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    Overview
    ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price

    VanillaSoft

    Score3.7 out of 10
    Small Businesses (1-50 employees)
    VanillaSoft is a lead optimization platform designed to assist fast-response sales teams in maximizing their conversion rates. By providing a structured and efficient approach to lead management, VanillaSoft aims to ensure that every potential customer receives the attention they deserve. This platform is beneficial for sales teams that operate in high-pressure environments where timely follow-ups can significantly impact sales outcomes. The primary audience for VanillaSoft…N/A

    Zendesk Suite

    Score8.5 out of 10
    N/AZendesk is a customer support solution with built-in ticketing, conversational messaging, and live chat, designed to help businesses of all sizes and industries deliver personalized service at scale. Zendesk's AI agents are trained in CX to help Service teams resolve customer issues faster and more accurately while still providing a human-centered experience. Zendesk ultimately aims to help businesses improve time to value, reduce effort per ticket, and keep costs low.

    $69

    per month per agent

    Pricing
    VanillaSoftZendesk Suite
    Editions & Modules
    No answers on this topic
    Suite Team
    $69
    per month per agent
    Suite Growth
    $115
    per month per agent
    Suite Professional
    $149
    per month per agent
    Suite Enterprise
    Contact Sales
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    VanillaSoftZendesk Suite
    Free Trial
    NoYes
    Free/Freemium Version
    NoNo
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    YesYes
    Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeOptional
    Additional DetailsVanillaSoft offers several add-ons to use in conjunction with our base platforms including: Auto Dialing Call Recording VoIP SmartCaller ID SMS20% discount available with annual pricing.
    More Pricing Information
    Community Pulse
    VanillaSoftZendesk Suite
    Considered Both Products
    VanillaSoft
    No answer on this topic
    Zendesk
    No answer on this topic
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    100%
    Would buy again
    82 Answers
    87%
    Would buy again
    123 Answers
    Delivers good value for the price
    100%
    Delivers good value for the price
    65 Answers
    85%
    Delivers good value for the price
    108 Answers
    Happy with the feature set
    99%
    Happy with the feature set
    81 Answers
    92%
    Happy with the feature set
    131 Answers
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    100%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    55 Answers
    85%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    82 Answers
    Implementation went as expected
    96%
    Implementation went as expected
    55 Answers
    85%
    Implementation went as expected
    94 Answers
    Features
    VanillaSoftZendesk Suite
    Incident and problem management
    Comparison of Incident and problem management features of VanillaSoft and Zendesk Suite
    Feature
    VanillaSoft
    -
    Ratings
    Zendesk Suite
    8.6
    187 Ratings
    5% above category average
    Organize and prioritize service tickets00 Ratings9.1186 Ratings
    Expert directory00 Ratings7.9127 Ratings
    Subscription-based notifications00 Ratings8.4130 Ratings
    ITSM collaboration and documentation00 Ratings7.8131 Ratings
    Ticket creation and submission00 Ratings9.3186 Ratings
    Ticket response00 Ratings9.0185 Ratings
    Self Help Community
    Comparison of Self Help Community features of VanillaSoft and Zendesk Suite
    Feature
    VanillaSoft
    -
    Ratings
    Zendesk Suite
    8.5
    169 Ratings
    6% above category average
    External knowledge base00 Ratings8.5163 Ratings
    Internal knowledge base00 Ratings8.5156 Ratings
    Multi-Channel Help
    Comparison of Multi-Channel Help features of VanillaSoft and Zendesk Suite
    Feature
    VanillaSoft
    -
    Ratings
    Zendesk Suite
    8.4
    182 Ratings
    5% above category average
    Customer portal00 Ratings9.1150 Ratings
    IVR00 Ratings8.076 Ratings
    Social integration00 Ratings7.4119 Ratings
    Email support00 Ratings9.2178 Ratings
    Help Desk CRM integration00 Ratings8.4138 Ratings
    Best Alternatives
    VanillaSoftZendesk Suite
    Small Businesses
    HubSpot Sales Hub
    Score8.8 out of 10
    Help Scout
    Score9.3 out of 10
    Medium-sized Companies
    Mixmax
    Score9.8 out of 10
    LiveAgent
    Score8.8 out of 10
    Enterprises
    Groove (legacy product)
    Score7.7 out of 10
    Front
    Score9.2 out of 10
    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    VanillaSoftZendesk Suite
    Likelihood to Recommend
    8.3
    (88 ratings)
    8.7
    (225 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    9.0
    (3 ratings)
    10.0
    (43 ratings)
    Usability
    9.0
    (3 ratings)
    8.6
    (98 ratings)
    Availability
    9.0
    (2 ratings)
    9.1
    (14 ratings)
    Performance
    9.0
    (2 ratings)
    9.1
    (11 ratings)
    Support Rating
    8.9
    (3 ratings)
    5.5
    (31 ratings)
    In-Person Training
    9.0
    (2 ratings)
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    Online Training
    9.0
    (1 ratings)
    6.4
    (10 ratings)
    Implementation Rating
    9.0
    (3 ratings)
    9.1
    (19 ratings)
    Configurability
    9.0
    (1 ratings)
    9.1
    (4 ratings)
    Contract Terms and Pricing Model
    -
    (0 ratings)
    9.1
    (1 ratings)
    Ease of integration
    9.0
    (1 ratings)
    9.1
    (1 ratings)
    Product Scalability
    9.0
    (2 ratings)
    9.1
