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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

    Zendesk Guide

    Score9.2 out of 10
    N/AZendesk Guide is a smart knowledge base built to help support teams continuously improve content, keep it up to date, and serve it to customers.N/A
    Pricing
    KayakoZendesk Guide
    Editions & Modules
    Kayako One
    $79
    per month
    Enterprise
    Contact Sales
    No answers on this topic
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    KayakoZendesk Guide
    Free Trial
    YesNo
    Free/Freemium Version
    NoNo
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    NoNo
    Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
    Additional Details——
    More Pricing Information
    Community Pulse
    KayakoZendesk Guide
    Considered Both Products
    Kayako
    No answer on this topic
    Zendesk
    No answer on this topic
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    No answers on this topic
    88%
    Would buy again
    7 Answers
    Delivers good value for the price
    No answers on this topic
    100%
    Delivers good value for the price
    6 Answers
    Happy with the feature set
    No answers on this topic
    100%
    Happy with the feature set
    8 Answers
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    No answers on this topic
    No answers on this topic
    Implementation went as expected
    No answers on this topic
    83%
    Implementation went as expected
    5 Answers
    Features
    KayakoZendesk Guide
    Incident and problem management
    Comparison of Incident and problem management features of Kayako and Zendesk Guide
    Feature
    Kayako
    2.0
    11 Ratings
    122% below category average
    Zendesk Guide
    -
    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 Zendesk Guide
    Feature
    Kayako
    1.0
    9 Ratings
    156% below category average
    Zendesk Guide
    -
    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 Zendesk Guide
    Feature
    Kayako
    1.0
    10 Ratings
    156% below category average
    Zendesk Guide
    -
    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
    Best Alternatives
    KayakoZendesk Guide
    Small Businesses
    Help Scout
    Score9.3 out of 10
    Slite
    Score5.7 out of 10
    Medium-sized Companies
    LiveAgent
    Score8.8 out of 10
    Bloomfire
    Score8.4 out of 10
    Enterprises
    Front
    Score9.2 out of 10
    Bloomfire
    Score8.4 out of 10
    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    KayakoZendesk Guide
    Likelihood to Recommend
    1.0
    (22 ratings)
    7.4
    (8 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    7.8
    (11 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Usability
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Availability
    7.5
    (2 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Support Rating
    2.1
    (4 ratings)
    8.0
    (2 ratings)
    Implementation Rating
    9.0
    (2 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    KayakoZendesk Guide
    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
    Zendesk
    In our company, we host our benefit articles based on country on our Zendesk Guide. However, these articles should not be seen by employees that are outside their respective article country. For example, an employee that is based in Thailand shouldn't be seeing Malaysia benefits article as employees might compared benefits. With Zendesk Guide, the system allow us to set the configuration of the article so it is only visible Thailand-based employees, and for Malaysia article, only Malaysia-based employees
    Incentivized
    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
    Zendesk
    • They give us ability to control the whole frontend of the Communities by giving us access to manipulate HTML (in HBS file), CSS and JS
    • They give handlebars templating engine in backend which helps us to show various listing rendered through server side without having need to implement client side rendering of the listing and features.
    • They provide us dynamic content fields, which can be useful for mapping categories or storing category and topic IDs so we don't need to hard code IDs in Sandbox and Production separately.
    Incentivized
    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
    Zendesk
    • Formatting according to our brand guidelines can be tricky
    • Reporting metrics are lacking
    • The user interface can be confusing
    • Their support team takes a long time to respond
    • They have comments open on their KB articles, but almost noone responds, which is frustrating.
    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
    Zendesk
    No answers on this topic
    Usability
    Kayako
    I did not come from an IT background and I picked this program up quickly
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Zendesk
    No answers on this topic
    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
    Zendesk
    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
    Zendesk
    The support is good but can sometime be frustrating to get a quick answer. We end up being sent articles that don't answer the question and then we have to go back and try again
    Incentivized
    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
    Zendesk
    No answers on this topic
    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
    Zendesk
    It is an attribute of Zendesk that allows for easy over the phone communication between agents and customers. It is more personal and allows for better productivity. Phone support from anywhere with reliable internet connection which is essential to call center communication whether in the office or in the home of the agent.
    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
    Zendesk
    • We used it for multiple customer so we can say ROI of Zendesk Guide is very competitive.
    • Zendesk meet[s] most of the business objective[s], which suits [a]s best product among its competitor.
    • I highly recommend to use Zendesk for knowledge base and tickets and agents.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
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