Compare Zendesk vs Intercom for Ecomm Businesses

Its extensive automation capabilities are a bonus for businesses seeking to streamline their customer interactions. Zendesk is a great option for large companies or companies that are looking for a very strong sales and customer service platform. It offers more support features and includes more advanced analytics and reports. Intercom has a different approach, one that’s all about sales, marketing, and personalized messaging. Intercom has your back if you’re looking to supercharge your sales efforts. It’s like having a toolkit for lead generation, customer segmentation, and crafting highly personalized messages.

• Gain valuable insights with Intercom’s analytics and reporting capabilities.
• Intercom wins the reporting and analytics category due to its unique visualization and display formats for contact center and article data.
• Integrations are the best way to enhance the toolkit of your apps by connecting them for interoperable actions and features.

However, customers should keep in mind that Intercom does not offer voice. Intercom built additional tools to aid in marketing and engagement to supplement its customer service solution. But we doubled down and created a truly full-service CX solution capable of handling any support request.

Yes, you can localize the Messenger to work with multiple languages, resolve conversations automatically in multiple languages and support multiple languages in your Help Center. When you switch from Zendesk, you can also create dynamic macros to speed up your response time to common queries, like feature requests and bug reports. If you’ve already set up macros in Zendesk just copy and paste them over. Check out this tutorial to import ticket types and tickets data into your Intercom workspace. In terms of pricing, Intercom is considered one of the most expensive tools on the market. 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.

Support that doesn’t wait

They’ve been rated as one of the easy live chat solutions with more integrated 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. What’s worse, Intercom doesn’t offer a free trial to its prospect to help them test the product before onboarding with their services. Instead, they offer a product demo when prospects reach out to learn more about their pricing structure. This live chat software provider also enables your business to send proactive chat messages to customers and engage effectively in real-time.

Its primary focus on ticketing and a robust help center makes it a good fit for companies with heavy customer interaction. Intercom is better for smaller companies that are looking for a simple and capable customer service platform. Instead, using it and setting it up is very easy, and very advanced chatbots and predictive tools are included to boost your customer service. With a multi-channel ticketing system, Zendesk Support helps you and your team to know exactly who you’re talking to and keep track of tickets throughout all channels without losing context. The setup is designed to seamlessly connect your customer support team with customers across all platforms. Zendesk, just like its competitor, offers a knowledge base solution that is easy to customize.

Here’s a list of criteria we’ve used to differentiate the two for you. 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. Gain valuable insights with Intercom’s analytics and reporting capabilities.

Zendesk pricing is divided between a customer support product called “Zendesk for support”, and a fully-fledged CRM called “Zendesk for sales”. Intercom users often mention how impressed they are with its ease of use and their ability to quickly create useful tasks and set up automations. Even reviewers who hadn’t used the platform highlight how beautifully designed it is and how simple it is to interact with for both users and clients alike. While they like the ease of use this product offers its users, they’ve indeed rated them low in terms of services. Just like Intercom, Zendesk’s customer service is quite disappointing.

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. Why don’t you try something equally powerful yet more affordable, like HelpCrunch? But they also add features like automatic meeting booking (in the Convert package), and their custom inbox rules and workflows just feel a little more, well, custom.

That means all you have to do is add the code to your website and enable it right away. 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. However, reading the reviews, it’s probably more accurate to say that Zendesk is “mixed” on customer support, whereas Intercom doesn’t have a stellar record. When making your decision, consider factors such as your budget, the scale of your business, and your specific growth plans.

Apart from this feature, the customer support options at Zendesk are quite limited. First, you can only talk to the support team if you are a registered user. Whether your customers prefer to communicate via phone, chat, email, social media, or any other channel, Zendesk unifies all of your customer interactions into one platform. The software helps you to keep track of all support requests, quickly respond to questions, and track the effectiveness of your customer service reps. 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.

Which offers more customization, Intercom or Zendesk?

For services, consider your high-margin versus low-margin customers and focus more on the former. Dedicate your resources to these high-value clients so you can increase profitability. The revenue is $22,000 after the 10 percent markup, but costs zendesk and intercom are $4,000. The dealership will make $18,000 in profits—about an 82 percent profit margin. Operating profit margin—or earnings before interest and taxes (EBIT)—is the ratio a company uses to show its profitability compared to its core operations.

