I believe that buyers should beware of Kayako
We used Kayako as our main ticket and helpdesk system to provide automated ticket generation and job management.
Starting at $29 per month
View PricingOverview
What is Kayako?
Kayako is a help desk / ticketing product and is available is both SaaS and on-premise configurations. Is is built in PHP and uses my SQL. The product competes with HelpSpot, ZohoSupport, Freshdesk and Zendesk. The Kayako Engage edition may be…
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Popular Features
- Ticket creation and submission (11)7.070%
- Organize and prioritize service tickets (11)1.010%
- Ticket response (11)1.010%
- Email support (10)1.010%
Reviewer Pros & Cons
Pricing
Inbox
$15.00
Cloud
Per User Per Month
Growth
$30.00
Cloud
Per User Per Month
Scale
$60.00
Cloud
Per User Per Month
Entry-level set up fee?
- No setup fee
Offerings
- Free Trial
- Free/Freemium Version
- Premium Consulting/Integration Services
Starting price (does not include set up fee)
- $29 per month
Features
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Product Details
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What is Kayako?
Kayako Competitors
Kayako Technical Details
| Deployment Types | Software as a Service (SaaS), Cloud, or Web-Based |
|---|---|
| Operating Systems | Unspecified |
| Mobile Application | No |
Frequently Asked Questions
Kayako is a help desk / ticketing product and is available is both SaaS and on-premise configurations. Is is built in PHP and uses my SQL. The product competes with HelpSpot, ZohoSupport, Freshdesk and Zendesk.
The Kayako Engage edition may be deployed as a live chat system without ticketing at a reduced cost, featuring click-to-call and site visitor monitoring for customer targeting and engagement.
Kayako starts at $29.
Reviewers rate Ticket creation and submission highest, with a score of 7.
The most common users of Kayako are from Small Businesses (1-50 employees).
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Reviews and Ratings
(46)
Community Insights
TrustRadius Insights are summaries of user sentiment data from TrustRadius reviews and, when necessary, 3rd-party data sources. Have feedback on this content? Let us know!
- Business Problems Solved
- Recommendations
Kayako Fusion has been widely adopted by organizations to improve their customer service operations. Users have found that the software allows them to efficiently handle support tickets and maintain a personalized approach to customer interactions. The canned replies feature has proven to be effective in addressing common issues, while still providing a hands-on feel in customer communications. The self-hosted version of Kayako Fusion has demonstrated its reliability even during heavy traffic spikes, ensuring seamless customer support. The software's email support ticketing system has simplified the process for customers to send support requests and has enabled easy tracking and distribution of work to employees. Additionally, users have leveraged the powerful API provided by Kayako Fusion to create tools that enhance and expand the functionality of the software. For example, websites built using the Kayako Fusion API display real-time ticket queue information and alert the help desk about new tickets, resulting in quicker response times. The ability to directly interface with the database has allowed users to customize Kayako Fusion by building modules tailored to their specific business needs, such as a billing module with customized billing rules. Users have also appreciated the ease of configuration modifications and file uploads within Kayako Fusion's database-centric architecture, eliminating the need for permissions on multiple directories. With features like the option to choose between storing file attachments in the database or on the file system, Kayako Fusion offers flexibility in managing the database footprint. Regular backups of both the webserver directory and database ensure data reliability and safety for organizations using Kayako Fusion. Overall, customers have expressed satisfaction with Kayako Fusion, praising its performance as a reliable and versatile system for managing support tickets and facilitating effective customer communications. The software has been utilized across various industries and departments, serving as a case management tool, workflow tool, and company-wide ticketing system. Whether it is used by managed service providers to track service requests across different client companies or by organizations for software issue support and tracking, Kayako Fusion has consistently delivered the desired results. Users have found Kayako Fusion to be easy to program and have appreciated its reliability and the availability of customer support. The software has proved valuable as a help desk system, efficiently routing trouble tickets to the appropriate IT professionals and improving overall efficiency and reliability compared to previous systems. Kayako Fusion has been utilized in many ways, including organizing customer issues, requests, and ideas, facilitating direct communication with clients, tracking user issues and resolutions in IT departments, serving as a ticketing system for clients to submit support questions or issues, and functioning as a knowledge base for self-help documentation. The versatility of Kayako Fusion is evident in its institutional-wide use for IT and academic technology support in educational institutions, benefiting students, employees, and faculty members. Moreover, Kayako Fusion has been utilized by customers and potential customers for various purposes, including sales, support, customer service, and accounting. The software seamlessly converts emails into tickets and organizes them based on their status, progress, source, time, assignee, and intended procedure. Integration with third-party apps and APIs allows for the automatic import of tickets from different channels, such as Gmail and the company's built-in support system. For IT departments specifically, Kayako Fusion serves as a comprehensive tool for tracking user issues and resolutions, managing change and patch management processes, as well as handling permissions requests and user access changes. In addition to its efficiency in streamlining support operations, Kayako Fusion also serves as a ticketing system that provides a paper trail and historic record of client communications. Users have leveraged this feature to maintain a documented history of interactions with clients. In summary, Kayako Fusion has proven itself as a versatile solution used in various industries and departments to enhance customer support operations, track service requests and issues efficiently, improve workflow management, facilitate direct communication with clients, and serve as an institution-wide tool for IT support in educational institutions.
