Zendesk vs Intercom: Which One Is Right for You?

With so many solutions to choose from, finding the right option for your business can feel like an uphill battle. You could say something similar for Zendesk’s standard service offering, so it’s at least good to know they have Zendesk Sell, a capable CRM option to supplement it. You can use Zendesk Sell to track tasks, streamline workflows, improve engagement, nurture leads, and much more.

Automation and AI save resources and time–every automated workflow and routing decision frees an agent to work on more complex issues. Our integration with Intercom enables bi-directional contact and case synchronization, so you can continue using Intercom as your front-end digital experience and use Zendesk for case management. Fintech startup Novo had to pivot to new ways of working in 2020, just like everyone else. But the company’s story isn’t just one of pandemic-induced change—in the first half of the year, Novo’s client base grew from 2,000 to tens of thousands.

User experience: Zendesk Vs. Intercom

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. Intercom has a full suite of email marketing tools, although they are part of a pricier package. With Intercom, you get email features like targeted and personalized outbound emailing, dynamic content fields, and an email-to-inbox forwarding feature. Zendesk 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.

• Just like Intercom, Zendesk can also integrate with multiple messaging platforms and ensure that your business never misses out on a support opportunity.
• Just like Zendesk, Intercom also offers its Operator bot, which will automatically suggest relevant articles to customers right in a chat widget.
• You’ll probably want to know how much Zendesk or Intercom costs, so let’s talk about money now.
• Zendesk has more pricing options, and its most affordable plan is likely cheaper than Intercom’s, although without exact Intercom numbers, it is not easy to truly know the cost.

See how InspectionXpert switched from Zendesk to HubSpot Service Hub and decreased support tickets by 25%. While Intercom does not offer free trials, they do offer demo versions of each plan. Below, we’ve compared the usability of Zendesk’s and Intercom’s agent dashboards and administrator controls. Survey composer allows you to create the question and answer format, also customizing color, rating scales, and greetings. The Sell dashboard’s Tasks page sorts all of an agent’s tasks by due date.

User experience

If I had to describe Intercom’s helpdesk, I would say it’s rather a complementary tool to their chat tools. Sendcloud is a software-as-a-service (SaaS) company that allows users to generate packing slips and labels to help online retailers streamline their shipping process. Intercom is the new guy on the block when it comes to help desk ticketing systems. This means the company is still working out some kinks and operating with limited capabilities.

On the other hand, Intercom lacks many ticketing functionality that can be essential for big companies with a huge customer support load. On the contrary, Intercom is far less predictable when it comes to pricing and can cost hundreds/thousands of dollars per month. But this solution is great because it’s an all-in-one tool covering support, marketing, and sales. With Intercom, you get a more modern user interface and features like in-app messenger, an email marketing tool, and a chatbot powered by ChatGPT technologies. At the same time, Zendesk looks slightly outdated and can’t offer some features. Basically, if you have a complicated customer support process, go with Zendesk, an excellent Intercom alternative, for its help desk functionality.

Team-oriented

These plans are not inclusive of the add-ons or access to all integrations. Once you add them all to the picture, their existing plans can turn out to be quite expensive. Zendesk for Service and Zendesk for Sales are sold as two separate solutions, each with three pricing plans, or tiers. Intercom plan prices are determined based on your specific zendesk vs. intercom business needs, so interested users must contact them for specific price details. Inside a ticket, the workspace center console displays the ticket’s conversation. The right side of the screen displays all customer contact information and company interaction history, and the agent can contact the customer via any channel with just a few clicks.

The company was founded in 2007 and today serves over 170,000 customers worldwide. Zendesk’s mission is to build software designed to improve customer zendesk vs. intercom relationships. So yeah, two essential things that Zendesk lacks in comparison to Intercom are in-app messages and email marketing tools.

As it turns, it’s quite difficult to compare Zendesk against Intercom as they serve different purposes and will fit different businesses. So when I realized lots of companies actually prefer Zendesk over Intercom, I was surprised. 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. You don’t have to pay per contact on your database, and you there are many free features you can use. Since Intercom doesn’t offer a CRM, its pricing is divided into basic messaging and messaging with automations. You can also contact Zendesk support 24/7, whereas Intercom support only has live agents during business hours.

The former is one of the oldest and most trusted customer service solutions, while the latter sets the bar high in aspects of innovative and out-of-the-box features. Zendesk directly competes with Intercom when it comes to integrations. This live chat service provider offers 200+ integrations to its user base. With a mix of productivity, collaboration, eCommerce, CRM, analytics, https://www.metadialog.com/ email marketing, social media, and other tools, you get the option to create an omnichannel suite. 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.

Zendesk Vs Intercom: Sales Oriented Features

Their AI-powered chatbot can help your business increase engagement and improve your marketing efforts in real-time. 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. It is favored by customer support, helpdesk, IT service management, and contact center teams.

Let’s take a look at these two’s pricing plans to see which one offers better pricing. However, this is somewhat subjective, and depending on your business needs and favorite tools, you may argue we got it all mixed up, and Intercom is truly superior. Some startups and small businesses may prefer one app, while large companies and enterprise operations will have their own requirements. Integrations are the best way to enhance the toolkit of your apps by connecting them for interoperable actions and features. Both Zendesk and Intercom have integration libraries, and you can also use a connecting tool like Zapier for added integrations and add-ons. No matter what Zendesk Suite plan you are on, you get workflow triggers, which are simple business rules-based actions to streamline many tasks.

Like so many others, Monese determined that Zendesk was the best solution to provide seamless, omnichannel support because of its scalability and reliability. With over 100,000 customers across all industries and regions, Zendesk knows what it takes to interact with customers while retaining and growing relationships. Check out the research-backed comparison below to better understand how each solution can add value to your organization. Compare Zendesk versus Intercom to determine who will be the best partner for your business at every phase of the customer journey. When the above factors are compared, there is an obvious winner — but it still depends on your business needs.