It not only shows you all of the apps you can use, but it also divides these into topics and categories. There are many powerful integrations included, such as Salesforce, HubSpot, Mailchimp, Slack, and Zapier. 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. By the end of the article, you’ll not only know all of the main differences between Zendesk and Intercom, but you’ll know which is the right tool for you.

Although many people tout it as the solution for large businesses, its bottom pricing tier is a nice entry for any small business looking to add customer service to its front page. Zendesk receives positive feedback for its intuitive interface, wide range of integrations, and robust reporting tools. However, some users find customization challenging, and the platform is considered expensive, requiring careful cost evaluation. Experience the comprehensive power of Intercom for effective customer communication, automation, support tools, integrations, and analytics. Streamline support processes with Intercom’s ticketing system and knowledge base. Efficiently manage customer inquiries and empower customers to find answers independently.

ThriveDesk is a feature-rich helpdesk solution that offers a comprehensive set of tools to manage customer support effectively. Intercom’s app store has popular integrations for things like WhatsApp, Stripe, Instagram, and Slack. There is a really useful one for Shopify to provide customer support for e-commerce operations. HubSpot and Salesforce are also available when support needs to work with marketing and sales teams. 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.

You could technically consider Intercom a CRM, but it’s really more of a customer-focused communication product. It isn’t as adept at purer sales tasks like lead management, list engagement, advanced reporting, forecasting, and workflow management as you’d expect a more complete CRM to be. Businesses of all sizes can rely on the Zendesk customer service platform and benefit from workflow management, powerful AI tools, robust insights, and more. If that sounds good to you, sign up for a free demo to see our software in action and get started.

Like so many others, Monese determined that Zendesk was the best solution to provide seamless, omnichannel support because of its scalability and reliability. UpStack is one company that uses Zendesk to unify customer information and communication in a single view rather than relying on spreadsheets and multiple programs. Since implementing Zendesk, UpStack increased visibility and saw more opportunities for upsells, doubling its revenue.

There are several actions that could trigger this block including submitting a certain word or phrase, a SQL command or malformed data. You don’t have to pay per contact on your database, and you there are many free features you can use. With Zendesk, you can anticipate customer questions, allowing for shorter reply periods. With its CRM, you have the ability to place your clients in your sales funnels and follow through with them until conversion. With all accounted for, it seems that Zendesk still has a number of user interface issues.

Robust self-service and knowledge management

Intercom works with any website or web-based product and aims to be your one-way stop for all of your customer communication needs. In this article, we’ll compare Zendesk vs Intercom to find out which is the right customer support tool for you. 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.

• 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.
• Even better, it’s the most cost-effective, lightweight, and speedy live chat solution available for Shopify business owners.
• In addition, the costs of Zendesk’s services are slightly easier to calculate.
• Yes—as your business’s needs grow, you will require a more sophisticated case management system.
• Although the Intercom chat window claims that their team responds within a few hours, user reviews have stated that they had to wait for a few days.

Zendesk provides a good set of tools for managing customer relationships, but it requires additional enrollment in ‘Sell’ for a comprehensive CRM solution. Its $99 bracket includes advanced options, such as customer satisfaction prediction and multi-brand support, and in the $199 bracket, you also get advanced security and other very advanced features. Both Zendesk and Intercom have knowledge bases to help customers get the most out of their platforms. After this, you’ll have to set up your workflows, personalizing your tickets and storing them by topic. You can then add automations and triggers, such as automatically closing a ticket or sending a message to a user. Although it can be pricey, Zendesk’s platform is a very robust one, with powerful reporting and insight tools, a large number of integrations, and excellent scalability features.

Yes, you can find the Intercom integration in the Zendesk Marketplace—and it’s free to install. 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. 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.

The ticket display’s Side Conversations tab allows agents to initiate internal conversations via email, Slack, or ticketing system notes–without leaving the ticket. Agents can choose if the message is private or public, upon which a group thread is initiated in the ticket’s sidebar, where participants can chat and add files. In fact, agents can even add customers to private messaging chats when necessary, and the customer will receive the whole conversation history by email to ensure they’re up to date.

Many often use the terms sales margin and gross profit margin interchangeably, as they essentially mean the same thing. These terms are also known as contribution margin, or the percentage your business earns from a sale minus the cost of goods sold (COGS). You can foun additiona information about ai customer service and artificial intelligence and NLP. On the other hand, it is absolutely necessary to investigate the nature of these integrations in order to ascertain whether or not they are relevant to the criteria that you have in mind. It is essential to evaluate the compatibility of the connectors offered by each platform with the tools and workflows that you already have in place. During this phase, you will determine the essential features, functionalities, and tools that are essential to the operations of your firm.