Users commonly recommend thoroughly researching and testing different helpdesk products before choosing Kayako. They advise evaluating the organization's needs and comparing them to the features offered by Kayako. However, they think Kayako is overpriced for the features it delivers.
Users suggest trying Kayako to experience its usefulness, emphasizing that it is user-friendly and intuitive. They also recommend not being afraid to use Kayako and suggest it for small and mid-sized companies as it helps save time and efforts in organizing emails and messages. Proper training and defining processes are advised to avoid struggles with ticket creation and information retrieval.
Additionally, users recommend exploring other options like Salesforce Essentials or Agile CRM for integrated helpdesk features. They believe Kayako is an excellent product for basic customer support but may not be suitable for advanced functionality or robust custom fields. They recommend trying out the demo and contacting support for any questions.
Users find the knowledge base feature of Kayako great and easy to set up. However, they think the live chat and support platforms may be better in other products. They mention that customer service is easier and faster with Kayako compared to live chat.
Overall, users appreciate the ease of use, simple setup, and customer satisfaction of Kayako. They suggest reading the documentation for better understanding and utilization of the software. Furthermore, they recommend Kayako for companies in the beginning stages with budget constraints and basic support needs.
Lastly, users suggest adding more custom reporting options and introducing collaborators to the Inbox plan. They recommend using the cloud version of Kayako to avoid purchasing hardware but also mention that the self-hosted version can be considered as an alternative option.
Attribute Ratings
Reviews
(1-9 of 9)Companies can't remove reviews or game the system. Here's why
February 19, 2020
Kayako worked great while it lasted
- We used Kayako as our primary IT Help Desk ticketing system. We purchased and used the On-Prem version and quite some success in its implementation.
- Kayako allowed us to easily manage Help Tickets, communicate with our users, document all our past tickets, and create a knowledge base to help users and personnel look up and store past issues and solutions.
- Help Desk Ticketing
- Knowledge Base
- The usability could be improved to reduce the learning curve.
- Make it easier to reply to a customer
Score 1 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
I wanted to use Kayako as a less complex replacement of Zendesk for customer support. It included the support channels I required, like Email, Chat, Facebook and Twitter.
- Easy to use interface.
- All support channels in one place (except that Facebook didn't work).
- Mobile app for incoming notifications (that didn't work).
- Their support team is worthless (no support at all).
- Very aggressive sales team (but doesn't support their customers).
- Core features do not work and they have no intention to fix them.
March 29, 2018
Kayako is BETTER than you think!
Our entire organization uses Kayako to conduct business. It is used to transfer work from one person to another, escalate to another group and until just recently, track efforts in our Development Department.
It is a very easy way to understand what issues a customer has, what the status of that issue is, who had it, what is the history of the effort on the customer's behalf and who has done what so far.
It is a very easy way to understand what issues a customer has, what the status of that issue is, who had it, what is the history of the effort on the customer's behalf and who has done what so far.
- Gives a very good report on an individual level of what is being done for a customer or corporate issue.
- Easy to understand who has what, what the tickets are about, how long they have been opened and how many times the customer/employee have gone back and forth with each other.
- Nice dashboard view.
- I personally find the reporting a bit difficult. We are on an older version of Kayako and I am told that reporting on the new version is much improved.
- There are some things missing in the new version that we were used to in the older version. Not sure how they came about what to keep or get rid of. Some of them are quite missed.
- Would like to see reporting done in a way that you pick what you want to report on and hit generate. No special "Language" skills needed.
October 17, 2017
Highly Priced Support/Upgrades
Score 1 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
The download version is excellent software and has many great features for supporting customers via email, telephone, and live chat.
- Customer Service Tickets
- Live Chat Functionality
- Terrible Customer Service
- Overpriced Support Charges For Existing Customers
- Many Bugs - Requiring An Expensive Support Agreement
Kayako was selected to replace an in-house ticketing system. We transitioned our web-hosting platform to another vendor and Kayako was one of the recommended ticketing systems. Kayako was being used to handle all in-bound and out-bound email communication with customers as well as using their integrated chat program. Kayako allowed us to organize our customers' communications.
- Kayako's chat system is very easy to use and set up. It integrates well with their control panel and organizes customer data.
- Kayako makes it easy to communicate with your customers.
- The built-in reports that Kayako provides are a good start to being able to monitor the work performed by staff.
- Departments need a bit of work. Even though you can have multiple departments, the only changes that can be made are globally. If you want independent queues within the departments, you have to do a lot of work that can be very confusing.
