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Zendesk is a cloud-based software solution that offers help desk ticketing, issue tracking, and customer service support. It integrates with dozens of content management systems, customer relationship management tools, and web apps. Features include hosted support email-ticket integration, online forums, RSS and widgets. Pricing starts at $1 per agent, monthly, featuring email ticketing and a knowledge base. The $25 Regular edition includes communities and surveys, and a custom domain. The recommended $59 per agent, per month Plus edition includes time tracking, custom reporting and dashboards, and an additional internal knowledge base; this edition's features represent the free trial configuration. Beyond this, the $125 Enterprise and $195 Enterprise Elite (per agent, per month) feature support and training, multibrand support, and other perks. Zendesk, Inc in San Francisco was bootstrapped from its founding in 2007 to June, 2008, when it received its first round of funding. In May 2014 Zendesk went public. The company now employs over 800 people and supports over 51,000 customer accounts.https://dudodiprj2sv7.cloudfront.net/product-logos/uP/79/M1ENTDBQMJ5X.PNGZendesk is our hub for knowing our customers and being customer driven in our businessWe use Zendesk to manage our inbound technical support, account support, technical services and requests from our contact page for communicating with users. We gather how to, bug reports and improvement requests from our users and are able to solve issues and track requests through a variety of systems we have integrated with. It is the central hub of how we interact with our customers when they reach out. In addition to traditional ticketing, we use to to tag users for early visibility testing in various areas of our product as well as a portal to our entire company to view and see tickets related to issues we may be solving in other areas of our business. Management, Development, Customer Success, Sales, Marketing, Quality Assurance, and even with our trusted partners, Zendesk is how we measure and organize all of our communications from our free, paid and educational users.,Integration is amazing due to the number of partner add ins they offer with pre-built integrations to common tools like, JIRA, Slack, Salesforce, Hubspot, ChurnZero. Extensibility into so many other areas of our business. Allowing us to build targets to accept triggered responses in a number of data formats from custom recipes allows us to make Zendesk update and notify other systems on demand in realtime avoiding costly polling automation scripts. API and App frameworks are also very well implemented and provide a framework to build custom applications to call our Zendesk account to perform automation and updates as well as build specific tools right inside the product while our agents are working. This can be very helpful since they have a marketplace that allows many other services to also integrate here.,They tend to move slowly to integrate new options to the API but overall are pretty responsive.. Understanding the API is a far less used part of their platform as a whole. We were grandfathered into the unlimited light agents.. but I think that access has been limited as of today.,10,Zendesk allows us to manage a large influx of customer created tickets, auto generated tickets, customer success and technical service tickets with a very small core group of support agents. (able to ramp our tools instead of our headcount) In our case 40% of our support can be solved in one transaction with the user because we have been able to integrate a number of tools to allow the user to submit screenshots and markup with detailed descriptions, extract their local system data and be able to send them on their way with a solution fast. (Quality submissions reduce the number of back and forth with the customer) Zendesk is one of the special ingredients to our very high rated support response time. (Fast through put),,CloudApp, JIRA Software, Slack, FreshBooks, Gusto,100,1,Responding to feedback from users (ticket handling) Integration into our bug tracking software to keep both the user and our development team on issues that are pending. This also allows us to close ticket once we push updates that address these issue on our service. Closing the loop from submission to closure is key. Integration into other systems we already use like JIRA, Salesforce and other utilities like Slack and CloudApp. Extensibility with Add on apps and the Apps Framework for adding in and building custom tools inside of Zendesk, mostly for agents. API for automating Zendesk.,Custom integration built on top of their current JIRA integration allows us to keep both Zendesk and JIRA up to date and know how many customer tickets are attached to a JIRA issue. This continuous sync allows us to close the loop with users when bits are live on our service. Our forum is also integrated into Zendesk so we can pull tickets from our forum into Zendesk and provide technical assistance when we need to take something off line. Integration of our public voting site, which allows us to track users that are voting for improvements without having to submit tickets on their own.,It could expand to other groups as we grown to manage their business segment of tickets. Having the API there is always new things we do to automate either ticket creation, update or communication to our users that are started from other tools in our organization The sky is the limit.,10The Pros and Cons of Zendesk - A Manager's PerspectiveWe needed an all in one support desk tool that would allow us to handle communication with clients from different platforms. We use Zendesk across the organization to maintain all communication with all our clients, both potential and existing. Zendesk solved 3 big problems for us 1) System-wide accountability - being able to know who was working on a support ticket at any time and who it was assigned to. Previously, we had to rely on manual communication for this. 2) All in one communication - we are now able to have all our communication channels in one place, whether it be a website, email or social communication. 3) Customer resolutions - with Zendesk, the amount of time it took to resolve and address customer queries has been cut in half, we are now more efficient and able to handle queries better.,With Zendesk we are able to have a holistic view of which customers have been attended to. Zendesk's easy to use Inbox feature makes this easy for anyone to join the team and start working in support. The integration with multiple platforms for communication makes this the goto Support Desk tool. We are able to have all our website, social media and email communication come into one location for all support staff to handle and see Zendesk apps and plugins increase usefulness. Being able to add apps to our Zendesk makes it easier for us to do things like measure productivity, conduct surveys and share customer communication on channels like Slack The ability to build your own Knowledgebase and have it on hand when answering customer queries is a life send. This alone is worth the monthly fees. As you can build up a Knowledgebase overtime and link to it on a website or through different communication channels.,Social media functionality is limited for example with Facebook, you cannot upload images (whether this a Facebook API limitation or Zendesk it leaves much to be desired. Also syncing between social media messages and Zendesk takes a bit of time. Duplicate messages are frustrating when the ticket system is open and not assigned. While Zendesk does show all messages in an inbox, you have to constantly refresh the inbox to get the most up to date inbox messages. If there was a way to show when someone is selecting a message (in an open ticket setup), it would make Zendesk 10x better.,9,Using Zendesk has given our managers a more holistic view of the support desk process. Prior to this, most managers did not have any way of tracking or reviewing support desk resolutions. Zendesk has improved our ability to handle customer queries. We are now more organized and aware of what channels our customers use to communicate with us and can handle more queries more effectively. Our cost per support staff vs profit per supported user has been reduced. Previously we paid 30% more for subscription fees but with Zendesk, our cost has been cut and productivity has been increased across teams.,HelpSpot,Canva, Zoho BooksZendesk is the best.Zendesk is the central source of issue reporting for our enterprise customers. We use this for helpdesk ticket responses, which also allows us to report on customer health and time to resolution.,Simple and easy to use Good reporting metrics which allow us to track all sorts of operational metrics Integrations with Jira, among many other integrations,There are currently two data dashboards, sometimes they do not match up,10,Zendesk is the central place for us to have all of our support data - it's one source of truth. Anyone can step right in and use it- no training necessary.,JIRA Software, ClientSuccess, Slackgood ticket management option; pricey and somewhat clutteredWe use Zendesk as customer success framework. Communication with customers starts, and usually ends, there. Customers open tickets, describe their issues, and so on. Than a customer success rep. takes it from there - he either helps them or routes the issue to an R&D member for further classification or observation.,Nice GUI Easy filtering Easy to see how a certain issue was handled and communicated to the customer,I'd like to immediately see "my issues" on top i'd like it to auto-remember where I left it GUI still little clustered.,7,it allows for professional customer communication management it helps the perception of good customer success team, which customers love and rely on,JIRA Service Desk,Atlassian ConfluenceBest scalable support solutionIt is used as the primary form of support for our publishing platform. It appears on all of our pages and we get a wide range of questions from publishing to overall use of the site. It is also used to uncover bugs found by our internal team.,Ease of use Ease of integration Ticketing system,Navigation in the web view is a little tricky Customization of FAQ section Feature for auto-replies based on keyword search of question,10,I like the rollup each month on how our response rate is going It pushes us to keep response time low We like to clear the ticket queue out each day,Desk.com,SendGrid Marketing Email, Pivotal Tracker
  3. Zendesk Reviews
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Zendesk
388 Ratings
Score 8.3 out of 101
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Zendesk Reviews

