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

When you’re troubleshooting something with a user, knowing exactly what’s happening on the backend can be enormously helpful. Unfortunately, Intercom doesn’t have this functionality and you’ll need to ask your users for console information like network and device details, user steps, bugs, etc. Intercom doesn’t have a built-in feature for escalations, so for level 2 and level 3 customer support, you will need to use an integration. Let’s look one more time at the main features Intercom and Zendesk offer, so we can leave you with the product that ultimately fits your business’ needs the best. Online chatting allows you to anticipate your customer’s next move, directs them to take the desired action and helps in organizing teamwork. But, if you just need a secure and quick data transfer, opt for Help Desk Migration.

Get to a resolution faster by switching to voice calls and share your screen – without switching to another platform. Missive has lots of the same features as Intercom, but it costs less money. In your search for an alternative, you have likely come across Drift, a great and close Intercom competitor.

Specialization vs Customization

While Intercom does not offer free trials, they do offer demo versions of each plan. Below, we’ve compared the usability of Zendesk’s and Intercom’s agent dashboards and administrator controls. Survey composer allows you to create the question and answer format, also customizing color, rating scales, and greetings. Zendesk Sales Engagement Tools (Reach) uses a credit system to help you find new leads or add information to existing leads. 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.

The difference between the two is that the Professional subscription lacks some things like chat widget unbranding, custom agent roles, multiple help centers, etc. 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. On one hand, Zendesk offers a great many features, way more than Intercom, but it lacks in-app messenger and email marketing tools.

HubSpot Service Hub vs. Intercom: Reporting

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. LiveChat offers a more affordable option compared to Intercom, but not all the sales and marketing features offered by Intercom. The feature also makes it easy to ping someone from the sales team, for example, to get some help.

Zendesk does an okay job at ticketing but comes nowhere close to Jetdocs’s experience when it comes to internal ticketing and external portals. Jetdocs helps you streamline your internal teams so you can make efficient decisions quicker. In the end, the “best” customer success platform is one that fits in with your business goals and integrates with all of the essential tools.

Email integration

Help Scout has pre-made reports for each communication channel (email, chat, and phone), as well as dashboards that track agent performance, customer happiness (CSAT), and Docs (knowledge base) activity. In addition to these base reports, you can create views based on tags and custom fields to help dial in on what is most important to your team. Intercom’s proactive messaging capabilities are one of its greatest assets, giving companies many ways to engage with current and prospective customers. As mentioned earlier in this section, some of Intercom’s messaging capabilities, such as product tours and checklists, are particularly impressive. The trouble is, most of Intercom’s outbound messaging functionality isn’t part of the base package. Light users can view and follow conversations, leave private notes, view help articles, view customer profiles and reporting data, and even create and send messages in-app or on your website.

Zendesk wins the ticketing system category due to its easy-to-use interface and side conversations tool. The offers that appear on the website are from software companies from which CRM.org receives compensation. This compensation may impact how and where products appear on this site (including, for example, the order in which they appear). This site does not include all software companies or all available software companies offers. So, by now, you can see that according to this article, Zendesk inches past Intercom as the better customer support platform.

Zendesk Chat vs Intercom – Pricing

With Freshdesk, organizations can set up automations to handle specific customer inquiries as appropriate. This includes automatic delivery of help desk tickets to the correct department or agent, prioritization of inquiries based on severity, and escalation of urgent issues. Freshdesk also allows users to customize ticket fields and workflows to suit their specific needs and preferences. HubSpot is the superior option if you need sophisticated marketing automation tools. HubSpot offers a variety of features, such as email marketing, social media scheduling, and statistics to assist companies in developing and maintaining strong connections with their customers.

It’s part CRM, part inbox, and designed to host all of your conversations, integrations, and more. Almost all of the Zendesk alternatives listed above have a free trial version. If you are still in search of customer support software, you can use these free trial versions to determine the most suitable support tool for your business. The platform’s all-inclusive customer service tool supports almost any channel through which businesses can communicate with customers. In addition, the platform integrates with more than 600 applications in the Freshworks ecosystem.

Best Zendesk Alternative Feature Match

Zendesk is a customer service platform that has been in the market for over 10 years. Missive is a communication tool that offers a variety of features for businesses, including a shared inbox, live chat, SMS, WhatsApp, social media DMs, calls, and more. Third-party integrations make it easier to manage customer data, segment customers, and send targeted marketing messages. They help you create an omnichannel help desk solution instead of paying for different tools. Examples include integrating your CRMs and marketing automation tools. Customers now expect a more personalized experience, and businesses try to give them the best service possible for their satisfaction.

Desku is an omnichannel support platform built for small to medium-scale businesses. So Desku is here for you and your business to manage every customer support query that comes by. As a Zendesk alternative, LiveChat offers remarkable features for small and medium businesses. Various third-party integrations come to the fore with advanced features such as filtering, email response control, and targeting. Artificial intelligence chatbots called Freddy AI to allow processes to be automated.

Ten of the best live chat software solutions for 2023

Help Scout, a help desk ticketing system and customer service software solution, is one of the more popular Zendesk alternatives due to the fact that it provides a variety of services to its users. When integrated with your common inbox, ticket discussions are linked, providing a centralized view for both customers and representatives. HubSpot also offers a ticketing system that allows you to record, organize, and track all customer issues in one interface, accessible to your entire customer support team. Intercom’s knowledge base feature allows companies to develop and share articles, FAQs, and other types of content that customers can access through a search box or categorized catalog. The platform focuses on simplicity and user-friendliness, making it easy for businesses to create and update their knowledge base without requiring technical expertise.

• Understanding these fundamental differences should go a long way in helping you pick between the two, but does that mean you can’t use one platform to do what the other does better?
• If you create a new chat with the team, land on a page with no widget, and go back in the browser for some reason, your chat will go puff.
• Unlock your customer experience (CX) potential with the best customer service software.
• With a comprehensive range of features, it enables you to provide exceptional support to your customers across various channels.
• Finally, I have to add that in case you want to really test and get used to Zendesk, its trial period is longer than Intercom and the other alternatives in this article.
• But, if things don’t go as expected… you’ll be here looking for a new customer support platform that will aid you throughout the customer service operations instead of Zendesk.

Here’s a side-by-side comparison of Zendesk and Intercom’s pricing tiers. Check out the research-backed comparison below to better understand how each solution can add value to your organization. Understanding these fundamental differences should metadialog.com go a long way in helping you pick between the two, but does that mean you can’t use one platform to do what the other does better? These are both still very versatile products, so don’t think you have to get too siloed into a single use case.

The Best IT Helpdesk Ticketing Software Systems: Pros & Cons

There are many factors to consider when choosing a customer communication (CCM solutions)  and engagement platform. If you have a small business, you may not need all the features that a larger business would need. You might rather choose a more affordable solution that provides all the functionality your business needs.

• Whether it’s getting set up or figuring out the best way to customize meetings for your needs, there are over 85,000 community members willing to  help.
• On the other hand, if you have the budget and need the most features for your money, then Zendesk is the better choice.
• Users can access basic chat for free, though the more sophisticated tools will cost you.
• As a leading cloud-based help desk software, Zendesk is home to many popular businesses such as Siemens, Mailchimp, Tesco, GrubHub, and more.
• Help Scout on the other hand can be best described as a customer-centric tool.
• The overall design of Zendesk’s chat widget looks outdated and offers very limited customization options.