If your company is looking for customer support software, you have likely heard of Intercom and Zendesk.
As two of the most popular and effective customer support solutions on the market, Intercom and Zendesk often compete head-to-head to win the business of companies like yours.
While both tools offer top-of-field feature sets that can simplify your customer support processes dramatically, identifying which is right for you can take time and effort.
We are here to help.
In this article, we will examine Intercom and Zendesk, compare their features and pricing, and detail the other considerations that can help you make the right choice for your business.
What is Intercom?
Intercom is a fully-featured customer support platform that provides powerful automation and AI tools to enable more efficient and effective customer engagement.
Founded in 2011, Intercom has quickly become one of the most versatile and comprehensive customer support tools on the market and they are showing no signs of slowing down.
What is Zendesk?
When it comes to customer support software, Zendesk is #1 in popularity and brand recognition.
Since 2007, Zendesk has been empowering businesses to provide top-of-field customer service and support experiences through access to a wide range of powerful tools and features that enhance and simplify customer communication.
Intercom vs. Zendesk: Feature Comparison
Intercom and Zendesk both offer comprehensive customer support solutions. Where they differ is focus and scope.
Intercom’s core focus is on customer engagement and real-time communication. It excels at live chat, in-app messaging, and email communications.
Zendesk on the other hand offers tools that support a wide variety of customer service functions including robust ticket management capabilities.
Let’s take a look at their key features and see how they stack up in a head-to-head comparison.
Ease-of-use
With any software tool, ease-of-use will be a big differentiator. For an area of focus as critical as customer support, it can mean the difference between a satisfied customer and a lost account.
- Intercom- Intercom is known for its user-friendly interface and quick and easy setup, making it a great choice for teams with varying levels of technical expertise.
Intercom is also easy to learn and its guided onboarding and training resources are especially helpful to new users.
- Zendesk- Zendesk’s technical difficulty will depend largely on how you choose to use it. With such a wide range of tools and use cases, Zendesk can be a bit intimidating to approach at first.
That said, once you have Zendesk up and running and your team is familiar with it, operation becomes a breeze.
Winner — Intercom wins this round. Its tight focus on customer support keeps things simple, especially when people are learning the software.
Ticketing
A lot can be gleaned from a customer support tool’s ticketing features. These features help support reps manage and organize support requests and ongoing communications so they are vital tools that will be used every day.
- Intercom- Intercom’s ticketing system is built around conversational engagement and collaboration.
Support requests are managed as ongoing conversations rather than tickets which are shared via a unified inbox allowing multiple team members to share knowledge and solutions.
- Zendesk- Zendesk’s ticketing system takes a traditional approach whereby support requests are managed as individual tickets. Each ticket represents a customer request or issue and can be assigned, prioritized, and tracked accordingly.
Winner — Zendesk takes this one. Zendesk’s tried and true approach to ticketing is both familiar and effective.
Chat tools
Chat tools are the foundation of customer support software in 2023 and can serve as a key differentiator when choosing the right vendor.
- Intercom- Intercom is well-known for its real-time, live chat functionality, which allows businesses to engage with customers directly.
What really sets them apart is the quality of their custom workflow builder that enables support leaders to create rules that route chats to the right agents based on criteria they set such as user behavior or topic.
- Zendesk- When it comes to live chat for customer support, Zendesk takes a broad, multichannel approach that allows them to communicate with customers however and wherever they prefer.
Winner — Intercom edges out Zendesk here due mainly to its customizable workflow capabilities. Few customer support tools can match Intercom in this regard.
Reporting
Reporting tools are essential to helping support leaders analyze and improve their customer support operations.
- Intercom- Intercom’s reporting tools focus mainly on providing detailed insights into chat and messaging interactions.
Support leaders can track metrics such as FRT (first response time), conversation volume, and CSAT (customer satisfaction score).
This approach aligns well with Intercom’s emphasis on direct customer communication.
- Zendesk- Zendesk takes a ticket-centric approach to reporting. Support leaders can track ticket volume and ticket status as well as more common support metrics like response and resolution times.
Zendesk also includes built-in CSAT and NPS (Net Promoter Score) surveys and even allows you to track the effectiveness of your knowledge base articles and self-service resources.
Winner — Zendesk wins the reporting round. While Intercom is great for tracking user-centric metrics, Zendesk can provide a more comprehensive look at overall customer support performance.
Pricing
When evaluating the cost of any software tool, you have to look beyond the price tag. ROI comes down to getting the most out of the features available, so payment structures that are scaleable and flexible are a must.
- Intercom- Intercom’s pricing plans start at $74/month, but the offering is limited to two users and has strict volume limits.
For $395/month the Pro tier allows up to 5 users and eliminates the volume restriction. This tier provides everything a small or medium-sized business will need, including better ticket management and advanced workflow automation tools.
- Zendesk- Zendesk’s pricing plans start at $55/month for up to 5 users and provide all the features a business needs to get started.
Their most popular tier (Suite Professional) is $115/month and includes a feature set that is very hard to beat at that price.
Winner — Zendesk wins the pricing comparison. Zendesk’s pricing is very competitive for the market and is presented in a straightforward way that makes predicting costs simple and accurate.
Intercom vs. Zendesk: Which is right for your business?
The fact of the matter is you can’t go wrong with either of these customer support toolsets. Both offer top-of-field features at a competitive price. So how do you decide which is right for you?
Intercom is right for...
For businesses that want to focus on simple and effective customer engagement, Intercom is an easy choice. It excels in real-time customer communication and helps support teams create personalized customer experiences.
- Ease-of-use- Intercom’s focus on customer communication makes it an easier tool to learn and implement than some of the other offerings in the field.
It doesn’t require a team of administrators to manage and its toolset is robust without being complex.
- Chat features- Intercom’s strength is its chat features. The ability to create custom workflows and rules for ticket routing helps support teams operate more efficiently and makes training and onboarding new support reps easier.
Zendesk is right for...
For businesses looking for a comprehensive customer service and support tool, Zendesk reigns supreme. Its feature offering is second to none and for growing companies, Zendesk scales as well or better than any other customer support platform on the market.
- Multi-channel support- Zendesk helps companies support their customers across a variety of communication channels, including:
- Phone
- Live-chat
- Social media
This multichannel approach is especially important for companies that support customers in different regions and countries as access to communication tools can vary.
- Support resources- Zendesk boasts a large library of support articles, guides, and webinars to help businesses get the most out of the platform.
Whether it’s Intercom or Zendesk, FreeAgent has you covered
FreeAgent CRM integrates with the industry’s top tools to offer a complete work management solution for your business. That means whichever customer support software solution is right for you, FreeAgent has you covered. Plus, FreeAgent is:
- Easy to use- FreeAgent’s modern user interface is quick to learn and easy to use, encouraging teams to work within the platform, driving up adoption and aligning your work processes.
- User-configurable- With FreeAgent, the power is in your hands. You can customize and personalize FreeAgent to fit the specific needs of your business and teams without external support.
- Flexible and adaptable- FreeAgent’s robust toolset and extensive integration library supports teams and businesses of all types and structures. Whatever challenge you face, FreeAgent can help.
To see FreeAgent in action, get a demo, and discover for yourself how we are leading the way to a better workday.
