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    Overview
    ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price

    Help.com

    Score10 out of 10
    N/AHelp.com is a cloud-base live chat solution. The vendor says its in-depth reporting gives businesses an inside look at what is driving their customer experience. This solution includes custom on-boarding and training as well as a custom built chat box widget that is designed around the user’s brand.

    $80

    per simultaneous active user

    Kayako

    Score6.8 out of 10
    N/AKayako is a help desk and customer support platform that helps businesses automate workflows, improve agent productivity, and deliver personalized customer experiences across email, chat, and social media.

    $79

    per month

    Zendesk Suite

    Score8.5 out of 10
    N/AZendesk 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
    Help.comKayakoZendesk Suite
    Editions & Modules
    Help.com Chat
    $80 per month
    per simultaneous active user
    Kayako One
    $79
    per month
    Enterprise
    Contact Sales
    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
    Help.comKayakoZendesk Suite
    Free Trial
    YesYesYes
    Free/Freemium Version
    NoNoNo
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    NoNoYes
    Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup feeOptional
    Additional DetailsHelp.com Chat comes with unlimited logins and scales with your business.20% discount available with annual pricing.
    More Pricing Information
    Community Pulse
    Help.comKayakoZendesk Suite
    Considered Multiple Products
    Help.com
    No answer on this topic
    Kayako
    Chose Kayako
    Kayako is way more scalable than Spiceworks' helpdesk offering. We had trouble visualizing our current layout within their environment.

    Zendesk was priced quite a bit higher than Kayako while offering similar functionality. It didn't make sense to want to migrate to a new …
    Incentivized
    Chose Kayako
    Kayako's interface is far less complex than Zendesk, so it looked like a good platform. Unfortunately, the features didn't work and their support team is the worst. I went back to Zendesk and I got everything to work including their chat function. Zendesk just works. You don't …
    Incentivized
    Chose Kayako
    Kayako beats the competition with the price but unfortunately loses the battle on all other fronts. Simply not enough options, not enough customisability, very nice and friendly customer support but not the most capable. If the code was less buggy it could be a stronger …
    Incentivized
    Zendesk
    Chose Zendesk Suite
    We used Kayako and it was pretty basic in terms of workflows and ticket management. It wasn't multichannel and it didn't have a mobile app. Ticket categorization wasn't as robust and effective, but it was easy to learn. JIRA is as robust as Zendesk, but it is also not easy to …
    Incentivized
    Chose Zendesk Suite

    Zendesk offers an all-in-one solution and great analytics to analyze the ticketing in the company.

    Zendesk seems to be more customizable than others and it seemed to be the best option for the price paid. It's secure and stable which is what we needed in the company.

    Incentivized
    Chose Zendesk Suite
    Zendesk is a much more powerful tool overall for a similar price.
    Incentivized
    Chose Zendesk Suite
    Other platforms I have evaluated: Kayako, Fogbugz, Bugzilla, Assembla, FreshDesk.

