HCL Digital Experience vs. Zendesk Suite

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
HCL Digital Experience
Score 9.7 out of 10
N/A
HCL Digital Experience is based on the former IBM Web Content Manager and IBM WebSphere Portal products, acquired by HCL Technologies from IBM in late 2018. The product allows the user to create, manage and deliver engaging omnichannel digital experiences to audiences with responsive content, targeted offers, seamlessly integrated applications and consistent branding across channels (web, mobile, and hybrid mobile/web applications and more).N/A
Zendesk Suite
Score 8.6 out of 10
N/A
Zendesk is a customer support solution with built-in ticketing, conversational messaging, and live chat, designed to help businesses of all sizes and industries deliver personalized service at scale. Zendesk's AI agents are trained in CX to help Service teams resolve customer issues faster and more accurately while still providing a human-centered experience. Zendesk ultimately aims to help businesses improve time to value, reduce effort per ticket, and keep costs low.
$69
per month per agent
Pricing
HCL Digital ExperienceZendesk Suite
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
Suite Team
$69
per month per agent
Suite Growth
$115
per month per agent
Suite Professional
$149
per month per agent
Suite Enterprise
Contact Sales
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
HCL Digital ExperienceZendesk Suite
Free Trial
NoYes
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoYes
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeOptional
Additional Details20% discount available with annual pricing.
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
HCL Digital ExperienceZendesk Suite
Features
HCL Digital ExperienceZendesk Suite
Security
Comparison of Security features of Product A and Product B
HCL Digital Experience
5.0
5 Ratings
48% below category average
Zendesk Suite
-
Ratings
Role-based user permissions5.05 Ratings00 Ratings
Platform & Infrastructure
Comparison of Platform & Infrastructure features of Product A and Product B
HCL Digital Experience
4.1
5 Ratings
66% below category average
Zendesk Suite
-
Ratings
API4.14 Ratings00 Ratings
Internationalization / multi-language4.15 Ratings00 Ratings
Web Content Creation
Comparison of Web Content Creation features of Product A and Product B
HCL Digital Experience
2.9
5 Ratings
85% below category average
Zendesk Suite
-
Ratings
WYSIWYG editor7.04 Ratings00 Ratings
Code quality / cleanliness3.15 Ratings00 Ratings
Admin section3.15 Ratings00 Ratings
Page templates1.15 Ratings00 Ratings
Library of website themes1.15 Ratings00 Ratings
Mobile optimization / responsive design4.04 Ratings00 Ratings
Publishing workflow1.14 Ratings00 Ratings
Form generator3.02 Ratings00 Ratings
Web Content Management
Comparison of Web Content Management features of Product A and Product B
HCL Digital Experience
1.9
5 Ratings
112% below category average
Zendesk Suite
-
Ratings
Content taxonomy1.15 Ratings00 Ratings
SEO support2.15 Ratings00 Ratings
Bulk management2.13 Ratings00 Ratings
Availability / breadth of extensions2.14 Ratings00 Ratings
Community / comment management2.13 Ratings00 Ratings
Incident and problem management
Comparison of Incident and problem management features of Product A and Product B
HCL Digital Experience
-
Ratings
Zendesk Suite
8.8
173 Ratings
7% above category average
Organize and prioritize service tickets00 Ratings9.3172 Ratings
Expert directory00 Ratings8.2118 Ratings
Subscription-based notifications00 Ratings8.7119 Ratings
ITSM collaboration and documentation00 Ratings8.2122 Ratings
Ticket creation and submission00 Ratings9.4173 Ratings
Ticket response00 Ratings9.2172 Ratings
Self Help Community
Comparison of Self Help Community features of Product A and Product B
HCL Digital Experience
-
Ratings
Zendesk Suite
8.2
157 Ratings
2% above category average
External knowledge base00 Ratings8.1151 Ratings
Internal knowledge base00 Ratings8.3144 Ratings
Multi-Channel Help
Comparison of Multi-Channel Help features of Product A and Product B
HCL Digital Experience
-
Ratings
Zendesk Suite
8.8
169 Ratings
10% above category average
Customer portal00 Ratings9.1138 Ratings
IVR00 Ratings8.471 Ratings
Social integration00 Ratings8.4112 Ratings
Email support00 Ratings9.3166 Ratings
Help Desk CRM integration00 Ratings9.0128 Ratings
Best Alternatives
HCL Digital ExperienceZendesk Suite
Small Businesses
Bloomreach - The Agentic Platform for Personalization
Bloomreach - The Agentic Platform for Personalization
Score 8.9 out of 10
Agiloft Service Desk (discontinued)
Agiloft Service Desk (discontinued)
Score 9.0 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
RWS Tridion Sites
