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
Vision Helpdesk
Score 9.5 out of 10
Small Businesses (1-50 employees)
Vision Helpdesk, which started in 2005 as a simple help desk software has evolved into three customer service and IT support management tools.
Help Desk Software - A multi-channel help desk software that allows users to manage customer communication across various channels like email, web portals, chat, phone, and API.
Satellite Help Desk Software - A multi-company/brand/product help desk software that allows users to manage support for multiple companies in place.…
$8
per month
Pricing
Kustomer
Vision Helpdesk
Editions & Modules
Enterprise
$89
per month, per user
Ultimate
$139
per month, per user
Starter Help Desk
$8
per month per seat
Starter Help Desk
$12
per month per seat
Pro Help Desk
$16
per month per seat
Satellite Help Desk
$20
per month per seat
Pro Help Desk
$20
per month per seat
Satellite Help Desk
$24
per month per seat
Pro Service Desk
$24
per month per seat
Pro Service Desk
$32
per month per seat
Ent Service Desk
$32
per month per seat
Ent Service Desk
$48
per month per seat
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Kustomer
Vision Helpdesk
Free Trial
No
Yes
Free/Freemium Version
No
Yes
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
No
Yes
Entry-level Setup Fee
No setup fee
No setup fee
Additional Details
All plans require an annual subscription and 8 users minimum.
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!
I think that there is probably nothing that Vision Helpdesk can't do given enough work to customize it. The problem is that you almost have to have someone dedicated to knowing everything there is to know about the system and then have them be the administrator of all the customizations and feature additions you want. It's great that it can do so much, but it's not great that it's so complicated and has very little out-of-the-box configurations.
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.
The best thing for us - the timer. It's really cool. We can start the timer and end it when support finishes. It's very important for working with other companies we give support for.
Good-looking, with good visualisation and usability dashboard.
Ticket transfer between support users, comments, ticket printing.
The best price and functionality, comparing to other help desks.
Support. Best support I have seen on internet. Helped with setup, and helped with few minor questions.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Support from Vision Helpdesk was rather lackluster. We uncovered a bug pretty early on in our use of the system and it took them about a month to fix it. Our internal admin of the system had to keep pestering them to get it fixed. It wasn't critical to our business but was something we needed fixed and it just seemed like they didn't care that much about fixing it.
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.
Vision Helpdesk was more open for an NGO while the other companies were more attended on the "big-money", which we don't have as an NGO. Second point is that Vision Helpdesk is very easy and simple to use. Not too much installation, programming etc.
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.
Most cost-effective help desk software I have researched from Kayako to SAAS [products] like Zendesk.
We got more features and easy customization done with Vision Helpdesk which where not possible for Zendesk and Kayako was too costly.
Ticket tracking has been easier and faster with Vision Helpdesk; for our web hosting business we prefer a download version which is not possible with SAAS help desk providers ( Zendesk or Freshdesk).
