Freshdesk Alternative for Customer Support

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. HappyFox effortlessly adapts to your evolving needs, providing flexibility and customization across ticketing, support center, workflows, automations and reporting. Olark allows businesses to configure routing and automations to streamline support. You can add business rules to route customers to the right agent or round-robin routing for the first available agent. You can also configure the chat window to be displayed or hidden or automatically begin chats upon visitor arrival.

Still, for either of these platforms to have some email marketing or other email functionality is common sense. Intercom has a very robust advanced chatbot set of tools for your business needs. There is a conversation routing bot, an operator bot, a lead qualification bot, and an article-suggesting bot, among others.

Compared to Zendesk and Intercom, Helpwise offers competitive and transparent pricing plans. Zendesk has a help center that is open to all to find out answers to common questions. Apart from this feature, the customer support options at Zendesk are quite limited.

Intercom vs Zendesk features & functionality

Visit either of their app marketplaces and look up the Intercom Zendesk integration. Like with many other apps, Zapier seems to be the best and most simple way to connect Intercom to Zendesk. Intercom has a community forum where users can engage with each other and gain insights from their experiences. With only the Enterprise tier offering round-the-clock email, phone, and chat help, Zendesk support is sharply separated by tiers. If that’s not enough, check out the Zendesk 14-day free trial to test out all our features risk-free. Rest assured, ThriveDesk’s lightweight design and speed won’t impact the performance of your Wix-powered eCommerce website.

The customer journey timeline provides a clear view of customer activities, helping you understand behaviors and tailor your responses accordingly. It also provides seamless navigation between a unified inbox, teams, and customer interactions, while putting all the most important information right at your fingertips. This makes it easy for teams to prioritize tasks, stay aligned, and deliver superior service. Not to brag 😏, but we specifically developed our platform to address the shortcomings in the current market. By going with Customerly for your customer service needs, you can get the best of both worlds (Zendesk and Intercom), plus some extra features and benefits you haven’t even thought of, yet. The dashboard follows a streamlined approach with a single inbox for customer inquiries.

Zendesk offers more advanced automation capabilities than Intercom, which may be a deciding factor for businesses that require complex workflows. 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. I’ll dive into their chatbots more later, but their bot automation features are also stronger. Managers can choose to automatically route tickets and agents can prioritize conversations that need immediate attention.

The Intercom versus Zendesk conundrum is probably the greatest problem in customer service software. They both offer some state-of-the-art core functionality and numerous unusual features. The former is one of the oldest and most reliable solutions on the market, while the latter sets the bar high regarding innovative and out-of-the-box features. Zendesk AI is the intelligence layer that infuses CX intelligence into every step of the customer journey.

The years of experience in business messaging have helped Intercom develop features that address nearly all the problems that employees have to face while interacting with customers. Intercom is another SaaS company that was founded in 2011 with the aim to help businesses build better customer relationships through personalized, messenger-based experiences. The company caters to businesses across the globe and has offices in San Francisco, Dublin, Sydney, etc. When making your decision, consider factors such as your budget, the scale of your business, and your specific growth plans. Explore alternative options like ThriveDesk if you’re looking for a more budget-conscious solution that aligns with your customer support needs.

For those of you who have been waiting for the big showdown between these two customer support heavyweights, we are glad to present the ultimate Zendesk vs Intercom comparison article. Use HubSpot Service Hub to provide seamless, fast, and delightful customer service. And you would be surprised to know that the Intercom does not have a VOIP call service. Integrations are the best way to enhance the toolkit of your apps by connecting them for interoperable actions and features. Both Zendesk and Intercom have integration libraries, and you can also use a connecting tool like Zapier for added integrations and add-ons.

But if you’re not familiar with them, think of the software as an online human resource department. The methods that help desks use, however, are meant to cater to possibly thousands to millions of messages. Because there could be a thousand customers complaining at any given hour to all your staff having problems with business protocols. Generally, humans can’t handle this volume of exchange, that’s why help desk software was made. In this case, all customer requests will be routed properly, leaving no gaps in your customer service operations.