Zendesk
388 Ratings
Score 8.3 out of 101
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August 28, 2018

Review: "Zendesk is our hub for knowing our customers and being customer driven in our business"

Lou Gallo
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Review Source
We use Zendesk to manage our inbound technical support, account support, technical services and requests from our contact page for communicating with users. We gather how to, bug reports and improvement requests from our users and are able to solve issues and track requests through a variety of systems we have integrated with. It is the central hub of how we interact with our customers when they reach out. In addition to traditional ticketing, we use to to tag users for early visibility testing in various areas of our product as well as a portal to our entire company to view and see tickets related to issues we may be solving in other areas of our business. Management, Development, Customer Success, Sales, Marketing, Quality Assurance, and even with our trusted partners, Zendesk is how we measure and organize all of our communications from our free, paid and educational users.
  • Integration is amazing due to the number of partner add ins they offer with pre-built integrations to common tools like, JIRA, Slack, Salesforce, Hubspot, ChurnZero.
  • Extensibility into so many other areas of our business. Allowing us to build targets to accept triggered responses in a number of data formats from custom recipes allows us to make Zendesk update and notify other systems on demand in realtime avoiding costly polling automation scripts.
  • API and App frameworks are also very well implemented and provide a framework to build custom applications to call our Zendesk account to perform automation and updates as well as build specific tools right inside the product while our agents are working. This can be very helpful since they have a marketplace that allows many other services to also integrate here.
  • They tend to move slowly to integrate new options to the API but overall are pretty responsive.. Understanding the API is a far less used part of their platform as a whole.
  • We were grandfathered into the unlimited light agents.. but I think that access has been limited as of today.
From the small to large business, there is very little I have found that is not possible with Zendesk. If there are tools you need to integrate with, they have it and what they might not (which is rare) you can build it either right inside of the Zendesk platform or use the API to extend it into every corner of the business. The biggest part of integrating a support tool is making sure that it does the basics very well and allows you to expand into where you are going. From supporting one single use case to multiple business segments and keeping it all tied together so integration to other platforms that are in use is all there. I also like the fact they have a nice low end package that allows for ticket sharing which can be a great way to get your partners to have an option to share tickets with them when you have shared customers.
Read Lou Gallo's full review
August 22, 2018

