing, payment handling, review collection, live chat and an integrated agent inbox. With AI-driven responses available around the clock, Podium boosts lead conversion and revenue.

But it’s also a given that many people will approach their reviews to Zendesk and Intercom with some specific missions in mind, and that’s bound to change how they feel about the platforms. If you’re not ready to make the full switch to Intercom just yet, you can integrate Intercom with your Zendesk account. This will provide live data on who your users are and what they do in your app. But I don’t want to sell their chat tool short as it still has most of necessary features like shortcuts (saved responses), automated triggers and live chat analytics. If you’re a huge corporation with a complicated customer support process, go Zendesk for its help desk functionality.

For example, say, a bank uses its CX platform to analyze the spending habits and financial goals of its customers. It consolidates data from multiple touchpoints — branch visits, online transactions and mobile app usage. The platform identifies a group of customers with steadily increasing account Chat GPT balances but little to no recent investment activity. Overall, when comparing Zendesk to Intercom, Zendesk’s features will probably win out over time. But the most important thing is that you get a help desk that you believe in—and that you integrate it into a website as thoroughly as possible.

In these scenarios, we’ll map the team and teammate to the default selected. You’re choosing that brand because of what it stands for — maybe it’s sustainability, quality, or community. But if the CX feels, that’s supposed to be holistic, feels broken, at every twist and turn during your journey with the brand, you might feel let down.

It’s divided into about 20 topics with dozens of articles each, so navigating through it can be complicated. Since Zendesk has many features, it takes a while to learn how to use the options you’ll be needing. When it comes to Intercom, it reserves SSO and identity management for its higher-priced tier plan as an add-on.

Zendesk’s mission is to build software designed to improve customer relationships. 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. On the other hand, Intercom brings a dynamic approach to customer support.

Suite Team is more affordable than Intercom’s $79/month tier; Suite Professional is more expensive. Overall, Zendesk wins out on plan flexibility, especially given that it has a lower price plan for dipping your toes in the water. Sure, you can have a front desk—but you don’t necessarily have to plunk down the cost it would take to buy that desk, train an employee, and add them to your payroll. If you see either of these warnings, wait 60 seconds for your Zendesk rate limit to be reset and try again.

Does Intercom support localization?

Intercom’s products are used by over 25,000 customers, from small tech startups to large enterprises. Zendesk wins the major category of help desk and ticketing system software. It lets customers reach out via messaging, a live chat tool, voice, and social media. Zendesk supports teams that can then field these issues from a nice unified dashboard. Zendesk has great intelligent routing and escalation protocols as well.

Given that we’re neither Intercom nor Zendesk, we ourselves were curious to see how these two titans of customer service differ. Zendesk is designed with the agent in mind, delivering a modern, intuitive experience. The customizable Zendesk Agent Workspace enables reps to work within a single browser tab with one-click navigation across any channel. Intercom, on the other hand, can be a complicated system, creating a steep learning curve for new users.

But sooner or later, you’ll have to decide on the subscription plan, and here’s what you’ll have to pay. You can publish your self-service resources, divide them by categories, and integrate them with your messenger to accelerate the whole chat experience. If I had to describe Intercom’s helpdesk, I would say it’s rather a complementary tool to their chat tools. Intercom primarily focuses on messaging but offers limited channel breadth compared to Zendesk, requiring paid add-ons for critical channels like WhatsApp. Yes it’s possible to import your Zendesk ticket, user and organization data more than once. Keep in mind that, if something has changed in Zendesk since your previous import, it will be reflected if you reimport.

In short, Zendesk is perfect for large companies looking to streamline their customer support process; Intercom is great for smaller companies looking for advanced customer service features. 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. This structure may appeal to businesses with specific needs but could be less predictable for budget-conscious organizations. Meanwhile, Intercom excels with its comprehensive AI automation capabilities, all built on a unified AI system.

