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Zendesk vs Intercom: In-Depth Features & Price Comparison

Profit margin calculator + guide

zendesk and intercom

Test any of HelpCrunch pricing plans for free for 14 days and see our tools in action right away. So yeah, all the features talk actually brings us to the most sacred question — the question of pricing. You’d probably want to know how much it costs to get each of the platforms for your business, so let’s talk money now. Just like Zendesk, Intercom also offers its Operator bot, which will automatically suggest relevant articles to clients right in a chat widget. You can publish your self-service resources, divide them by categories, and integrate them with your messenger to accelerate the whole chat experience. You can create dozens of articles in a simple, intuitive WYSIWYG text editor, divide them by categories and sections, and customize with your custom themes.

However, it is possible Intercom’s support is superior at the premium level. NovoChat, on the other hand, is great for businesses that primarily engage with their clients through messaging apps. The program is simple to use and includes all of the necessary capabilities for providing good customer service. Zendesk’s Suite Team plan (the cheapest plan) costs $49 per user per month.

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. What’s more, it helps its clients build an integrated community forum and help center to improve the support experience in real-time. Erika is Groove’s Customer Success Manager, committed to helping you find the right software solution for your business needs.

zendesk and intercom

Additional payment per active user or seat depends on a chosen service and a plan. Zendesk also provides automation features, but they aren’t as extensive as Intercom’s. However, if you’re looking for a streamlined, all-in-one messaging platform, there is no better option than Messagely. Since Intercom doesn’t offer a CRM, its pricing is divided into basic messaging and messaging with automations. You can also contact Zendesk support 24/7, whereas Intercom support only has live agents during business hours. Then, you can begin filling in details such as your account’s name and icon and your agents’ profiles and security features.

Intercom vs. Zendesk: Omnichannel Capabilities

Intercom has a unique pricing structure, offering three separate solutions, each intended for a distinct use case. We wish some of their great features were offered in multiple plans, but none features overlap among plans. Zendesk wins the self-service tools category because it provides extensive help center customization options. Users with light access–such as knowledgeable agents and supervisors–can be added to tickets for browsing and feedback. While light agents cannot interact with the customer on the ticket, they can make notes and interact privately with other team members and agents involved with the ticket.

Intercom’s UI excels in modern design and intuitive functionality, particularly noted for its real-time messaging and advanced features. It is tailored for automation and quick access to insights, offering a user-friendly experience. Nevertheless, the platform’s support consistency can be a concern, and the unpredictable pricing structure might lead to increased costs for larger organizations.

zendesk and intercom

Finally, you can pay $199 per month per user for unlimited sales pipelines and advanced reporting along with other features. 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. If compared to Intercom’s chatbot, Zendesk offers a relatively latest platform that makes support automation possible. So far, the chatbot can transfer chats to agents or resolve less complex queries in seconds.

Zendesk customers are switching to Intercom every single day

Both companies provide a set of services that are intended to simplify communication, support, and the overall customer experience. The platform’s omnichannel dashboard provides a seamless experience for agents, enabling streamlined resolution processes. Zendesk’s ticketing system allows for support tickets to be generated, tracked effectively, and routed to the most appropriate support team agent. On the other hand, Zendesk’s customer support includes a knowledge base that’s very intuitive and easy to navigate. It divides all articles into a few main topics so you can quickly find the one you’re looking for.

zendesk and intercom

This gets you unlimited email addresses and email templates in both text form and HTML. There is automatic email archiving and incoming email authentication. Zendesk can also save key customer information in their platform, which helps reps get a faster idea of who they are dealing with as well as any historical data that might assist in the support.

In today’s world of fast-paced customer service and high customer expectations, it’s essential for business leaders to equip their teams with the best support tools available. Zendesk and Intercom both offer noteworthy tools, but if you’re looking for a full-service solution, there is one clear winner. 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. It is also ideal for businesses who are searching for conversational chatbot functionality.

Zendesk:

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. Zendesk’s user face is quite intuitive and easy to use, allowing customers to quickly find what they are looking for. Additionally, the platform allows users to customize their experience by setting up automation workflows, creating ticket rules, and utilizing analytics.

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Even better, it’s the most cost-effective, lightweight, and speedy live chat solution available for Shopify business owners. 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.

