10 Best Customer Portal Software Solutions in 2024

Zendesk excels with its AI-enhanced user experience and robust omnichannel support, making it ideal for businesses focused on customer service. On the other hand, Intercom shines with its advanced AI-driven automation and insightful analytics, perfect for those who value seamless communication and in-app messaging. Consider which features align best with your business needs to make the right choice. Zendesk offers your agents a unified workspace to collaborate on support tickets. This single window allows your team members to combine several channels for better efficiency and improved customer experience.

• Finally, you can pay $199 per month per user for unlimited sales pipelines and advanced reporting along with other features.
• If I had to describe Intercom’s help desk, I would say it’s rather a complementary tool to their chat tools.
• Overall, I actually liked Zendesk’s user experience better than Intercom’s in terms of its messaging dashboard.
• The company’s products are built with an emphasis on simplicity and usability.
• Zendesk’s automation is centered around streamlining ticket management by bringing together customer inquiries from various sources—email, phone, web, chat, and social media—into a single platform.

Agents can use basic automation (like auto-closing tickets or setting auto-responses), apply list organization to stay on top of their tasks, or set up triggers to keep tickets moving automatically. I tested both options (using Zendesk’s Suite Professional trial and Intercom’s Support trial) and found clearly defined differences between the two. Here’s what you need to know about Zendesk vs. Intercom as customer support and relationship management tools. Whether you’ve just started searching for a customer support tool or have been using one for a while, chances are you know about Zendesk and Intercom.

The future of customer service is integrated, AI-enhanced—and powered by Intercom

Our robust, no-code integrations enable you to adapt our software to new and growing use cases. Compared to Zendesk, Intercom offers few integrations, which may hinder its scalability. Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central brings customer experience to the forefront for small to medium-sized businesses. It integrates customer interactions across finance, sales, service and operations into one easy-to-use platform, making it simpler to deliver great service and make precise, data-driven decisions. HubSpot’s Service Hub enhances customer experience with AI-driven tools, offering a unified help desk and robust self-service options. It delivers clear efficiency reports alongside deep insights into customer health, helping teams make informed decisions to improve retention and streamline interactions.

Any business knows that the front desk is where everything happens. It’s where customers ask the questions that may result in the largest sales in your company’s history. Zendesk has more pricing options, which means you’re free to choose your tier from the get-go. With Intercom, you’ll have more customizable options with the enterprise versions of the software, but you’ll have fewer lower-tier choices. If you don’t plan on building a huge enterprise just yet, we have to give the edge to Zendesk when it comes to flexible pricing options. Given that both of these platforms seem aimed at one sort of market or another, it shouldn’t surprise you that we might find a few gaps in the sorts of services they provide.

Agents can easily view ongoing interactions, and take over from Aura AI at any moment if they feel intervention is needed. Our AI also accelerates query resolution by intelligently routing tickets and providing contextual information to agents in real-time. 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.

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Just keep in mind that, while Intercom’s upfront pricing may seem cheaper, there are additional costs to factor in. When factoring in AI-first tools for all agents, multi-channel campaigns, and proactive support, it could easily cost significantly more than Zendesk. You can then add features like advanced AI agents, workforce management, and QA. As the name suggests, it’s a more sales-oriented solution with robust contact and deal management tools as well. This organization is important because it brings together customer interactions from all channels in this one place.

You can even moderate user content to leverage your customer community. In a nutshell, none of the customer support software companies provide decent user assistance. Often, it’s a centralized platform for managing inquiries and issues from different channels. Let’s look at how help desk features are represented in our examinees’ solutions. Basically, if you have a complicated support process, go with Zendesk for its help desk functionality. If you’re a sales-oriented corporation, use Intercom for its automation options.

Say what you will, but Intercom’s design and overall user experience are leaving all its competitors far behind. It’s beautifully crafted and thought through, and their custom-made illustrations are just next level stuff. You can see their attention to detail in everything — from their tools to their website.

Whether it’s the platform’s security or response needed in times of crisis, Sprinklr’s Trust Center ensures you’re ever ready to combat any mishaps with stealth and precision. Yes, you can install the Messenger on your iOS or Android app so customers can get in touch from your mobile app. Honestly, when it comes to Zendesk, it is not the most modern tool out there. If I had to describe Intercom’s help desk, I would say it’s rather a complementary tool to their chat tools. It’s great, it’s convenient, it’s not nearly as advanced as the one by Zendesk. Leave your email below and a member of our team will personally get in touch to show you how Fullview can help you solve support tickets in half the time.