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. 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. Overall, Zendesk empowers businesses to deliver exceptional customer support experiences across channels, making it a popular choice for enhancing support operations. Intercom isn’t as great with sales, but it allows for better communication.

You can use it for customer support, but that’s not its core strength. Zendesk boasts robust reporting and analytics tools, plus a dedicated workforce management system. With custom correlation and attribution, zendesk intercom 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.

Power channel-less interactions and seamless resolution no matter the channel of contact. With simple setup, and handy importers you’ll be up and running in no time, ready to unlock the Support Funnel and deliver fast and personal customer support. Basically, you can create new articles, divide them by categories and sections — make it a high end destination for customers when they have questions or issues. 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. When comparing Zendesk and Intercom, evaluating their core features and functionalities is essential to determine which platform best suits your organization’s customer support needs.

Customer service has evolved.Zendesk hasn’t.

Our platform also supports dynamic list building, enabling you to run targeted surveys, send newsletters, and automate marketing actions, all from one place. Customerly’s reporting tools are built on the principle that you can’t improve what you can’t measure. 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.

Customers have also noted that they can implement Zendesk AI five times faster than other solutions. This includes making a new ticket checking on existing tickets, or looking through knowledge base articles. Customers can also sign in using their Google or Twitter accounts, which saves them the trouble of setting up a new login.

• This website is using a security service to protect itself from online attacks.
• The company’s products include a messaging platform, knowledge base tools, and an analytics dashboard.
• First, you can only talk to the support team if you are a registered user.
• 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.
• Zendesk’s customer support is also very fast, though their live chat is only available for registered users.

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. Rated 5 stars out of 5 on G2, ThriveDesk is highly regarded by users. Rest assured, ThriveDesk’s lightweight design and speed won’t impact the performance of your Wix-powered eCommerce website. The optimized agent interface ensures rapid responses for maximum efficiency, all while keeping your website running smoothly.

Upon subsequent imports, old imported data will be overwritten, duplicates will not be created. Once you’re happy with your setup, click the migrate button to start your migration. If you’re not quite ready yet, you can just save your draft at any time, and get back to it later.

Hiver is a customer support tool that seamlessly integrates with Gmail and Outlook, making it easy to handle support requests right from your inbox. It has a customer portal, where customers can submit their issues and track the progress all in one place. Understanding this, I set out to find the best customer portal software. In this blog, I’ve pulled together the top options, comparing their features, pricing, and how they could fit into your business. Freshdesk, by Freshworks Inc. gathers requests from email, web, phone, chat, messaging and social media into a unified ticketing system, making it easy to manage interactions across channels.

Deleted, inactive and suspended users will not be migrated to Intercom. Comments and tickets from these users will be mapped to a default inactive contact with name “Inactive Intercom Contact”. On top of that, Copilot makes it easy to build automations that save you time and minimize mistakes. You can set up workflows using triggers and actions, and even add custom fields for more specific needs. It integrates with tools you might already be using, like Airtable and Calendly. You can also discover new tools built specifically for the Copilot platform or even create your own custom apps if you need something unique.

While no area of concern really stands out, there are some complaints about the company’s billing practices. While both Zendesk and Intercom offer the essentials, like ticketing, issue resolution, and automation, the devil’s in the details when it comes to which is best for your unique needs. You can test any of HelpCrunch’s pricing plans for free for 14 days and see our tools in action immediately. In this paragraph, let’s explain some common issues users usually ask about when choosing between Zendesk and Intercom platforms. To resolve common customer questions with the vendor’s new tool, Fin bot, you must pay $0.99 per resolution per month. Besides, the prices differ depending on the company’s size and specific needs.

Intercom’s user interface is also quite straightforward and easy to understand; it includes a range of features such as live chat, messaging campaigns, and automation workflows. Additionally, the platform allows for customizations such as customized user flows and onboarding experiences. Intercom is a customer relationship management (CRM) software company that provides a suite of tools for managing customer interactions. The company was founded in 2011 and is headquartered in San Francisco, California.