Generally speaking, a good profit margin is 10 percent but can vary across industries. Though an unwritten rule, it’s understood by businesses that profit margin ranges from five percent (bad) to 20 percent (good). Using this rule, you can quickly assess how you’re doing at a glance.

It can team up with tools like Salesforce and Slack, so everything runs smoothly. The Zendesk marketplace is also where you can get a lot of great add-ons. There are also several different Shopify integrations to choose from, as well as CRM integrations like HubSpot and Salesforce. The learning and knowledgebase category is another one where it is a close call between Zendesk and Intercom. However, we will say that Intercom just edges past Zendesk when it comes to self-service resources.

Both platforms have their unique strengths in multichannel support, with Zendesk offering a more comprehensive range of integrated channels and Intercom focusing on a dynamic, chat-centric experience. Here, we’ve outlined the support options that Intercom and Zendesk provide to companies using their platforms. However, customers can purchase multiple Intercom plans to use together, or purchase add-ons to select just the features they want. Community forums enable customers to assist each other by asking questions and sharing tips, experiences, and best practices–creating a unique, user-based, searchable information hub. Zendesk’s chatbot, Answer Bot, automatically answers customer questions asynchronously in up to 40 languages–via any text-based channel.

Zendesk lets you chat with customers through email, chat, social media, or phone. Some of the links that appear on the website are from software companies from which CRM.org receives compensation. Intercom’s native mobile apps are good for iOS, Android, React Native, and Cordova, while Zendesk only has mobile apps for iPhones, iPads, and Android devices. Every single bit of business SaaS in the world needs to leverage the efficiency power of workflows and automation.

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These tools are great for keeping track of tasks and making sure workflows run smoothly, but they might not put as much emphasis on real-time conversations for teams as Intercom does. Zendesk directly competes with Intercom when it comes to integrations. 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. Intercom also offers scalability within its pricing plans, enabling businesses to upgrade to higher tiers as their support needs grow.

  • Its AI Chatbot, Fin, is particularly noted for handling complex queries efficiently.
  • Intercom can function as a standalone CRM, allowing businesses to track and manage customer interactions efficiently.
  • You can always count on it if you need a reliable customer support platform to process tickets, support users, and get advanced reporting.
  • Now that we’ve covered a bit of background on both Zendesk and Intercom, let’s dive into the features each platform offers.

It also includes a list of common questions you can browse through at the bottom of the knowledge base home page so you can find answers to common issues. These products range from customer communication tools to a fully-fledged CRM. Zendesk boasts incredibly robust sales capabilities and security features. Chatbots are automated customer support tools that can assist with low-level ticket triage and ticket routing in real-time.

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. The cheapest plan for small businesses – Starter – costs $89 monthly, including 2 seats and 1,000 people reached/mo. Each additional 1,000 contacts on a Starter plan will cost you $25/mo. Pro plan is rather a team plan that costs $395/mo and includes 5 seats. But that’s not it, if you want to resolve customer common questions with the help of the vendor’s new tool – Fin bot, you will have to pay $0.99 per resolution per month.

HubSpot helps seamlessly integrate customer service tools that you and your team already leverage. Picking customer service software to run your business is not a decision you make lightly. Intercom’s solution offers several use cases, meaning the product’s investments and success resources have a broad focus.

With the integrations provided through each product, you can make use of both platforms to provide your customers with comprehensive customer service. While Intercom Zendesk integration is uncommon, as they both offer very similar products, it can be useful for unique use cases or during migrations from one platform to the other. One of the things that sets Zendesk apart from other customer service software providers is its focus on design. The company’s products are built with an emphasis on simplicity and usability. This has helped to make Zendesk one of the most popular customer service software platforms on the market. From the inbox, live agents and chatbots can refer to and link knowledge base articles, to elaborate on replies and help customers locate answers.

You can create these knowledge base articles in your target audience’s native language as their software is multilingual. It tends to perform well on the marketing and sales side of things, which is key for a growing company. And considering that its tools (including live chat options) are so easy to use, it’s probably going to be easier for a small business to get integrated and set up.

