9 Spokes vs. Zendesk Explore

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
9 Spokes
Score 10.0 out of 10
N/A
9 Spokes is a smart dashboard that is designed to help companies see their business more clearly. Key metrics across essential areas of the user’s business are displayed in one place, revealing exactly how it's performing. The vendor’s value proposition is that 9 Spokes makes it easier for companies to make the right calls to manage or grow their business. According to the vendor, key benefits for SMEs include: One smart dashboard for your cloud business apps…N/A
Zendesk Explore
Score 8.4 out of 10
N/A
Zendesk offers Explore, a business intelligence and customer analytics tool which integrates with the Zendesk suite featuring ticket analytics, custom fields, dashboards, and other features. Zendesk is migrating customers of the BIME analytics product, which is approaching end of support, to Zendesk Explore in 2019.N/A
Pricing
9 SpokesZendesk Explore
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
9 SpokesZendesk Explore
Free Trial
YesNo
Free/Freemium Version
YesNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details9 Spokes is free to use - that’s joining, using the smart dashboard and connecting your apps to it. You'll only pay for any new apps you decide to purchase, but you can trial most of the app recommendations for free! If you want to purchase an app, we'll direct you to the app's website so you can sign up with them. If you sign up to a plan, you'll pay the apps directly and then you can connect the app to your dashboard.
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
9 SpokesZendesk Explore
Considered Both Products
9 Spokes
Chose 9 Spokes
I actually chose QuickBooks (currently using) and Method (used for a month) before deciding that 9 Spokes is just good for looking at a few apps in one place. I'll keep checking back with them to see if they have improved. I wouldn't be surprised if 9 Spokes improves their …
Zendesk Explore
Chose Zendesk Explore
Zendesk Explore stands out against Freshchat and Freshdesk for it's deeper analytics capabilities and seamless integration with Zendesk ecosystem. While Freshdesk offers reporting, it lacks on the same level of granular insights and customization that Zendesk Explore provides. …
Chose Zendesk Explore
I selected Zendesk Explore only to provide an easy and quick access for my managers and supervisors regading metrics and volume trends. Is not the most flexible nor complete data visualization tool, but works well for day-to-day follow ups.
You need to use another tool if you …
Chose Zendesk Explore
N/A - the company had already implemented Zendesk Explore when I was hired.
Chose Zendesk Explore
What's good with Zendesk Explore is that data is already provided since it's included in the package. We get the data from Zendesk Support and make a report in Zendesk Explore.

