Microsoft Yammer vs. Zendesk Suite

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Microsoft Yammer
Score 6.9 out of 10
N/A
Yammer is used for private communication within organizations or between organizational members and pre-designated groups, making it an example of enterprise social software. It originally launched as an enterprise microblogging service and now has applications on several different operating systems and devices. The company was acquired by Microsoft in 2012.N/A
Zendesk Suite
Score 8.3 out of 10
N/A
The Zendesk Support suite is a cloud-based customer support software built for better customer relationships. Designed to improve customer satisfaction and to support customers on any channel: text SMS, web, mobile app, phone, email, social media. The vendor states more than 200,000 companies such as Uber, Groupon, Box, Airbnb, and Slack are using Zendesk to lower their support costs, raise productivity, and increase customer satisfaction. Zendesk offers a full suite of products to meet customer…
$55
per month agent
Pricing
Microsoft YammerZendesk Suite
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
Support Team (Foundational Support Only)
$19
per month agent
Suite Team
$55
per month agent
Support Professional
$55
per month agent
Suite Growth
$89
per month agent
Suite Professional
$115
per month agent
Support Enterprise
$115
per month agent
Suite Enterprise
$169
per month agent
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Microsoft YammerZendesk Suite
Free Trial
NoYes
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoYes
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeOptional
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Microsoft YammerZendesk Suite
Top Pros
Top Cons
Features
Microsoft YammerZendesk Suite
Project Management
Comparison of Project Management features of Product A and Product B
Microsoft Yammer
7.8
40 Ratings
1% below category average
Zendesk Suite
-
Ratings
Task Management8.024 Ratings00 Ratings
Gantt Charts8.012 Ratings00 Ratings
Scheduling8.218 Ratings00 Ratings
Workflow Automation8.020 Ratings00 Ratings
Mobile Access7.238 Ratings00 Ratings
Search7.338 Ratings00 Ratings
Visual planning tools8.022 Ratings00 Ratings
Communication
Comparison of Communication features of Product A and Product B
Microsoft Yammer
7.8
43 Ratings
3% below category average
Zendesk Suite
-
Ratings
Chat8.539 Ratings00 Ratings
Notifications8.343 Ratings00 Ratings
Discussions9.142 Ratings00 Ratings
Surveys7.033 Ratings00 Ratings
Internal knowledgebase7.632 Ratings00 Ratings
Integrates with GoToMeeting7.414 Ratings00 Ratings
Integrates with Gmail and Google Hangouts6.613 Ratings00 Ratings
Integrates with Outlook8.332 Ratings00 Ratings
File Sharing & Management
Comparison of File Sharing & Management features of Product A and Product B
Microsoft Yammer
8.4
36 Ratings
3% above category average
Zendesk Suite
-
Ratings
Versioning7.025 Ratings00 Ratings
Video files8.631 Ratings00 Ratings
Audio files9.029 Ratings00 Ratings
Document collaboration8.830 Ratings00 Ratings
Access control8.030 Ratings00 Ratings
Advanced security features8.627 Ratings00 Ratings
Integrates with Google Drive8.014 Ratings00 Ratings
Device sync9.023 Ratings00 Ratings
Incident and problem management
Comparison of Incident and problem management features of Product A and Product B
Microsoft Yammer
-
Ratings
Zendesk Suite
8.2
112 Ratings
4% above category average
Organize and prioritize service tickets00 Ratings8.5111 Ratings
Expert directory00 Ratings7.270 Ratings
Subscription-based notifications00 Ratings7.676 Ratings
ITSM collaboration and documentation00 Ratings8.171 Ratings
Ticket creation and submission00 Ratings9.2112 Ratings
Ticket response00 Ratings8.9111 Ratings
Self Help Community
Comparison of Self Help Community features of Product A and Product B
Microsoft Yammer
-
Ratings
Zendesk Suite
8.0
99 Ratings
3% above category average
External knowledge base00 Ratings7.995 Ratings
Internal knowledge base00 Ratings8.189 Ratings
Multi-Channel Help
Comparison of Multi-Channel Help features of Product A and Product B
Microsoft Yammer
-
Ratings
Zendesk Suite
8.0
110 Ratings
4% above category average
Customer portal00 Ratings7.786 Ratings
IVR00 Ratings7.835 Ratings
Social integration00 Ratings7.366 Ratings
Email support00 Ratings8.6108 Ratings
Help Desk CRM integration00 Ratings8.679 Ratings
Best Alternatives
Microsoft YammerZendesk Suite
Small Businesses