The company was founded in 2007 and today serves over 170,000 customers worldwide. Zendesk’s mission is to build software designed to improve customer relationships. Intercom, while it doesn’t offer an omnichannel dashboard, is still robust in its ticketing capabilities. Intercom offers extensive automation features for ticket management, enabling businesses to streamline and speed up their customer service. Zendesk would be a perfect option for businesses that are searching for a well-integrated support system.

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Track key metrics, measure campaign success, and optimize customer engagement strategies. Experience targeted communication with Intercom’s automation and segmentation features. Create personalized messages for specific customer segments, driving engagement and satisfaction. So, whether you’re a startup or a global giant, Zendesk’s got your back for top-notch customer support.

Altogether, this can significantly impact affordability in the long term. Another effective way to increase profit margin is to increase your average order value (AOV). To calculate AOV, divide your total revenue by the number of orders. Net profit margin measures the profit percentage a business produces from its total revenue. You can foun additiona information about ai customer service and artificial intelligence and NLP. First, you must calculate your net profit by subtracting COGS, operating expenses, interest, and taxes from your total revenue.

Using this, agents can chat across teams within a ticket via email, Slack, or Zendesk’s ticketing system. This packs all resolution information into a single ticket, so there’s no extra searching or backtracking needed to bring a ticket through to resolution, even if it involves multiple agents. In 2023, conversational messaging will play an essential role in customer service.

Besides, the prices differ depending on the company’s size and specific needs. We conducted a little study of our own and found that all Intercom users share different amounts of money they pay for the plans, which can reach over $1000/mo. The price levels can even be much higher if we’re talking of a larger company. If you’d want to test Intercom vs Zendesk before deciding on a tool for good, they both provide free trials for 14 days. But sooner or later, you’ll have to decide on the subscription plan, and here’s what you’ll have to pay. If I had to describe Intercom’s helpdesk, I would say it’s rather a complementary tool to their chat tools.

But this solution is great because it’s an all-in-one tool with a modern live chat widget, allowing you to easily improve your customer experiences. At the same time, Zendesk looks slightly outdated and can’t offer some features. Zendesk’s pricing structure provides increasing levels of features and capabilities as businesses move up the tiers. This scalability allows organizations to adapt their support operations to their expanding customer base. 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.

Zendesk’s messaging system makes it easier for customers to ask questions and get help, and it makes sure that every question is properly recorded and handled. A messenger platform that helps engage customers on your website or app. It provides bots and chats automation features to make communication with clients more efficient. Zendesk’s ‘Explore’ zendesk and intercom feature offers robust reporting capabilities, providing insights into various aspects of customer service operations. This allows businesses to identify trends, monitor agent performance, and make data-driven decisions. The Zendesk Help Center allows for the easy creation and grouping of resources, offering customizability to match your brand.

I’ll dive into their chatbots more later, but their bot automation features are also stronger. Users can benefit from using Intercom’s CX platform and AI software as a standalone tool for business messaging. We make it easy for anyone within your company to access contextual customer information—including their conversation and purchase history—to provide better experiences. In fact, the Zendesk Marketplace has 1,300+ apps and integrations, from billing software to marketing automation tools. Use these chatbot templates with AI-powered customer service software to provide fast, 24/7 customer support and improve agent productivity.

We hope this list has provided you with a better grasp of each platform and its features. Remember that there is no one-size-fits-all solution, and the optimal platform for you will be determined by your individual demands. They have a 2-day SLA, no phone support, and the times I have had to work with them they have been incredibly difficult to work with.

Again, Zendesk has surpassed the number of reviewers when compared to Intercom. Some of the highly-rated features include ticket creation user experience, email to case, and live chat reporting. Welcome to another blog post that helps you gauge which live chat solution is compatible with your customer support needs. And in this post, we will analyze two popular names in the SaaS industry – Intercom & Zendesk.

zendesk and intercom

Agents can participate in forums and turn forum posts into tickets; they also can turn community-post replies into articles for future customers. Intercom self-service chatbot widgets, highly customizable and capable of conversing in 32 different languages, embed into your website or application. Zendesk wins the collaboration tools category because of its easy-to-use side conversations feature. Zendesk wins the omnichannel capabilities category because it offers voice as a service, which we think is absolutely critical. While Intercom lacks some common customer-service channels like voice calling and video conferencing, it supports other unique features that transfer across channels.