Intercom vs Zendesk: Help Desk & Chat Comparison 2024

Intercom’s pricing typically includes different plans designed to accommodate businesses of various sizes and needs. While Intercom offers a free trial, it’s important to note that the cost can increase as you scale and add more features or users. Its chat-based approach, automation capabilities, and chatbots are ideal for handling routine inquiries efficiently. ThriveDesk empowers small businesses to manage real-time customer communications. Novo has been a Zendesk customer since 2019 but didn’t immediately start taking full advantage of all our features and capabilities.

Moreover, the best part is it also lets you send customized messages to various customers on the basis of their actions. It’s an opportunity for Zendesk to differentiate itself, but unfortunately it didn’t get very high marks from users, either. Reviewers were frustrated by how long it took for their tickets to get resolved, as well as the complexity with which they were tossed around from department to department. Given that these are two services predicated on making you better at customer support, you’d think they’d be able to handle it better themselves.

Robust self-service and knowledge management

You can choose from thousands of ready-made apps or use our universal HTTP connector to sync apps not yet in our library. 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. Zendesk has more pricing options, which means you’re free to choose your tier from the get-go.

Start by exporting historical records and continue with move ahead to the Delta function to import your during migration changed data entities. 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. Zapier helps you create workflows that connect your apps to automate repetitive tasks. A trigger is an event that starts a workflow, and an action is an event a Zap performs.

• Intercom’s integration capabilities are limited, and some apps don’t integrate well with third-party customer service technology.
• When it comes to which company is the better fit for your business, there’s no clear answer.
• This is not a huge difference; however, it does indicate that customers are generally more satisfied with Intercom’s offerings than Zendesk’s.
• 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.
• The internet is full of different tools and platforms to manage your business …

Higher-tier plans in Zendesk come packed with advanced functionalities such as chatbots, customizable knowledge bases, and performance dashboards. These features can add significant value for businesses aiming to implement more sophisticated support capabilities as they scale. However, if your organization heavily relies on Intercom’s real-time communication features, in-app messaging, and chat-based support, transitioning entirely to Zendesk may not cover all your needs. Intercom’s focus on instant interactions and personalized engagement is particularly valuable for businesses prioritizing chat-first customer support and real-time communication. While there can be add-ons, such as premium customer support, you can generally anticipate what you’ll be paying for your Zendesk subscription. It calculates the cost of its Pro and Premium plans based on the number of AI resolutions, people reached, and seats (or users).

Search code, repositories, users, issues, pull requests…

Discover customer and product issues with instant replays, in-app cobrowsing, and console logs. Customers rated Intercom 4.4 on G2 Crowd, while Zendesk scored 4.3. This is not a huge difference; however, it does indicate that customers are generally more satisfied with Intercom’s offerings than Zendesk’s. In terms of G2 ratings, Zendesk and Intercom are both well-rated platforms. Zendesk has a rating of 4.3 out of 5 stars, based on over 5,600 reviews. Intercom has a rating of 4.5 out of 5 stars, based on over 2700 reviews.

These are both still very versatile products, so don’t think you have to get too siloed into a single use case. If you see either of these warnings, wait 60 seconds for your Zendesk rate limit to be reset and try again. If this becomes a persistent issue for your team, we recommend contacting Zendesk. G2 ranks Intercom higher than Zendesk for ease of setup, and support quality—so you can expect a smooth transition, effortless onboarding, and continuous success.

Efficiently manage customer inquiries and empower customers to find answers independently. As your business grows, so does the volume of customer inquiries and support tickets. Managing everything manually is becoming increasingly difficult, and you need a robust customer support platform to streamline your operations. Both tools also allow you to connect your email account and manage it from within the application to track open and click-through rates. In addition, Zendesk and Intercom feature advanced sales reporting and analytics that make it easy for sales teams to understand their prospects and customers more deeply.

Step 3: Connect Intercom and Zendesk

The script will also need to be monitored and adjusted as needed during the transfer process. By leveraging the power of AI in Appy Pie Connect, you can optimize your workflow, reduce errors, and increase efficiency even further. Sign up for Appy Pie Connect today and start exploring the possibilities of app integration. Whether you’re a small business owner or part of a large enterprise, integrating Intercom with Zendesk can bring a host of benefits. With the help of AI, Appy Pie Connect can automatically map the data fields between the two apps, eliminating the need for manual data entry and reducing the chance of errors.

This can make it challenging to estimate the cost yourself during your research and you need to speak with Intercom for more information. Luckily, a range of customer service solutions is available that enables you to communicate directly with your customers in real-time. You can foun additiona information about ai customer service and artificial intelligence and NLP. These tools are ideal for personalizing the customer experience and building better customer relationships. Today, both companies offer a broad range of customer support features, making them both strong contenders in the market.

It’s also more exclusively focused on providing help support, whereas Intercom sometimes moonlights as being part-time sales. The result is that Zendesk generally wins on ratings when it comes to support capacity. Skyvia offers you a convenient and easy way intercom zendesk to connect Intercom and Zendesk with no coding. After an in-depth analysis such as this, it can be pretty challenging for your business to settle with either option. That’s why it would be better to review where both the options would be ideal to use.

Gain valuable insights with Intercom’s analytics and reporting capabilities. Track key metrics, measure campaign success, and optimize customer engagement strategies. So, whether you’re a startup or a global giant, Zendesk’s got your back for top-notch customer support. Migration Wizard is a cloud-based SaaS that doesn’t require installation.

