Zendesk vs Intercom Comparison 2024: Which One Is Better?

zendesk intercom

This live chat service provider offers 200+ integrations to its user base. With a mix of productivity, collaboration, eCommerce, CRM, analytics, email marketing, social media, and other tools, you get the option to create an omnichannel suite. Zendesk provides a holistic customer service solution built specifically for the customer experience whereas Intercom offers a vast CRM suite that isn’t as specialized in CX.

It includes solutions for marketing, product onboarding, customer support, and sales. 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. Freshdesk, a product of Freshworks, is a customer service software that helps teams provide multichannel support. Its ticketing system offers features like agent collision detection, ticket field suggestions, and prewritten responses.

Its strengths are prominently seen in multi-channel support, with effective email, social media, and live chat integrations, coupled with a robust internal knowledge base for agent support. It really shines in its modern messenger interface, making real-time chat a breeze. Its multichannel support is more focused on engaging customers through its chat and messaging systems, including mobile carousels and interactive communication tools.

  • Empowering agents with the necessary tools can make their jobs easier and create an environment that boosts the customer and employee experience.
  • You could technically consider Intercom a CRM, but it’s really more of a customer-focused communication product.
  • The knowledge base also helps agents by allowing them to send customers links to relevant content during interactions.

Intercom, on the other hand, is ideal for those focusing on CRM capabilities and personalized customer interactions. 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.

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. These plans make Hiver a versatile tool, catering to a range of business sizes and needs, from startups to large enterprises looking for a comprehensive customer support solution within Gmail. On the other hand, Intercom, starting at a lower price point, could be more attractive for very small teams or individual users. However, additional costs for advanced features can quickly increase the total expense.

Intercom Chat VS. Zendesk Chat: Integration

You’d need to chat with Intercom sales team for get the costs for the Premium subscription, though. Intercom is 4 years younger than Zendesk and has fancied itself as a messaging platform right from the beginning. Intercom lets businesses send their customers targeted in-app messages. You can contact the sales team if you’re just looking around, but you will not receive decent customer support unless you buy their service. Overall, Zendesk empowers businesses to deliver exceptional customer support experiences across channels, making it a popular choice for enhancing support operations.

zendesk intercom

When comparing the reporting and analytics features of Zendesk and Intercom, both platforms offer robust tools, but with distinct focuses and functionalities. Key offerings include automated support with help center articles, a messenger-first ticketing system, and a powerful inbox to centralize customer queries. Choosing the right customer service platform is pivotal for enhancing business-client interactions. In this context, Zendesk and Intercom emerge as key contenders, each offering distinct features tailored to dynamic customer service environments. Intercom’s large series of bots obviously run on automations as well. As mentioned before, the bot builder is a visual drag-and-drop system that requires no coding knowledge; this is also how other basic workflows are designed.

You can opt for code via JavaScript or Rails or even integrate directly with the likes of Google Tag Manager, WordPress, or Shopify. Zendesk’s help center tools should also come in handy for helping customers help themselves—something Zendesk claims eight out of 10 customers would rather do than contact support. To that end, you can import themes or apply your own custom themes to brand your help center the way you want it. From there, you can include FAQs, announcements, and article guides and then save them into pre-set lists for your customers to explore.

In this paragraph, let’s explain some common issues that users usually ask about when choosing between Zendesk and Intercom platforms. Though the Intercom chat window says that their customer success team typically replies in a few hours, don’t expect to receive any real answer in chat for at least a couple of days. Say what you will, but Intercom’s design and overall user experience leave all its competitors far behind.

Zendesk for developers

Zendesk is a robust choice for businesses seeking quick setup, scalability, and powerful AI-driven support. Its strength in creating a comprehensive self-service knowledge base and its extensive integration ecosystem make it a versatile option. The customer support platform starts at just $5 per agent per month, which is a very basic customer support tool. If you want dashboard reporting and integrations, you’ll need to pay $19 per agent per month.

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The knowledge base also helps agents by allowing them to send customers links to relevant content during interactions. Drift allows for handoffs between chatbots and human agents in relevant situations. Customers can skip the self-service options and get routed to a live agent through customizable routing rules, templates, and response timers. Agents can also start a voice or video chat with customers from the chat window. Though HubSpot Service Hub includes features like a reporting dashboard, contact management, live chat, team email, and conversation routing, it has limitations.