    (1 ratings)
    Professional Services
    -
    (0 ratings)
    9.1
    (1 ratings)
    Vendor post-sale
    9.0
    (2 ratings)
    9.1
    (1 ratings)
    Vendor pre-sale
    9.0
    (2 ratings)
    9.1
    (1 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    VanillaSoftZendesk Suite
    Likelihood to Recommend
    VanillaSoft
    VanillaSoft is well suited for any marketing operations or sales operations team looking for a tool to help them efficiently reach prospects and engage with them through a streamlined method. This can be a great way to manage that engagement, measure it, and keep track of various aspects of prospects.
    Incentivized
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    Zendesk
    Zendesk is good for small teams where work is not passed along to internal teams or situations where escalations lead to further customer interactions and no further oversight is needed. It is weak as a product for larger and medium-sized companies, where processes are in place that are not aligned with its workflow, as it is a very rigid tool.
    Incentivized
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    Pros
    VanillaSoft
    • Our employees love it - very user friendly, easy to grasp, very little down time to learn it. They feel very confident immediately.
    • Great technical support - I can get solutions to customer problems that make our company look more responsive to our clients. Our clients appreciate our solving their problems immediately.
    • Because of the real time analytics - we can address immediate issues with marketing campaigns to make our client's personnel look great to their superiors.
    • Because of all the functionality - we can provide a turnkey approach from a small company with big company capabilities.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Zendesk
    • Merging of the tickets with similar issues, it is easy to avoid confusion
    • Al global team somehow gets connected with different ways like Slack, with the Zendesk Suite which is so easier to highlight & the issue quickly
    • The best thing is that this tool gives you to send the message via chat-, email, call through the one single platform
    • Now AI has been added so it works good
    Incentivized
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    Cons
    VanillaSoft
    • It really needs an "undo" button. I can't tell you how many times I was typing notes etc and hit a wrong button and all was gone so I had to start over.
    • This may be the way we have it set up....we have term codes which are how the callers terminate a call they were on. They finish the call, then type notes in the notepad section of what happened, then they terminate the call. But there are times that I need to go onto a record and just leave a note but don't need to terminate it as anything. If there is a way to do that, it would make my life a lot easier.
    Incentivized
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    Zendesk
    • Is there a way for AEs and CSMs to be informed in a weekly summary of all their accounts and any tickets? Example: Disney submitted a ticket on XYZ. Google has an urgent issue on X still unresolved.
    • Is there a way for CSMs or AEs to have a Dashboard that's specific to their accounts instead of seeing all the tickets in the queue that are not relevant to them?
    Incentivized
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    Likelihood to Renew
    VanillaSoft
    We have no reason not to renew. VanillaSoft has been the best CRM (for us) that we have ever used. The value is great, we love the system, and it's easy to get assistance from VanillaSoft team when needed. Our team is so used to the calling and admin functions there is no desire to change.
    Incentivized
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    Zendesk
    Zendesk is an amazing tool for communicating with your customers easily. The communication tickets from sellers to us or from us to sellers are stored, and there are statuses used to make communication easy. We have internal conversations between departments, linked with useful software such as Zingtree, Talkdesk, and Webs.
    Incentivized
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    Usability
    VanillaSoft
    The entire system is set up so perfectly. It makes training callers much quicker, and admin tools are so easy to navigate when you get used to using it. Also, if there is ever something I cannot figure out, I can get support from VanillaSoft very quickly to resolve and get my task accomplished.
    Incentivized
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    Zendesk
    Pros: The agent interface is sleek, contemporary, and relatively easy to learn compared to many other enterprise tools. For common tasks, admins are given point-and-click options- adding fields, modifying workflows, constructing macros. The knowledge base (Guide) editor is easy to use for non-developers. Drawbacks: Once you move past the initial things - complex automations, reporting/analytics in Explore, and/or customizations integrating the API, it requires much more advanced training to use successfully. Navigating between the different modules (Support, Explore, Chat, Guide) can feel very disconnected; often you are reminded that it really is a "suite" of products brought together -not really one unified platform. If you're using multiple brands managing simultaneous support tickets, or heavily customizing workflows to meet your brand, you may run into a bit of struggle with usability. So: it's a lot more user friendly than the palaces (Salesforce Service Cloud, ServiceNow), but is not used as quickly or with as much streamlined flow as a product made for a small shop. So if you are looking for a great balance, this is a good option if you are a net new organization or an organization on their way to scaling from 15 - 50 employee. Expect some elbow grease from the admin team once learning, adapting, and working efficiently once you move past the basics with your support tickets and initial customizations.
