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    Overview
    ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price

    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

    Socialcast (discontinued)

    Score10 out of 10
    N/ASocialcast was an enterprise social networking and collaboration platform acquired by VMware in 2011. The platform allowed an organization's employees to share information and documents with co-workers in real time through a Facebook- or Twitter-like news feed. VMware announced its end of availability (EOA) effective May 2018.

    $250

    per month

    Pricing
    KayakoSocialcast (discontinued)
    Editions & Modules
    Kayako One
    $79
    per month
    Enterprise
    Contact Sales
    No answers on this topic
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    KayakoSocialcast (discontinued)
    Free Trial
    YesYes
    Free/Freemium Version
    NoYes
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    NoNo
    Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
    Additional Details——
    More Pricing Information
    Features
    KayakoSocialcast (discontinued)
    Incident and problem management
    Comparison of Incident and problem management features of Kayako and Socialcast (discontinued)
    Feature
    Kayako
    2.0
    11 Ratings
    122% below category average
    Socialcast (discontinued)
    -
    Ratings
    Organize and prioritize service tickets1.011 Ratings00 Ratings
    Expert directory1.05 Ratings00 Ratings
    Subscription-based notifications1.08 Ratings00 Ratings
    ITSM collaboration and documentation1.07 Ratings00 Ratings
    Ticket creation and submission7.011 Ratings00 Ratings
    Ticket response1.011 Ratings00 Ratings
    Self Help Community
    Comparison of Self Help Community features of Kayako and Socialcast (discontinued)
    Feature
    Kayako
    1.0
    9 Ratings
    156% below category average
    Socialcast (discontinued)
    -
    Ratings
    External knowledge base1.09 Ratings00 Ratings
    Internal knowledge base1.08 Ratings00 Ratings
    Multi-Channel Help
    Comparison of Multi-Channel Help features of Kayako and Socialcast (discontinued)
    Feature
    Kayako
    1.0
    10 Ratings
    156% below category average
    Socialcast (discontinued)
    -
    Ratings
    Customer portal1.07 Ratings00 Ratings
    IVR1.02 Ratings00 Ratings
    Social integration1.04 Ratings00 Ratings
    Email support1.010 Ratings00 Ratings
    Help Desk CRM integration1.06 Ratings00 Ratings
    Project Management
    Comparison of Project Management features of Kayako and Socialcast (discontinued)
    Feature
    Kayako
    -
    Ratings
    Socialcast (discontinued)
    6.3
    4 Ratings
    20% below category average
    Task Management00 Ratings7.74 Ratings
    Gantt Charts00 Ratings7.01 Ratings
    Scheduling00 Ratings6.33 Ratings
    Workflow Automation00 Ratings8.02 Ratings
    Mobile Access00 Ratings3.83 Ratings
    Search00 Ratings8.04 Ratings
    Visual planning tools00 Ratings3.43 Ratings
    Communication
    Comparison of Communication features of Kayako and Socialcast (discontinued)
    Feature
    Kayako
    -
    Ratings
    Socialcast (discontinued)
    7.5
    4 Ratings
    6% below category average
    Chat00 Ratings8.74 Ratings
    Notifications00 Ratings8.24 Ratings
    Discussions00 Ratings8.14 Ratings
    Surveys00 Ratings8.73 Ratings
    Internal knowledgebase00 Ratings6.14 Ratings
    Integrates with GoToMeeting00 Ratings5.01 Ratings
    Integrates with Gmail and Google Hangouts00 Ratings7.02 Ratings
    Integrates with Outlook00 Ratings7.92 Ratings
    File Sharing & Management
    Comparison of File Sharing & Management features of Kayako and Socialcast (discontinued)
    Feature
    Kayako
    -
    Ratings
    Socialcast (discontinued)
    5.7
    4 Ratings
    34% below category average
    Versioning00 Ratings2.12 Ratings
    Video files00 Ratings7.23 Ratings
    Audio files00 Ratings7.23 Ratings
    Document collaboration00 Ratings6.74 Ratings
    Access control00 Ratings7.23 Ratings
    Advanced security features00 Ratings5.83 Ratings
    Integrates with Google Drive00 Ratings5.02 Ratings
    Device sync00 Ratings4.02 Ratings
    Best Alternatives
    KayakoSocialcast (discontinued)
    Small Businesses
    Help Scout
    Score9.3 out of 10
    Flock
    Score9.5 out of 10
    Medium-sized Companies
    LiveAgent
    Score8.8 out of 10
    Troop Messenger
    Score9.8 out of 10
    Enterprises
    Front
    Score9.2 out of 10
    Cisco Business Edition 7000 (discontinued)
    Score9 out of 10
    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    KayakoSocialcast (discontinued)
    Likelihood to Recommend
    1.0
    (22 ratings)
    7.7
    (6 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    7.8
    (11 ratings)
    9.1
    (2 ratings)
    Usability
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    9.0
    (1 ratings)
    Availability
    7.5
    (2 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Support Rating
    2.1
    (4 ratings)
    9.0
    (1 ratings)
    Implementation Rating
    9.0
    (2 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    KayakoSocialcast (discontinued)
    Likelihood to Recommend
    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
    Discontinued Products
    Socialcast has been a great tool for FactSet. I would recommend it to any firm looking for an easy-to-use tool to centralize communication and collaborate on a global scale.
    Read full review
    Pros
    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
    Discontinued Products
    • Socialcast has an exceptional user experience. With very few idiosyncrasies, it works well on every platform I've tried.
    • The platform has such a high level of ease of use, it becomes somewhat addicting.
    • Social analytics are superb.
    • The platform is highly intuitive and requires zero training or coaching in order for network members to become productive with it.
    • It's extremely reliable. Only once in 4 years, was the product not available, and that was only for about a half-hour. In that half-hour, we realized how dependent we were on it. (Very.)
    • The multi-device and deployment options are excellent. On-premise, Private Cloud, and Multi-tenant SaaS all available.
    • The mobile apps for iPhone, tablets, and Android render well with a beautiful UI/UX. The desktop AIR app is equally highly usable.
    Read full review
    Cons
    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
    Discontinued Products
    • The software is a little bit pricey because it is charged by user/month and depending on the deployment method.
    • For companies with a lot of workers the price can increase significantly.
    • The mobile app usability and notifications are poor. Need to be improved.
    • If there were more administrative features available the product would be improved
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Likelihood to Renew
    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
    Discontinued Products
    Beyond the value FactSet derives from using the platform, Socialcast (the firm) has been a good partner to FactSet. We've experienced very little downtime with the service and they have been responsive and fair with enhancement requests and questions
    Read full review
    Usability
    Kayako
    I did not come from an IT background and I picked this program up quickly
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Discontinued Products
    The UX is its best feature
    Read full review
    Reliability and Availability
    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
    Discontinued Products
    No answers on this topic
    Support Rating
    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
    Discontinued Products
    Excellent support; of course not perfect. :-)
    Read full review
    Implementation Rating
    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
    Discontinued Products
    Not applicable, as it is a SaaS platform with minimal implementation
    Read full review
    Alternatives Considered
    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
    Discontinued Products
    Socialcast is great for collaboration & light project management, but anything complex doesn't work well.

    Using it as an email notification curator works nice for us.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Return on Investment
    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
    Discontinued Products
    • Definitely more organized project management and team collaboration.
    • Efficiency in carrying out tasks.
    • Creates a spirit of collaboration and friendliness among colleagues.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    ScreenShots