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Interactive Intelligence vs Zendesk comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 19, 2024

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

Interactive Intelligence
Ranking in CRM
50th
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.3
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Zendesk
Ranking in CRM
18th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
61
Ranking in other categories
CRM Customer Engagement Centers (6th), Help Desk Software (8th), IT Service Management (ITSM) (7th), Sales Force Automation (8th), Reporting (14th), Knowledge Management Software (4th), Community Platforms (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the CRM category, the mindshare of Interactive Intelligence is 0.6%, up from 0.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Zendesk is 1.2%, down from 1.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
CRM Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Zendesk1.2%
Interactive Intelligence0.6%
Other98.2%
CRM
 

Featured Reviews

Luis Teran - PeerSpot reviewer
Reliable with very good social media integration and easy to use
The deployment is a bit harder as you sometimes need help. For us, we have experience. It is not so hard, however, we have a dependency on the operative system, such as Microsoft with Windows Server 2019 or 2016. You must get that kind of system. Also, you need to get this updated and you have many dependencies that you have to work with. The deployment is easy, however, when you want to get the IDR or you want to get the integrations as you want them, you need to deal with so many dependencies with other platforms that it can get hard. That's what's hard with the solution. The solution itself is, of course, it's easy for us, for an engineer, however, for untrained people, that is hard. For the deployment, if the contact center is a large contact center, you must get four engineers or five engineers to do the deployment. Most of them will make the integration and the others will configure the IDR. Another will deploy the integration, and that's all. Of course, then, there will be the documentation you need to deal with.
JohanSkibdahl - PeerSpot reviewer
Automating customer support with advanced AI capabilities and seamless communication
Zendesk has been invaluable in automating communications such as email and phone calls. It allows us to handle more support cases with fewer people due to its advanced artificial intelligence capabilities. This intelligent tool can manage complex queries before users even realize they are interacting with a non-human. Additionally, we have integrated Zendesk with Datto and Klaviyo, enhancing our workflows.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"Interactive Intelligence is quite user friendly."
"The social media integration is excellent."
"It is very easy to connect back and forth between the requester and the person fulfilling the ticket."
"One of the most valuable features is the ease of use. If you take the standalone product, it is so easy to use, but if you want a tailor-made Zendesk Guide, you can't do it yourself. However, you can use a template that already exists—they have a lot, and they're very cheap, around 300-400 euros—and use it on all your brands. It's a very easy product to use."
"It is a scalable solution."
"It's very convenient to use."
"The most valuable feature is the trackability of incoming requests. The system keeps a comprehensive history of work requests, making it a useful tool for our internal processes."
"The feature to move over my customer experience team tickets for different specialists is very valuable for my team."
"We rarely had issues with Zendesk."
"I love how the tickets would auto-populate very quickly in Zendesk, especially when a call comes in."
 

Cons

"The problem with this current system is that the support is not great."
"The initial setup can be a bit difficult."
"Zendesk Guide could be improved by allowing us to put our assets in one location. What happens now for each article, for example, is we have to upload the images for that article to that location, so the image reuse is still not something that they have perfected. If they could allow us to update all the images in one location, and then pull the image from there, it would be easier when working on Multibrand projects. There are no Multibrand updates available—we have to update each brand manually. For my company, I have come up with an API tool which allows me to push the content to multiple brands together, but if you don't have something like that, you have to manually do it."
"I'm going to piggyback on what I said regarding Freshdesk concerning what could be better in Zendesk: incorporate more AI."
"If I write an article, and I have a team of 30 people, and they all have a Zendesk account, when I write an article, I send them an email. "Hey guys, I just wrote this article. It's one of the most popular topics this month on which we are not covered. Please check it and make sure that you include it in your resolutions". The issue is, once I send it to those 30 people, and they open it, the next morning, that article is the most popular article."
"The solution itself wasn't easy to set up."
"They have something called Zendesk Explore, which isn't as good as what they had in place previously."
"Sometimes if there was a way to just flag the actual issue out of those email chains - that would be really helpful."
"The solution could integrate better with QR codes from some websites such as Facebook."
"As per me, there arent much significant issues or areas for improvement with Zendesk, as my usage of it is limited. I appreciate its ability to organize tickets effectively based on tags, allowing me to easily gather and analyze customer feedback and requests."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"From what I hear, Zendesk's pricing is a little expensive."
"The price is very competitive."
"You have to pay extra for better support. So it's not only the license that you pay for, but you have to pay extra for the support as well."
"There are different plans that are offered. We are using the entry-level plan. The overall price of the solution should be reduced. The price is too high."
"We pay for the solution on a yearly basis and my understanding is that the cost is about $30,000. That's the cost for 24 to 25 agents."
"Zendesk's licensing is not cheap. For Enterprise, we are paying $200 per agent. It's a per-month cost, so it's pretty steep. There are some services you need to pay extra for. For example, with Zendesk Guide, we had to buy the most expensive offering in order to get Multibrand and everything. We also had to pay a lot of money for themes."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
No data available
Computer Software Company
22%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Performing Arts
6%
Financial Services Firm
5%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business29
Midsize Enterprise20
Large Enterprise11
 

Questions from the Community

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What do you like most about Zendesk Support?
I found the user experience with vendors on Zendesk to be straightforward, especially when it comes to understanding and searching for specific tickets. The search and navigation tools are easy to ...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Zendesk Support?
Zendesk's pricing is reasonable. It is not the cheapest solution nor the most expensive, but it provides value for money.
What needs improvement with Zendesk Support?
I'm going to piggyback on what I said regarding Freshdesk concerning what could be better in Zendesk: incorporate more AI. I know many CRM tools are already on the way to do that.
 

Also Known As

No data available
Zendesk Support, Zendesk Guide, Zendesk Sell
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

ABC Financial, AFAS Software, Quality Bicycle Products, CryptoLogic & WagerLogic, SERVOData, Shinsei Bank, TENAQUIP, MCAP, Visaya Knowledge Process Outsourcing Corporation, Allianz-Tiriac Asigurari, Memira
Mailchimp, Tesco, Vimeo, Instacart, Mediaocean, Slack, Uber
Find out what your peers are saying about Interactive Intelligence vs. Zendesk and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.
869,566 professionals have used our research since 2012.