Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

Zoho Desk VS Intercom

Compare Zoho Desk VS Intercom and see what are their differences

Zoho Desk logo Zoho Desk

Industry's first context-aware Helpdesk Software
Visit Website

Intercom logo Intercom

Intercom is a customer relationship management and messaging tool for web businesses. Build relationships with users to create loyal customers.
  • Zoho Desk Landing page
    Landing page //
    2020-05-27

Zoho Desk is the award-winning, context-aware help desk software along with multichannel capabilities. Zoho Desk packs advanced multi-stakeholder process management, embeddable self-service, a powerful AI assistant, and brings together all the tools and context your teams need to deliver great customer service.

  • Intercom Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-07-05

Zoho Desk

Website
zoho.com
$ Details
freemium $12.0 / Annually ($12 USD/monthly on Annual Subscription.)
Platforms
Cloud Web iOS Android
Release Date
-

Intercom

$ Details
-
Platforms
-
Release Date
2011 January
Startup details
Country
United States
State
California
Founder(s)
Ciaran Lee
Employees
500 - 999

Zoho Desk features and specs

  • Omnichannel
    Email, Telephony, Social, Customer Portals, Web forms, Live chat
  • Zia - Artificial Intelligence
    With Zia, stay on top of every aspect of your customer service effort.
  • Embeddable Self-service
    With the ASAP plugin, embed customer self-service capabilities to your Website and Mobile Apps.
  • Multibrand Help Center
    Create a distinct self-service portal for each brand's customers.
  • Knowledge Base
    Create a repository of solutions for commonly asked questions.
  • Agent Productivity
    Collaborate, communicate, and secure those customer relationships
  • Automations
    Ticket Assignment, Workflow, Layouts, SLAs & Escalations.
  • Blueprint
    Manage complex cross-functional service processes efficiently.
  • Marketplace and Platform
    Use extensions to embed interactive widgets into the Zoho Desk interface.
  • Reports and Dashboards
    Use detailed reports and dashboard visualisations to monitor your team's performance.
  • Time Tracking
    Keep track of time spent on every ticket and task.
  • Security
    Balance between protecting customer data and giving your team enough flexibility
  • Developer Platform
    REST API, Widgets, Web and Mobile SDK, Custom Functions.
  • Mobile Apps
    With the Zoho Desk app for iOS and Android, agents can catch up, collaborate and provide top-notch customer support, wherever they are.

Intercom features and specs

  • User-friendly Interface
    Intercom offers an intuitive and easy-to-use interface, making it accessible to users with varying levels of technical expertise.
  • Comprehensive Customer Communication Tools
    It provides a suite of tools for live chat, email marketing, in-app messaging, and customer support, all of which can be accessed in one place.
  • Customization and Integration
    Intercom allows for extensive customization and integrates with various third-party applications, enabling businesses to tailor the platform to meet their specific needs.
  • Automation Capabilities
    The platform supports automated workflows, which can save time and ensure consistent customer interactions.
  • Customer Data Management
    Intercom collects and analyzes customer data, providing valuable insights into customer behavior and preferences that can inform business strategies.

Possible disadvantages of Intercom

  • Cost
    Intercom can be expensive, particularly for small businesses or startups. The pricing model is based on the number of users and features, which can add up quickly.
  • Complexity for Advanced Features
    While basic features are user-friendly, some of the more advanced functionalities can be complex and may require a steeper learning curve.
  • Limited Reporting
    The reporting and analytics features, while useful, are sometimes considered less comprehensive compared to specialized analytics platforms.
  • Customer Support
    Some users have reported that Intercom's own customer support can be slow to respond, which can be frustrating when dealing with urgent issues.
  • Notification Overload
    The platform can generate a high volume of notifications, which can be overwhelming and may require careful management to avoid interrupting workflow.

Analysis of Intercom

Overall verdict

  • Yes, Intercom is generally viewed as a good solution for businesses seeking to improve customer communication and support. Its robust features and flexibility make it a strong contender in the customer engagement space.

Why this product is good

  • Intercom is considered a good platform because it offers a comprehensive suite of tools for customer engagement. It integrates messaging, live chat, and help desk functionalities, providing a seamless experience for both users and customers. The platform is known for its user-friendly interface, customization options, and advanced integration capabilities with various third-party applications.

Recommended for

    Intercom is recommended for businesses of all sizes that wish to enhance their customer service and communication strategies. It is particularly beneficial for companies that want to offer personalized customer interactions through messaging, automate customer support processes, and gain insights from customer interactions. It's suitable for SaaS businesses, e-commerce platforms, and tech startups that prioritize customer experience.