Low total cost of ownership

Overall, when comparing Zendesk to Intercom, Zendesk’s features will probably win out over time. 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. While Intercom also provides a user-friendly interface, some users may find it a tad overwhelming, especially when juggling multiple support requests. Zendesk’s simplicity, combined with its robust functionality, significantly reduces the margin for errors and confusion.

We hope that this Intercom VS Zendesk comparison helps you choose one that matches your support, marketing, and sales needs. But in case you are in search of something beyond these two, then ProProfs Chat can be an option. Zendesk also offers detailed reports that can be shared with others and enable team members to collaborate on them simultaneously.

Provide a clear path for customer questions to improve the shopping experience you offer. Intercom’s reporting is less focused on getting a fine-grained understanding of your team’s performance, and more on a nuanced understanding of customer behavior and engagement. It’s definitely something that both your agents and customers will feel equally comfortable using. While both Zendesk and Intercom offer the essentials, like ticketing, issue resolution, and automation, the devil’s in the details when it comes to which is best for your unique needs. Also, all of Hiver’s pricing plans come with a 7-day free trial, and no credit card is required to sign up for the trial. For standard reporting like response times, leads generated by source, bot performance, messages sent, and email deliverability, you’ll easily find all the metrics you need.

This is one of the best ways to qualify high-quality leads for your business and improve your chances of closing a sale faster. 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. 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.

Additionally, Zendesk’s extensive analytics and reporting capabilities help businesses tailor their services to elevate customer service experience and increase customer satisfaction. Overall, Zendesk’s extensive features and customization options make it a powerful choice for diverse business requirements. When comparing Zendesk and Intercom, Zendesk stands out with its robust and versatile customer support solutions. It offers a comprehensive platform for managing customer inquiries and support tickets across multiple channels, providing businesses with a powerful toolset for customer service management.

Moreover, agents can collaborate with other members or teams and get real-time updates about who is viewing a ticket at any given moment. Both platforms offer distinct strengths, catering to customer support and engagement aspects. However, compared to the more contemporary designs like Intercom’s, Zendesk’s UI may appear outdated, particularly in aspects such as chat widget and customization options. This could impact user experience and efficiency for new users grappling with its complexity​​​​​​. Zendesk and Intercom also both offer analytics and reporting capabilities that allow businesses to analyze and monitor customer agents’ productivity. As a result, companies can identify trends and areas for improvement, allowing them to continuously improve their support processes and provide better service to their customers.

These weaknesses are not as significant as the features and functionalities Zendesk offers its users. Zendesk and Intercom offer a free trial of 14 days, but you will eventually have to choose once the trial ends. The pricing strategies are covered below so you can analyze the pricing structure and select your customer service software. Intercom’s messaging platform is very similar to Zendesk’s dashboard, offering seamless integration of multiple channels in one place for managing customer interactions. Although Intercom offers an omnichannel messaging dashboard, it has slightly less functionality than Zendesk.

On the contrary, Intercom’s pricing is far less predictable and can cost hundreds/thousands of dollars per month. But this solution wins because it’s an all-in-one tool with a modern live chat widget, allowing you to improve your customer experiences easily. It has a more sophisticated user interface and a wide range of features, such as an in-app messenger, an email marketing tool, and an AI-powered chatbot. At the same time, Zendesk looks slightly outdated and can’t offer some features.

Zendesk stands out as a champion of delivering personalized customer support due to its easy-to-use work-frame, many useful add-ons, and features in all tiers. Though, you can sum up the price together with the Intercom sales team accurately if you contact them. Knowledge Base is one of the self-service sections that includes articles or documents providing technical help to customers and employees. To make a comparison of Zendesk vs Intercom knowledge base features is quite tricky. So, Intercom Articles will be opposed to Zendesk Suite – in that way the contrast is (more or less) fair. Gathering insights from customer reviews and testimonials offers a comprehensive understanding of the first-hand experiences of businesses using Zendesk and Intercom.

From handling multiple questions to avoiding dreaded customer-stuck loops, Aura AI is the Swiss Army Knife of customer service chatbots. It’s built for function over form — the layout is highly organized and clearly designed around ticket management. You get an immediate overview zendesk chat vs intercom of key metrics, such as ticket volume and agent performance as well as a summary of key customer data points. While most of Intercom’s ticketing features come with all plans, it’s most important AI features come at a higher cost, including its automated workflows.

