Datto Autotask PSA vs. Zendesk Suite

In my opinion, Datto Autotask is exceptionally complicated to set up, manage, and use on a daily basis. I would think the target market for this product would be someone managing a team of 20 - 50 people, possibly more. In my experience, for it to run properly you will need to dedicate at least half an FTE to running this product in an organization of that size per month. I would not recommend it for companies with less than 10 people or for companies that value quick communication with their clients. I would not recommend it for companies using Datto's RMM product. The integration exists, but it is clearly a bolt-on. They were not developed together and they are slow to talk to each other. Frequently you cannot add details from RMM sessions into the PSA without manually copying the ticket number, and if the ticket is more than a week old, then you can't even find it with the ticket number.

Incentivized

Zendesk works best when you have end users reaching out to a dedicated team of support reps. Leveraging AI & Bots to help gain efficiency comes naturally to Zendesk. Teams that rely on dedicated support from an individual tend to struggle more, pushing against the theme of democratized support. Teams that do a lot of outbound communication generally find challenges with things like reporting on SLAs unless they are at the enterprise level. Works great for startups and non-profits alike!

Incentivized

• The graphical calculations on time spent on requests, how long they were open for, who worked on a ticket last.
• Grouping by priority so you can determine easier what needs to be addressed sooner rather then later. This also helps if Account Management has conversations a technician is not aware of so they can prioritize efficiently.
• The email updates that are sent out to the technicians so they are aware of upcoming or stale tickets.

Incentivized

• Reporting and Analytics
• Ease of Agent Training and Use
• Able to add multiple brands with related custom reports and dashboards
• Adding a new brand and basic help center is easy to do without the need of an expert or web team
• Ability of agents and supervisors to see customer history across multiple channels

Incentivized

• The GUI is a little dated.
• Some integrations are limited for not being a Datto product.
• While not as complex to set up as Connectwise, it definitely requires some serious thought during the initial setup.
• Email processing could offer more options for parsing keywords and allow for more automation.
• The mobile app is just not worth using in my experience.

Incentivized

• I think the Graphical User Interface could use a facelift. It not the most aesthetically pleasing platform in my experience.
• Particular things like where the default is when you click on each and every dropdown menu.
• The macro integration could be a little more simplified.

Incentivized

After using multiple products on the market, Autotask was intuitive and easy to manage.

Incentivized

Zendesk is super easy to use and navigate. I really enjoy the sleek layout, the ability to tailor tickets, the macro option, and the quick key guide they have to make your use of time even more effective. My whole team loves working with Zendesk and rarely ever has problems.

Incentivized

The work flow is much better then other competitors

Incentivized

ZenDesk Suite is very easy to use, it is intuitive and requires little formal training if you don't want it. It has taken years to get one of the main functionality that I want (initiate outbound text) and still is just promised in Q3 of this year. So seems kind of slow to respond to customers needs in this regard. Same with outbound calls from iOS, the first ticket requesting it is a couple years old and as far as I know there is nothing in the pipeline to bring this to life.

Incentivized

In the past year, I'd say I have only noticed maybe two hours total of downtime in my own usage. Very minimal.

There has been minor performance degradation on a very few days out of the two years I have been using the product.

They are fairly quick at returning a response to a problem and have been able to fix all issues for the most part.

Incentivized

We rarely need to contact their support team, but when we do they are responsive. However there have been notable times when communication between myself and the support rep was challenging despite me providing clear explanation of the issue, screenshots, and a thorough explanation of the goal we hope to achieve. It took several back and forth attempt, on a few occasions, to get resolution on an otherwise simple request

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.

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

The portion of Autotask that we've used other companies for prior to using Autotask is the Endpoint Management. The Autotask Endpoint Management (AEM) portal integrates perfectly with their PSA/CRM tools. It's alerting features are much better than the above software as there aren't a bunch of superfluous and unneeded alerts. Instead, it only alerts for things that you specify that you want. Alerts aside, for the PSA/CRM, I don't have much to compare it to as Autotask was the first PSA we tried. It's hard to imagine a PSA having more features or doing a better job than Autotask.

Incentivized

If spoken honestly Intercom is a level-par with any nearest competitor, Tools like Zendesk has to catchup with them in speed. However, there is an advantage to Zendesk with its simple and easy-to-get software which falls in every mid and small-size business pocket wherein Intercom is way too expensive and needs a tech admin to customize the product. The kick-starting feature with negligible configuration made Zendesk the ideal choice of our organization + the budget fell under our expenses.

Incentivized

• We were able to identify the profitability of our entire client base.
• We identified a loss of over 1 million dollars for time unbilled consultancy fees using metrics derived from Autotask.
• Autotask helped us serve our client base in a professional manner, it's like having an entire department at your finger tips.
• Autotask is the heartbeat of our operation.

Incentivized

• The positives weigh more than the negatives here, as it gives us a one-stop portal where we can tend to customer needs using one web app
• It has also helped us identify areas of improvement based on the reporting feature
• The value it provides outweighs any missing or lacking features that I'm sure will be available in the future

Incentivized