To provide the utmost guard of your support service records whether they are in import or at rest, we apply valid runthrough. Here is contained handling frequent security analysis, keeping our servers guarded, obeying several commands, and more. You can create an omnichannel CRM suite with a mix of productivity, collaboration, eCommerce, CRM, analytics, email marketing, social media, and other tools.

There are several actions that could trigger this block including submitting a certain word or phrase, a SQL command or malformed data. We have numerous customers that do this and benefit greatly from our out-of-the-box integration with Intercom. Sendcloud adopted these solutions to replace siloed systems like Intercom and a local voice support provider in favor of unified, omnichannel support. Intercom is the new guy on the block when it comes to help desk ticketing systems.

There are even instances where customers don’t receive the first response in more than seven days. With our Migration tool, you can conveniently import and export massive portions of varied records types to or from Zendesk to Intercom. Check out the details of entities you can import or export applying automation by yourself from tech support team. Migrating your Zendesk help content to Intercom Articles is a simple and fast process that does not require any custom development. You can use the Intercom Articles feature to automatically import all of your published articles from Zendesk and organize them into collections that match your existing knowledge base structure. Just browse to Articles within your Intercom dashboard, and click “Migrate from Zendesk”.

Customization

Intercom stands out here due to its ability  to tailor sales workflows. You can also set up interactive product tours to highlight new features in-product and explain how they work. Zendesk started in 2007 as a web-based SaaS product for managing incoming customer support requests. Since then, it has evolved into a full-fledged CRM that offers a suite of software applications to its over 160,000 customers like Uber, Siemens, and Tesco.

• Keeping this general theme in mind, I’ll dive deeper into how each software’s features compare, so you can decide which use case might best fit your needs.
• Thus, you will be able to have your import or export done in a timely fashion without putting pivotal tasks on the shelf.
• Use SQL to combine data, build custom reports and prepare data for your favorite BI tool such as Microsoft Power BI, Tableau, Qlik Sense, Looker or Metabase.

Both offer powerful solutions for businesses looking to enhance their customer service capabilities. In this article, we will compare Intercom and Zendesk, highlighting their features, benefits, and drawbacks. Zendesk would be a perfect option for businesses that are searching for a well-integrated support system. It offers a suite that compiles help desk, live chat, and knowledge base to their user base.

With Intercom, you’ll have more customizable options with the enterprise versions of the software, but you’ll have fewer lower-tier choices. If you don’t plan on building a huge enterprise just yet, we have to give the edge to Zendesk when it comes to flexible pricing options. 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 vs Intercom: customer support

Intercom distinguishes itself by excelling in real-time customer engagement. It offers a comprehensive suite of features that empowers businesses to foster immediate connections with their customers. With Intercom, businesses can engage in real-time chats, schedule meetings, and strategically deploy chat boxes to specific customer segments. What truly sets Intercom apart is its data-driven approach to customer engagement.

It actively collects and utilizes customer data to facilitate highly personalized conversations. For instance, it can use past interactions and behaviors to tailor recommendations or responses. If your organization aims to enhance customer engagement through live chat, in-app messaging, and proactive outreach, Intercom might serve as a viable alternative to Zendesk. When it comes to customer support and engagement, choosing the right software can make a world of difference.

However, it’s important to note that Intercom’s pricing can vary depending on factors such as the number of users, conversations, and additional features you require. In some cases, Zendesk may be considered a more cost-effective option compared to Intercom, particularly for businesses with smaller budgets or those looking for more predictable pricing. 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. Zendesk receives positive feedback for its intuitive interface, wide range of integrations, and robust reporting tools.

Secret has already helped tens of thousands of startups save millions on the best SaaS like Zendesk, Intercom & many more. In the Intercom Developer hub, we have an app configured with a webhook that posts to a Superblocks workflow URL when a conversation is closed. Easily track your service team’s performance and unlock coaching opportunities with AI-powered insights.

The company was founded in 2011 and is headquartered in San Francisco, California. Intercom’s products are used by over 25,000 customers, from small tech startups to large enterprises. Intercom is praised as an affordable option with high customization capabilities, allowing businesses to create a personalized support experience. Although the interface may require a learning curve, users find the platform effective and functional.

At the same time, Zendesk looks slightly outdated and can’t offer some features. However, it’s essential to recognize that Zendesk has its own array of strengths, particularly in its comprehensive and versatile customer support platform. Intercom’s pricing structure offers different plans to cater to various customer support and engagement needs, accommodating users with different budgets. Zendesk and Intercom offer help desk management solutions to their users. 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.

Don’t worry about experiencing hardships whilst doing your Supported Platform data import and export. Help Desk Migration solution will spare you from copy pasting data entities or setting lacking fields throughout Intercom to Zendesk migration. Help Desk Migration app permits you map record fields and transform your data migration. You preserve the structure of your business data with minimum effort. For small companies and startups, Zendesk offers a six-month free trial of up to 50 agents redeemable for any combination of Zendesk Support and Sell products.

It really depends on what features you need and what type of customer service strategy you plan to implement. If you are looking for a comprehensive customer support solution with a wide range of features, Zendesk is a good option. 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.

Provide self-service alternatives so customers can resolve their own issues. This serves the dual benefit of adding convenience to the customer experience and lightening agents’ workloads. What’s really nice about this is that even within a ticket, you can switch between communication modes without changing views. So if an agent needs to switch from chat to phone to email (or vice versa) with a customer, it’s all on the same ticketing page. There’s even on-the-spot translation built right in, which is extremely helpful.

United, these security measures prevent the dangers of information leak. These are just some of the factors that can affect the migration process from Zendesk to Intercom. There may be other aspects that are specific to your business or industry that need to be considered as well. The amount of data you have for each object in Zendesk will affect the duration of the transfer process.