They offer an advanced feature for customer data management that goes beyond basic CRM stuff. It gives detailed contact profiles enriched by company data, behavioral data, conversation data, and other custom fields. Intercom is better for smaller companies that are looking for a simple and capable customer service platform. Instead, using it and setting it up is very easy, and very advanced chatbots and predictive tools are included to boost your customer service.

Whether you’re starting fresh with Intercom or migrating from Zendesk, set up is quick and easy. If you’re already using Intercom and want to continue using it as the front-end CRM experience, integrating with Zendesk can improve it. Yes, Zendesk has an Chat GPT Intercom integration that you can find in the Zendesk Marketplace—it’s free to install. So, you can get the best of both worlds without choosing between Intercom or Zendesk. You can foun additiona information about ai customer service and artificial intelligence and NLP. Check out our chart that compares the capabilities of Zendesk vs. Intercom.

For example, you can read in many Zendesk Sell reviews how adding sales tools benefits Zendesk Support users. You can contact the sales team if you’re just looking around, but you will not receive decent customer support unless you buy their service. Messagely’s pricing starts at just $29 per month, which includes live chat, targeted messages, shared inbox, mobile apps, and over 750 powerful integrations. However, you’ll likely end up paying more for Zendesk, and in-app messenger and other advanced customer communication tools will not be included. Its sales CRM software starts at $19 per month per user, but you’ll have to pay $49 to get Zapier integrations and $99 for Hubspot integrations.

When you switch from Zendesk, you can also create dynamic macros to speed up your response time to common queries, like feature requests and bug reports. If you’ve already set up macros in Zendesk just copy and paste them over. The cheapest (aka Essential) ‘All of Intercom’ package will cost you $136 per month, but if you only need their essential chat tools only, you can get them for $49 per month. With ThriveDesk, you can supercharge your website’s growth and streamline customer interactions like never before. Customers rated Intercom 4.4 on G2 Crowd, while Zendesk scored 4.3. This is not a huge difference; however, it does indicate that customers are generally more satisfied with Intercom’s offerings than Zendesk’s.

We give you 10 effective tips on how to handle customer complaints. However, for bulk imports into the knowledge base, you can’t upload everything at once; you have to upload content category by category. Customer experiences have made major strides in the past year or so, all owing to changing expectations and market conditions. On the other hand, building guided workflows on Sprinklr is a breeze, thanks to its no-code, drag-and-drop interface. You can design them once and seamlessly scale across different communities and languages.

The software allows agents to switch between tickets seamlessly, leading to better customer satisfaction. Whether an agent wants to transition from live chat to phone or email with a customer, it’s all possible on the same ticketing page. 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. 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. 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.

Zendesk vs Intercom: What are the real differences?

Unlike Zendesk, the prices for Intercom are based on the number of seats and contacts, with each plan tailored to each customer, meaning that the pricing can be quite flexible. This is especially helpful for smaller businesses that may not need a lot of features. 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.

It is none other than the modern customer support software of Helpwise. Although Zendesk isn’t hard to use, it’s not a perfectly smooth experience either. Users report feeling as though the interface is outdated and cluttered and complain about how long it takes to set up new features and customize existing ones. In this article, we’ll compare Zendesk vs Intercom to find out which is the right customer support tool for you. In comparison, Intercom’s reporting and analytics are limited in scope when it comes to consumer behavior metrics, custom reporting, and custom metrics.

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, https://chat.openai.com/ easy-to-navigate dashboard. That not only saves them the headache of having to constantly switch between dashboards while streamlining resolution processes—it also leads to better customer and agent experience overall.

It makes sure that you don’t miss a single inquiry by queuing tickets for agent handling. You can configure it to assign tickets using various methods, such as skills, load balancing, and round-robin to ensure efficient handling. In the process, it streamlines collaboration between team members as well as a unified interface to manage all help resources.