Zoho Desk videos

Keep the spirit of customer centricity alive with Zoho

More videos:

  • Review - What is Zoho Desk? - An Overview
  • Review - Automate your customer service process with Zoho Desk
  • Review - Cutting Customer Service Time In Half By Implementing Zoho Desk
  • Review - Zoho Desk Delivers Significant Reliability Improvements For IT Company
  • Review - 5paisa delivers mobile-first customer service with Zoho Desk
  • Review - Zoho Desk Review: Okay for what it is
  • Tutorial - Zoho Desk Introduction To Tickets Tutorial - 2021

Intercom videos

Intercom Review & Tutorial - How to Use Intercom for Websites

More videos:

  • Review - Intercom Software Review, Engage, Respond, Educate
  • Review - BTI V6 1200m Bluetooth & Intercom Review

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Zoho Desk and Intercom)
Customer Support
22 22%
78% 78
Help Desk
40 40%
60% 60
CRM
0 0%
100% 100
Customer Service
100 100%
0% 0

User comments

Share your experience with using Zoho Desk and Intercom. For example, how are they different and which one is better?
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Reviews

These are some of the external sources and on-site user reviews we've used to compare Zoho Desk and Intercom

Zoho Desk Reviews

  1. Neha
    ยท Helpdesk Manager at Tagio ยท
    Excellent Ticketing software with clean interface

    What I like the most is that it really is very intuitive and easy to use. It helps to control the tracking of every ticket in a easy way. Also one can import its customers without any problem. It has many other tools that can be useful regardless the item which company is using on day to day basis. It can start a live chat with the user and can go straight creating a ticket from this internment. Ticket tracking and escalation matrix enables company to track and manages customer complaints on time.

    ๐Ÿ Competitors: Zendesk, Jira Service Desk, Vision Helpdesk
    ๐Ÿ‘ Pros:    Easy user interface|Multiple channels|Knowledge base|Customer support|Highly customizable
    ๐Ÿ‘Ž Cons:    Need more image manipulation feature
  2. Kassy
    ยท CXO at Filter Publications ยท
    April 2020 Inexpensive Customer Service Software

    Previous to using Zoho, we were managing all our CS in our email inbox. Items were getting lost or forgotten about and it was driving me crazy. Zoho has an excellent suite of products and this one is no exception! Easy to use (the basics at least). And, it's very inexpensive.

    ๐Ÿ Competitors: Zendesk, Salesforce Service Cloud
    ๐Ÿ‘ Pros:    Easy user interface|Great customer support|Highly customizable
    ๐Ÿ‘Ž Cons:    Few features are in beta
  3. Vincy Dahiya
    ยท Co-Founder at SMBCon ยท
    Vincy Dahiya

    Previous to using Zoho, we were managing all our CS in our email inbox. We used Zoho Desk when starting out when we needed a way to manage customer support outside of email. Zoho Desk is a basic customer support software - great that there is a free version for starting out.

    ๐Ÿ Competitors: Zendesk
    ๐Ÿ‘ Pros:    Easy to handel software setup|Easy to use interface|Automation and custom functions|24/7 support (chat and phone)

10 Best Freshdesk Alternatives for Businesses in 2024
Zoho Desk provides a centralized platform for handling customer queries, support tickets, and other related activities. Moreover, integrating Zoho Desk with your customer service can streamline your customer service operations.
Top 11 Freshdesk Alternatives for 2024 (Ranked & Rated)
If you're considering Zoho Desk, you might want to take a look at our run-through of the best Zoho Desk alternatives, and see whether it's right for you.
Top 13 Freshdesk alternatives and competitors for 2024
Zoho Desk is a cloud-based help desk solution. Zoho offers a wide range of products, including customer service, marketing, finance, IT, project management, and developer platforms. Because Zoho is a full-suite CRM and supports products for many use cases, you may not get the level of depth and expertise as you would with a best-in-breed CX solution.
Source: www.zendesk.com
11 Best Customer Service Software & Apps You Need in 2022
Zoho Desk is the omnichannel help desk software product of Zoho (which, by the way, has a CRM if youรขย€ย™re interested in that too). Itรขย€ย™s used by more than 50,000 businesses worldwide. Zoho Desk is an ideal solution for large companies with a complicated structure, many products, and a high volume of support requests. One feature unique to this software is the ability to...
Source: krisp.ai
The Best Help Desk Software in 2020
Zoho Desk offers automated tasks, live chat, and an AI to help with various tasks, like speaking to customers over a call, sharing contextual data, and auto-tagging. It also offers social media integration (so you can keep track of potential support situations all from the help desk interface). Zoho also offers a consolidated interface that holds all communication associated...
Source: www.jitbit.com

Intercom Reviews

  1. Eleanor Bennett
    ยท Digital Marketing Specialist at Logit.io ยท
    An essential communication tool

    Intercom provides a lot of value to us. From live chat to email marketing and even helping us to create support documentation, Intercom handles a lot of key moving parts that are essential to keeping customers happy.


