Kustomer vs. Microsoft Parature (Discontinued)

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Kustomer
Score 8.2 out of 10
N/A
Kustomer is a customer service CRM platform built for managing high support volume by optimizing experiences throughout the customer service journey. Kustomer was acquired by Facebook in late 2020, but spun out in 2023 and re-launched as an independent entity, Kustomer, LLC.
$89
per month per user
Microsoft Parature (Discontinued)
Score 5.0 out of 10
N/A
Parature was a self-service customer support platform providing a self-service knowledge base to connect with customers across multiple channels, including email, the web, chat or social media. The company was acquired by Microsoft in January 2014 and reached EOL in 2017. Former users are encouraged to migrate to Microsoft Dynamics 365 Customer Service.N/A
Pricing
KustomerMicrosoft Parature (Discontinued)
Editions & Modules
Enterprise
$89
per month, per user
Ultimate
$139
per month, per user
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
KustomerMicrosoft Parature (Discontinued)
Free Trial
NoNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional DetailsAll plans require an annual subscription and 8 users minimum.
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
KustomerMicrosoft Parature (Discontinued)
Top Pros
Top Cons
Features
KustomerMicrosoft Parature (Discontinued)
Incident and problem management
Comparison of Incident and problem management features of Product A and Product B
Kustomer
8.5
17 Ratings
8% above category average
Microsoft Parature (Discontinued)
-
Ratings
Organize and prioritize service tickets9.116 Ratings00 Ratings
Expert directory8.314 Ratings00 Ratings
Subscription-based notifications8.513 Ratings00 Ratings
ITSM collaboration and documentation8.013 Ratings00 Ratings
Ticket creation and submission8.217 Ratings00 Ratings
Ticket response9.117 Ratings00 Ratings
Self Help Community
Comparison of Self Help Community features of Product A and Product B
Kustomer
7.3
13 Ratings
4% below category average
Microsoft Parature (Discontinued)
-
Ratings
External knowledge base8.213 Ratings00 Ratings
Internal knowledge base6.413 Ratings00 Ratings
Multi-Channel Help
Comparison of Multi-Channel Help features of Product A and Product B
Kustomer
8.5
17 Ratings
11% above category average
Microsoft Parature (Discontinued)
-
Ratings
Customer portal8.611 Ratings00 Ratings
IVR8.310 Ratings00 Ratings
Social integration7.314 Ratings00 Ratings
Email support9.117 Ratings00 Ratings
Help Desk CRM integration9.112 Ratings00 Ratings
Best Alternatives
KustomerMicrosoft Parature (Discontinued)
Small Businesses
Agiloft Service Desk (discontinued)
Agiloft Service Desk (discontinued)
Score 9.0 out of 10
Agiloft Service Desk (discontinued)
Agiloft Service Desk (discontinued)
Score 9.0 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Agiloft Service Desk (discontinued)
Agiloft Service Desk (discontinued)
Score 9.0 out of 10
Agiloft Service Desk (discontinued)
Agiloft Service Desk (discontinued)
Score 9.0 out of 10
Enterprises
Front
Front
Score 8.8 out of 10
Front
Front
Score 8.8 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
KustomerMicrosoft Parature (Discontinued)
Likelihood to Recommend
9.0
(38 ratings)
6.7
(10 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
7.9
(2 ratings)
6.1
(10 ratings)
Usability
8.2
(4 ratings)
2.0
(2 ratings)
Availability
9.1
(2 ratings)
7.5
(2 ratings)
Performance
6.4
(2 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
9.7
(7 ratings)
1.0
(1 ratings)
In-Person Training
7.6
(2 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Online Training
8.3
(2 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Implementation Rating
7.9
(2 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Configurability
7.9
(2 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Ease of integration
7.2
(2 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Product Scalability
9.1
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
8.7
(2 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
9.1
(2 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
KustomerMicrosoft Parature (Discontinued)
Likelihood to Recommend
Kustomer, LLC
I would say the greatest strength of Kustomer is its flexibility. In the hands of a skilled admin, it can be adapted to tons and tons of different use cases. I've been able to make custom displays for different groups of agents, produce complex cross sections of users, draw interesting data relationships combining marketing contacts and customer-initiated contacts. For example, there's really no other data source in our company which could tell you which users received a specific promo code and checked out with it, received their delivery within 14 days and then can related that to the number of times they contacted us about using our product. At the intersection of communication, marketing, data, and relationship-management, Kustomer shines at the center. I would say it falls short when you are trying to coordinate multiple "side conversations" with multiple sources to resolve an issue. This is a tough task for any type of platform, but if you're maintaining 3 different email chains with a 3PL partner, the customer, and a separate internal conversation, it would be confusing anyway!
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Microsoft
The single element of Parature I've not seen in any other system of this kind is the Download Module. You can post files in the open, or protect them by any number of entitlement methods. The solution is also appealing to those who don't want to manage the back-end/IT needs as it is a hosted solution and has proven to be very reliable.
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Pros
Kustomer, LLC
  • All customer data (past orders, communication with customer service, rewards account data) is in one place. This helps agents avoid confusion and reduces the number of tabs they need to open.
  • The Knowledge Base (or K Base) is very helpful. Any time we roll out a new policy or have a limited-time promotion, we can add all the relevant information and worksheets there for the convenience of the agents. That way they can stay in a chat while looking up the answer to a question.
  • We can seamlessly move from chat into email if the customer leaves or the queue times are too long. All the interactions will stay on the customer profile page, so they are kept up to date.
Read full review
Microsoft
  • Clean/Friendly UI. It was extremely easy to navigate around Parature's menus at a high level, and you could take advantage of the more robust features as you became more comfortable and familiar with how Parature operates!
  • Strong Knowledge Base. Writing KB articles or ticket summaries and making use of the search function within Parature allows for expedient recovery of past ticket information. Being able to search for a fix action, or at least a troubleshooting article that can guide you towards a resolution is extremely valuable.