Review: "The Pros and Cons of Zendesk - A Manager's Perspective"

Nathan Sichilongo
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Review Source
We needed an all in one support desk tool that would allow us to handle communication with clients from different platforms. We use Zendesk across the organization to maintain all communication with all our clients, both potential and existing.

Zendesk solved 3 big problems for us

1) System-wide accountability - being able to know who was working on a support ticket at any time and who it was assigned to. Previously, we had to rely on manual communication for this.
2) All in one communication - we are now able to have all our communication channels in one place, whether it be a website, email or social communication.
3) Customer resolutions - with Zendesk, the amount of time it took to resolve and address customer queries has been cut in half, we are now more efficient and able to handle queries better.
  • With Zendesk we are able to have a holistic view of which customers have been attended to. Zendesk's easy to use Inbox feature makes this easy for anyone to join the team and start working in support.
  • The integration with multiple platforms for communication makes this the goto Support Desk tool. We are able to have all our website, social media and email communication come into one location for all support staff to handle and see
  • Zendesk apps and plugins increase usefulness. Being able to add apps to our Zendesk makes it easier for us to do things like measure productivity, conduct surveys and share customer communication on channels like Slack
  • The ability to build your own Knowledgebase and have it on hand when answering customer queries is a life send. This alone is worth the monthly fees. As you can build up a Knowledgebase overtime and link to it on a website or through different communication channels.
  • Social media functionality is limited for example with Facebook, you cannot upload images (whether this a Facebook API limitation or Zendesk it leaves much to be desired. Also syncing between social media messages and Zendesk takes a bit of time.
  • Duplicate messages are frustrating when the ticket system is open and not assigned. While Zendesk does show all messages in an inbox, you have to constantly refresh the inbox to get the most up to date inbox messages. If there was a way to show when someone is selecting a message (in an open ticket setup), it would make Zendesk 10x better.
Zendesk is a great support tool for handling support tickets for small to medium size service-oriented organizations. It is more suited towards email and web with limited functionality for social media. If you run a small support team (say 3-15 people) Zendesk is worth the money. There are some features that may work for larger organizations but the need for customization and apps make it difficult to justify unless your profit per supported user is higher than the cost.
Read Nathan Sichilongo's full review
August 01, 2018

User Review: "Zendesk is the best."

Jesse Brightman
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Review Source
Zendesk is the central source of issue reporting for our enterprise customers. We use this for helpdesk ticket responses, which also allows us to report on customer health and time to resolution.
  • Simple and easy to use
  • Good reporting metrics which allow us to track all sorts of operational metrics
  • Integrations with JIRA, among many other integrations
  • There are currently two data dashboards, sometimes they do not match up
Zendesk is the industry standard in helpdesk/bug/ticketing resolution for customer service and experience. It is easy to implement, and even easier to use. There is a strong emphasis on data for my team, and Zendesk allows us the reporting functionality to look at our current metrics and how we can improve.
Read Jesse Brightman's full review
July 16, 2018

Zendesk Review: "good ticket management option; pricey and somewhat cluttered"

Yaron Lavi
Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Review Source
We use Zendesk as customer success framework. Communication with customers starts, and usually ends, there. Customers open tickets, describe their issues, and so on. Than a customer success rep. takes it from there - he either helps them or routes the issue to an R&D member for further classification or observation.
  • Nice GUI
  • Easy filtering
  • Easy to see how a certain issue was handled and communicated to the customer
  • I'd like to immediately see "my issues" on top
  • i'd like it to auto-remember where I left it
  • GUI still little clustered.
Zendesk is a good at collecting issues from customers, and handling them as conversations.
it's less good in helping you focus on new items, or only "your" cases.
Read Yaron Lavi's full review
July 13, 2018

Zendesk Review: "Best scalable support solution"

Chris Barretto
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Review Source
It is used as the primary form of support for our publishing platform. It appears on all of our pages and we get a wide range of questions from publishing to overall use of the site. It is also used to uncover bugs found by our internal team.
  • Ease of use
  • Ease of integration
  • Ticketing system
  • Navigation in the web view is a little tricky
  • Customization of FAQ section
  • Feature for auto-replies based on keyword search of question
I think this fits for any small or large company. It fulfills the need for support without much development on the application. It scales well with the size of the business and is easy to add/remove agents.
Read Chris Barretto's full review
July 10, 2018

Review: "Zendesk top contender for your business!"