    I ended up picking Zendesk for several reasons, but there was really 3 reasons why I ultimately picked them:
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    No answers on this topic
    No answers on this topic
    87%
    Would buy again
    123 Answers
    Delivers good value for the price
    No answers on this topic
    No answers on this topic
    85%
    Delivers good value for the price
    108 Answers
    Happy with the feature set
    No answers on this topic
    No answers on this topic
    92%
    Happy with the feature set
    131 Answers
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    No answers on this topic
    No answers on this topic
    85%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    82 Answers
    Implementation went as expected
    No answers on this topic
    No answers on this topic
    85%
    Implementation went as expected
    94 Answers
    Features
    Help.comKayakoZendesk Suite
    Incident and problem management
    Comparison of Incident and problem management features of Help.com and Kayako and Zendesk Suite
    Feature
    Help.com
    -
    Ratings
    Kayako
    2.0
    11 Ratings
    122% below category average
    Zendesk Suite
    8.6
    187 Ratings
    5% above category average
    Organize and prioritize service tickets00 Ratings1.011 Ratings9.1186 Ratings
    Expert directory00 Ratings1.05 Ratings7.9127 Ratings
    Subscription-based notifications00 Ratings1.08 Ratings8.4130 Ratings
    ITSM collaboration and documentation00 Ratings1.07 Ratings7.8131 Ratings
    Ticket creation and submission00 Ratings7.011 Ratings9.3186 Ratings
    Ticket response00 Ratings1.011 Ratings9.0185 Ratings
    Self Help Community
    Comparison of Self Help Community features of Help.com and Kayako and Zendesk Suite
    Feature
    Help.com
    -
    Ratings
    Kayako
    1.0
    9 Ratings
    156% below category average
    Zendesk Suite
    8.5
    169 Ratings
    6% above category average
    External knowledge base00 Ratings1.09 Ratings8.5163 Ratings
    Internal knowledge base00 Ratings1.08 Ratings8.4156 Ratings
    Multi-Channel Help
    Comparison of Multi-Channel Help features of Help.com and Kayako and Zendesk Suite
    Feature
    Help.com
    -
    Ratings
    Kayako
    1.0
    10 Ratings
    156% below category average
    Zendesk Suite
    8.4
    182 Ratings
    5% above category average
    Customer portal00 Ratings1.07 Ratings9.1150 Ratings
    IVR00 Ratings1.02 Ratings8.076 Ratings
    Social integration00 Ratings1.04 Ratings7.4119 Ratings
    Email support00 Ratings1.010 Ratings9.2178 Ratings
    Help Desk CRM integration00 Ratings1.06 Ratings8.4138 Ratings
    Best Alternatives
    Help.comKayakoZendesk Suite
    Small Businesses
    Olark
    Score10 out of 10
    Help Scout
    Score9.3 out of 10
    Help Scout
    Score9.3 out of 10
    Medium-sized Companies
    Zoho SalesIQ
    Score9.7 out of 10
    LiveAgent
    Score8.8 out of 10
    LiveAgent
    Score8.8 out of 10
    Enterprises
    Genesys DX (discontinued)
    Score10 out of 10
    Front
    Score9.2 out of 10
    Front
    Score9.2 out of 10
    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    Help.comKayakoZendesk Suite
    Likelihood to Recommend
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    1.0
    (22 ratings)
    8.7
    (225 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    -
    (0 ratings)
    7.8
    (11 ratings)
    10.0
    (43 ratings)
    Usability
    -
    (0 ratings)
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    8.6
    (98 ratings)
    Availability
    -
    (0 ratings)
    7.5
    (2 ratings)
    9.1
    (14 ratings)
    Performance
    -
    (0 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    9.1
    (11 ratings)
    Support Rating
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    2.1
    (4 ratings)
    5.5
    (31 ratings)
    In-Person Training
    -
    (0 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    Online Training
    -
    (0 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    6.4
    (10 ratings)
    Implementation Rating
    -
    (0 ratings)
    9.0
    (2 ratings)
    9.1
    (19 ratings)
    Configurability
    -
    (0 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    9.1
    (4 ratings)
    Contract Terms and Pricing Model
    -
    (0 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    9.1
    (1 ratings)
    Ease of integration
    -
    (0 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    9.1
    (1 ratings)
    Product Scalability
    -
    (0 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    9.1
    (1 ratings)
    Professional Services
    -
    (0 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    9.1
    (1 ratings)
    Vendor post-sale
    -
    (0 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    9.1
    (1 ratings)
    Vendor pre-sale
    -
    (0 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    9.1
    (1 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    Help.comKayakoZendesk Suite
    Likelihood to Recommend
    Help.com
    Help.com is well suited for companies with sales and support departments who have the employee size to manage and respond to visitors chatting. I think a less appropriate scenario would be a company that does not have the employee size to manage the inbound chats as it makes it less valuable if you cannot interact quickly.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Kayako
    When it works, It's without a doubt a great help desk solution. It is perfect for our usage, and have rolled it out company-wide. It's great if you have multiple departments. We have it set up so most items come through a single desk that then hands out tickets to their proper department. There may be cheaper options for smaller organizations but for one that is as service-driven as ours, we really think Kayako is a great fit.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Zendesk
    Zendesk is good for small teams where work is not passed along to internal teams or situations where escalations lead to further customer interactions and no further oversight is needed. It is weak as a product for larger and medium-sized companies, where processes are in place that are not aligned with its workflow, as it is a very rigid tool.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Pros
    Help.com
    • User interface is clean and easy to navigate
    • Helpful support
    • Accurately captures information from the person you are chatting with
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Kayako
    • Gives a very good report on an individual level of what is being done for a customer or corporate issue.
    • Easy to understand who has what, what the tickets are about, how long they have been opened and how many times the customer/employee have gone back and forth with each other.
    • Nice dashboard view.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Zendesk
    • Merging of the tickets with similar issues, it is easy to avoid confusion
    • Al global team somehow gets connected with different ways like Slack, with the Zendesk Suite which is so easier to highlight & the issue quickly
    • The best thing is that this tool gives you to send the message via chat-, email, call through the one single platform
    • Now AI has been added so it works good
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Cons
    Help.com
    • Download chat transcripts easier
    • More pre-set responses
    • Canned responses
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Kayako
    • Departments need a bit of work. Even though you can have multiple departments, the only changes that can be made are globally. If you want independent queues within the departments, you have to do a lot of work that can be very confusing.
    • Survey system is not up to speed. Kayako really needs to add Net Promoter Score into their system. Also, if a staff user removes their name from an incident ticket, it removes them from the survey so you really can't even get a good estimate of how well your staff is in the eyes of the customer.
    • Very difficult to implement when you already have a customer base. Setting them up in organizations is difficult. Also, the sign-up for new customers is quirky. If you send an email to Kayako, it will say you are not an authorized user, however, it will store your email address. If you try to send an email a second time, it will go through. This is one of many reasons why we decided to move from Kayako to Oracle Service Cloud.
    Incentivized
    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?
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Likelihood to Renew
    Help.com
    No answers on this topic
    Kayako
    • We are grandfathered in on their old Software-assurance pricing and our continued use costs us only a few hundred dollars a year (excluding hosting expenses)
    • Our team's processes are now heavily ingrained in the system
    • We have not been shown a more compelling option that is more cost-effective while still offering all the features we've come to expect
    Incentivized
    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.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Usability
    Help.com
    No answers on this topic
    Kayako
    I did not come from an IT background and I picked this program up quickly
    Incentivized
    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.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Reliability and Availability
    Help.com
    No answers on this topic
    Kayako
    They are really good, but it takes a while to get back, because of the large time difference to the Eastern US. However, they are very helpful.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    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
    Help.com
    No answers on this topic
    Kayako
    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
    Help.com
    Help.com is easy to use, easy to train new employees to use, very helpful to clients and prospects, helps us generate revenue, resolve customer issues, and maintain a happy customer base. Being available at the convenience of your clients and prospects is necessary and Help.com helps make this possible without a struggle.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Kayako
    • We didn't have to use support too much, but when we did, they were able to assist us and help us make everything work.
    • Mostly we used their Online KB and step by step instructions to get all of our issues resolved.
    Incentivized
    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
    Help.com
    No answers on this topic
    Kayako
    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
    Help.com
    No answers on this topic
    Kayako
    Three years in we are about as happy with Kayako as we could be. We've had several employee's leave and on-boarding new hires was easier than it has ever been as things are uniform and consistent across the entire application.
    Incentivized
    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
    Help.com