I’ll dive into their chatbots more later, but their bot automation features are also stronger. Founded in 2007, Zendesk started as a ticketing tool for customer success teams. It was later that they started adding all kinds of other features, like live chat for customer conversations. They bought out the Zopim live Chat GPT chat solution and integrated it with their toolset. Kayako features a live chat app for your website and a mobile app, allowing real-time support. The software also features self-service options, including a customer portal and branded help center with self-help articles, videos, FAQs, and community forums.

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

We update you on the latest trends, dive into technical topics, and offer insights to elevate your business. Honestly, when it comes to Zendesk, it is not the most modern tool out there. 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. It is none other than the modern customer support software of Helpwise.

  • Zendesk, less user-friendly and with higher costs for quality vendor support, might not suit budget-conscious or smaller businesses.
  • The platform’s speed and quality may not meet expectations, leading to switching costs.
  • This enables your operators to understand visitor intent faster and provide them with a personalized experience.
  • The cheapest plan for small businesses – Essential – costs $39 monthly per seat.
  • Zendesk has also introduced its chatbot to help its clients send automated answers to some frequently asked questions to stay ahead in the competitive marketplace.
  • Messagely’s chatbots are powerful tools for qualifying and converting leads while your team is otherwise occupied or away.

Intercom also has a community forum where users can help one another with questions and solutions. Yes, you can install the Messenger on your iOS or Android app so customers can get in touch from your mobile app. 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.

Its standard plan offers multichannel support for up to five channels and basic ticket management. Businesses also get access to a help center, social media for a single brand, and instant messaging through WhatsApp, Telegram, WeChat, and LINE. Zendesk is renowned for its comprehensive toolset that aids in automating customer service workflows and fine-tuning chatbot interactions.

The primary function of Intercom’s mobile app is the business messenger suite, including personalized messaging, real-time support tools, push notifications, in-app messaging and emailing. Intercom also does mobile carousels to help please the eye with fresh designs. Startups, SMBs, and enterprises from across various industries rely on Zendesk to help elevate their customer experience. HelpCrunch features customer profiles that allow businesses to collect and save relevant customer data.

Intercom VS. Zendesk: User Review

LiveAgent offers social media integrations so agents can respond to customer interactions across various social media platforms. The help desk also has self-service options, including a knowledge base tool that helps customers complete common tasks on their own. Both Zendesk and Intercom offer compelling features and capabilities aimed at improving customer service through efficient ticketing systems.

zendesk intercom

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. This live chat software provider also enables your business to send proactive chat messages to customers and engage effectively in real-time.

View your Intercom data in Zendesk

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. The Zendesk Support app gives you access to live Intercom customer data in Zendesk, and lets you create new tickets in Zendesk directly from Intercom conversations. This gives your team the context they need to provide fast and excellent support. But keep in mind that Zendesk is viewed more as a support and ticketing solution, while Intercom is CRM functionality-oriented. Which means it’s rather a customer relationship management platform than anything else. Businesses may configure the activity dashboard to provide insight into website visitors, page views, and chat details.

Zendesk is easy to set up and use, so you can start using it from day one. It’s also highly customizable, with integrations that extend capability beyond CX, scaling with businesses of any size. Pop-up chat, in-app messaging, and notifications are some of the highly-rated features of this live chat software. Intercom’s live chat reports aren’t just offering what your customers are doing or whether they are satisfied with your services. They offer more detailed insights like lead generation sources, a complete message report to track customer engagement, and detailed information on the support team’s performance. A collection of these reports can enable your business to identify the right resources responsible for bringing engagement to your business.

Can I import Zendesk data into Intercom?

How easy it is to program a chatbot and how effective a chatbot is at assisting human reps is an important factor for this category. Intercom bills itself first and foremost as a platform to make the business of customer service more personalized, among other things. They offer an advanced feature for customer data management that goes beyond basic CRM stuff. It gives detailed contact profiles enriched by company data, behavioral data, conversation data, and other custom fields. Messagely’s pricing starts at just $29 per month, which includes live chat, targeted messages, shared inbox, mobile apps, and over 750 powerful integrations. If you are looking for more integration options and budget is not an issue, Intercom can be the perfect live chat solution for your business.

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There are many features to help bigger customer service teams collaborate more effectively — like private notes or a real-time view of who’s handling a given ticket at the moment, etc. At the same time, the vendor offers powerful reporting capabilities to help you grow and improve your business. Why don’t you try something equally powerful yet more affordable, like HelpCrunch? Crisp also has CRM software that helps agents manage and store customer data in one place. Additionally, the company offers a knowledge base for customer self-service.