RWS Tridion Sites
Score 9.0 out of 10
Agiloft Service Desk (discontinued)
Agiloft Service Desk (discontinued)
Score 9.0 out of 10
Enterprises
RWS Tridion Sites
RWS Tridion Sites
Score 9.0 out of 10
SysAid
SysAid
Score 8.9 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
HCL Digital ExperienceZendesk Suite
Likelihood to Recommend
9.0
(11 ratings)
9.1
(208 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
5.7
(6 ratings)
10.0
(43 ratings)
Usability
9.0
(2 ratings)
8.8
(82 ratings)
Availability
-
(0 ratings)
9.1
(14 ratings)
Performance
-
(0 ratings)
9.1
(11 ratings)
Support Rating
7.0
(1 ratings)
5.6
(31 ratings)
In-Person Training
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(1 ratings)
Online Training
-
(0 ratings)
6.4
(10 ratings)
Implementation Rating
7.0
(1 ratings)
9.1
(19 ratings)
Configurability
-
(0 ratings)
9.1
(4 ratings)
Contract Terms and Pricing Model
-
(0 ratings)
9.1
(1 ratings)
Ease of integration
-
(0 ratings)
9.1
(1 ratings)
Product Scalability
9.0
(1 ratings)
9.1
(1 ratings)
Professional Services
-
(0 ratings)
9.1
(1 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
-
(0 ratings)
9.1
(1 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
-
(0 ratings)
9.1
(1 ratings)
User Testimonials
HCL Digital ExperienceZendesk Suite
Likelihood to Recommend
HCLSoftware
HCL DX does really well at managing and maintaining the site. It allows the business to basically maintain the site while IT spent time developing new and enhanced functions. The main issue I currently have with HCL DX is not directly with the product but it does play a role. It is difficult finding skilled resources to support HCL DX in my experience.
Read full review
Zendesk
Being a customer support agent, I found it very good when it comes to send an email or call or chat- with the user. I can do all that from the one single platform which is so easy and time saving for you. It does not take much time to use this, We can chat- with the user and at the same time we can send an email to them as well.
Read full review
Pros
HCLSoftware
  • With Version 8.5, IBM Web Content Manager introduced in place editing capabilities which allow authors to make content edits on sections of the page instead of going to the content itself. This feature allows authors to make changes in context of the page and preview changes within the actual look and feel of a live page.
  • Projects provide a collaborative atmosphere for the author community so that authors can interact and work as a team to manage inter-dependent content changes under one project and publish all changes at once, instead of working separately on individual content changes. This brings awareness across authors in an organization and easy knowledge share.
  • IBM Digital Data Connector is a cool feature that allows [users] to integrate external content sources onto the portal using IBM Web Content Manager presentation components. This allows UI/UX designers to present integrated external data in any manner they want, manage UI changes with an underlying approval process and leverage syndication to push changes live immediately.
  • IBM Web Content Manager offers a targeted content feature that allows business users to deliver personalized content to customers based on customer demographic information, browsing history and other transaction related information. Any rules created follow the publishing process thereby making it just a configurable item resulting in less turn around to turn on the feature on a website.
  • IBM Web Content Manager offers 'multi lingual solution' out of the box which allows content creation for almost all popular languages.
  • Syndication feature has improved a lot and it now provides a detailed views comprising of 'failed items', 'items that have syndicated successfully, 'items in queue'. Failed items view provides detailed and clear cut information of what resulted in failure helping IT to troubleshoot problems easily.
Read full review
Zendesk
  • UI/UX; mature macros and automations, slick and well thought out UI.
  • Reporting, reporting, reporting. With user, org, and ticket level tags, we can track every aspect of our ticket flow.
  • Extensibility; the app marketplace is a great resource for expanding functionality from the baseline offering.
Read full review
Cons
HCLSoftware
  • IBM Web Content Manager should provide some easily usable connectors through a GUI to connect to bring content from custom data sources including connecting to Salesforce and custom databases.
  • Should further optimize and enhance creation of rich and responsive content driven UIs on various digital channels.
  • Should further optimize and enhance content personalization features.
