2 March 2022

Zendesk VS Intercom: In-Depth Analysis & Review

Searching for a customer support tool for your business? In this Zendesk vs Intercom debate, we break it down for you to help you choose the best software.

Saqlain Mushtaq

Content Writer

Reading time: 6 minutes

In today’s hyper-competitive, hyper-connected globalized economy, customer experience has become a fundamental differentiator. As customers’ needs are constantly evolving, businesses must adapt and keep up to guarantee the best customer experience and satisfaction.

That being said, in your search for the best customer support tool, you must have come across Zendesk and Intercom.

Both of these are the big players in this market and have outstanding features. Deciding between them might make you giddy!

So to assist you in determining which software is best for your company, we analyzed each product in-depth to help you reach a decision. Let’s get started!

What is Zendesk?

Zendesk is a customer service software that allows businesses to connect with customers via multiple channels.

Zendesk is a customer service platform that allows you to communicate with customers via any channel.

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.

Zendesk is designed to fit your business needs whether you’re a fast-growing startup or a well-established company.

What is Intercom?

Intercom is a live chat system used by customer service, sales, and marketing departments. Three of its core features include a live chat module, an onboarding module for sending automated emails, and an educational module for answering a user’s queries.

It can be classified as a chatbox for average users, just like the ones found on a variety of websites. The user experience is similar to that of a Facebook Messenger chat.

Zendesk vs Intercom

Although both platforms appear to provide identical services and functionality, they differ in a number of ways. Here are some of the things we considered when comparing the two:

Functionality: If the software has diverse customer support features and capabilities, valuable to the customer
User experience: If it has a user-friendly interface
Integration options: If it integrates with other products to boost your business processes
Customer support: If it goes above and above in terms of customer service and documentation
Value: If the software delivers greater value for the price paid

Functionality

It’s clear that both of these tools are designed for different use cases. Intercom is geared toward sales, whereas Zendesk includes everything a customer service rep desires.

Zendesk Suite provides three subscription plans depending upon your work need: Support (Suite), Support (Foundation), and Sales.

Zendesk is primarily a ticketing system, and its ticketing capability is overwhelming in the best conceivable manner. All client contacts, whether via phone, chat, email, social media, or any other channel, land in one dashboard, where your agents can quickly and efficiently resolve them. It also has an Answer Bot that reduces the workload for employees.

Intercom’s chatbots and product tours differentiate it from Zendesk. The platform is evolving from a platform for engaging with consumers to a tool that assists you in automating every element of your daily routine.

Intercom allows you to send customized emails, push notifications, and in-app announcements based on relevant time or behavior triggers.

✏️ Which is better: Zendesk

User experience

Simplicity is an important consideration when selecting the best customer service software. Having easy-to-use software is far more controllable and saves time whether you’re a tiny and growing business or a massive multinational.

When it comes to the design and simplicity of the software for customer use, Zendesk’s interface is somewhat antiquated and cluttered, especially when it comes to customizing the chat widget.

Whatever you think of Intercom’s design and general user experience, you can’t deny that it outperforms all of its competitors. Everything, from the tools to the website, reflects their meticulous attention to detail.

Intercom is the clear victor in terms of user experience, leaving all of its competitors in the dust.

✏️ Which is better: Intercom

Integration options

To automate operations and reduce your employees’ workload, it is critical that customer support systems allow integration with other products. This enables organizations to work more efficiently and easily integrate their software without having to alter their present business processes.

Intercom ensures that there isn’t a single platform that they don’t offer to its customers with over 300 integration choices being fully aware that their user base is likely to have subscribed to various tools in addition to their own.

While both offer a wide number of integration options, Zendesk wins the top spot in this category.

There are over 1000 apps that Zendesk can integrate with. You can construct an omnichannel suite by combining productivity, e-commerce, CRM, analytics, social media, and other applications. Having more connectors accessible gives organizations the flexibility to select software that meets their specific needs.

✏️ Which is better: Zendesk

Customer support

A company’s customer service and support may help or hurt it. It’s critical to have a staff of dedicated customer support professionals to help clients easily onboard and get their business processes up and running without wasting time, whether it’s technical support or onboarding the platform.

That being said the customer support for both Zendesk and Intercom is lacking.

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.

Many users complain that Intercom’s help is unavailable the majority of the time, forcing them to repeatedly ask the same question to a bot. When they do respond, they’re usually unhelpful or want to immediately transfer you to the sales department.

Zendesk’s customer service appears to be speedier, albeit you can only chat with their team if you’re already a customer. You can only contact them if you’re just browsing their website and leave your email address in a message to their sales team.

✏️ Which is better: Zendesk

Value

Zendesk’s Suite Team plan (the cheapest plan) costs $49 per user per month. You get multiple support channels at no extra cost with over 1000 APIs and integrations. They also offer several other features such as pre-defined responses, custom rules, and customizable online forms.

On the other hand, it’s nearly impossible to foresee how much Intercom will cost at the end of the day. They charge for agent seats and connections, don’t disclose their prices, and package add-ons at a premium.

Intercom also does not offer a free trial period for users to examine the software prior to joining up for their services.

✏️ Which is better: Zendesk

From our analysis above, Zendesk clearly wins with a 4. But before you decide to just go with Zendesk, why not explore a third option?

What is NovoChat?

NovoChat is a chat marketing tool built for e-commerce businesses.

NovoChat is a chat marketing tool with a shared team inbox and multi-channel chat widget.

Not only does it allow you to have two-way communication with your customers via multiple messaging channels (WhatsApp, Messenger, etc), you can easily conduct multi-agent customer support with a shared team inbox.

Respond to all conversations across different messaging platforms in one place and avoid juggling between dozens of tabs. Collaborate with your teammates by easily assigning the right rep to best handle a customer query.

Furthermore, it has a multi-channel chat widget that you can place on your website. This way, customers have a hassle-free way to reach out to you, and on their preferred messaging channels!

So which is better?

Which software came out on top in this Zendesk vs Intercom debate?

When the above factors are compared, there is an obvious winner — but it still depends on your business needs.

In-app messages and email marketing tools are two crucial features that Zendesk lacks when compared to Intercom. Intercom, on the other hand, lacks key ticketing features that are critical for large firms with a high volume of customer assistance.

Zendesk provides sophisticated ticketing capabilities, more detailed statistics, and reports, and significantly more customer support features set pricing that isn’t based on how many interactions you make per month (especially, for bigger teams).

While in Intercom, advanced chatbots, a modern and well-developed chat widget, email marketing services, product demonstrations, and in-app messaging all contribute to a better customer experience.

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.

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.

Start a 7-day free trial with NovoChat today if you’re interested in learning more about what we have to offer!

Try NovoChat for free! 🚀

An e-commerce chat marketing platform to grow your sales.

Zendesk VS Intercom: In-Depth Analysis & Review

What is Zendesk?

What is Intercom?

Zendesk vs Intercom

Functionality

User experience

Integration options

Customer support

Value

What is NovoChat?

So which is better?

Try NovoChat for free! 🚀

Are you really leaving all these resources behind? 🤔

Drive more sales with chat marketing.