When trying to find buyer assist instruments, Zendesk typically involves thoughts first. It is a well-known platform with many options. Nevertheless, it is not all the time your best option for each staff.
Two foremost considerations come up with Zendesk: value and setup time. Zendesk’s entry-level plan is dear in comparison with different choices out there, and getting Zendesk prepared to be used might be time-consuming and sophisticated (some organizations report that it takes a number of months to undergo all of the wanted steps to set it up correctly).
These components recommend Zendesk won’t profit all assist groups, particularly these with restricted budgets or these needing to get began rapidly. With that being the case, many groups search for options that higher match their wants and sources.
The 13 greatest Zendesk options and rivals
Under, we take a look at the most effective Zendesk options, checklist their key options, and supply some perception into what kinds of groups every Zendesk competitor works greatest for.
Assist Scout
Zoho Desk
Freshdesk
Gorgias
HubSpot Service Hub
Entrance
HappyFox
Intercom
Hiver
Jira Service Administration
Dixa
Salesforce Service Cloud
Missive
There’s some overlap of options and performance with these instruments, however most have nuances that make them higher fitted to sure use instances.
1. Assist Scout
Finest different to Zendesk for rising groups.
Assist Scout is a whole buyer assist platform constructed with each the shopper and the agent expertise in thoughts. An intuitive, user-friendly interface means the educational curve for utilizing Assist Scout is minimal: You’ll be up and operating in a matter of hours and be an professional by the tip of week one. If you join Assist Scout, you get entry to a feature-rich platform with quite a lot of highly effective buyer assist instruments.
All your channels, multi function place
Create a number of shared staff mailboxes to handle your buyer conversations throughout all of your favourite channels — electronic mail, chat, and social. Shared inbox options like non-public notes let your staff alternate details about the dialog earlier than replying to clients, and real-time collision detection prevents a number of staff members from engaged on or replying to the identical request.
Create a database of saved replies to make answering routine buyer requests a breeze, or arrange workflows to extend productiveness and effectivity by robotically doing issues like assigning conversations to particular groups or brokers. Buyer profiles present your staff with the context they should ship personalised customer support experiences, and tags and customized fields show you how to preserve every part organized.
Assist them assist themselves
Analysis reveals clients need to be empowered to search out solutions on their very own, and making a customer-facing data base is a good way to try this. With Docs, you possibly can create a custom-made assist middle that makes it straightforward for purchasers to search out the data they want after they want it.
Supported by people, enhanced by AI
Assist Scout’s customer-first method to AI options offers your staff the instruments to assist clients extra effectively, releasing up their time for extra complicated and beneficial duties.
AI summarize helps your staff stand up to hurry on lengthy dialog threads quick, whereas AI help acts as a associate and supplies writing help. Use AI help in dialog, chat, Messages, and Docs editors to assist with spelling and grammar checks, size or tone adjustments, or copy translation in case you assist individuals in multiple nation.
AI drafts offers your staff a head begin on each reply through the use of generative AI, previous conversations, and the content material of your Docs web site to assist draft responses to incoming emails. Merely learn the AI draft, edit as mandatory, and hit ship.
Join with clients on the proper place and the suitable time
Assist Scout’s Beacon permits you to join with clients when and the place they want you probably the most. Merely set up our messaging widget on any web page of your web site or inside your app to supply prompt entry to buyer assist. Your customers can simply attain out to your assist staff by way of reside chat or entry a data base article all from inside your buyer expertise.
However communication isn’t only a one-way road — Beacon additionally lets your online business attain out to clients proactively. Launch a chat window or floor a assist doc throughout tough locations within the buyer journey, place a banner in your web site to announce a brand new characteristic, and even ship out a survey to seize buyer suggestions. It’s all doable utilizing Beacon’s concentrating on options, which let you dial in in your viewers utilizing occasions like URL visited, time on web page, and extra.
Analytics so that you don’t must guess
Assist Scout comes loaded with pre-built dashboards — decreasing admin work — so you possibly can see how your staff performs from day one. See what occasions of day are busiest, frequent causes for buyer queries, CSAT outcomes, and which communication channels are hottest along with your clients.
You too can create customized views to refine stories to evaluate development and concentrate on the metrics you care about most. If you wish to do much more along with your information, you should utilize our API or Fivetran to connect with the enterprise intelligence software of your selecting.
Right here to assist you so you possibly can assist them
Together with our strong instruments, we additionally supply 24/6 assist supplied by our clients staff. We’ve an in depth assist middle, free sources and weblog content material, and reside courses hosted by Assist Scout consultants, all so you’ve got every part you’ll want to assist your clients, day in and time out.
Fascinated by making the swap?