Daniel Coburn
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Review Source
[Zendesk is being used] In order to support 3 million active users of a classified system. Originally all support was done through email or phone calls and things would get lost and not followed up on. It was also impossible to have any type of SLA. Using Zendesk gave the group the ability to track all customer inquiries, added accountability and gave our customers a more reliable way to see where their requests were and what was happening. It also gave us the ability to grow our team and meet the of ever-growing demands of our customers.
  • Organize help tickets
  • Keep customer up-to-date
  • Allow experts in different fields to handle certain clients
  • Integration into SFDC could be better
  • While you could have canned responses the ability to easily share was not clear at the beginning in order to share best practices if they were personal responses vs. public.
Larger support organizations can benefit from Zendesk. But for many something like Zoho One with their help desk solution would suffice. If you are a larger business and want a dedicated help desk solution Zendesk is a must look at option for you. If you are a smaller startup or just getting started with CRM etc., look at Zoho One as well.
Read Daniel Coburn's full review
September 12, 2018

User Review: "Zendesk"

Bridgette Reynolds
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Review Source
We are a software company so our users email us all the time through our platform into Zendesk. Without Zendesk our email inboxes would be extremely full and messy!
  • Being able to assign different tickets to different users on Zendesk
  • Being able to write private messages before making them public to the person requesting
  • Being able to cc users on tickets
  • Seeing the cc'd ticket in your queue
  • Better mobile functions - while I love having the app on my phone, I feel there could be additional features that are on the desktop version added to the mobile version, but I am aware that's a huge task!
  • Load time is sometimes long for tickets - could be my browser but i've noticed lately it's a little slower.
Zendesk has been a lifesaver! When I first started my job I wasn't sure what we would use to speak to clients and this has been awesome.
Read Bridgette Reynolds's full review
May 11, 2018

User Review: "Zendesk helps!"

Farah Noor
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Review Source
We use it to do service requests such as updating data sheets, gathering data, technology issues, and changes needed to Salesforce etc. The whole organization uses it and it is something that is becoming the way we can get things fixed through our HQ. Since we work at regional sites--it's hard to get answers right away from HQ. Zendesk helps with the requests that HQ can help with.
  • Clear platform
  • Sends a direct email when you create one
  • Has drop down menus
  • Mobile device
  • The emails with replies can be hard to understand
  • Amount of emails
It is well suited when you are working at an organization that has sites across America. It helps because our HQ houses the main data technology people and so when we have requests it can streamline the way we get our requests answered. I feel like it would not be suited for an organization that does not have many people or where it's so small that you can just talk to the person who can help you.
Read Farah Noor's full review
August 07, 2018

"Zendesk Review"

James Mcbride
Score 6 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Review Source
We are using Zendesk to help us manage our tickets for our customers. It has helped being able to have a streamlined interface to be able to use. This helps us when we are helping customers because all the access is right there and we can get any data we need to help the customer now.
  • Tickets
  • Email Integration
  • Ticket Complete
  • Tickets
  • Sometimes can be cumbersome when entering in data
  • Initial Data Sync
It is well suited for a company with a customer base that will frequently call/email in. It helps organize the tickets and great place to find the information you might need. It is great to be able to pull up a customer and see their past complaints, who worked them, and if are they resolved or not.
Read James Mcbride's full review
July 13, 2018

Zendesk Review: "Great Introduction for anyone with an online Retail Store"

Jamin McBain
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Review Source
We used it as an order management system for a retail clothing brand. We also used it to keep up with requests from customers.
  • It worked seamlessly with my email account.
  • I was able to mark whether or not an order was fulfilled or pending.
  • I was previously only handling requests via email, Zendesk helped put things in order for me.
  • Notification feature to your email when something hasn’t been addressed that you may have missed.
  • The support ticketing can sometimes get confusing at first glance if you are new to a this kind of program.
  • I do not enjoy when others in the organization were able to interrupt or answer a customer. I think roles should be able to be assigned and only designated to the person who is helping accisplercumless otherwise said.
As far as setup, Zendesk is very user friendly. If this is the first program to use as an administrator I do not forsee you running into much trouble roc set your team up with an account & teaching them best practices.
Read Jamin McBain's full review
August 03, 2018