Read full review
Zendesk
  • Is there a way for AEs and CSMs to be informed in a weekly summary of all their accounts and any tickets? Example: Disney submitted a ticket on XYZ. Google has an urgent issue on X still unresolved.
  • Is there a way for CSMs or AEs to have a Dashboard that's specific to their accounts instead of seeing all the tickets in the queue that are not relevant to them?
Read full review
Likelihood to Renew
HCLSoftware
IBM products always moves forward to adapt to new requirements and technologies. I have used versions 6, 6.1, 7 and 8 of IBM WCM, and I know IBM is ready to revamp the tool based on emerging needs, and still provide the capabilities to migrate your old system to the newer versions.
Read full review
Zendesk
Zendesk is an amazing tool for communicating with your customers easily. The communication tickets from sellers to us or from us to sellers are stored, and there are statuses used to make communication easy. We have internal conversations between departments, linked with useful software such as Zingtree, Talkdesk, and Webs.
Read full review
Usability
HCLSoftware
New versions has increased user experience facilitating usability.
Read full review
Zendesk
Pros: The agent interface is sleek, contemporary, and relatively easy to learn compared to many other enterprise tools. For common tasks, admins are given point-and-click options- adding fields, modifying workflows, constructing macros. The knowledge base (Guide) editor is easy to use for non-developers. Drawbacks: Once you move past the initial things - complex automations, reporting/analytics in Explore, and/or customizations integrating the API, it requires much more advanced training to use successfully. Navigating between the different modules (Support, Explore, Chat, Guide) can feel very disconnected; often you are reminded that it really is a "suite" of products brought together -not really one unified platform. If you're using multiple brands managing simultaneous support tickets, or heavily customizing workflows to meet your brand, you may run into a bit of struggle with usability. So: it's a lot more user friendly than the palaces (Salesforce Service Cloud, ServiceNow), but is not used as quickly or with as much streamlined flow as a product made for a small shop. So if you are looking for a great balance, this is a good option if you are a net new organization or an organization on their way to scaling from 15 - 50 employee. Expect some elbow grease from the admin team once learning, adapting, and working efficiently once you move past the basics with your support tickets and initial customizations.
Read full review
Reliability and Availability
HCLSoftware
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
HCLSoftware
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
HCLSoftware
We had some issues related with performing and the support was suitable and sucessful.
Read full review
Zendesk
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
Read full review
Online Training
HCLSoftware
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
HCLSoftware
Implementation was successful due to Websphere application server used.
Read full review
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
HCLSoftware
Magento and Prestashop are E-commerce CMS platforms. They are used in a different scale of application than WCM.
Concerning Joomla, it's a useful CMS forsmaller website. Once again this is an other scale of application than WCM Liveray can compete WCM 7 concerning the : ¤ specific development ¤ security ¤ responsive
Read full review
Zendesk
The customisable reporting every time. Our leadership reply on me to run my team and want to know what customers are telling us so they can elevate our products. We have extensive custom reports that tie up all aspects of our product and customer journeys. I've not found another product that allows me as much freedom as Zendesk Suite explore does, so far.
Read full review
Scalability
HCLSoftware
No answers on this topic
Zendesk
WHY we will use Zendesk in HR and PD internally
Read full review
Return on Investment
HCLSoftware
  • Negative: Very complex architecture for on-premise deployments (too many servers to installed)
  • Positive: Easy customization
  • Negative: Architecture limited to cloud solutions
  • WCM is an old product and needs an update
  • Blog, and community are not integrated in Digital Manager for discussion
  • Templates are not available to integrate basic services (FileNet, more complex BPM , e-commerce)
Read full review
Zendesk
  • Integrating other AI solutions for an organization with high volumes can cost about USD5000 monthly. With Zendesk AI and by building onto the same with AI powered apps built for Zendesk Suite we save a projected USD4000 monthly.
  • Robust Zendesk APIs have enabled us to integrate our internal system with a customized app saving us hundreds of hours every quarter spent loading customer profiles that are not loaded instantly from the app.
  • Plug and play apps like Round robin save us weeks of sprint delay timelines as they do not require additional coding or developer support to install and start using.
Read full review
ScreenShots

Zendesk Suite Screenshots

Screenshot of the Zendesk Agent WorkspaceScreenshot of Omnichannel MessagingScreenshot of Zendesk TicketingScreenshot of Bots powered by Zendesk AIScreenshot of Tone shift with Zendesk AIScreenshot of Zendesk ticketing side conversations