  • Enhanced Notation Capability. Being able to send/post internal or external updates to a ticket is great! You can leave the wordy technical details for other employees while making sure to communicate the high-points and fix action to the end-user.
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Cons
Kustomer, LLC
  • Small chat window--maybe the ability to chat in real-time with the person who received your ticket would help.
  • Different teams could have differently colored notes.
  • The notification bell could be a bit bigger. It's hard to keep track sometimes, when a lot of notes pile on.
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Microsoft
  • Reporting is barebones at best. If you need special reports, we had to go through Parature to have them built.
  • The use of frames on a website is very 1990s. It actually impacts usability of the product, especially when combined with how Parature handled sessions. An engineer could only work one ticket at a time which, honestly, isn't very realistic for a busy support team that is working on several issues at a time.
  • Support was often unresponsive when contacted for unplanned problems.
  • The knowledge base was not very friendly for clients and it provided no real encouragement for it to be used.
  • It took several clicks to do something as simple as edit and assign a ticket or to close a ticket.
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Likelihood to Renew
Kustomer, LLC
I believe at this time, Kustomer is doing a good job. I really love its functionality at the moment.
Read full review
Microsoft
Parature has been the best option for this campus in terms of what we use it for and there is no alternative
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Usability
Kustomer, LLC
There is a learning curve, but it is more than worth it, especially to have a dedicated resource pointed at Kustomer and any other software it interacts with. The basic implementation is useful, and powerful - certainly a MASSIVE upgrade over taking care of your customers in an email inbox or shuffling between multiple windows and applications! It is also set up really well to grow and reconfigure with your business. I'm a big fan.
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Microsoft
It was bulky, cumbersome, and didn't allow us to handle the volume of cases we received on a daily basis. Many of our issues were highly technical in nature and we would often need to work on 2 or 3 at once. The poor design choices prevented this, which was unfortunate.
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Reliability and Availability
Kustomer, LLC
I gave it a 10 rating because it is very helpful and the availability is there when needed. I have never had issues with application errors or unplanned outages so far.
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Microsoft
They recently had one very extended outage. It was a data center issue - but they were not diversified enough so in the end the system was down for almost 8 hours. There are also periods of time where for no reason the system simply doesn't respond. This small outages are usually short (just a few minutes), and have in fact been occurring less often, so it appears some corrective actions have been taken.
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Performance
Kustomer, LLC
Kustomer Performances need improvement. The pages do load very slowly but that might be because of the information they carry. If Kustomer integrates with other software or systems it does slow the performance. They need to find a solution to this.
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Microsoft
No answers on this topic
Support Rating
Kustomer, LLC
I did not reach out to Kustomer support when we had an issue. Still, whenever we provide feedback to our manager regarding what can improve based on our experience using Kustomer, our manager always comments that Kustomer support always replies with some positive feedback based on our suggestions.
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Microsoft
Nothing ever seemed to get resolved
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In-Person Training
Kustomer, LLC
Because they are very hands-on in training us and very approachable
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Microsoft
No answers on this topic
Online Training
Kustomer, LLC
The best training I did was online. Videos teach as well as explain how everything works and what Kustomer's functions are.
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Microsoft
No answers on this topic
Implementation Rating
Kustomer, LLC
Nothing really because it is easy to use. After an hour of using it, we're already getting the hang of it.
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Microsoft
No answers on this topic
Alternatives Considered
Kustomer, LLC
Apps like Intercom, Zendesk, and Gorgios all treat customer inquiries as tickets, just tracking that one issue or interaction with a customer. Kustomer treats each customer as an individual, which allows us to provide top-notch customer service. Customers love that we're able to be more conversational and informal, while still solving their issues quickly. It also helps us build relationships with customers and increases repeat orders.
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Microsoft
There are services that do bits and pieces of what Parature does. We liked the idea of having one service that meets our needs
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Scalability
Kustomer, LLC
Because customer is flexible and scalable
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Microsoft
No answers on this topic
Return on Investment
Kustomer, LLC
  • We’re getting so much positive feedback — which is not something you traditionally associate with a customer care team — because we’re making it effortless for customers to deliver both positive and negative feedback, and we can now resolve the bad feedback really really quickly.
  • Primarily from our increased efficiency with Kustomer, we’ve seen a significant reduction of $3 to $4 for every cost per contact.
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Microsoft
  • Parature allows for better Customer Service
  • Can follow up automatically for tickets
  • Will automatically close tickets that haven't been responded to.
  • Allows customers to reopen tickets easily and not allow them to be missed.
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ScreenShots

Kustomer Screenshots

Screenshot of Example of a customer profile within Kustomer.Screenshot of Example of how Kustomer’s automated chats can save agents time by handling less complex requests automatically.