Lastly, Assist Scout understands the significance of holding your degree of assist excessive, even via intervals of change. The platform’s information migration capabilities simplify the method of bringing your present buyer information and dialog historical past with you in order that your staff all the time has the data required to supply your clients with an important assist expertise.
Worth: Free trial accessible. Plans begin at $22/person monthly.
2. Zoho Desk
Finest Zendesk different for groups that want a neighborhood discussion board.
Zoho might be greatest identified for its buyer relationship administration software to assist handle gross sales leads, but it surely additionally makes a buyer assist resolution. Zoho Desk has quite a lot of options like a shared inbox, telephone integration, and chat. Nevertheless, some options — like chat — are restricted to the highest-cost plan.
Zoho Desk additionally boasts a collection of integrations that companions the system with the remainder of your tech stack. For bigger groups, there are staff administration options you possibly can reap the benefits of, like time monitoring. They even supply AI choices equivalent to chatbots, sentiment evaluation, and ticket area and tag predictions.
A Zendesk characteristic that’s much less frequent with different customer support instruments is a neighborhood administration characteristic. Zoho Desk is without doubt one of the few all-in-one sort platforms that supply discussion board assist. Communities is usually a welcome boost to your self-service choices and may help your group construct higher buyer relationships.
Worth: Free trial and plan accessible. Paid plans begin at $7/person monthly. Plans with neighborhood boards begin at $14/person monthly. Study different instruments much like Zoho Desk.
3. Freshdesk
Finest different to Zendesk for bigger groups.
Freshdesk is the software that’s most much like Zendesk on this checklist. It boasts a shared inbox, it may handle buyer communications throughout a number of widespread channels, it has a customizable data base builder, and it may connect with different techniques utilizing apps in its market. Freshdesk additionally has different tried and true ticketing system options like workflow automations, CSAT surveys, round-robin ticket routing, and a cell app so you possibly can reply to clients even in case you’re not at a pc.
Like most customer support platforms available on the market, Freshdesk has AI know-how — known as Freddy AI — that may be added to your plan that will help you save time and scale back ticket quantity. Subscribers can buy any of those three provided AI add-ons: AI-powered chatbots, a assist agent assistant that may assist with duties like drafting replies or bettering agent-composed textual content, or AI-enhanced reporting options..
Worth: Free trial and plan accessible. Paid plans begin at $15/agent monthly. Buyer Service Suite plans begin at $29/agent monthly. Study different instruments much like Freshdesk.
4. Gorgias
Finest Zendesk different for ecommerce corporations.
If you join Gorgias, you get entry to a multi-channel shared inbox that you should utilize to handle channels like electronic mail, voice, social media, and reside chat. You too can create a assist middle to advertise self-service and use the platform’s reporting dashboards to assemble insights about your assist operations and measure enchancment.
Traditionally, the largest distinction between Gorgias and different assist desks has been its ecommerce integrations, significantly the Shopify connection. Via the combination, you possibly can see order particulars, edit orders, and even make refunds straight out of your assist desk, which might save your staff plenty of time. Lately, nonetheless, Zendesk (and plenty of of its rivals) additionally provides related performance.
One factor to bear in mind about Gorgias is that most of the platform’s automation, AI, and marketing campaign options require extra add-on charges on high of the common pricing plans.
Worth: Free trial accessible. Plans begin at $10 monthly. Study different instruments much like Gorgias.
5. HubSpot Service Hub
Finest Zendesk different for groups utilizing HubSpot as a CRM.
HubSpot is a recognizable brand and is well-known for its advertising and marketing and gross sales software program, but it surely additionally has a buyer assist providing known as HubSpot Service Hub. Service Hub is assist desk software program that features most traditional options like a shared inbox, reside chat, a data base builder, chatbots, buyer satisfaction surveys, workflow automations, and reporting dashboards to trace efficiency.
In the event you’re a HubSpot CRM person, it makes plenty of sense to maintain your customer support resolution within the household. You may join buyer profiles to Service Hub, giving your workers extra context and perception as they work via the queue.
Worth: Free plan accessible. Paid plans begin at $15/seat monthly. Study different instruments much like HubSpot.
6. Entrance
Finest Zendesk different for startups centered on account administration.
Whereas the power to handle private electronic mail alongside staff inboxes was the primary promoting level for the platform, Entrance has grown considerably over the previous few years and now provides many different options that make it get up as a stable different to Zendesk.
Entrance may help you handle a lot of the channels Zendesk provides, like electronic mail, reside chat, social, messaging, chatbots, voice, and a assist middle, although some channels require third-party integrations. Together with shared inbox capabilities, Entrance additionally has collaboration, automation, and AI options, which might make managing communications quicker and extra environment friendly.