Zendesk Review: "Excellent Metrics to Keep Your Support Teams on Track"

Verified User
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Review Source
Zendesk was implemented for our our sales support staff that also handles customer issues. Originally, we were using emails as a means of ticket correspondence. It was inefficient, to say the least. Issues were getting lost in the shuffle of everyday email, tracking for resolutions was at an all time low, and putting metrics on customer success was impossible. Zendesk solved that for us.
  • Metrics. The analytics that come with the dashboard are really helpful for managing your team.
  • Reminders and timelines.
  • Tags. They help you stay hyper-organized.
  • Convoluted dashboard. It isn't the most intuitive dash. It takes many clicks to try to find what you're looking for.
  • When you attach someone to a ticket, but later take them off the correspondence, they are automatically added back on.
Zendesk is well suited if email is the main way your customers communicate with you - it allows you to organize and assign them to appropriate people. However, we mainly work internally with third-parties to resolve conflicts when our customers come to us. Our customers often go to the sales reps, the sales rep pass the issue to the sales support staff, and the sales support staff inputs the ticket manually, attaches the appropriate party and resolves it from there. For tracking how we solve internally, it wasn't the greatest.
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March 30, 2018

User Review: "Zendesk- the rockstar of ticketing!"

Verified User
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Review Source
Zendesk is used by our organization strictly on the sales side of things as well as with our customer services team. The great thing about using Zendesk internally is that it allows our company to keep all information about our customers in one place that we can constantly review and update accordingly.
  • It is very flexible and customizable. Very fast and easy to use.
  • The support levels are fantastic. Easy to submit support tickets and get help when needed.
  • User experience is clean and intuitive. Does not require a lot of prior knowledge in order to set up and run effectively. The platform is very smart and dynamic.
  • The mobile experience is not great. Would love to see a revamped experience that is more mobile friendly and responsive
  • It is a pretty expensive solution. While it is worth the cost it doesn't come at a cheap price tag
Zendesk is a must-have solution for any organization that has a sales team of a customer service team that will be supporting their current clients. It is great for tracking, submitting tickets and overall management of clients and customer population. Less appropriate for companies who do not sell a product that other people buy.
Read this authenticated review
July 13, 2018

User Review: "Zendesk"

Verified User
Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Review Source
Zendesk is our primary mode of communication with our customers. We use it mostly for email but have a few other uses for it as well. We plan to eventually use it for phone and/or chat support.
  • It's a great tool for ticketing and tracking customer interactions.
  • It has a huge amount of customizability. Almost too much in some cases.
  • Because every business needs to use Zendesk in their own context, the tool isn't immediately understandable. It's quite complicated in many ways.
  • The biggest area for improvement would be analytics. The current Zendesk analytics platform is quite bad.
I'm a fan but have a few reservations. I would like to try something like Intercom in the future to see if that works better for our company needs.
Read this authenticated review
February 28, 2018

Zendesk Review: "The best tool on the market... for a reason."

Alexander Bekhterev
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Review Source
We use Zendesk to raise internal tickets for the tech team as well as give access to our customers to raise support tickets on their own. It is used by the service and tech support teams. It is a very convenient tool to track incoming support requests and manage them until they're resolved.
  • Incoming request tracking and assignment via multiple channels
  • Ticket processing and communication, macros, workflows
  • Categorization and reporting
  • User management
  • Lots of integrations + API
  • Slow UI
  • Not easy or intuitive to learn, requires significant training time
  • Mobile apps contain some bugs
Zendesk is really great and I've been using it for a few years now. It helps us communicate with clients and internally to solve technical requests and it works with multiple channels. It's easy to brand with your company's styles and it has mobile apps to resolve tickets on the go. It may not be the best to handle project management tasks but it was not built to do that.
Read Alexander Bekhterev's full review
January 30, 2018

Zendesk Review: "Versatile Customer Support Solution"

Greg Larsen
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Review Source
At Lingotek, we use Zendesk to handle all of our customer support tickets across the company. Our customer support department is the main department that uses it, but we have some of our product team and sales support team using it as well. The biggest problems that Zendesk is solving compared to our previous provider is to be able to have all of our ticket information stored within Salesforce so that the sales side of our company can see what is going on with their accounts.
  • Ease of use for end users
  • Help/Self-Service support page is a lifesaver for our support team and clients
  • Integrations into Salesforce, JIRA, and other software is a breeze
  • The integration with the Knowledge Base and Confluence was a little tricky
  • More customer support through the onboarding process
Zendesk is well suited for companies that are looking for an intuitive way to handle customer support and ticketing requests with their external customers as well as internal tickets within their organization. It is able to be adapted, configured, and customized with both the look and feel as well as the functionality of the software. We have found more and more use cases for Zendesk as we have continued to use it.
Read Greg Larsen's full review
September 21, 2017