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. All customer questions, be it via phone, chat, email, social media, or any other channel, are landing in one dashboard, where your agents can solve them quickly and efficiently. It guarantees continuous omnichannel support that meets customer expectations. 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 in terms of innovative and out-of-the-box features.

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 https://chat.openai.com/ going to pay for Intercom at end of the day. 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.

Hivers offers round-the-clock proactive support across all its plans, ensuring that no matter the time or issue, expert assistance is always available. This 24/7 support model is designed to provide continuous, real-time solutions to clients, enhancing the overall reliability and responsiveness of Hivers’ services. When comparing Zendesk and Intercom, various factors come into play, each focusing on different aspects, strengths, and weaknesses of these customer support platforms. Intercom has a full suite of email marketing tools, although they are part of a pricier package.

What can be really inconvenient about Zendesk, though is how their tools integrate with each other when you need to use them simultaneously. The cheapest (aka Essential) ‘All of Intercom’ package will cost you $136 per month, but if you only need their essential chat tools only, you can get them for $49 per month. 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 Zendesk features are plenty, someone using it for the first time can find it overwhelming. Intercom has a community forum where users can engage with each other and gain insights from their experiences.

From Answers to Assist, we released a ton of product updates in 2023. Zendesk, on the other hand, has revamped its security since its security breach in 2016. It is now trusted by multiple Fortune 100 and Fortune 500 companies. You can also contact Zendesk support 24/7, whereas Intercom support only has live agents during business hours. Finally, you’ll have to choose your reporting preferences including details about what you’ll be tracking and how often you want to be reported of changes.

You can create these knowledge base articles in your target audience’s native language as their software is multilingual. Zendesk is a customer service software offering a comprehensive solution for managing customer interactions. It integrates customer support, sales, and marketing communications, aiming to improve client relationships.

One of the most significant downsides of Intercom is its customer support. Existing customers have complained consistently about how they aren’t available at the right time to offer support to customers. There are even instances where customers don’t receive the first response in more than seven days. When you see pricing plans starting for $79/month, you should get a clear understanding of how expensive other plans can become for your business.

zendesk intercom

Olark allows businesses to configure routing and automations to streamline support. You can add business rules to route customers to the right agent or round-robin routing for the first available agent. You can also configure the chat window to be displayed or hidden or automatically begin chats upon visitor arrival.

zendesk intercom

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. Intercom has a wider range zendesk intercom of uses out of the box than Zendesk, though by adding Zendesk Sell, you could more than make up for it. Both options are well designed, easy to use, and share some pretty key functionality like behavioral triggers and omnichannel-ality (omnichannel-centricity?).

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. The strength of Zendesk’s UI lies in its structured and comprehensive environment, adept at managing numerous customer interactions and integrating various channels seamlessly. However, compared to the more contemporary designs like Intercom’s, Zendesk’s UI may appear outdated, particularly in aspects such as chat widget and customization options. This could impact user experience and efficiency for new users grappling with its complexity​​​​​​.

This additional cost can be a considerable factor for businesses to consider when evaluating their customer support needs against their budget constraints. This exploration aims to provide a detailed comparison, aiding businesses in making an informed decision that aligns with their customer service goals. Both Zendesk and Intercom offer robust solutions, but the choice ultimately depends on specific business needs.

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. Agents can use basic automation (like auto-closing tickets or setting auto-responses), apply list organization to stay on top of their tasks, or set up triggers to keep tickets moving automatically. But it’s designed so well that you really enjoy staying in their inbox and communicating with clients.

The support ticket and related email thread need to be closed independently, creating a disjointed experience. Some users also report difficulty keeping track of cases, with conversation threads becoming mixed in the system. Messagely’s chatbots are powerful tools for qualifying and converting leads while your team is otherwise occupied or away.

There is automatic email archiving and incoming email authentication. Intercom’s dashboards may not be as aesthetically pleasing as Zendesk’s, but they still allow users to navigate their tools with few distractions. You can foun additiona information about ai customer service and artificial intelligence and NLP. 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. For those of you who have been waiting for the big showdown between these two customer support heavyweights, we are glad to present the ultimate Zendesk vs Intercom comparison article.

Zendesk vs Intercom: Which One Is Right for You?

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