Nevertheless, there are a number of areas the place Entrance’s choices aren’t as robust. As an example, its Starter plan doesn’t have any reporting options, not like the comparable Zendesk plan. Entrance can also be lacking CSAT assist on its base plan. Whereas Zendesk’s plan additionally lacks the potential, different choices on the checklist at an analogous value level embrace reporting, CSAT scores, and extra.
Worth: Plans begin at $19/seat monthly. Study different instruments much like Entrance.
7. HappyFox
Finest Zendesk different for groups wanting undertaking administration options.
HappyFox is a sort of mashup of assist desk and undertaking administration software program. It contains the same old suspects like a shared inbox, data base software program, and a few automation capabilities to assist scale back repetitive duties, however it may additionally create and assign duties and consider the ticket queue in a Kanban view for higher visualization of the tickets assigned throughout the staff.
HappyFox may also be an important selection for these within the IT business as a result of, along with ticketing and self-service instruments, there may be additionally an asset supervisor that can be utilized to maintain monitor of company-owned gadgets and gear, in addition to any points associated to them.
Together with its assist desk resolution, HappyFox additionally provides merchandise that assist reside chat, chatbots, and AI instruments. Nevertheless, all of those are thought-about separate functions and would should be bought independently of the assistance desk providing.
Worth: Free trial interval accessible. Plans begin at $9/agent monthly. Study different instruments much like HappyFox.
8. Intercom
Finest Zendesk different for enterprise groups centered on proactive engagement.
Intercom is a well-liked communications platform that has been a favourite of gross sales and advertising and marketing groups for years. Whereas its customer support choices was a bit on the tough aspect, the group has pivoted towards assist lately and has made huge enhancements.
In the case of assist wants — ticket administration options, collaborative instruments, channels provided, chatbot capabilities, AI performance, and main integrations supported — Intercom goes to really feel simply as highly effective as Zendesk. Nevertheless, Intercom’s strengths nonetheless shine brightest in the case of gross sales, advertising and marketing, and buyer success use instances. Particularly, its messenger-focused platform is superb for proactive engagement, buyer onboarding, and person segmentation.
The primary draw back to utilizing Intercom for non-enterprise corporations is the pricing construction. Whereas it’s rather more streamlined than it was, there are nonetheless plenty of add-ons and usage-based charges which are added to the month-to-month subscription. This makes it arduous to precisely predict month-to-month prices for individuals who need to use something however Intercom’s most simple options, which might be robust for smaller buyer assist groups that could be working with finances constraints.
Worth: Free trial accessible. Plans begin at $29/seat monthly. Study different instruments much like Intercom.
9. Hiver
Finest Zendesk different for Gmail customers.
In case your staff depends closely on Gmail and also you’re searching for an answer that may make dealing with assist inside that ecosystem extra tenable, then Hiver might be match. The customer support platform is basically a Gmail extension that allows you to entry shared inboxes, assign conversations, add tags, depart inner notes, and extra from inside your inbox window.
Along with electronic mail, Hiver additionally helps reside chat and has the power to publish data base articles. Among the higher-tiered plans additionally supply bots and AI options. One factor that’s totally different from different choices on the checklist is that CSAT and a lot of the different reporting options are additionally restricted to the upper plans.
Nevertheless, for these searching for a approach to dip their toes into increasing past Gmail or Google’s Collaborative Inbox, Hiver might be begin.
Worth: Free trial accessible. Plans begin at $19/person monthly. Study different instruments much like Hiver.
10. Jira Service Administration
Finest Zendesk different to make use of as a service desk.
Jira Service Administration is an effective decide for small to midsize corporations searching for a Zendesk different for IT assist. It has most of the similar assist instruments you’ll discover on most assist platforms, but it surely additionally has options like a buyer portal and incident and asset administration instruments that focus extra on IT companies.
The software program additionally integrates seamlessly with Jira, one other Atlassian product centered on undertaking administration. On condition that so many improvement and inner technical groups are used to working throughout the Jira ecosystem, Service Administration might have a gentler studying curve than a product like Zendesk.
Worth: Free trial and plan accessible. Paid plans begin at $17.65/agent monthly.
11. Dixa
Finest different to Zendesk for groups that use aspect conversations.
Dixa is a wonderful customer support software program software, with all channels (electronic mail, chat, social, voice, chatbot, and messenger app) natively constructed into the platform. It additionally provides a data base builder, AI options, and connectivity with loads of widespread software program like CRMs and ecommerce platforms.
For groups which have plenty of points that require staff effort, Dixa has a aspect conversations characteristic. With aspect conversations, you possibly can create an electronic mail or add an inner notice to a different celebration (distributors, companions, colleagues, and so on.) straight from throughout the dialog editor. Reaching out from inside Dixa ties the aspect dialog to the problem at hand in order that anybody in your staff can see the communication and decide up the place you left off if mandatory.