User Review: "Relax with Zendesk"

Kevin Pearce
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Review Source
We use Zendesk specifically for technical support ticket tracking and communication with clients. It is not being used by the sales or development team although we do have integrations into the CRM (Salesforce) and defect tracking (JIRA) systems.
  • Simple clean interface that is very easy to pick up and learn.
  • Low administrative overhead which can be setup and managed without a lot of time or expense invested
  • Excellent support staff that has been very responsive to questions.
  • Does not have the level of customization or workflow automation that something like Salesforce cases has.
  • The integration to Salesforce was not clean or simple
  • As a contact management system, it is very rudimentary and that is clearly not its strength
I think Zendesk works great for a small support team or an organization just getting started. The triggers and automation is easy to setup so a few folks can quickly and efficiently dispatch a reasonably high number of tickets without much overhead.

I think Zendesk would probably come up short compared to something like Salesforce in a large, cross functional role where it was being used by sales, marketing, etc. It would also probably be short on features in large scale issue trend analysis. I have not attempted to use it for any of those scenarios, but it does not seem well suited to that.
Read Kevin Pearce's full review
December 20, 2017

Review: "Zendesk Provides Product Teams With Design Transparency"

Adam Hanneman
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Review Source
Zendesk is on the front line for our company. It helps us to manage our customer's tickets and chats with the company. It gives us visibility into the types of issues that our customers are running into and it allows our support team to organize themselves. We use the platform on our support team and across all customer-facing departments including sales and customer success.
  • Zendesk allows us to see the life cycle of a specific customer and all of the issues they have run into.
  • It enables us to quantify the issues that our customers are running into so that we can create better training materials going forward.
  • The live chat option inside of Zendesk makes it easy for us to manage the conversations with our paying customers.
  • The customer facing chat application is not very "pretty". I think that it could be improved upon immensely.
  • Zendesk's integration with Salesforce is not very straightforward and requires a solid amount of work to set up.
  • It would be great to be able to tie inquires into the company that aren't necessarily support related. For example a sales conversation request.
Zendesk is very well suited for organizations that are going to encounter a large number of support requests. If your product is somewhat straightforward and it is important to track the issues that they are having, it will help you organize all of this data well. If you have an "app" or something that is easier to use then Zendesk may not make sense for you. It also may not make sense if you need to track marketing data.
Read Adam Hanneman's full review
December 13, 2017

Zendesk Review: "A must have for any company serious about support their customer base"

Debbie Marshall
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Review Source
We use Zendesk to deliver support to our customers who use our product. The customer support team use the software to answer questions or respond to issues that our customers have with our product.
  • Allows us to create separate access for all the different organisations we have as customers
  • Provides a place for us to display FAQs and tutorials videos which can be locked down to be client specific
  • Allows us to set SLA response times per client that we can easily monitor
  • Standard reports as well as allowing you to build you on reports
  • Out or hours set up, allows us to plug in our working hours
  • Having a customer friendly app, currently, only agents can use the app
  • More levels of admin access can be quite restraining
  • CMS could be easier to use
  • When updates are made some cause issues with macros that are set up to respond to tickets
Ideally suited for a company that has a lot of customers. Can be locked down to organisation and product specific. Agents can be locked down to specific customers.
Read Debbie Marshall's full review
December 12, 2017

Review: "Zendesk is an everyday tool in our company"

Vitalija Golceva
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Review Source
Zendesk is being used by the support department. It is the main tool for customer service and support analytics.
  • Easy to use. It helps to save time when solving customer tickets.
  • Great integration possibilities. There are lots of ways to expand Zendesk functionality with other tools or connecting with a CRM.
  • Powerful analytics.
  • Reporting part is a bit slow.
Zendesk is well suited for any company who has more than 1 person supporting customers. I have already recommended Zendesk to other companies and they are successfully using it.
Read Vitalija Golceva's full review
November 30, 2017

Zendesk Review: "Best chat service for your organization!"

Dérick St-Hilaire
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Review Source
We used it to communicate with customers on our website. We used it for support AND sales.
  • Chat window directly on our website.
  • Easy to use, aesthetic and moreover affordable
  • Automatic message to facilitate recurrent questions
  • Sometimes when you log out it doesn't work. The service stays available on the site web even though nobody is there to answer
If you want a chat on your website it's the best option! A chat window is perfect to be close to your customers. Instant response to their problem is important to offer great service.
Read Dérick St-Hilaire's full review
December 18, 2017

Zendesk Review: "Helping to create happy customers!"