    Help.com stacks up against competitors with their pricing, interface, features and support. I have used similar products in the past but Help.com is by far the best solution. I highly encourage you to use Help.com for your business and see for yourself why they are the best option for you.

    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Kayako
    We were using Spiceworks for a few years before switching to Kayako but found that it wasn't as customizable or as user friendly for our customers. The SNMP scanning and inventory features with Spiceworks was nice but we needed more of a Help Desk that would allow us to scale our services to more companies.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Zendesk
    At the time of evaluation, Dynamics had extremely limited knowledge and support capabilities. The UI is clunky, and reporting requires a deep understanding of the underlying data structure. Ongoing maintenance was costly and didn't provide a positive ROI in any sense of the term.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Scalability
    Help.com
    No answers on this topic
    Kayako
    No answers on this topic
    Zendesk
    WHY we will use Zendesk in HR and PD internally
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Return on Investment
    Help.com
    • Positive with inbound sales prospects
    • Positive with current client sales
    • Positive with customer support SLA
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Kayako
    • Tickets were definitely responded to faster once we implemented the audible alarm that would go off when new tickets came into the queue. This was possible because of the API.
    • Since the system was email based we could set our monitoring software up to generate tickets automatically via email for customers when it found something out of the ordinary.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Zendesk
    • More than anything, provided a boost to our perceived professionalism. The portal is a massive improvement on email only support.
    • Workflow optimization via macros and automations has enhanced response times and raise our 'first call resolution' metric.
    • Speaking of metrics; having them at all! Before Zendesk Suite we were email only so had no insight into agent and vendor performance.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    ScreenShots

    Help.com Screenshots

    Screenshot of Agent InterfaceScreenshot of Reporting DashboardScreenshot of Real-Time Monitoring

    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