It provides suggested templates and report formats also which you don't get on the other platforms. …
Chose Zendesk Explore
Zendesk Explore is more user friendly and the software plus maintenance cost is less. The report section is more detailed and no lag while creating report for a large data source. The report segments and formats are editable which make it more convenient to make a report …
Chose Zendesk Explore
We tried other reporting and Zendesk Explore was by far the best as it was already implemented into our support system we were already using; Zendesk. The main selling point for us, is that all of the reports are customizable and that no coding knowledge is needed to build out …
Chose Zendesk Explore
Zendesk Explore is better than Freshservice Analytics. In Freshservice, even though the interface is more attractive, the functions are not as good as Zendesk Explore. Reports and dashboards are hard to build, and the materials to learn are not as good as the materials on …
Chose Zendesk Explore
For support data, we have only used Explore because it came with our ZenDesk membership. So I can't speak to other solutions! That said, it's awesome to have Knowledge Base and support data in one place.
Features
9 SpokesZendesk Explore
BI Standard Reporting
Comparison of BI Standard Reporting features of Product A and Product B
9 Spokes
9.0
Ratings
10% above category average
Zendesk Explore
9.0
Ratings
10% above category average
Customizable dashboards9.00 Ratings9.00 Ratings
Pixel Perfect reports00 Ratings7.90 Ratings
Report Formatting Templates00 Ratings9.90 Ratings
Ad-hoc Reporting
Comparison of Ad-hoc Reporting features of Product A and Product B
9 Spokes
7.0
Ratings
14% below category average
Zendesk Explore
6.8
Ratings
16% below category average
Drill-down analysis7.00 Ratings10.00 Ratings
Formatting capabilities00 Ratings5.20 Ratings
Integration with R or other statistical packages00 Ratings4.80 Ratings
Report sharing and collaboration00 Ratings7.10 Ratings
Data Discovery and Visualization
Comparison of Data Discovery and Visualization features of Product A and Product B
9 Spokes
10.0
Ratings
22% above category average
Zendesk Explore
7.2
Ratings
10% below category average
Pre-built visualization formats (heatmaps, scatter plots etc.)10.00 Ratings6.60 Ratings
Location Analytics / Geographic Visualization00 Ratings7.10 Ratings
Predictive Analytics00 Ratings5.50 Ratings
Pattern Recognition and Data Mining00 Ratings9.40 Ratings
Access Control and Security
Comparison of Access Control and Security features of Product A and Product B
9 Spokes
9.0
Ratings
6% above category average
Zendesk Explore
7.4
Ratings
14% below category average
Multi-User Support (named login)9.00 Ratings8.10 Ratings
Role-Based Security Model00 Ratings8.10 Ratings
Multiple Access Permission Levels (Create, Read, Delete)00 Ratings6.00 Ratings
Report-Level Access Control00 Ratings8.60 Ratings
Single Sign-On (SSO)00 Ratings6.10 Ratings
Mobile Capabilities
Comparison of Mobile Capabilities features of Product A and Product B
9 Spokes
8.0
Ratings
3% above category average
Zendesk Explore
7.8
Ratings
1% above category average
Responsive Design for Web Access6.00 Ratings6.10 Ratings
Dashboard / Report / Visualization Interactivity on Mobile10.00 Ratings9.00 Ratings
Mobile Application00 Ratings8.30 Ratings
Report Output and Scheduling
Comparison of Report Output and Scheduling features of Product A and Product B
9 Spokes
-
Ratings
Zendesk Explore
7.8
Ratings
5% below category average
Publish to Web00 Ratings6.90 Ratings
Publish to PDF00 Ratings6.10 Ratings
Report Versioning00 Ratings9.00 Ratings
Report Delivery Scheduling00 Ratings8.90 Ratings
Delivery to Remote Servers00 Ratings8.00 Ratings
Application Program Interfaces (APIs) / Embedding
Comparison of Application Program Interfaces (APIs) / Embedding features of Product A and Product B
9 Spokes
-
Ratings
Zendesk Explore
4.9
Ratings
45% below category average
REST API00 Ratings3.20 Ratings
Javascript API00 Ratings5.10 Ratings
iFrames00 Ratings6.00 Ratings
Java API00 Ratings5.00 Ratings
Themeable User Interface (UI)00 Ratings6.90 Ratings
Customizable Platform (Open Source)00 Ratings3.20 Ratings
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9 SpokesZendesk Explore
Small Businesses
Yellowfin
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Score 8.6 out of 10
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Score 8.6 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Reveal
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Score 10.0 out of 10
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Score 10.0 out of 10
Enterprises
Kyvos Semantic Layer
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Score 9.5 out of 10
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Score 9.5 out of 10
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User Ratings
9 SpokesZendesk Explore
Likelihood to Recommend
7.0
(0 ratings)
10.0
(0 ratings)
Usability
-
(0 ratings)
8.0
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
5.0
(0 ratings)
10.0
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
9 SpokesZendesk Explore
Likelihood to Recommend
Good for letting your investors, employees and others know at a glance how your company is doing. The interface is clean and organized well. I just wish more of the app's functionality was available for testing and implementation. "Coming soon" is not really encouraging when we already have been waiting for a year or more.
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Compared to other analytics functions of other Ticket Management System, Zendesk Explore is the easiest to learn. Moreover, the learning curve is high. Once you pick up the fundamentals, you will be able to create all types of analytic reports. In addition, if you know basic coding or SQL, you can create your own metrics and attributes to capture extremely specific elements such as the tickets that contain a certain word or etc.
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Pros
  • Grouping several apps in one place for easy viewing.
  • Clean dashboard interface that looks uncluttered when viewing several apps at once.
  • Setting up the apps is a breeze when the platform supports them.
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  • As with most "suite" products, if you already use other Zendesk features (Chat, Talk, etc), then Zendesk Explore adds an extra facet to the customer experience. The more we know about our clientele, the better we can understand/anticipate their needs.
  • I like that we can get as in-depth as we feel is necessary. For example, is just one customer having an issue? Or are many experiencing a similar problem? We can better rack this type of trend using Explore.
  • Our team can dive deep into the data based on exactly what we're looking for. If the marketing team wants a certain kind of segment, we can give them that info. If we want to sort by date or another set of parameters, we can do that as well.
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Cons
  • Integration with apps that are listed. Some of them are not supported yet and it seems the wait is taking longer than I'd like.
  • iPhone support. It would be nice to have this in the app store. Not available as of 04/25/2018.
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  • More detailed pieces of training on where to find datasets/queries.
  • Have demo reports to do live trainings; instead of watching videos.
  • Have a key as to what all of the datasets mean.
  • Have a pop-up that analyzes the data "looks like your csat dropped this week!" etc...
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Usability
No answers on this topic
I rate Zendesk Explore 8 out of 10 for it's overall usability because it offers powerful reporting and analytics with an easy to navigate interface and intuitive dashboards. It helps improve customer satisfaction by providing valuable insights into ticket handling, agent performance and customer satisfaction. Though the complex query builder can be challenging for non technical users.
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Support Rating
Support was helpful in the beginning but no longer needed because I didn't use the software as much. The experience that I did have with support was very friendly but not enough to give a good review. If the support team was called for initial setup, video chat or messenger app was used.
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Zendesk Community is extremely useful for Zendesk Explore beginners. The live support provided by Zendesk will also help a lot. If you don't know anything you can ask live support right away. However, one drawback of Zendesk Community and Support is the creation of complex reports on Zendesk Explore. Zendesk Community and Support cannot really help you much if you are trying to build a complex report as they are not a complete expert on it as well.
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Alternatives Considered
I actually chose QuickBooks (currently using) and Method (used for a month) before deciding that 9 Spokes is just good for looking at a few apps in one place. I'll keep checking back with them to see if they have improved. I wouldn't be surprised if 9 Spokes improves their product within the next 6-12 months.
Read full review
Zendesk Explore stands out against Freshchat and Freshdesk for it's deeper analytics capabilities and seamless integration with Zendesk ecosystem. While Freshdesk offers reporting, it lacks on the same level of granular insights and customization that Zendesk Explore provides. Compared to Freshchat which focuses more on live chat and conversational analytics Zendesk Explore excels in historical trend analysis and comprehensive dashboarding. We choose Zendesk Explore for it's robust reporting and drill down capabilities.
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Return on Investment
No answers on this topic
  • Positive impact of around 5 hours/week in Dashboard building and visualization
  • 10 hours from Product to review dashboards and find potential patterns
  • Enabler to find opportunities based on agents´ occupancy rates
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ScreenShots

9 Spokes Screenshots

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