Salesforce Agentforce Service vs. Zendesk Guide

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Salesforce Agentforce Service
Score 8.6 out of 10
N/A
Service Cloud is a customer service platform that helps businesses manage and resolve customer inquiries and issues. It provides tools for case management, knowledge base, omni-channel support, automation, and analytics, enabling companies to deliver exceptional customer service experiences.
$25
per month
Zendesk Guide
Score 9.5 out of 10
N/A
Zendesk 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
Salesforce Agentforce ServiceZendesk Guide
Editions & Modules
Starter Suite
$25
per month
Pro Suite
$100
per month per user
Enterprise
$165
per month per user
Unlimited
$330
per month per user
Agentforce 1
$550
per month per user
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Salesforce Agentforce ServiceZendesk Guide
Free Trial
YesNo
Free/Freemium Version
YesNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Salesforce Agentforce ServiceZendesk Guide
Considered Both Products
Salesforce Agentforce Service
Chose Salesforce Agentforce Service
Basically I use only a couple of the sales process.
Chose Salesforce Agentforce Service
Zendesk - I think it's not exactly user-friendly for the final user, but it's user-friendly for the configuration. So it's easier to manage when we have these amounts of data we're going through and it's more AI prepared. So by far Salesforce is more ready for what we want as …
Chose Salesforce Agentforce Service
We selected this product because we already had some competencies in Salesforce. We own a Salesforce partner with expertise in this area, and on top of that, Salesforce purchased it — it was originally called Velocity. When Salesforce decided to acquire it, that finalized the …
Chose Salesforce Agentforce Service
I evaluated ServiceNow also, but we didn’t see much customization kind of thing compared to Salesforce Service Cloud. And yeah, that’s it — I didn’t evaluate many other products because I’ve been working on this one for the last 14 years. I just evaluated a few things in that. …
Chose Salesforce Agentforce Service
ServiceNow, it's not related to each other.
Chose Salesforce Agentforce Service
I think Agentforce now got a lot of, I mean it will make our lives easier because there's a lot of automation going on at the same time. We're excited about Salesforce voice as well. That will help us in Service Cloud. So it's more of unified service for us that say a Service …
Chose Salesforce Agentforce Service
Evaluated ServiceNow. Evaluated Zendesk. We selected it primarily because we already had the Salesforce ecosystem and we didn't want to bring in another vendor. For us it was important to make sure that our data is only in so many different systems and so many different cloud …
Chose Salesforce Agentforce Service
We moved from a customer first program, which was real clunky. So this is way better, it's smoother, the interface is more intuitive.
Chose Salesforce Agentforce Service
Oh, now see, I forget the names of the other ones I've done. I mean I've used C4s, I've used some lower end ones too for local small business and I'd even recommend Salesforce for small business. Say pricing strategy for small businesses is harder for them to keep up with the …
Chose Salesforce Agentforce Service
Going back when this product was selected, they went through probably a two year evaluation process. We weren't personally a part of that obviously because we were on the implementation side, but they evaluated many products. Microsoft and Pega were the two main front runners …
Chose Salesforce Agentforce Service
I wasn't by the evaluation for years, so not that, but historically I've been here for 13 years, so not a lot, but previous company had a home built solutions for it, so they designed their own and built their own. But that was a big telco in the UK we had our own data centers …
Chose Salesforce Agentforce Service
We have both sales and service
Chose Salesforce Agentforce Service
Salesforce Sales Cloud, Conga CPQ and Salesforce Revenue Cloud
Chose Salesforce Agentforce Service
I honestly prefer Zendesk to Salesforce Service Cloud. I find that Zendesk is easier to manage both on the support ticket side, as well as the knowledge center side. It looks and feels easier to use than Salesforce Service Cloud. Salesforce Service Cloud is fine, but it is …
Chose Salesforce Agentforce Service
Zoho is not very real-time, it has limited integration capabilities, and the UI is not very satisfactory for any incoming customer. The performance is slow and impacts the overall customer journey. The data stored in the backend is slightly scattered and needs to be cleaned …
Chose Salesforce Agentforce Service
Salesforce is a really great case management tool. Made things a lot easier for our team. Wanted something fairly simple that had a variety of capabilities we could customize.
Chose Salesforce Agentforce Service
We used Salesforce for years, Left for Hubspot, and then came back to Salesforce (SF). As they say, don't fix it if it's not broken. Salesforce and customizing were better for us.
Chose Salesforce Agentforce Service
Salesforce Service Cloud offers deep integration with our current and expanding CRM data, along with numerous pre-built features that didn't exist in Kayako when we used it. (We used to use an instance Kayako installed in a private cloud environment.) Salesforce Service Cloud …
Chose Salesforce Agentforce Service
Because it has good ratings and it is easy to setup .it also has good word of mouth.
Chose Salesforce Agentforce Service
Zendesk has it's own challenges in terms of Administrator difficulties and a completely different back-end than Salesforce Service Cloud. I would recommend Salesforce Service Cloud if you need a clean database of Companies and Contacts. Zendesk does not excel in overall CRM …
Chose Salesforce Agentforce Service
Insightly, Buildium and Hootsuite
Chose Salesforce Agentforce Service
Salesforce Service Cloud has more unique customization features that benefit the organization as a whole.