Zendesk, on the other hand, is another top customer service platform that uses strong security steps to keep customer data safe. One of these steps is putting in place two-factor authentication (2FA). With this extra layer of security, users must show two forms of ID before they can access their accounts. This makes it even harder for people who aren’t supposed to be there to get in. Both Intercom and Zendesk are widely recognised as leaders in their respective industries. Zendesk offers more flexibility with its pricing options and also has free services.

With its integrated suite of applications, Intercom provides a comprehensive solution that caters to businesses seeking a unified ecosystem to manage customer interactions. This scalability ensures businesses can align their support infrastructure with their evolving requirements, ensuring a seamless customer experience. Effective customer support is the backbone of any successful business, akin to frying eggs for the perfect omelette. This is where software platforms such as Zendesk and Intercom come into play, offering customer-centric tools like ticketing, issue resolution, automation, and messaging. But with each software boasting its unique strengths, which one should you choose?

Zendesk is among the industry’s best ticketing and customer support software, and most of its additional functionality is icing on the proverbial cake. Intercom, on the other hand, is designed to be more of a complete solution for sales, marketing, and customer relationship nurturing. You can use it for customer support, but that’s not its core strength. Novo has been a Zendesk customer since 2019 but didn’t immediately start taking full advantage of all our features and capabilities. Empowering employees with streamlined operations and processes that make their jobs easier can lead to a higher profit margin. Tools that unify customer communication and data so agents don’t have to search for information can also boost efficiency and productivity.

Intercom also has a mobile app available for both Android and iOS, which makes it easy to stay connected with customers even when away from the computer. The app includes features like automated messages and conversation routing — so businesses can manage customer conversations more efficiently. Further, if companies plan to create multi-channel campaigns, Intercom makes a great fit.

Design and send out mobile push messages–phone pop-ups containing text and images that prompt customers to take action and redirect to a specific app page when clicked. Zendesk for Sales, or Zendesk Sell, is Zendesk’s sales pipeline and CRM tool with its own dashboard for lead generation and conversion. With so many solutions to choose from, finding the right option for your business can feel like an uphill battle. After switching to Intercom, you can start training Custom Answers for Fin right away by importing your historic data from Zendesk. Fin will use your history to recognize and suggest common questions to create answers for.

Pop-up chat, in-app messaging, and notifications are some of the highly-rated features of this live chat software. 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. If money is limited for your business, a help desk that can be a Zendesk alternative or an Intercom alternative is ThriveDesk. Choose the plan that suits your support requirements and budget, whether you’re a small team or a growing enterprise.

The operating profit is determined by subtracting the COGS from net sales. From there, you can plug that number into the formula below to find the operating profit margin. As mentioned above, the gross profit margin is the percentage of profit left after COGS gets subtracted from net sales. As time passes by, the line between Intercom and Zendesk becomes more blurred as they try to keep up with one another and implement new features, services, and pricing policies. At the end of the day, there is not a universally better option, just one that suits your needs and preferences the most.

So you see, it’s okay to feel dizzy when comparing Zendesk vs Intercom platforms. Intercom has more customization features for features like bots, themes, triggers, and funnels. Intercom does have a ticketing dashboard that has omnichannel functionality, much like Zendesk.

Yes, you can install the Messenger on your iOS or Android app so customers can get in touch from your mobile app. You can collect ticket data from customers when they fill out the ticket, update them manually as you handle the conversation. To sum up this Intercom vs Zendesk battle, the latter is a great support-oriented tool that will be a good choice for big teams with various departments. Intercom feels more wholesome and is more client-success-oriented, but it can be too costly for smaller companies. In this paragraph, let’s explain some common issues that users usually ask about when choosing between Zendesk and Intercom platforms. Say what you will, but Intercom’s design and overall user experience leave all its competitors far behind.

Email marketing, for example, is a big deal, but less so when it comes to customer service. Still, for either of these platforms to have some email marketing or other email functionality is common sense. For Intercom’s pricing plan, on the other hand, there is much less information on their website. There is a Starter plan for small businesses at $74 per month billed annually, and there are add-ons like a WhatsApp add-on at $9 per user per month or surveys at $49 per month. Your typical Zendesk review will often praise the platform’s simplicity and affordability, as well as its constant updates and rolling out of new features, like Zendesk Sunshine.