When it comes to integrations, Zendesk and Intercom both offer diverse possibilities, but here, Zendesk takes the lead. Zendesk boasts an extensive array of integration options, with over 1,500 apps in its ecosystem. HubSpot and Salesforce are also available when support needs to work with marketing and sales teams. Intercom focuses on real-time customer messaging, while Zendesk provides a comprehensive suite for ticketing, knowledge base, and self-service support. By exploring their distinct offerings, we aim to assist businesses in making informed decisions when selecting a customer service platform. Freshdesk is a comprehensive customer support platform offering automation, self-service, and multi-channel support for businesses of all sizes.

First, you can only talk to the support team if you are a registered user. In this article, we comprehensively do a comparison of Zendesk vs Intercom, examining their key features, benefits, and industry use cases. By exploring their distinct offerings, we zendesk chat vs intercom aim to assist businesses in making informed decisions when selecting a customer service platform. Messagely’s pricing starts at just $29 per month, which includes live chat, targeted messages, shared inbox, mobile apps, and over 750 powerful integrations. Zendesk is a leading customer service software that offers a comprehensive suite of tools for businesses to manage customer support, engagement, and relationships. Its user-friendly interface, robust ticketing system, and extensive integration options make it popular for businesses seeking efficient customer service solutions.

Intercom’s CRM features include customer journey tracking, custom data parameters, and list segmentation, which are useful for targeted marketing and engagement. You can use these features to create custom funnels, segment users based on specific behaviors, and automate personalized communications. Today, amid the rise of omnichannel customer service, it offers a centralized location to manage interactions via email, live chat, social media, or voice calls. However, if you are looking for a robust messaging solution with customer support features, go for Intercom.

Intercom doesn’t have native voice capabilities and its voice integrations are minimal. Its reporting tools are less comprehensive than those offered by Zendesk putting the solutions Chat GPT on different levels. Additionally, Intercom is missing content management and publishing workflow capabilities in its knowledge base, though they do provide self-service options.

For a deeper insight into the functionality of Intercom and Zendesk Chat, explore the videos provided below. Review the video content to make an informed decision and select the option that best suits your needs. View the attached screenshots to easily evaluate the similarities and differences between Intercom and Zendesk Chat user interfaces. Experience the amazing capabilities of Intercom and Zendesk Chat on desktop and mobile devices for unparalleled productivity and flexibility. Evaluate your company’s criteria to determine which set of standards best matches your goals. Our mission is to break apart what CRM is and means.Here we discuss anything that helps create more meaningful lasting work relationships.

Examining the roadmap of both platforms helps businesses envision how their customer support needs can align with the evolving market trends and technological innovations. Optimizing the utilization of Zendesk and Intercom involves implementing effective strategies and best practices. Providing actionable tips for businesses to maximize the potential of these platforms enables them to leverage advanced functionalities and enhance their overall customer support operations. On the other hand, Intercom has all its (fewer) tools and features integrated with each other way better, which makes your experience with the tool as smooth as silk. Intercom calculates the price based on the number of seats (users) you request.

This feature enables support agents to proactively engage with customers and provide assistance. Intercom provides an extensive range of automation tools and workflows, allowing businesses to automate repetitive tasks and streamline their customer support processes. In contrast, while Zendesk does offer some automation capabilities, it may not be as robust and customizable as Intercom. Help desk SaaS is how you manage general customer communication and for handling customer questions. Zendesk has more pricing options, and its most affordable plan is likely cheaper than Intercom’s, although without exact Intercom numbers, it is not easy to truly know the cost.

In the dynamic landscape of customer support platforms, choosing between Zendesk and Intercom depends on various factors such as budget, specific business requirements, and long-term goals. Businesses should carefully evaluate their needs and consider scalability, user-friendliness, and integration capabilities before deciding on the platform that best suits their requirements. Zendesk’s pricing offers a range of plans, including a tiered https://chat.openai.com/ model with different levels of features and capabilities. While the pricing can be flexible, it may become more costly as your organization’s requirements and usage increase. ThriveDesk is a help desk software tailor-made for businesses seeking extensive features and a powerful yet simple live chat assistant. Even better, it’s the most cost-effective, lightweight, and speedy live chat solution available for Shopify business owners.