    Incentivized
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    Reliability and Availability
    VanillaSoft
    It is very rare that we have system issues. Maybe a handful of times over the years, we had to contact support about being unable to access. It was always a quick response from the VanillaSoft team, and they would clearly explain the issue and usually give time frame on fixing, or have it fixed immediately.
    Incentivized
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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.
    Read full review
    Performance
    VanillaSoft
    I work on all aspects for VanillaSoft for our company. The pages overall do load very quickly. Reports are amazing, I can get quick report, customized reports, and anything I may need to present to client in very little time. It has made my job so much simpler. As far as I know, integration goes smoothly as well.
    Incentivized
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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.
    Read full review
    Support Rating
    VanillaSoft
    Response time was acceptable for the relatively few problems any of our users may have encountered. Fortunately, such occasions were rare.
    Incentivized
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    Zendesk
    We rarely need to contact their support team, but when we do they are responsive. However there have been notable times when communication between myself and the support rep was challenging despite me providing clear explanation of the issue, screenshots, and a thorough explanation of the goal we hope to achieve. It took several back and forth attempt, on a few occasions, to get resolution on an otherwise simple request
    Read full review
    In-Person Training
    VanillaSoft
    It was very helpful and informative. The learning of the tool is something anyone can do, as the setup is so well thought out.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Zendesk
    No answers on this topic
    Online Training
    VanillaSoft
    It was very thorough. VanillaSoft team did not rush us. They explained the various functions clearly and were open to any and all questions we had as we began to learn the system. Also, once training completed, if we encountered anything we could not figure out, the support team was fantastic in helping us out.
    Incentivized
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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.
    Read full review
    Implementation Rating
    VanillaSoft
    Our implementation was very easy.
    Incentivized
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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
    VanillaSoft
    VanillaSoft stacks up against Microsoft Power BI very well by allowing the data visualization in a more effective way, Power BI has positioned itself as one of the more robust and intuitive tools for business intelligence and data presentation. VanillaSoft and Microsoft Power BI are a great bundle for the report and analytics team.
    Incentivized
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    Zendesk
    At the time of evaluation, Dynamics had extremely limited knowledge and support capabilities. The UI is clunky, and reporting requires a deep understanding of the underlying data structure. Ongoing maintenance was costly and didn't provide a positive ROI in any sense of the term.
    Incentivized
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    Scalability
    VanillaSoft
    VanillaSoft has been great. The flexibility of the system is wonderful. The scalable software options are impressive as well. I would strongly support VanillaSoft's capabilities in this area. You really can do just about anything to get the setup and or integrations you may desire for your company needs.
    Incentivized
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    Zendesk
    WHY we will use Zendesk in HR and PD internally
    Incentivized
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    Return on Investment
    VanillaSoft
    • Ability to contact more clients each day.
    • The ability to save my correspondence and notes on each interaction allowing for the appearance to the customer that I am very engaged when we are speaking.
    • Increased sales from the calendar setting and saving my notes.
    Incentivized
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    Zendesk
    • More than anything, provided a boost to our perceived professionalism. The portal is a massive improvement on email only support.
    • Workflow optimization via macros and automations has enhanced response times and raise our 'first call resolution' metric.
    • Speaking of metrics; having them at all! Before Zendesk Suite we were email only so had no insight into agent and vendor performance.
    Incentivized
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    ScreenShots

    VanillaSoft Screenshots

    Screenshot of the VanillaSoft Call Activity Dashboard, used to to monitor sales campaigns.Screenshot of where to build reports using the VanillaSoft Web Reports Wizard.Screenshot of where VanillaSoft offers the ability to arrange modules into four panels for access to almost everything in one screen.Screenshot of VanillaSoft's caller screens, which can be displayed in three panels.

    Zendesk Suite Screenshots

    Screenshot of the 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