Both Zendesk and Intercom offer varying flavors when it comes to curating the whole customer support experience. Learn how top CX leaders are scaling personalized customer service at their companies. So, by now, you can see that according to this article, Zendesk inches past Intercom as the better customer support platform. Zendesk’s mobile app is also good for ticketing, helping you create new support tickets with macros and updates.

To sum things up, one can get really confused trying to make sense of Zendesk’s pricing, let alone to calculate costs. 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. What really struck me though is that people seemed to like Zendesk more.

With chatbots, you can generate leads to hand over to your sales team and solve common customer queries without the need of a customer service representative behind a keyboard. Messagely’s https://chat.openai.com/ 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.

Here is a Zendesk vs. Intercom based on the customer support offered by these brands. Chat agents also get a comprehensive look at their entire customer’s journey, so they will have a better idea of what your customers need, without needing to ask many questions. With a very streamlined design, Intercom’s interface is far better than many alternatives, including Zendesk.

There are also several different Shopify integrations to choose from, as well as CRM integrations like HubSpot and Salesforce. Intercom’s native mobile apps are good for iOS, Android, React Native, and Cordova, while Zendesk only has mobile apps for iPhones, iPads, and Android devices. No matter what Zendesk Suite plan you are on, you get workflow triggers, which are simple business rules-based actions to streamline many tasks.

It can filter engageable from non-engageable messages, deflect them to your agents and even alert them in case of potential PR crises, keeping your brand perception positive and proactive. Here’s a collection of customer experience software for you to evaluate and choose from. Don’t miss out on the latest tips, tools, and tactics at the forefront of customer support. But Intercom’s friendliness for growing companies is something you can’t afford to ignore. If your business is established and you need to cut down on those ticket resolution times, Zendesk may be worth it.

When you choose to import tickets, you’ll be able to bring over all your existing Zendesk tickets. A Zendesk ticket can either be public or private so a ticket will be migrated to a Customer ticket or Back-office ticket respectively in Intercom. Once chosen, select what fields you want to migrate, and what these should be mapped to. To save you time, we’ve automatically mapped appropriate ones, and set others to skip so you can just bring over the fields you want to.

As more organizations adopt AI, it will be critical to choose a data model that aligns with how your business operates. Customer experience will be no exception, and AI models that are purpose-built for CX lead to better results at scale. It’s easy to move your valuable customer tickets and data from Zendesk to Intercom. This will ensure you keep all your valuable ticket, user and company information and interactions with customers when moving to Intercom from Zendesk.

It has a very intuitive design that goes far beyond its platform and into its articles, product guides, and even its illustrations. After signing up and creating your account, you can start filling in your information, such as your company name and branding and your agents’ profiles and information. Then, you can begin filling in details such as your account’s name and icon and your agents’ profiles and security features. The setup can be so complex that there are tutorials by third parties to teach new users how to do it right. Zendesk has excellent reporting and analytics tools that allow you to decipher the underlying issues behind your help desk metrics.

Hit the ground running – Master Tidio quickly with our extensive resource library. Learn about features, customize your experience, and find out how to set up integrations and use our apps. Provide a clear path for customer questions to improve the shopping experience you offer. Customerly’s CRM is designed to help businesses build stronger relationships by keeping customer data organized and actionable.

Zendesk, a customer support tool, offers a customer portal software called Zendesk Guide. With more folks working from their couches, remote support is stepping up. CX tools now help you set up your cloud contact center so your intelligent virtual agents and live agents can work in tandem to engage with and help users remotely via text, audio, or video. Birdeye is a versatile platform designed for both local and multi-location businesses looking to boost their online reputation and manage customer interactions seamlessly. It helps businesses get noticed online with tools for managing reviews, social media and customer communications — all from one place.

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. They have a dedicated help section that provides instructions on how to set up and effectively use Intercom. 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.