Chose Salesforce Agentforce Service
I'm not at the level where I would be part of the decision making process for choosing a vendor or product for the organization. Every position I've held, I've come into a company that has already implemented or is in the process of implementing Salesforce. Honestly I would not …
Zendesk Guide
Chose Zendesk Guide
Zendesk Guide is less expensive as compared to other community platforms, it provides sufficient features to fulfill our community requirements. If operated nicely it has better ROI as compared to other platforms. Zendesk Guide is easy to use and it is easier for developers to …
Chose Zendesk Guide
We are still exploring switching to Intercom Guides. I believe we picked Zendesk Guide because they were the top player at the time. However, what we've found is that they have fallen behind in innovation and especially adding AI options that make updating content easier for …
Chose Zendesk Guide
Zendesk (ZD) is one of the most popular help desk software solutions on the market.
Zendesk tends to handle complexity better than Freshdesk, when it comes to automation.
Both platforms (ZD and Freshdesk ) offer machine learning bots that analyze tickets and pull in relevant KB …
Chose Zendesk Guide
Freshservice also provides similar features to Zendesk Guide, however, I believe that it is not as good as Zendesk Guide. For example, in Freshservice, manageable and visibility permission can only be set at the folder level and not at the article level. Also security …
Chose Zendesk Guide
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 …
Features
Salesforce Agentforce ServiceZendesk Guide
Incident and problem management
Comparison of Incident and problem management features of Product A and Product B
Salesforce Agentforce Service
8.1
Ratings
1% below category average
Zendesk Guide
-
Ratings
Organize and prioritize service tickets8.40 Ratings00 Ratings
Expert directory7.90 Ratings00 Ratings
Subscription-based notifications8.30 Ratings00 Ratings
ITSM collaboration and documentation7.20 Ratings00 Ratings
Ticket creation and submission8.80 Ratings00 Ratings
Ticket response8.10 Ratings00 Ratings
Self Help Community
Comparison of Self Help Community features of Product A and Product B
Salesforce Agentforce Service
8.7
Ratings
8% above category average
Zendesk Guide
-
Ratings
External knowledge base8.50 Ratings00 Ratings
Internal knowledge base8.80 Ratings00 Ratings
Multi-Channel Help
Comparison of Multi-Channel Help features of Product A and Product B
Salesforce Agentforce Service
8.0
Ratings
0% above category average
Zendesk Guide
-
Ratings
Customer portal7.80 Ratings00 Ratings
IVR8.10 Ratings00 Ratings
Social integration7.50 Ratings00 Ratings
Email support8.90 Ratings00 Ratings
Help Desk CRM integration7.90 Ratings00 Ratings
Best Alternatives
Salesforce Agentforce ServiceZendesk Guide
Small Businesses
Agiloft Service Desk (discontinued)
Agiloft Service Desk (discontinued)
Score 9.0 out of 10
Front
Front
Score 9.2 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Agiloft Service Desk (discontinued)
Agiloft Service Desk (discontinued)
Score 9.0 out of 10
RWS Tridion Sites
RWS Tridion Sites
Score 9.0 out of 10
Enterprises
SysAid
SysAid
Score 8.9 out of 10
RWS Tridion Sites
RWS Tridion Sites
Score 9.0 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
Salesforce Agentforce ServiceZendesk Guide
Likelihood to Recommend
8.7
(0 ratings)
7.4
(0 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
6.2
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Usability
8.2
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Availability
8.5
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Performance
8.6
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
7.0
(0 ratings)
8.0
(0 ratings)
In-Person Training
10.0
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Online Training
9.0
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Implementation Rating
7.0
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Ease of integration
5.0
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
8.0
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
8.0
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
Salesforce Agentforce ServiceZendesk Guide
Likelihood to Recommend
Probably where you have a number of service teams that all contribute to a knowledge base is one area that's really useful. AI response, it looks like with AgentForce, that's going to be one of our next deployments. So they're AI based on the trust layer is, I like that it has the trust layer because it's already got some built in safeguards around privacy and security controls for AI, which is very important right now. Where it's probably less useful:gain, round robining a very email heavy conversation, so it's not the best email tool. A lot of our team still uses Gmail and logs to the case rather than actually emailing directly out of Salesforce. Email signatures are not great because you can only have plain text email signatures, you can't have HTML.
Read full review
[Zendesk Guide] is well suited for any telecommunications company, especially in a work from home scenario. Zendesk Guide is basically an incentive for employees to not slack off and continue to provide excellent skills and services they were trained to do. The application is not necessarily appropriate for business's that don't utilize over the phone or web chat interactions.