In case your staff depends on Zendesk’s aspect conversations characteristic, then Dixa might be different to your staff. Though Dixa doesn’t supply the power to create aspect Slack conversations like Zendesk, the e-mail performance remains to be fairly nice.
Worth: Plans begin at $39/agent monthly (minimal seven seats required).
12. Salesforce Service Cloud
Finest Zendesk different for companies providing area service.
Most individuals are in all probability conversant in Salesforce as a CRM, however additionally they make different enterprise options, together with a customer support providing known as Service Cloud. With Service Cloud, you possibly can present omnichannel assist, construct a data base, automate service with workflows, and reply clients extra rapidly with the assistance of their AI providing, Einstein.
The platform is a superb selection for groups already utilizing Salesforce as a CRM, but it surely’s additionally appropriate for corporations that supply on-site product assist. The software program has options particular to area service administration, together with dispatch and scheduling instruments, work order administration, and a cell app to assist your technicians within the area, even when Wi-Fi entry isn’t accessible.
Worth: Free trial accessible. Plans begin at $25/person monthly.
13. Missive
Finest Zendesk different for primary electronic mail assist.
Groups that need a easy, email-focused different to Zendesk for his or her buyer assist or gross sales groups would possibly need to look into Missive. The software program makes it straightforward to handle electronic mail collaboratively via using staff mailboxes, dialog assignments, and staff chat.
One other characteristic to assist make sure that you’re all the time placing your organization’s greatest foot ahead in an electronic mail is Missive’s collaborative writing characteristic. It permits you to work on an electronic mail draft as a staff and focus on the copy as you’re employed so you possibly can nail all the small print.
The corporate additionally helps reside chat and several other messaging channels, has activity administration options, and provides guidelines to assist automate your workflows. In case you have a subscription to Open AI, you can too use Missive’s integration so as to add AI drafting capabilities to your conversations.
Worth: Free plan accessible. Paid plans begin at $14/person monthly. Study different instruments much like Missive.
Selecting the best Zendesk competitor to your staff
Zendesk is a really complicated product with numerous advantages. For many who want all of its totally different options and have the money and time to get it up and operating, it may make life higher. Nevertheless, for extra agile groups, it comes with many challenges and should in the end find yourself being a complication.
The truth is that Zendesk is optimized to fulfill the wants of very massive groups at corporations with greater than 500 staff. For leaner, rising groups at SaaS, ecommerce, on-line companies, and DTC corporations, a number of Zendesk rivals might align extra carefully along with your wants.
Understanding your choices is an effective place to start out when searching for a brand new assist platform. Earlier than you make a selection, although, it’s useful to dive somewhat deeper.
To begin, ask your self these three questions:
What can I afford? Cash is a standard constraint for many groups. Creating a brief checklist based mostly on finances is a straightforward approach to slim choices and assess worth early in your search.
What options are non-negotiable? Make an inventory of all of the doable options you may want in a possible software, then undergo and mark that are “must have” vs. “good to have.”
What’s my timeline? Some instruments are straightforward to arrange, whereas others take extra time to implement. Ensure you contemplate how lengthy preliminary setup and coaching will take for any potential new software.
After answering these questions, your subsequent job is to slim your checklist to 2 to a few choices and do demos and trials of every. Fingers-on expertise may help you see what works greatest in a real-world atmosphere.
Additionally, since a number of kinds of roles — brokers, managers, and so on. — will use the software, it’s good to have individuals from every degree of your assist staff take a look at the ultimate contenders. That method, you guarantee the choice you select works nicely for everybody.
Past the software program’s options and performance, you should definitely try different features of every providing. Go to every software’s assist middle and ship an electronic mail to their assist staff to guage how they deal with buyer interactions. High quality of assist is usually a huge differentiator for service suppliers, particularly if all different issues are equal.
Deciding on the most effective different to Zendesk for you
There’s no denying that Zendesk makes an important product. In the event you’re a really huge staff with a fair larger finances, they could very nicely be the suitable choice for you. For everybody else, there’s in all probability an answer that will get you all of the options and performance you want with out breaking the financial institution.
Take the time to really dial into your wants and uncover which instruments you’ll want to tackle them. Discovering the suitable resolution is far simpler when these gadgets are nailed down. From there, it’s merely testing the choices and seeing what suits greatest.
For these with a concentrate on delighting clients, Assist Scout provides a free 15-day free trial (no bank card required) so you possibly can check out every part we’ve got to supply and see if we’re the suitable Zendesk different for you.