Both options are well designed, easy to use, and share some pretty key functionality like behavioral triggers and omnichannel-ality (omnichannel-centricity?). But with perks like more advanced chatbots, automation, and lead management capabilities, Intercom could have an edge for many users. Zendesk is among the industry’s best ticketing and customer support software, and most of its additional functionality is icing on the proverbial cake. Intercom, on the other hand, is designed to be more of a complete solution for sales, marketing, and customer relationship nurturing.

This means smoother transitions, interfaces that are a breeze to navigate and features that make sense for on-the-go users. CX tools help visualize and analyze the entire customer journey, identifying bottlenecks or drop-off points. They can help you track every step a customer takes, from browsing to buying, spotting any bumps along the way. Fixing these friction points not only makes the journey smoother but also increases the chances they’ll hit “buy” and come back happy for more. CX platforms empower you with social listening, using which you can monitor the digital space for specific keywords and sentiments related to your brand.

Self-service resources always relieve the burden on customer support teams, and both of our subjects have this tool in their packages. Zendesk is an AI-powered platform designed to optimize customer experience across all touchpoints. It enables rapid setup and seamless scaling, making it adaptable to evolving needs. Zendesk’s AI enhances customer interactions by providing real-time insights and automating workflows.

However, the latter is more of a support and ticketing solution, while Intercom is CRM functionality-oriented. This means it’s a customer relationship management platform rather than anything else. Zendesk AI is the intelligence layer that infuses CX intelligence into every step of the customer journey. In addition to being pre-trained on billions of real support interactions, our AI powers bots, agent and admin assist, and intelligent workflows that lead to 83 percent lower administrative costs.

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)? One place Intercom really shines as a standalone CRM is its data utility. Intercom, on the other hand, was built for business messaging, so communication is one of their strong suits. Combine that with their prowess in automation and sales solutions, and you’ve got a really strong product that can handle myriad customer relationship needs. Zendesk also packs some pretty potent tools into their platform, so you can empower your agents to do what they do with less repetition.

Should I choose Zendesk or Intercom?

Intercom’s ticketing 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.

You can opt for code via JavaScript or Rails or even integrate directly with the likes of Google Tag Manager, WordPress, or Shopify. You can foun additiona information about ai customer service and artificial intelligence and NLP. 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.

And, Zendesk is nothing if not geared for helping agents deal with large ticket volumes efficiently. 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.

This has helped to make Zendesk one of the most popular customer service software platforms on the market. 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. 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.

• When it comes to Intercom, it reserves SSO and identity management for its higher-priced tier plan as an add-on.
• But it’s virtually impossible to predict what you’ll pay for Intercom at the end of the day.
• 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.

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. While both Zendesk and Intercom are great and robust platforms, none of them are able to provide you with the same value Messagely gives you at such an  affordable price. 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.

Gainsight offers a solid platform tailored to improve customer experience management. Its Gainsight CS tool provides a comprehensive view of your customers, making it easier to boost product adoption, reduce churn and build customer communities. Top companies widely use it for its ability to deliver real-time insights into customer behaviors and sentiments. In a nutshell, both these companies provide great customer support. I tested both of their live chats and their support agents were answering in very quickly and right to the point.

If this becomes a persistent issue for your team, we recommend contacting Zendesk. On practice, I can’t promise you anything when it comes to Intercom. Moreover, these are new prices as they’re in the middle of changing their pricing policy right now (and they’re definitely not getting cheaper). 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.

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. Unlike Intercom, Zendesk is scalable, intuitively designed for CX, and offers a low total cost of ownership. Founded in 2007, Zendesk started off as a ticketing tool for customer support teams. It was later when they started adding all kinds of other tools like when they bought out Zopim live chat and just integrated it with their toolset. Zendesk’s pricing structure provides increasing levels of features and capabilities as businesses move up the tiers.

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. 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. So when it comes to chatting features, the choice is not really Intercom vs Zendesk. The latter offers a chat widget that is simple, outdated, and limited in customization options, while the former puts all of its resources into its messenger. Their help desk software has a single inbox to handle customer inquiries.