Intercom vs Zendesk: The Ultimate Head-to-Head Showdown in 2018

Crisp offers many integrations with leading tools of the industry so you can get started with Crisp. Make your data flow seamlessly between multiple environments in a few clicks. So for the docs itself, we’ll tend to look at what are some of the libraries that are available. We wanted to see a JavaScript library for anything we would wanna do on the web, we wanna see some libraries for a backend, maybe Ruby or Python or something else.

Their agent was always trying to convert me into a lead along the way, but heck, that’s a side effect of our job. I found that if I wanted to work most productively I’d need to have all four main Zendesk products opened in different browser tabs as there is no option of having all of them within a single dashboard. If you thought Zendesk’s pricing was confusing, let me introduce you to Intercom’s pricing.

Zendesk vs Intercom: 2023 Explicit Comparison

The Help Center is designed to give you a complete self-service support option (knowledge base). Users can use the information you are providing or turn to a community forum for answers. One of the weakest points of intercom is that the design is not responsive, therefore accessing the service from mobile devices could be improved. With Intercom pricing is based on the total number of people you track and communicate with, not the number of agent seats your support team has. Be careful, pricing will automatically adjust as your business grows and you track more people. Compared to Zendesk, Zoho Desk has very similar items regarding reporting features, a knowledge base feature, and advanced features.

• If a customer isn’t satisfied with Answer Bot’s response, Answer Bot quickly routes them to an agent best suited to help.
• Zendesk stands out as a champion of customer support due to its easy-to-use work-frame, many useful add-ons, and features in all tiers.
• Our integration with Intercom enables bi-directional contact and case synchronization, so you can continue using Intercom as your front-end digital experience and use Zendesk for case management.
• The Zendesk chat tool has most of the necessary features like shortcuts (saved responses), automated triggers, and live chat analytics.
• You can try it now to enjoy the free plan or 14-day free trial without inputting your credit card details.
• HappyFox is a popular all-in-one solution for a business’s help desk software needs.

Zendesk has received a rating of 4.4 out of 5 from 2,693 reviewers. They’ve been rated as one of the easy live chat solutions with more integrated options. Compared to Intercom, Zendesk’s pricing starts at $49/month, which is still understandable but not meant for startups looking for affordable pricing plans. These plans are not inclusive of the add-ons or access to all integrations. Once you add them all to the picture, their existing plans can turn out to be quite expensive.

Integrations with third-party applications

Zoho Desk has many features, such as phone integration, chat, and shared inboxes. Though some features are limited to Zoho Desk’s most expensive plans, the platform offers many free features and great value. Businesses can’t afford to waste their time and money on live chat platforms that don’t function as they want.

Customers often call or chat with us multiple times prior to the purchase and post-purchase, as these are emotional, time-sensitive purchases. Intercom is a customer support messenger, bot, and live chat service provider that empowers its clients to provide instant support in real-time. This SaaS leader entered into the competition in 2011, intending to help its clients reach their target audiences and engage them in a conversation right away. For small companies and startups, Intercom offers a Starter plan — with a balanced suite of features from each of the solutions below — at $74 per month per user, billed annually. You can create an omnichannel CRM suite with a mix of productivity, collaboration, eCommerce, CRM, analytics, email marketing, social media, and other tools.

Best all-in-one Zendesk Alternative

Quite extensive options for be able to send data in common, you know, the data you’ll be sending here will be things like events, user attributes, and other things. The third area we’ll tend to look at is actually the integration portion, that is how hard is it to implement, so let’s quickly do a dive here into the developer’s portal for Intercom. Intercom, I’ll say, has probably one of the most extensive documentations I’ve seen. You have, also the app store component here, where they have a lot of different app integrations. That’s something that Zendesk has a little bit, CustomerIO has a little bit, but Intercom really has the most integrations.

Further, if companies plan to create multi-channel campaigns, Intercom makes a great fit. However, customers should keep in mind that Intercom does not offer voice. However, if you are looking for a robust messaging solution with customer support features, go for Intercom. Its intuitive messenger can help your business boost engagement and improve sales and marketing efforts. In general, Zendesk offers a wide range of live chat features such as customizable chat widgets, automatic greetings, offline messaging, and chat triggers. In addition to these features, Intercom offers messaging automation and real-time visitor insights.

List of Zendesk Alternatives

You can still, of course, tie people, it’s tied with some of the, I know Zendesk has a little widget too. It can still be used in the same way, but from our perspective, it seems to be much more geared towards customer support, less so for sales and marketing. Zendesk Suite includes all features for email, live chat, voice, and social media support. There are four options available— metadialog.com Team ($49/agent/month), Growth ($79/agent/month), Professional ($99/agent/month), and Enterprise ($150/agent/month). Based on the number of customer service agents you need to accommodate, you could be paying thousands of dollars every single month for the right customer support platform. Therefore, it becomes all the more important to review your options carefully.

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’re spending more than one day formulating strategy, you’re missing out on countless opportunities. Learn why a Sentient Strategy® approach could make sense for your company.

Live chat and messaging

You pay a monthly fee for a product, and then there is – sorry – there’s a monthly fee for the product which is tied to actual people. For inbox, we have seats, so the idea of how many people can respond to the messages, or how many people can be on the chat. If none of these options helps your customer, there is a ticketing system that notifies you of new issues. When you return to the office, you can use the live chat to respond to your customer’s issues.

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. Automatic assignment rules establish criteria that automatically route tickets to the right agent or team, based on message or user data. An inbound customer message through any of these channels becomes a ticket for your support agents, whose reply reaches the customer through the same channel they originally used. Zendesk wins the ticketing system category due to its easy-to-use interface and side conversations tool.

What is Freshdesk?

Zoho is a private company that promises practical help desk software, especially for small and mid-sized businesses. Ask for feedback from your customers as soon as the conversation ends to get a better understanding of how your interactions are influencing the entire customer experience, and make adjustments ASAP. Keep the conversation going across a range of channels without missing a beat. Consolidate every part of the conversation –  including live chat, email, and SMS – in a single inbox. Replace Zendesk completely with a help desk that’s built for speed.

If your team is looking for a centralized customer support solution then Front is a great alternative to Zendesk. Zendesk’s customer support is also very fast, though their live chat is only available for registered users. However, if you look at Zendesk’s high pricing and complicated features, the tool doesn’t work well for small businesses that have limited needs. It can be the right option for big enterprises that have global customers and big support teams. To cater to the needs of different businesses and teams, Zendesk offers multiple integration options. To customize your Zendesk experience, you can integrate the tool with third-party business applications such as Trello, Salesforce, Shopify, Aircall, etc.

Platform

It has a direct integration with Shopify and other tools including powerful B2B customer handling. It also satisfies all the requirements you’ve outlined including order history, interaction history, notes, tickets etc. Along with Omni channel integrations with chat (their own or other chat solutions), email, phone and so on.