Microsoft Parature (Discontinued) vs. SAP Service Cloud

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
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
SAP Service Cloud
Score 8.7 out of 10
N/A
SAP Service Cloud helps deliver customer value and protect the brand with intelligent customer service. It enables the user to engage with customers at their convenience, connect service with the value chain and deliver greater profitability.N/A
Pricing
Microsoft Parature (Discontinued)SAP Service Cloud
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Microsoft Parature (Discontinued)SAP Service Cloud
Free Trial
NoNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Microsoft Parature (Discontinued)SAP Service Cloud
Top Pros
Top Cons
Best Alternatives
Microsoft Parature (Discontinued)SAP Service Cloud
Small Businesses
Agiloft Flexible Service Desk Suite
Agiloft Flexible Service Desk Suite
Score 9.0 out of 10
Simplify360
Simplify360
Score 7.8 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Agiloft Flexible Service Desk Suite
Agiloft Flexible Service Desk Suite
Score 9.0 out of 10
Bright Pattern Contact Center
Bright Pattern Contact Center
Score 10.0 out of 10
Enterprises
SAP Service Cloud
SAP Service Cloud
Score 8.7 out of 10
Conversica
Conversica
Score 9.4 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
Microsoft Parature (Discontinued)SAP Service Cloud
Likelihood to Recommend
6.7
(10 ratings)
8.6
(71 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
6.1
(10 ratings)
8.2
(2 ratings)
Usability
2.0
(2 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Availability
7.5
(2 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
1.0
(1 ratings)
5.5
(1 ratings)
Ease of integration
-
(0 ratings)
7.5
(41 ratings)
User Testimonials
Microsoft Parature (Discontinued)SAP Service Cloud
Likelihood to Recommend
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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SAP
It is well suited for Analytics, Customer Relationship Efficiency Engagement, and best suited to help decrease Infrastructure maintenance costs for Organizations. Learning for new bees is a little difficult to grasp with the features/functionalities. The Software is a little complex from the setup and configuration point of view. Reporting capability can be improved as it is a highly effective CRM.
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Pros
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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SAP
  • SAP Service Cloud pulls together messages from different channels - emails, calls, social sites - into one dashboard. This means we can quickly see and respond to any customer question or concern without jumping between different tools.
  • It streamlines our workload by automatically categorizing and prioritizing customer issues. This ensures that urgent banking matters are addressed immediately and no query is left unanswered.
  • The built-in knowledge base is a lifesaver. When a customer has a common question or issue, we can quickly reference or direct them to pre-existing solutions, speeding up the resolution process.
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Cons
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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SAP
  • Integrating SAP Service Cloud with non-SAP systems can be challenging, i faced some hurdles when my IT team took 3 months to integrate the billing data from some other vendor and the system would run slow if you try to pull billing data
  • Slow loading of the pages as compared to other consumer tech softwares we use
  • Implementation costs and complexity of implementation makes it an option only for large enterprises with huge IT teams (and it can take a few months to implement)
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Likelihood to Renew
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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SAP
Now all our critical processes are streamlined & would like to explore the new feature to have user friendly experiences
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Usability
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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SAP
No answers on this topic
Reliability and Availability
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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SAP
No answers on this topic
Support Rating
Microsoft
Nothing ever seemed to get resolved
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SAP
I have found that sometimes issues reported to the SAP takes more time also they lack system support with respect to the priority . Also we don't see RCA for the issues raised. Also turn around time for the issues is not fixed as the support is global sometimes the issues float here and there.
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Alternatives Considered
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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SAP
We went with SAP Service Cloud instead of Oracle Cloud Platform because it is like a custom-made tool for big companies, seamlessly working with our other systems. It helps us manage complex tasks and customer interactions better, making everything smoother and more efficient. It just fits well with how we do things.
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Return on Investment
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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SAP
  • positive impact: Enhanced Productivity: The platform's automation and knowledge management capabilities can boost agent productivity. Agents can handle more cases in less time, leading to cost savings and potentially higher revenue through increased sales opportunities.
  • negative impact: Complexity: If not properly configured or if it doesn't align with an organization's specific needs, SAP Service Cloud's complexity can hinder user adoption, leading to inefficiencies and potentially negative ROI.
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ScreenShots