These shared inboxes facilitate seamless customer interactions across multiple channels, ensuring that teams can collaborate efficiently and maintain consistent, top-notch support. Zendesk and Intercom are prominent players in the field of customer support and engagement platforms, each offering unique capabilities and advantages to address varying user requirements. Yes, you can replace Zendesk with Intercom as both customer support platforms have a rich set of features and integrations. The Intercom vs. Zendesk pricing may be justified by the value-added services and minor features that they have for their all-in-one pricing. For example, for businesses that want just a couple of features, there are subscription packages. Each of such packages contains a set of tools from basic to advanced features.

Sometimes, businesses do not even realize the importance of various aspects you must consider while making this choice. 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. Their AI-powered chatbot can enable your business to boost engagement and improve marketing efforts in real-time. It introduces shared inboxes tailored for different teams, such as sales, marketing, and customer success.

Intercom, on the other hand, was built for business messaging, so communication is one of their strong suits. Combine that with their prowess in automation and sales solutions, and you’ve got a really strong product that can handle myriad customer relationship needs. However, the latter is more of a support and ticketing solution, while Intercom is CRM functionality-oriented.

Users can customize Kayako’s shared inbox interface to match agent preferences. A helpdesk solution’s user experience and interface are crucial in ensuring efficient and intuitive customer support. Let’s evaluate the user experience and interface of both Zendesk and Intercom, considering factors such as ease of navigation, customization options, and overall intuitiveness. We will also consider customer feedback and reviews to provide insights into the usability of each platform.

Is Zendesk better than Intercom? Our final points

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. Similarly, read the terms carefully for information on hidden fees, such as, setup cost, separate helpdesk support, upgrade fees, storage fees, and other similar charges. With a very streamlined design, Intercom’s interface is far better than many alternatives, including Zendesk. It has a very intuitive design that goes far beyond its platform and into its articles, product guides, and even its illustrations.

You can foun additiona information about ai customer service and artificial intelligence and NLP. The comparison of whether Intercom is better than Zendesk depends on your specific customer support and engagement needs and objectives. If you seek to enhance customer engagement through chat-based support, in-app messaging, and proactive outreach, Intercom may be the superior option. Zendesk and Intercom are tailored to enhance your customer support and engagement, providing robust tools for managing customer inquiries, automating responses, and facilitating communication. Intercom’s CRM can work as a standalone CRM and requires no additional service to operate robustly. In the dynamic landscape of customer service, the evolution of chatbot integration has become increasingly pivotal.

Her favorite topics include career development, productivity, and email marketing. Our Intercom vs. Zendesk comparison shows that both platforms share similarities in most of their services. However, depending on your business needs, one will offer more functionality than the other. Not only that, the platform offers granular reporting and analytics on performance and emerging trends. It eliminates the back-and-forth of switching between platforms like live chat. The in-app messenger on Intercom is well-integrated, unlike Zendesk, which requires expert configurations.

While both platforms offer email marketing tools, Zendesk’s email marketing features are more robust and comprehensive. Zendesk’s email marketing functionalities include advanced segmentation options, powerful automation tools, and detailed email tracking capabilities. These features empower businesses to create highly targeted and personalized email campaigns, ensuring efficient communication and nurturing of customer relationships. On the other hand, Intercom brings a dynamic approach to customer support. Its suite of tools goes beyond traditional ticketing and focuses on customer engagement and messaging automation. From in-app chat to personalized autoresponders, Intercom provides a unified experience across multiple channels, creating a support ecosystem that nurtures and converts leads.

If your business is established and you need to cut down on those ticket resolution times, Zendesk may be worth it. The only relief is that they do reach out to customers, but it gets too late. Zendesk uses its native Answer bot and leverages NLP to analyze customer inquiries. It then goes on to generate responses from its in-depth knowledge base content.