Its AI chatbots leverage machine learning to gain a deeper understanding of customer interactions. Conversely, Intercom has a shared inbox tool that routes conversations from every channel, including live chat, email, SMS, and more, into one place. However, it offers a limited channel scope compared to Zendesk, and users will have to get paid add-ons for channels like WhatsApp. On the other hand, Intercom enables agents to convert a conversation into a ticket with one click. This helps support teams to resolve customer issues without losing context. Your agents will love the seamless assistance Aura AI provides throughout the entire customer interaction.

With a multi-channel ticketing system, Zendesk Support helps you and your team to know exactly who you’re talking to and keep track of tickets throughout all channels without losing context. The setup is designed to seamlessly connect your customer support team with customers across all platforms. The customer support platform starts at just $5 per agent per month, which is a very basic customer support tool. If you want dashboard reporting and integrations, you’ll need to pay $19 per agent per month. Multilingual content and other advanced features come with a $49 price per agent per month. 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.

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 talk of a larger company. Like Zendesk, Intercom offers its Operator bot, which automatically suggests relevant articles to clients right in a chat widget. Your migrated tickets and conversations can be viewed in Help Desk, while users and organizations can be viewed in Contacts. Email notifications will be suspended automatically during the migration. This ensures your customers won’t receive email notifications from tickets they made in the past.

Intercom feels more wholesome and is more customer success oriented, but can be too costly for smaller companies. 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. When choosing between Zendesk and Intercom for your customer support needs, it’s essential to consider various factors that align with your business goals, operational requirements, and budget. Both platforms offer distinct strengths, catering to customer support and engagement aspects.

Let’s explore how Zendesk and Intercom stack up in terms of basic functionalities required by a helpdesk software. Experience the comprehensive power of Intercom for effective customer communication, automation, support tools, integrations, and analytics. You get a dashboard that makes creating, tracking, and organizing tickets easy. Designed for all kinds of businesses, from small startups to giant enterprises, it’s the secret weapon that keeps customers happy.

The app includes features like push notifications and real-time customer engagement — so businesses can respond quickly to customer inquiries. 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. 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.

• The app includes features like automated messages and conversation routing — so businesses can manage customer conversations more efficiently.
• With Messagely, you can increase your customer satisfaction and solve customers’ issues while they’re still visiting your site.
• It is now trusted by multiple Fortune 100 and Fortune 500 companies.
• The difference between the two is that the Professional subscription lacks some things like chat widget unbranding, custom agent roles, multiple help centers, etc.
• You’ll also need to choose a default team and teammate for when mappings aren’t possible.
• To make your ticket handling a breeze, Customerly offers an intuitive, all-in-one platform that consolidates customer inquiries from various channels into a unified inbox.

Zendesk is a much larger company than Intercom; it has over 170,000 customers, while Intercom has over 25,000. While this may seem like a positive for Zendesk, it’s important to consider that a larger company may not be as agile or responsive to customer zendesk intercom needs as a smaller company. This website is using a security service to protect itself from online attacks. There are several actions that could trigger this block including submitting a certain word or phrase, a SQL command or malformed data.

While there are some universal things to look out for, like the range of features, ease of use, and a seamless omnichannel experience, it’s also about your subjective experience. While both Zendesk and Intercom tick both those boxes, they each have their own distinct style. Zendesk’s Answer Bot is capable of helping customers with common queries by providing canned responses and links to relevant help articles. It relies on fairly basic automation while routing more complex issues to live agents. Furthermore, Intercom offers advanced automation features such as custom inbox rules, targeted messaging, and dynamic triggers based on customer segments. You can create articles, share them internally, group them for users, and assign them as responses for bots—all pretty standard fare.

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. This way, your clients will never have to repeat themselves or get frustrated because their new representative doesn’t know their background. However, if you’re looking for a streamlined, all-in-one messaging platform, there is no better option than Messagely. You don’t have to pay per contact on your database, and you there are many free features you can use.

Discover how to awe shoppers with stellar customer service during peak season. It’s definitely something that both your agents and customers will feel equally comfortable using. However, you won’t miss out on any of the essentials when it comes to live chat.

You can publish your knowledge base articles and divide them by categories and also integrate them with your messenger to accelerate the whole chat experience. Intercom is 4 years younger than Zendesk and has fancied itself as a messaging platform right from the beginning. Intercom lets businesses send their customers targeted in-app messages. On one hand, Zendesk offers a great many features, way more than Intercom, but it lacks in-app messenger and email marketing tools. 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.