Cisco Unified Contact Center vs. Zendesk Support Suite

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Cisco Unified Contact Center
Score 8.6 out of 10
N/A
Cisco Unified Contact Center is a contact center platform that can support up to 24,000 agents. It supports call routing, omnichannel integrations, and a management portal for creating customer profiles, segmentation, and resource monitoring.N/A
Zendesk Support Suite
Score 7.9 out of 10
N/A
The Zendesk Support suite is a cloud-based customer support software built for better customer relationships. Designed to improve customer satisfaction and to support customers on any channel: text SMS, web, mobile app, phone, email, social media. The vendor states more than 200,000 companies such as Uber, Groupon, Box, Airbnb, and Slack are using Zendesk to lower their support costs, raise productivity, and increase customer satisfaction. Zendesk offers a full suite of products to meet customer…
$19
per agent/month billed annually
Pricing
Cisco Unified Contact CenterZendesk Support Suite
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
Support Team (Foundational Support Only)
$19.00
per agent/month billed annually
Suite Team
$49.00
per agent/month billed annually
Suite Growth
$79.00
per agent/month billed annually
Suite Professional
$99.00
per agent/month billed annually
Suite Enterprise
$150.00
per agent/month billed annually
Additional Enterprise-Ready Plans, starting at...
$215.00
per agent/month billed annually
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Cisco Unified Contact CenterZendesk Support Suite
Free Trial
NoYes
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoYes
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeOptional
Additional DetailsMust contact sales team for pricing.
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Cisco Unified Contact CenterZendesk Support Suite
Considered Both Products
Cisco Unified Contact Center
Chose Cisco Unified Contact Center
Similar I guess, however, I feel like Avaya was more suited for a contact center and allowed for all information to be in one place. The QA Forms were more flexible and easy to review. Predicative analysis was available to assist with scheduling and staffing. It was easier to …
Chose Cisco Unified Contact Center
The base in the infrastructure for any architecture within the company has been Cisco and with CCX which is one of the most complete for the needs in the market we are covering.
Zendesk Support Suite

No answer on this topic

Top Pros
Top Cons
Features
Cisco Unified Contact CenterZendesk Support Suite
Contact Center Software
Comparison of Contact Center Software features of Product A and Product B
Cisco Unified Contact Center
8.8
36 Ratings
4% above category average
Zendesk Support Suite
-
Ratings
Agent dashboard8.936 Ratings00 Ratings
Validate callers8.832 Ratings00 Ratings
Outbound response8.632 Ratings00 Ratings
Call forwarding8.934 Ratings00 Ratings
Click-to-call (CTC)8.927 Ratings00 Ratings
Warm transfer9.031 Ratings00 Ratings
Predictive dialing9.023 Ratings00 Ratings
Interactive voice response9.030 Ratings00 Ratings
REST APIs8.926 Ratings00 Ratings
Call scripts8.731 Ratings00 Ratings
Call tracking8.634 Ratings00 Ratings
Multichannel integration8.926 Ratings00 Ratings
CRM software integration8.226 Ratings00 Ratings
Workforce Optimization (WFO)
Comparison of Workforce Optimization (WFO) features of Product A and Product B
Cisco Unified Contact Center
8.9
37 Ratings
5% above category average
Zendesk Support Suite
-
Ratings
Inbound call routing9.234 Ratings00 Ratings
Omnichannel inbound routing8.826 Ratings00 Ratings
Recording8.932 Ratings00 Ratings
Quality management9.032 Ratings00 Ratings
Call analytics9.133 Ratings00 Ratings
Historical reporting8.835 Ratings00 Ratings
Live reporting8.935 Ratings00 Ratings
Customer surveys8.725 Ratings00 Ratings
Customer interaction analytics8.927 Ratings00 Ratings
Incident and problem management
Comparison of Incident and problem management features of Product A and Product B
Cisco Unified Contact Center
-
Ratings
Zendesk Support Suite
5.5
89 Ratings
38% below category average
Organize and prioritize service tickets00 Ratings6.188 Ratings
Expert directory00 Ratings4.254 Ratings
Subscription-based notifications00 Ratings4.462 Ratings
ITSM collaboration and documentation00 Ratings4.758 Ratings
Ticket creation and submission00 Ratings6.989 Ratings
Ticket response00 Ratings6.788 Ratings
Self Help Community
