Smarsh Communications Intelligence Platform (with Actiance) vs. Zendesk Suite

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Smarsh Communications Intelligence Platform
Score 7.5 out of 10
N/A
Actiance was a social media compliance and archiving platform acquired by Smarsh in November 2017. It is now part of the technology underlying the Smarsh Communications Intelligence Platform. Actiance products Vantage and Socialite are now Connected Capture. Actiance Alcatraz is now Connected Archive.N/A
Zendesk Suite
Score 8.2 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
Smarsh Communications Intelligence Platform (with Actiance)Zendesk 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
Smarsh Communications Intelligence PlatformZendesk 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
Smarsh Communications Intelligence Platform (with Actiance)Zendesk Suite
Top Pros
Top Cons
Features
Smarsh Communications Intelligence Platform (with Actiance)Zendesk Suite
Incident and problem management
Comparison of Incident and problem management features of Product A and Product B
Smarsh Communications Intelligence Platform (with Actiance)
-
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
Smarsh Communications Intelligence Platform (with Actiance)
-
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
Smarsh Communications Intelligence Platform (with Actiance)
-
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
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User Ratings
Smarsh Communications Intelligence Platform (with Actiance)Zendesk Suite
Likelihood to Recommend
7.5
(2 ratings)
8.3
(150 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
8.1
(2 ratings)
10.0
(40 ratings)
Usability
-
(0 ratings)
7.4
(23 ratings)
Availability
-
(0 ratings)
8.6
(13 ratings)
Performance
-
(0 ratings)
8.0
(10 ratings)
Support Rating
-
(0 ratings)
9.0
(29 ratings)
In-Person Training
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(1 ratings)
Online Training
-
(0 ratings)
7.9
(9 ratings)
Implementation Rating
-
(0 ratings)
9.0
(18 ratings)
Configurability
-
(0 ratings)
9.3
(3 ratings)
User Testimonials
Smarsh Communications Intelligence Platform (with Actiance)Zendesk Suite
Likelihood to Recommend
Smarsh
This appliance is well suited for organizations that have a need to monitor, moderate, or log social networking site use or the use of any website. It is a very solid tool for any information security department to have at their disposal.
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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
Smarsh
  • Discovery: It allows for easy discoveries by the compliance and cyber security departments.
  • Ethical walls: This keeps certain departments from talking to each other.
  • Very granular control. This is a big product meaning you can get very detailed with it.
  • Once it's configured and running, we hardly ever have any issues.
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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
Smarsh
  • Its configuration options were very large and required a good deal of time to learn all of the various settings.
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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
Smarsh
It's the only product at this time that meets all of our requirements.
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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
Smarsh
No answers on this topic
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
Smarsh
No answers on this topic
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
Smarsh
No answers on this topic
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
Smarsh
No answers on this topic
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
Smarsh
No answers on this topic
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
Smarsh
No answers on this topic
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
Smarsh
This was the only appliance of its kind that I have used. Other devices have different capabilities for web filtering such as the checkpoint firewalls, but none of them offered the overall solution that was deployed with this product at that time.
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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
Smarsh
  • Faster investigative work has led to increased employee efficiency when working on security investigations.
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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