Read full review
Pros
  • Allows us to make changes quickly and with relative ease
  • Can be flexible enough to use among several teams who do very different work
  • Salesforce in general provides SO much training that anyone on the team can skill up and help maintain the system
Read full review
  • Easy to organize articles
  • Easy to preview and publish
  • Easy to edit
  • Ability to add other users at different permission levels
Read full review
Cons
  • There is a slight scope for error, but sometimes it has a heavy impact. So this can be improved.
  • Costing is high.
  • Maintenance is more.
  • Expertise is required for implementation.
  • The number of communication messages have some limit per organisation account.
Read full review
  • Some improvement needed to reviewing articles, as we can't do the reviews in the same place where we write and publish the article.
  • Central KBs need to support version history, which some time lacks to give track of multiple review.
Read full review
Likelihood to Renew
Professional edition works best for a small company with lower call volumes and is very useful but as you grow exponetially I think it has limited ability to do all the things we want to - SLA management, defect, release management to name a few. Reports and dashboards being available in real time.
Read full review
No answers on this topic
Usability
I love that the Salesforce Service cloud provides all of the functionality that I need when implementing business processes for our customer support representatives. It even has enough functions and features that allow us to customize and expand upon our current processes, giving us the ability to go above and beyond what we've thought we could ever do. Using cases coupled with Salesforce's automation tools help ease the workload and keeps our data integrity intact.
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No answers on this topic
Reliability and Availability
Salesforce's Trust Center clearly communicates occasional issues to anyone who subscribes, down to an organization's cloud instance. Bundled sandboxes ease updates, and seasonal upgrades are seamless, scheduled well in advance with plenty of information about what's coming. Support agents have noticed intermittent Omni-Channel disconnects due to internet connections, and these are clearly notified.
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No answers on this topic
Performance
Load times can be slow, but this is also based on how much customization you have done. We added a lot of custom fields which could cause additional slowness in loading. This was never anything that affected our overall efficiency. I did not notice that Service Cloud slowed down any of the systems we had it integrated with
Read full review
No answers on this topic
Support Rating
Salesforce offers support, although it generally gets routed to overseas support teams first, and once they are unable to help, it gets escalated up the chain to higher tiers. Frequently, the answer back from support is that there is no native solution, and we either have to turn to the AppExchange for some solution provided by another developer, or custom build our own solution.
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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
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In-Person Training
Our in-person training was provided by our implementation partner and it was quite good. This was in part because we were already working with them and so it naturally leant itself to a good training relationship. And because they were building our customizations and configuring things, they could then provide training on those things naturally.
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No answers on this topic
Online Training
Trailheads are great but it was often unclear what actually applied to our organization. This made it difficult to get a whole lot out of it. Part of it is that because the basic Salesforce features didn't quite work for us, we had to add customizations, which then nullified a lot of the training.
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No answers on this topic
Implementation Rating
I would go through an implementation very differently knowing what I know now. It was difficult coming from systems we liked in post-sales service and having to adapt to the clunky and underwhelming feature set in Salesforce. I would trim back our expectations
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No answers on this topic
Alternatives Considered
Zendesk - I think it's not exactly user-friendly for the final user, but it's user-friendly for the configuration. So it's easier to manage when we have these amounts of data we're going through and it's more AI prepared. So by far Salesforce is more ready for what we want as the next level of hyper-personalization in sales and for sales.
Read full review
Freshservice also provides similar features to Zendesk Guide, however, I believe that it is not as good as Zendesk Guide. For example, in Freshservice, manageable and visibility permission can only be set at the folder level and not at the article level. Also security permission in Freshservice cannot be created from tags. This mean that without API calls or integration, admin has to assign employees to the specific manageable and visiblity permission group which is inconvenience and extremely manual. In our company, when there are more than 10 movements in a day as well as many employees hired and left in a month, doing this manually is not preferable
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Scalability
The product has scaled up with our company growth just fine. No issues here other than slowness in clicking around and running reports
Read full review
No answers on this topic
Return on Investment
  • Positive, absolutely the speed to market and being able to get the product out there. The continuous improvement that we've been able to deliver in terms of small incremental developments, moving from basically a more rigid homegrown solution that they had where the turnaround time was about six monthly releases. We've got it down to three monthly releases of hoping to go to one month releases very soon. So just that whole speed to market being government, I mean that is just a major improvement in terms of what they've been able to do.
  • I think the negative part was integrating it and the complexity we had in terms of integrating DevOps as a concept and being able to use the Salesforce DevOps tools to be able to get that all rolled out in their existing current, very structured and rigid environment. And that probably took us a solid year to get those processes up and running. But yeah, now that it's working, it's absolutely fabulous.
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  • After the community came to us and we redesigned and made it more SEO-friendly and performance-efficient, its engagement increased by 30-40% in 1 Year based on different factors.
  • It has returned the Invested money in best way possible and given the product a global name by distributing the queries and solutions to lakhs of community users.
  • Increase in Page views by 32% in 1 year
  • Increase in Community visits by 29% in 1 year
  • Increase in Average Member online time by 54% in 1 year
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ScreenShots

Salesforce Agentforce Service Screenshots

Screenshot of Workflows and OrchestrationScreenshot of Service CatalogScreenshot of Contact Center