Comparison of Self Help Community features of Product A and Product B
Cisco Unified Contact Center
-
Ratings
Zendesk Support Suite
5.2
79 Ratings
42% below category average
External knowledge base00 Ratings5.475 Ratings
Internal knowledge base00 Ratings5.070 Ratings
Multi-Channel Help
Comparison of Multi-Channel Help features of Product A and Product B
Cisco Unified Contact Center
-
Ratings
Zendesk Support Suite
4.8
87 Ratings
50% below category average
Customer portal00 Ratings4.470 Ratings
IVR00 Ratings2.928 Ratings
Social integration00 Ratings5.653 Ratings
Email support00 Ratings5.685 Ratings
Help Desk CRM integration00 Ratings5.764 Ratings
Best Alternatives
Cisco Unified Contact CenterZendesk Support Suite
Small Businesses
CloudTalk
CloudTalk
Score 9.3 out of 10
Agiloft Flexible Service Desk Suite
Agiloft Flexible Service Desk Suite
Score 9.0 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
CloudTalk
CloudTalk
Score 9.3 out of 10
Agiloft Flexible Service Desk Suite
Agiloft Flexible Service Desk Suite
Score 9.0 out of 10
Enterprises
Webex Contact Center
Webex Contact Center
Score 9.1 out of 10
SAP Service Cloud
SAP Service Cloud
Score 9.3 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
Cisco Unified Contact CenterZendesk Support Suite
Likelihood to Recommend
8.5
(44 ratings)
5.8
(127 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
9.1
(5 ratings)
10.0
(39 ratings)
Usability
8.3
(7 ratings)
10.0
(19 ratings)
Availability
-
(0 ratings)
8.6
(26 ratings)
Performance
-
(0 ratings)
8.0
(20 ratings)
Support Rating
7.5
(18 ratings)
8.8
(49 ratings)
In-Person Training
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(1 ratings)
Online Training
-
(0 ratings)
7.9
(9 ratings)
Implementation Rating
-
(0 ratings)
9.0
(35 ratings)
Configurability
-
(0 ratings)
9.3
(3 ratings)
Contract Terms and Pricing Model
8.0
(2 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Professional Services
8.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
Cisco Unified Contact CenterZendesk Support Suite
Likelihood to Recommend
Cisco
I would recommend it to other people in my contact and business circle, but if I recommend it to someone who has certain difficulties in accessing some tools within Cisco, he may have great difficulty in getting help because of the support that is lacking in most of the times.
Read full review
Zendesk
Zendesk Support Suite implementation means an industry-class help desk with a dynamic interface that brings together all customer interactions from almost any channel allowing agents to respond faster to customer queries and with the right context. It is more than just a help desk since it also acts as a CRM by allowing us to organize workflows, processes and track customer engagement.
Read full review
Pros
Cisco
  • Provides you with a solid routing engine that was built to handle Service Provider level throughput - if you need stability and a work horse this is the platform for you.
  • The core features on the whole are good, but where UCCE is very good is the eco-system of Solutions Plus partner integrations that expand on the core capabilities with the market leaders in areas such as WFO, Campaign Management, Biometrics and Natural Language.
  • The investment Cisco makes in the CC space means they are always improving the platform features, scale and reliability.
Read full review
Zendesk
  • Zendesk makes it easy to see if a question/ticket has already been answered/updated (and to see who answered it).
  • Zendesk makes it easy for users to indicate if they are available to respond or not.
  • Zendesk also makes it easy to respond as you can respond within the software/system. A one-stop process!
Read full review
Cons
Cisco
  • After 25+ years, the product still requires experienced and highly skilled engineers to deploy the product properly per Cisco Best Practice guidelines.
  • Third-party integrations are also very cumbersome and require highly skilled and experienced engineers and significant time and financial investment to deploy.
  • Upgrading the product is cumbersome and requires Cisco ATP or Cisco AS which is time consuming and very expensive.
Read full review
Zendesk
  • Allow each user to customize the look of their Dash, rather than being hemmed in by company selections
  • Provide a way for Suspended tickets (created by emails from non-users) to be better managed
  • Set a timer for tickets to reopen on a more individual ticket basis.