Verified User
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Review Source
Zendesk is currently being used by multiple departments across the business, customer support being the heaviest user. We use Zendesk as our primary ticketing system for customers as well as internal requests.
  • Automated rules and routing to ensure the right people get the right information at the right time.
  • Analytics offering allows us to track data over time and gives us extremely customizable data points to tie in with different areas of the business.
  • Zendesk has multiple integrations that allow us to plug into different areas of our tech stack.
  • Zendesk support hasn't always been the timeliest in follow up, or finding a resolution.
  • The Community offering is extremely limited and lacks the level of customization that is present in other areas of the platform.
  • The analytics might be too flexible. Can be tricky to pin point what it is exactly that you're trying to report on.
Zendesk is great as a customer support ticketing system. It has a ton of integrations that allow you to seamlessly plug into different platforms that the business is using. A high level of customization and flexibility are present; this allows you to set up multiple rules and routing so that no matter your hours of operation/business model, you can easily and seamlessly get to all of your customers.

Zendesk can also be used for multiple internal request scenarios. That being said if you need to go beyond a request and resolution system you may need to work elsewhere as the collaboration efforts may not suit your need.
Read this authenticated review
December 12, 2017

User Review: "Zendesk CRM - How Great is it?"

Verified User
Score 6 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Review Source
We use Zendesk in multiple departments at this company. We use it as a customer relationship management tool mainly for its chat and email to ticket capabilities to enhance our customer support processes. We also utilize its Communities and Help Center.
  • Ease of system administration and set up. It's easy for administrators to set up and support Zendesk to meet the majority of business needs.
  • Customer support. Zendesk provides easy accessibility and quick support when we need them the most.
  • Enhancements - Zendesk is continually improving their system which gives you hope for new functionality to help and enhance your current support processes.
  • Limited functionality - Compared to some of the competitors out there, Zendesk has a long way to go, offering limited functionality such as advanced trigger logic, the limited use of the CC field, and the lack of integration between their chat and ticket reporting.
  • Analytics - Reporting is only based off of ticket fields and hardly anything else. This makes it hard to really track agent productivity and more importantly, it is hard to integrate into your business intelligent systems.
  • Roles and Permissions - Creating roles and permissions is very limited. I would like to have more control over what users can and cannot see within the user interface as well as access to functionality.
Zendesk is well suited for smaller support groups or companies. They can definitely leverage the efficiency gained by the business automations, macros, and custom integrations that Zendesk is great at providing.

Due to the customizing limitations of permissions/roles, and the lesser flexibility of this system compared to some of the major players such as Salesforce, it's harder to implement for a larger organization that needs very specific configuration and individualization for their use-case/department.

Lastly, analytics isn't a strong point, and this is crucial to the success of your business when looking at ROI for utilizing this system.
Read this authenticated review
June 28, 2017

Review: "Zendesk is best customer service platform"

Brendan Farrar-Foley
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Review Source
Our company, Regent Solutions, is the only Premier Partner for Zendesk right now. In that capacity, we have helped dozens of companies using Zendesk optimize their customer service setup, migrate from other products to Zendesk, build custom solutions for agent efficiency, integration, or other tasks.

We have built and optimized Zendesk instances for small departments within large companies, small business, large companies with hundreds of agents, and one of the largest Zendesk instances in existence! We helped get 80% of government Zendesk instances up and running or improved their use of the tool.
  • Ticketing and Viewing tickets -- Zendesk has easy to create views which allow agents to see the tickets they need to complete their workflows. These are easily built by non-technical users and agents themselves so there is no bottleneck for IT to help when changes are needed.
  • Knowledge Base -- Zendesk provides a comprehensive knowledge base tool called Guide (formerly Help Center). This allows posting of articles for customers but is also the basis of tools such as AnswerBot which attempt to deflect tickets by automatically providing customers with articles that may solve their ticket.
  • API -- Zendesk has, hands down, the best API of any customer support provider, and it's right up there with the best APIs anywhere. The APIs are extremely well documented, comprehensive, and provide access to every piece of data in the Zendesk system without restriction. I'm sorry to say I can't say the same for Parature (Microsoft), Salesforce, QuickDesk, FreshDesk, or frankly ANY of the other tools we have migrated clients out of and into Zendesk.
  • Advanced automation is lacking. Many functions, such as actions based on the contents of a text field, are not available in the built in automation tools. This is often a surprise to users who consider this basic functionality. Instead, custom scripts must be built to accommodate fairly simple actions.
  • License cost -- many clients complain of higher licensing cost vs. competitors.
Zendesk is well suited for large and small helpdesk and customer service teams.

Zendesk is well suited for companies who handle primarily email and voice intake. It is not as robust for chat and social media interaction as some competitors, however, they offer all of these. If integration across all intake points is important it is worth considering. Zendesk is not well suited for heavy integration with other enterprise systems where data exchange needs to be two (or multi) directional and in real time.
Read Brendan Farrar-Foley's full review
August 16, 2016

User Review: "Is Zendesk Right for you?"