Discover the blueprint for exceptional customer experiences and unlock new pathways for business success. Handle conversations, manage tickets, and resolve issues quickly to improve your CSAT. Aura AI also excels in simplifying complex tasks by collecting data conversationally and automating intricate processes. When things get tricky, Aura AI smartly escalates the conversation to a human agent, ensuring that no customer is left frustrated.

With top-notch customer service, we enthusiastically recommend HappyFox for its AI-driven support solutions that unify every team and workflow. Startups, SMBs, and enterprises from across various industries rely on Zendesk to help elevate their customer experience. Intercom’s full CRM suite offers many different use cases, rather than focusing on customer service and support. Alternatives to Intercom, like Zendesk, were built specifically for the customer experience. Though HubSpot Service Hub includes features like a reporting dashboard, contact management, live chat, team email, and conversation routing, it has limitations. The support ticket and related email thread need to be closed independently, creating a disjointed experience.

• It’s Intercom VS Zendesk, the battle of two well-known software in the help desk category.
• Both tools can be quite heavy on your budget since they mainly target big enterprises and don’t offer their full toolset at an affordable price.
• Zendesk also has an Answer Bot, which instantly takes your knowledge base game to the next level.

Features like macros, triggers, and automations allow businesses to create custom workflows tailored to their specific needs. 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. The highlight of Zendesk’s ticketing software is its omnichannel-ality (omnichannality?). Whether agents are facing customers via chat, email, social media, or good old-fashioned phone, they can keep it all confined to a single, easy-to-navigate dashboard.

Experience targeted communication with Intercom’s automation and segmentation features. Create personalized messages for specific customer segments, driving engagement and satisfaction. You get a dashboard that makes creating, tracking, and organizing tickets easy.

These pricing structures are flexible enough to cater to all business sizes and types. Moreover, the pricing model ensures customer transparency and reveals the costs that businesses will incur. The Suite Team plan, priced at $69 per agent, adds features like live chat and messaging, while the Suite Growth plan at $115 per agent introduces automation and advanced analytics. When comparing Zendesk and Intercom, it’s essential to understand their core features and their differences to choose the right solution for your customer support needs. These include ticketing, chatbots, and automation capabilities, to name just a few.Here’s a side-by-side comparison to help you identify the strengths and weaknesses of each platform. This live chat software allows companies, such as ours, to have real conversations with customers.

It’s Intercom VS Zendesk, the battle of two well-known software in the help desk category. If you have been wondering which to choose, Intercom or Zendesk, the good news is you aren’t alone. That’s true, businesses vary by industry, size, purposes, the software they need, a budget for that software, and the list can go on. Several decision-making factors, such as budget constraints, specific business requirements, and long-term goals, influence the choice between Zendesk and Intercom. Understanding these factors assists businesses in making a well-informed decision that aligns with their unique needs and objectives.

In addition, Intercom offers omnichannel inbox, robust reporting, and automated workflows. The bot feeds customers and employees the relevant articles upon making a query. This makes things faster for support teams to access information without bothering other users. LiveAgent offers social media integrations so agents can respond to customer interactions across various social media platforms. The help desk also has self-service options, including a knowledge base tool that helps customers complete common tasks on their own.

This is aided by the fact that the look and feel of Zendesk’s user interface are neat and minimal, with few cluttering features. 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. Easily reply to customer conversations and manage workload in a smart & automated way.

This eventually adds to overall business costs, so they carefully need to consider all plans and budgets before making a decision. The best help desks are also ticketing systems, which lets support reps create a support ticket out of issues that can then be tracked. When it comes to self-service portals for things like knowledgebases, Intercom has a useful set of resources. Intercom also has a community forum where users can help one another with questions and solutions. For Intercom’s pricing plan, on the other hand, there is much less information on their website. LiveAgent is a versatile help desk software designed to optimize customer support with features like ticket management, live chat, call center, and social media integration.

However, for more advanced CRM needs like lead management and sales forecasting, Intercom may not make the cut, unfortunately. What’s even cooler is its ability to use AI to forecast customer behavior. Agents can use this to anticipate and proactively address issues before the escalate, or even arise in the first place. It goes without saying that you can generate custom reports to hone in on particular areas of interest.