Read full review
Likelihood to Renew
Cisco
if it is up to me I would maintain its use. I was not able to make those decisions previously.
Read full review
Zendesk
There has not been a reason to consider anything else as the core functions work perfectly for ticketing. Also Zendesk continues to focus on new functionality, growth of the API and Apps framework and add more partner application to the list. Not only will be renew but it is likely we will add seats as we grow and expand our customer focused teams.
Read full review
Usability
Cisco
To be honest, there are tools better than Cisco Unified Contact Center
because it largely depends on third party integrations with better
alternatives available now a days. However, Cisco Unified Contact Center has its own standards in terms of user experience and client satisfactions which serves every customers with a flawless experience.
Read full review
Zendesk
As an agent it's very simple to use. As an admin it's also easy to use, but sometimes lacks some functionality that would be nice to have such as expanded native 2 way sync functionality for many major apps that are commonly used today like HubSpot and Salesforce. The ability to add followers to tickets to they get updates and are in the know without the customer seeing this agent cc'd is a nice touch. This ensures additional visibility and easily following the communication without having to appear as a CC to the customer, who could accidentally remove that person in a response, thus breaking the visibility
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Reliability and Availability
Cisco
No answers on this topic
Zendesk
In the past year, I'd say I have only noticed maybe two hours total of downtime in my own usage. Very minimal.
Read full review
Performance
Cisco
No answers on this topic
Zendesk
There has been minor performance degradation on a very few days out of the two years I have been using the product.
Read full review
Support Rating
Cisco
Cisco Unified Contact center is a very smart & reliable solution to go for. Its active-active sight base architecture and [customizable] features really help to deliver efficient customer service, enhanced next-gen experience, and uninterrupted operations. I believe every [organization] should opt for it if required.
Read full review
Zendesk
Every time I contacted them they were not only very responsive and knowledgable, but always seemed to have a positive upbeat attitude. It probably helps that we did not have significant service outages or sev 1 level issues, but even my lower severity issues were quickly answered. And the positive and upbeat attitude really made things feel comfortable.
Read full review
Online Training
Cisco
No answers on this topic
Zendesk
Zendesk has tons of available material for training - videos, webinars, articles, etc. The only reason this is not a 10 is because it can be hard to figure out how to navigate to these things and find what you are looking for.
Read full review
Implementation Rating
Cisco
No answers on this topic
Zendesk
I was very satisfied. They have a free trial for 30 days and I recommend you do that and use it. It is very easy to get started with the basics and the build on over time.

The only thing technically complex was single sign-on and integration to Salesforce.com required some tweaks – otherwise setting up system was very easy
Read full review
Alternatives Considered
Cisco
Similar I guess, however, I feel like Avaya was more suited for a contact center and allowed for all information to be in one place. The QA Forms were more flexible and easy to review. Predicative analysis was available to assist with scheduling and staffing. It was easier to manipulate and implement- I didn't need to go through 3 different parties to make a simply modification.
Read full review
Zendesk
I have not used any other support software, but also evaluated FreshDesk. For our needs at the time, Zendesk was more polished and had the ability to support multiple websites in a single instance, while allowing customization for each brand separately. That was crucial to us, and is why we went with Enterprise.
Read full review
Contract Terms and Pricing Model
Cisco
Licenses are very expensive. The customer has to buy IP telephony or Unified Communication and Collaboration Licenses and for Contact Center Solution licenses separately. There must be a price tone down as the competition is really high. New customers are willing to go for cloud-based solutions [that] are cheaper and easy to deploy.
Read full review
Zendesk
No answers on this topic
Professional Services
Cisco
Scripting not supported
Read full review
Zendesk
No answers on this topic
Return on Investment
Cisco
  • A smoother route to helping end users with critical needs
  • With quick assist while on hold, less calls come into the pool while agents have the ability to assist more critical needs
  • The ability to work remotely during an extreme event assisting end users
Read full review
Zendesk
  • The main part of the IT department is able to quickly prioritize and delegate tickets as they come in.
  • Tickets can be linked to each other and support articles, creating opportunities for more efficient responses.
  • Central location for users to ask for tech help when they don't need to know which staff member is the appropriate person to ask.
Read full review
ScreenShots