Zendesk vs Intercom: In-Depth Features & Price Comparison

Intercom offers a ticketing system and shared inbox that allows agents to handle customer requests. The software also comes with basic reporting, automation and AI, and some apps and integrations. Zendesk is more robust in terms of its ticket management capabilities, it offers more customization options and advanced features like a virtual call center app. On the other hand, Intercom is more focused on conversational customer support, and has more help desk features suited for live chat and messaging. Freshdesk, a product of Freshworks, is a customer service software that helps teams provide multichannel support.

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. Its sales CRM software starts at $19 per month per user, but you’ll have to pay $49 to get Zapier integrations and $99 for Hubspot integrations. Finally, you can pay $199 per month per user for unlimited sales pipelines and advanced reporting along with other features.

Intercom Agent Dashboard

Reporting and analytics provide metrics, trends, and key performance indicators (KPIs) that offer insights to agents and administrators. The Sell dashboard, different from the Service dashboard, features pre-built widgets that agents can organize however they want, to view the metrics they care most about. Agents can participate in forums and turn forum posts into tickets; they also can turn community-post replies into articles for future customers. Intercom self-service chatbot widgets, highly customizable and capable of conversing in 32 different languages, embed into your website or application.

This is especially helpful for smaller businesses that may not need a lot of features. One of the things that sets Zendesk apart from other customer service software providers is its focus on design. The company’s products are built with an emphasis on simplicity and usability.

Intercom vs. Zendesk: Comparing features, integrations, and pricing

Many use cases call for different approaches, and Zendesk and Intercom are but two software solutions for each case. 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. There are also several different Shopify integrations to choose from, as well as CRM integrations like HubSpot and Salesforce. You get call recording, muting and holding, conference calling, and call blocking. Zendesk also offers callback requests, call monitoring and call quality notifications, among other telephone tools.

See for yourself how transforming your customer support can help improve ROI. ProProfs takes knowledge management to a whole different level by allowing you to create an online knowledge base, user manuals, documentation, and more. Zendesk’s help center is feature-rich and helps you organize and store knowledge in a central location.

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 (and many more) and present them as counts, columns, lines, or tables. 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. So, whether you’re a startup or a global giant, Zendesk’s got your back for top-notch customer support. Zendesk lets you chat with customers through email, chat, social media, or phone.

The right customer service software will help you consistently deliver the best customer experience. Personalized messaging, in-app messaging, product tours, and chatbot capabilities set Intercom apart from Zendesk. 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 are the disadvantages of Intercom?

Instead, they offer a product demo when prospects reach out to learn more about their pricing structure. 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.

Zendesk and Intercom each have their own marketplace/app store where users can find all the integrations for each platform. Zendesk also offers a sales pipeline feature through its Zendesk Sell product. You can set up email sequences that specify how and when leads and contacts are engaged. With Zendesk Sell, you can also customize how deals move through your pipeline by setting pipeline stages that reflect your sales cycle. Learn more about the differences between leading chat support solutions Intercom and Zendesk so that you can choose the right tool for your needs. 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.

In addition to Intercom vs Zendesk, alternative helpdesk solutions are available in the market. ThriveDesk is a feature-rich helpdesk solution that offers a comprehensive set of tools to manage customer support effectively. Both Zendesk and Intercom have AI capabilities that deserve special mention. Zendesk’s AI (Fin) helps with automated responses, ensuring your customers get quick answers. On the other hand, Intercom’s AI-powered chatbots and messaging are designed to enhance your marketing and sales efforts, giving you an edge in the competitive market. MParticle is a Customer Data Platform offering plug-and-play integrations to Zendesk and Intercom, along with over 300 other marketing, analytics, and data warehousing tools.

Intercom offers a simplistic dashboard with a detailed view of all customer details in one place. Operators will find its dashboard quite beneficial as it will take them seconds to find necessary features during an ongoing chat with the customers. Admins will also like the fact that they can see the progress of all their teams and who all are actively answering a customer’s query in real-time. NovoChat, on the other hand, is 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.

Why you might want an Intercom alternative

Starting at $19 per user per month, it’s also on the cheaper end of the spectrum compared to high-end CRMs like ActiveCampaign and HubSpot. You can create articles, share them internally, group them for users, and assign them as responses for bots—all pretty standard fare. 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. Using this, agents can chat across teams within a ticket via email, Slack, or Zendesk’s ticketing system.

Additionally, the company offers a knowledge base for customer self-service. The knowledge base also helps agents by allowing them to send customers links to relevant content during interactions. Kayako offers a help desk solution with a shared inbox that helps teams manage customer requests.

• Agents can participate in forums and turn forum posts into tickets; they also can turn community-post replies into articles for future customers.
• Its ticketing system offers features like agent collision detection, ticket field suggestions, and prewritten responses.
• It offers more support features and includes more advanced analytics and reports.
• Community managers can also escalate posts to support agents when one-on-one help is needed.

This is fine, as not every customer support team wants to be so available on the phone. 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. Email marketing, for example, is a big deal, but less so when it comes to customer service.

• With AI-powered reports, you can track key customer service metrics and improve your ticket response time.
• Easily track your service team’s performance and unlock coaching opportunities with AI-powered insights.
• For Intercom, it’s the opposite as ticket management appears to be a complementary feature.
• You can use targeted messages to suggest quick tips to new customers or to simply update them about scheduled outages or changes in business hours.
• It sets the perfect platform for collaboration between your sales and support teams.

Businesses should always consider a tool’s TCO before committing to a purchase. Many software vendors aren’t upfront about the cost of using their products, maintenance costs, or integration fees. Sequence all channels–chat, web post, email, chatbot outreach, tour message, banner, push notification, or carousel–mixing and matching modes of outreach to fit campaign goals. Intercom’s help center allows you to draft and organize collections of articles, accessible to customers via a search bar in the Messenger widget.

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