Intercom vs Zendesk: Comparison and Alternatives

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. Moreover, for users who require more dedicated and personalized support, Zendesk charges an additional premium. These premium support services can range in cost, typically between $1,500 and $2,800. This additional cost can be a considerable factor for businesses to consider when evaluating their customer support needs against their budget constraints.

In 2023, conversational messaging will play an essential role in customer service. Customers increasingly expect to receive fast, convenient, and personalized support. Provide self-service alternatives so customers can resolve their own issues.

MOBILE APPS

To sum things up, Zendesk is a great customer support oriented tool which will be a great choice for big teams with various departments. Intercom feels more wholesome and is more customer success oriented, but can be too costly for smaller companies. Also, their in-app messenger is worth a separate mention as it’s one of their distinctive tools (especially since Zendesk doesn’t really have one). With Intercom you can send targeted email, push, and in-app messages which can be based on the most relevant time or behavior triggers. Intercom is 4 years younger than Zendesk and has fancied itself as a messaging platform right from the beginning.

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 business needs, so interested users must contact them for specific price details. The top of the agent workspace shows an agent’s open tickets, ticket statistics, and satisfaction statistics, as well as tabs depicting all current tickets. Intercom’s role-based permissions allow administrators full control over each department’s and agent’s capabilities, and access to channels and information.

Supercharge customer support

For example, while HubSpot boasts comprehensive customer relationship management features, Zendesk is famous for its customer service efficiency. Leafworks is a feature-rich Zendesk theme that provides you with limitless possibilities to create the perfect customer support experience. With a wide array of customization options, you can effortlessly tailor the theme to match your brand identity without any coding required.

However, we will say that Intercom just edges past Zendesk when it comes to self-service resources. All plans come with a 7-day free trial, and no credit card is required to sign up for the trial. While Intercom does not offer free trials, intercom and zendesk they do offer demo versions of each plan. The entire thread is saved within the ticket for future agents to reference. Agents can add each other to internal notes within a ticket, looping in team members to collaborate when necessary.

Popular Features

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. Create code-free screencast tours of products, websites, webpages, and applications within your website. Automation and AI save resources and time–every automated workflow and routing decision frees an agent to work on more complex issues. If you see either of these warnings, wait 60 seconds for your Zendesk rate limit to be reset and try again.

Intercom can even integrate with Zendesk and other sources to import past help center content. I just found Zendesk’s help center to be slightly better integrated into their workflows and more customizable. Broken down into custom, resolution, and task bots, these can go a long way in taking repetitive tasks off agents’ plates. Intercom’s chatbot feels a little more robust than Zendesk’s (though it’s worth noting that some features are only available at the Engage and Convert tiers).

HubSpot Differentiation

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. 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. Zendesk has a help center that is open to all to find out answers to common questions.

Zendesk is renowned for its comprehensive range of functionalities, including advanced email ticketing, live chat, phone support, and a vast knowledge base. Its ability to seamlessly integrate with various applications further amplifies its versatility. Zendesk for Service, a customer service solution, provides unified customer-facing communication channels, self-service, collaboration, customer routing, and analytics–all organized in one dashboard. Intercom enables customers to self-serve through its messaging platform.

App Marketplace

Intercom is the clear victor in terms of user experience, leaving all of its competitors in the dust. Zendesk is designed to fit your business needs whether you’re a fast-growing startup or a well-established company. Yes, you can support multiple brands or businesses from a single Help Desk, while ensuring the Messenger is a perfect match for each of your different domains.

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. You can integrate different apps (like Google Meet or Stripe among others) with your messenger and make it a high end point for your customers. Zendesk is another popular customer service, support, and sales platform that enables clients to connect and engage with their customers in seconds. Just like Intercom, Zendesk can also integrate with multiple messaging platforms and ensure that your business never misses out on a support opportunity.

Tour Ada’s Integrations Feature

Zendesk also has the Answer Bot, which can take your knowledge base game to the next level instantly. It can automatically suggest your customer relevant articles reducing the workload for your support agents. It enables them to engage with visitors who are genuinely interested in their services. You get to engage with them further and get to know more about their expectations. This becomes the perfect opportunity to personalize the experience, offer assistance to prospects as per their needs, and convert them into customers. 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.

You’ll see how they compare regarding features such as lead and contact management, marketing and sales automation and reporting and analytics. Also, you’ll learn about their pricing and how easy it is to use or customize them. Slack Connector for Workflow Builder (Support) lets anyone create time-saving workflows using clicks, code, or a mix of both. Pre-built connectors allow you to instantly bring your favorite apps and services into your workflows with drag-and-drop simplicity. Using this connector, you can bring key actions from Zendesk into your workflows like creating a ticket, updating a ticket, and adding and removing tags. Combine these Zendesk steps, with the numerous built-in steps offered natively in Workflow Builder, to keep work flowing across all your automations–all in one place.

They have a 2-day SLA, no phone support, and the times I have had to work with them they have been incredibly difficult to work with. Very rarely do they understand the issue (mostly with Explore) that I am trying to communicate to them. The support documentation is incredibly lackluster, and it’s often impossible to know which guide to use as they have non-sensical terminology that makes even finding the appropriate guide very difficult. When comparing the user interfaces (UI) of Zendesk and Intercom, both platforms exhibit distinct characteristics and strengths catering to different user preferences and needs.

• But this solution is great because it’s an all-in-one tool with a modern live chat widget, allowing you to easily improve your customer experiences.
• Refer to How to create an authentication with Zendesk for Custom Actions for more details.
• 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.
• Intercom refers to itself as a Conversational Relationship Platform, providing insight into who is using your products or visiting your website.

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. Easily reply to customer conversations and manage workload in a smart & automated way. Here is a Zendesk vs. Intercom based on the customer support offered by these brands. The offers that appear on the website are from software companies from which CRM.org receives compensation.

Intercom has a standard trial period for a SaaS product which is 14 days, while Zendesk offers a 30-day trial. It has very limited customization options in comparison to its competitors. Zendesk also offers a straightforward interface to operators that helps them identify the entire interaction pathway with the customers. Compared to being detailed, Zendesk gives a tough competition to Intercom. Operators can easily switch from one conversation to another, therefore helping operators manage more interactions simultaneously.