Ellis Smith
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Review Source
Zendesk helps businesses organize and expedite the flow of customer support inquiries utilizing a proprietary cloud-based ticketing system. Support agents can work remotely using any computer or phone with Zendesk being a cloud-based system, which is an asset to any organization that wishes to keep up with the quick start-up nature of the current environment. Transparency via custom reporting also allows the upper echelons of management to see how well their agents are performing with the ability to monitor average response times, satisfaction ratings, and breakdowns of ticket types. Zendesk is highly recommended to all organizations wishing to bolster their customer service efforts.
  • A cloud-based system means agents can work from anywhere.
  • Custom reporting allows for full transparency of customer service activities and metrics.
  • The ability to handle emails and customer service calls without the need of physical help center equipment helps keep overhead costs to a minimum.
  • Zendesk occasionally will fail to make outbound calls inexplicably. This can be rectified by logging out and back in to the system.
  • Zendesk Voice does not have the standard ability to transfer calls. This makes passing calls between departments cumbersome.
  • The standard ticket statuses are limiting. The ability to customize ticket types beyond Open, On-Hold, and Pending would be welcome in maintaining an organized environment.
In any environment where a business handles customer service inquiries, Zendesk is a welcome asset. Even though Zendesk has the ability to receive inbound calls, and perform outbound calls, Zendesk is not optimal for a sales team. This is because, unlike a full CRM, Zendesk does not capture lead information in a way that is helpful to maintaining organization within a standard sales team.
Read Ellis Smith's full review
May 03, 2016

User Review: "Zendesk"

Amy Hardeman
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Review Source
Zendesk is being used campus wide in all departments. All work related Help Desk requests now go through Zendesk. Zendesk helps in a wide variety of ways. It makes getting reports to our CIO regarding technology requests and many other requests. It helps aid IT on how well their response times are, how much time they spend on average per ticket, and feedback from users as they can rate the technician.
  • It is designed for ease of use. Not much training has to be done for users on how to use it.
  • Maintains records of each ticket worked, so technicians can easily search for previous tickets to see what the solve was and even has the ability to link that ticket to a new ticket giving the user the solution without a technician actually having to go do a hands on.
  • All departments can be incorporated into Zendesk to use it also. Example: Maintenance Department can use it, the print shop, Distance Learning, Web services etc.
  • A drop down menu for the user to pick from as to what area their problem is with - hardware, password, WiFi, software, virus, etc.
Read Amy Hardeman's full review

Zendesk Scorecard Summary

Likelihood to Recommend (388)
8.3
Likelihood to Renew (37)
10.0
Usability (12)
9.0
Availability (13)
8.6
Performance (10)
8.0
Support (17)
10.0
In-Person Training (1)
10.0
Online Training (9)
7.9
Implementation (17)
9.0

Feature Scorecard Summary

Organize and prioritize service tickets (28)
8.8
Expert directory (20)
7.3
Subscription-based notifications (21)
7.5
ITSM collaboration and documentation (23)
7.2
Ticket creation and submission (29)
9.3
Ticket response (29)
9.1
External knowledge base (24)
8.3
Internal knowledge base (22)
7.8
Customer portal (23)
8.3
IVR (9)
7.3
Social integration (16)
7.4
Email support (28)
9.1
Help Desk CRM integration (21)
8.2

About Zendesk

Zendesk is a cloud-based software solution that offers help desk ticketing, issue tracking, and customer service support. It integrates with dozens of content management systems, customer relationship management tools, and web apps. Features include hosted support email-ticket integration, online forums, RSS and widgets.

Pricing starts at $1 per agent, monthly, featuring email ticketing and a knowledge base. The $25 Regular edition includes communities and surveys, and a custom domain. The recommended $59 per agent, per month Plus edition includes time tracking, custom reporting and dashboards, and an additional internal knowledge base; this edition's features represent the free trial configuration. Beyond this, the $125 Enterprise and $195 Enterprise Elite (per agent, per month) feature support and training, multibrand support, and other perks.

Zendesk, Inc in San Francisco was bootstrapped from its founding in 2007 to June, 2008, when it received its first round of funding. In May 2014 Zendesk went public. The company now employs over 800 people and supports over 51,000 customer accounts.

Categories:  Customer Experience Management,  Help Desk

Zendesk Integrations

Zendesk Competitors

Pricing

Has featureFree Trial Available?Yes
Does not have featureFree or Freemium Version Available?No
Does not have featurePremium Consulting/Integration Services Available?No
Entry-level set up fee?No

Zendesk Technical Details

Operating Systems: Unspecified
Mobile Application:No