9 Best Tidio Alternatives Compared
Intercom is a customer engagement platform that serves mostly large and enterprise businesses. The software is known for its versatility, offering live chat, messaging, and in-app support, combined with advanced automation, AI bots, and customer data tracking.
Source: www.tidio.com
10 Best Freshdesk Alternatives for Businesses in 2024
Intercom is an alternative that excels in self-service support. It enables businesses to communicate and engage with their customers in real-time.
Top 11 Freshdesk Alternatives for 2024 (Ranked & Rated)
Intercom provides a useful suite of tools designed to improve your customer engagement. As a Freshdesk alternative, Intercom ticks several boxes when it comes to features:
9 Best ManyChat Alternatives & Competitors in 2024
Intercomโ€™s main features are its helpdesk interfaces and chatbots. But it also includes lead qualification and nurturing functionalities. It offers product tours and resolution bots that can solve many customer concerns at once, freeing your repsโ€™ time for the most complex queries. You can also make use of its Messenger integration and a provided chatbot to improve your...
Source: www.tidio.com
Top 13 Freshdesk alternatives and competitors for 2024
Intercom offers customer service software while also extending its platform to marketing and sales. Intercom is a newer platform to the CX market and has adopted AI and automation capabilities to keep up with business trends. Intercom features Intercom Messenger, a communication tool that provides customers with self-service or live support options.
Source: www.zendesk.com

Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, Intercom should be more popular than Zoho Desk. It has been mentiond 7 times since March 2021. We are tracking product recommendations and mentions on various public social media platforms and blogs. They can help you identify which product is more popular and what people think of it.

Zoho Desk mentions (1)

Intercom mentions (7)

  • Enhancing Customer Support with a Live Chat Widget on Your Website
    Intercom: Famous for its conversational marketing focus, Intercomโ€™s live chat widget offers features like proactive messaging and lead qualification. It also supports deep personalization for enhanced customer engagement. - Source: dev.to / 11 months ago
  • I started affiliate marketing, but with a twist
    Use chatbots to automate customer service: Chatbots use natural language processing to communicate with customers and answer their questions. By integrating chatbots into your affiliate marketing strategy, you can automate customer service and increase engagement with potential customers. This can lead to more sales and higher commissions. (Crisp, Intercom). Source: over 2 years ago
  • How to embed a web application into another website via API?
    I am trying to create an application that will work on a customer's website. Much like tawk.to or intercom.com. Source: over 3 years ago
  • Here's how I'd figure out the go-to-market for a Customer Support SaaS
    My way of doing marketing starts with figuring out what my overall project will (or will not) be. In this case, I looked at the vendors like Zendesk, Intercom, Freshdesk, or Help Scout. They all have whizbang features such as live-chat, collaboration stuffs, automations and workflows. They bill per contact and addons. Iโ€™d emphasize a straightforward, fuss-free angle instead. Source: over 3 years ago
  • Chat widget with react.js
    I wanted to know the best practices of developing a widget. So I went through the popular implementations of it. I liked Intercom's widget very much. It is written in React. I analyzed how it works. The minimal javascript is loaded async on the webpage. It is injecting an iframe with id intercom-frame. That iframe has a script in it's head with a source URl. Obviously it is React bundle. Source: over 3 years ago
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What are some alternatives?

When comparing Zoho Desk and Intercom, you can also consider the following products

Freshdesk - Freshdesk is a cloud-based customer support software that lets you support customers through traditional channels like phone and email, social channels like Facebook and Twitter, and your own branded community

Zendesk - Zendesk is a beautiful, lightweight help-desk solution.

LiveAgent - LiveAgent is a fully-featured live chat and help desk software with AI functions. It harnesses the power of a universal inbox, real-time live chat, built-in call center, and a robust customer service portal. Start your free 1 month trial today!

Drift - A messaging app that helps you grow your business.

HelpScout - Help Scout is a simple, straightforward way to provide excellent support

LiveChat - LiveChat - premium live chat software. Approach customers directly on the website, make connections and drive more sales using LiveChat.