Stackby
Stackby
Score 9.8 out of 10
Agiloft Flexible Service Desk Suite
Agiloft Flexible Service Desk Suite
Score 9.0 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Troop Messenger
Troop Messenger
Score 9.7 out of 10
Agiloft Flexible Service Desk Suite
Agiloft Flexible Service Desk Suite
Score 9.0 out of 10
Enterprises
HCL Connections
HCL Connections
Score 9.0 out of 10
SAP Service Cloud
SAP Service Cloud
Score 8.7 out of 10
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User Ratings
Microsoft YammerZendesk Suite
Likelihood to Recommend
7.9
(53 ratings)
8.3
(150 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
6.9
(10 ratings)
10.0
(40 ratings)
Usability
9.0
(3 ratings)
7.4
(23 ratings)
Availability
8.0
(1 ratings)
8.6
(13 ratings)
Performance
9.0
(1 ratings)
8.0
(10 ratings)
Support Rating
7.0
(12 ratings)
9.0
(29 ratings)
In-Person Training
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(1 ratings)
Online Training
7.0
(2 ratings)
7.9
(9 ratings)
Implementation Rating
8.0
(1 ratings)
9.0
(18 ratings)
Configurability
-
(0 ratings)
9.3
(3 ratings)
User Testimonials
Microsoft YammerZendesk Suite
Likelihood to Recommend
Microsoft
Yammer is great when you have a company culture that encourages friendly collaboration and communication. It can be a great supplement (but certainly not a substitute) for bonding and sharing ideas and thoughts. Certain channels can be really successful, too, like a channel where people can post dog pictures or something fun like that!
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Zendesk
1. A lottery winner has a question about claiming their prize that involves tax implications. You can easily loop in a tax specialist from your finance department within the ticket itself for a collaborative resolution. 2. Lottery players frequently ask about specific drawing times or eligibility rules. You can set up automated responses within Zendesk to answer these common questions, saving time for your team.
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Pros
Microsoft
  • Providing a platform for social news in the company where "bottom up" topics can percolate freely across department
  • Social networking across the company where folks can divide their work into topics instead of teams
  • Basic collaboration within a group including document sharing with ability to pin documents to a team
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Zendesk
  • Reporting and Analytics
  • Ease of Agent Training and Use
  • Able to add multiple brands with related custom reports and dashboards
  • Adding a new brand and basic help center is easy to do without the need of an expert or web team
  • Ability of agents and supervisors to see customer history across multiple channels
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Cons
Microsoft
  • Although the social enterprise network works very well, there is room for some slight improvement - such as the ability to attract users. By being part of the Microsoft Office Suite, it is offered as an "add-on" and many overlook it and see it as unnecessary at first. It would be smart for Microsoft to sell it as its own product so it could gather more popularity as a "social network".
  • Giving an option to filter results could be better as well as giving an option to turn off the "recent activity" bar on the home page.
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Zendesk
  • I think the Graphical User Interface could use a facelift. It not the most aesthetically pleasing platform in my experience.
  • Particular things like where the default is when you click on each and every dropdown menu.
  • The macro integration could be a little more simplified.
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Likelihood to Renew
Microsoft
Microsoft is dedicated to continual improvement on Yammer. They realize the value that Yammer brings to the table with their clients. In the short time that we have had Yammer implemented, we are just now beginning to see the strong impact it has on becoming more effective and efficient around collaboration.
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Zendesk
Zendesk is super easy to use and navigate. I really enjoy the sleek layout, the ability to tailor tickets, the macro option, and the quick key guide they have to make your use of time even more effective. My whole team loves working with Zendesk and rarely ever has problems.