- Survey system is not up to speed. Kayako really needs to add Net Promoter Score into their system. Also, if a staff user removes their name from an incident ticket, it removes them from the survey so you really can't even get a good estimate of how well your staff is in the eyes of the customer.
- Very difficult to implement when you already have a customer base. Setting them up in organizations is difficult. Also, the sign-up for new customers is quirky. If you send an email to Kayako, it will say you are not an authorized user, however, it will store your email address. If you try to send an email a second time, it will go through. This is one of many reasons why we decided to move from Kayako to Oracle Service Cloud.
September 06, 2016
Kayako for Managed Service Providers (MSPs)
I work for a managed service provider (MSP). We've found Kayako to be a powerful tool for keeping track of service requests and trouble tickets across our 30+ different client companies. It keep the workflow of the day-to-day help desk organized via automated tasks and custom widgets. We mainly use Kayako for our internal staff of IT technicians, but it does have functions that tie into the heart of our other departments as well, including our marketing and sales teams. For instance on our main website there are chat functions that tie into Kayako that allow prospective customers to interface with us right away while browsing our website.
- Automated workflows. The workflows and email parser rules in Kayako are versatile and easy to set up, and saves you the trouble of having to create reoccurring tickets and manually assigning technicians for each ticket.
- Custom fields. Without custom fields there would be no way for us to effectively keep track of our 30+ different client companies. They can be added on the fly as well so you'll never feel 'trapped' within the set fields that come with the program.
- Reporting. The report builder that uses 'KQL as a query language (based on SQL) is easy to learn and allows you to pull relevant information/statistics from your help desk using specifications that you set yourself -- and ties back into automation via scheduled generated email reports.
- Custom fields. Although we love the custom fields in Kayako there is still some room for improvement regarding them. For instance, while browsing tickets, you cannot sort/search display columns via custom fields you have created. You can only sort/search by pre-programmed fields in Kayako.
- Email parser rules. This ties back to some of the limitations with custom fields. At the time of this writing we cannot create email parser rules using custom fields we have created as a criteria.
- The built-in chat feature. While the chat feature is great for interfacing with outside customers, it could do better in terms of being more convenient for internal staff. We wish we could have a 'technician group chat' that stays open on a continuous basis so that our technicians can communicate via Kayako more effectively. But at the moment, when you close a chat, it stays closed and you cannot 'reopen' it.
I would have to say I was surprised on how much I enjoyed working with Kayako. Fairly easy to program (learned it 100% self taught), reliability was nice, customer service/support was always great. Check the hours their support is open. Make sure you know "emergency contacts" for them. If using SAAS remember it's a shared server and someone you share it with could cause downtime through overuse or attacks on system. This only happened a few times but they are pretty good at being reactive to servers being down.
- Easy to learn
- Tons of features
- Good support
- SAAS went down on us a handful of times but I hear servers are stronger now
- Ability to call and talk to someone. Mostly all email and chat
- Custom builds for you rather than all self programmed
August 01, 2014
Keep customers coming back with Kayako
We implemented Kayako Fusion (download) as a way to streamline the relationship between our Customer Service team and our customers. It allows us to use canned replies for common issues while still maintaining a very hands on feel to our customer interactions. We elected to use the self-hosted version and have had a great experience with it even during our heaviest traffic spikes.
- Over the years they've continued to enhance the product and user experience on all fronts. Changes have always felt well thought out and purposeful and the UI has only gotten easier to use over time.
- Kayako's mail parser allows you to easily sort, prioritize, and present the information needed by your staff to easily tackle an onslaught of customer tickets.
- The system has scaled very easily over the years. We use it for one of our Retail sites that has anywhere from 10k to 15k unique views a day and it has never felt sluggish or degraded even under a heavy load.
- Adjusting the templates can be very tedious as each update includes a manual reversion process. While it isn't a big deal if you're using a mostly vanilla design I can imagine it would become tedious for a more involved UI change.
- The update process is easy enough but could obviously take some pointers from Wordpress in terms of making them more streamlined.
- The price has gone up substantially since we originally bought in, while I feel that we'd still have gotten our money out of it either way it is definitely much more of a hurdle than it used to be.
July 23, 2014
"Catchy Title"
Kayako is currently being used in our IT department in a few different roles. For the IT Support Side: This is being used to track user issues and resolutions. For the IT Infrastructure Side: This is being used for change and patch management tracking. For the IT Security Side: This is being used to track permissions requests, and changes in user access. Currently, Kayako is being used in the IT dept only, with no plans to expand further.
- The ability to switch between the desktop app and the web-based app is nice.
- The call and chat function of Kayako is pretty useful
- The ability to define categories, and subcategories, and exclude them from general search criteria is a nice touch
- The Desktop app constantly loses contact with the server, requiring multiple logon requests.
- The search parameters are overly sensitive, and I was unable to see any defined wildcard characters.
- The section for defining user permissions has some pitfalls that need to be addressed when setting up a new user.