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Usability
Microsoft
Overall easy to use and intuitive, although limited in the possibility to personalize layout and look & feel of a site. Some functionalities are not easy to use, like document editing, but some others are quick and effective (posts and tagging above all). Performance and responsiveness of the Yammer site is typically acceptable, in my experience.
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Zendesk
As an agent it's very simple to use. As an admin it's also easy to use, but sometimes lacks some functionality that would be nice to have such as expanded native 2 way sync functionality for many major apps that are commonly used today like HubSpot and Salesforce. The ability to add followers to tickets to they get updates and are in the know without the customer seeing this agent cc'd is a nice touch. This ensures additional visibility and easily following the communication without having to appear as a CC to the customer, who could accidentally remove that person in a response, thus breaking the visibility
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Reliability and Availability
Microsoft
Very available
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Zendesk
In the past year, I'd say I have only noticed maybe two hours total of downtime in my own usage. Very minimal.
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Performance
Microsoft
It's a simple product but it does provide value.
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Zendesk
There has been minor performance degradation on a very few days out of the two years I have been using the product.
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Support Rating
Microsoft
We have never had to use the support for Yammer. The tool works well and we have not come across any bugs. User Interface is simple and easy to use, similar to other forum type products, thereby removing the need for any extensive training. Team members are invited in and immediately are able to start using the tool.
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Zendesk
Every time I contacted them they were not only very responsive and knowledgable, but always seemed to have a positive upbeat attitude. It probably helps that we did not have significant service outages or sev 1 level issues, but even my lower severity issues were quickly answered. And the positive and upbeat attitude really made things feel comfortable.
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Online Training
Microsoft
The training that Microsoft provides is very generic training for Yammer. I like the fact the training is short and easy to understand
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Zendesk
Zendesk has tons of available material for training - videos, webinars, articles, etc. The only reason this is not a 10 is because it can be hard to figure out how to navigate to these things and find what you are looking for.
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Implementation Rating
Microsoft
We organically implemented the product
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Zendesk
I was very satisfied. They have a free trial for 30 days and I recommend you do that and use it. It is very easy to get started with the basics and the build on over time.

The only thing technically complex was single sign-on and integration to Salesforce.com required some tweaks – otherwise setting up system was very easy
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Alternatives Considered
Microsoft
Our team briefly used Salesforce.com's Chatter product before switching over to Yammer in 2012. While Chatter is essentially the same product as Yammer, it left much to be desired. Chatter's design was (and remains) clunky and difficult to navigate. Yammer is a simple, easy-to-use product that offers similar functionality as Salesforce's Chatter.
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Zendesk
If spoken honestly Intercom is a level-par with any nearest competitor, Tools like Zendesk has to catchup with them in speed. However, there is an advantage to Zendesk with its simple and easy-to-get software which falls in every mid and small-size business pocket wherein Intercom is way too expensive and needs a tech admin to customize the product. The kick-starting feature with negligible configuration made Zendesk the ideal choice of our organization + the budget fell under our expenses.
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Return on Investment
Microsoft
  • My company is pleased with the positive impact Yammer has created departmentally and on an individual basis with work flow efficiency.
  • Adversely, most old and new employees are more familiar with SharePoint, causing the company to pay for training for all current and incoming employees.
  • As Yammer becomes more widely used, the need for training may diminish, which is where we will see our return on investment, as the product clearly provides a more effective form of file sharing and communication between employees and their department.
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Zendesk
  • The positives weigh more than the negatives here, as it gives us a one-stop portal where we can tend to customer needs using one web app
  • It has also helped us identify areas of improvement based on the reporting feature
  • The value it provides outweighs any missing or lacking features that I'm sure will be available in the future
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ScreenShots

Zendesk Suite Screenshots

Screenshot of Zendesk Agent WorkspaceScreenshot of Omnichannel MessagingScreenshot of Zendesk TicketingScreenshot of Bots powered by Zendesk AIScreenshot of Tone shift with Zendesk AIScreenshot of Zendesk ticketing side conversations