Zendesk. Simple, Smooth, and Powerful
October 02, 2013
Zendesk. Simple, Smooth, and Powerful
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Software Version
Plus
Overall Satisfaction
- Organization: it helps to keep everything where you need it, as you need it. With different views for you, your group, your organization etc.
- Customization: Zendesk is fully flexible for anything you need to to do. You can create trigger (action based) or automations (time based) to act on almost anything you need done.
- Support: Zendesk's Support team is phenomenal, you have forums that they actually talk on, you have a direct chat line which they actually reply on, and you have a PERSON! you can call who knows their product, and if they cannot fix it they get someone who can. Yes i have even had a developer get on the phone with me to fix and issue with MY CODE for Zendesk.
- Ease of Use, I have taught Zendesk to them all, from the smartest people to the not so smart people, and it's easy for them to grasp and more than that... It is easy for them to RETAIN!
- It comes with full integration with multiple tools from multiple departments such as Jira, SalesForce, Pivotal Tracker, etc... Apps for time tracking, project management, reporting, etc.. And if it doesn't integrate with your software you can built your own integration tools.
- I'll stop with this last point, but the most important point. Zendesk is extremely customer friendly. Each user can get their own account, in which they can view ALL their open, pending, closed, and even tickets they're CC'd on. It does not stop there. If they are a frequent customer you can set it up so that a manager can view all of the tickets for his entire organization. It comes with a forum, a knowledge-base for internal and External use and more.
- The only issue I have with Zendesk is they do not always give you a set date for the release of new features.
- Zendesk will optimize your HelpDesk, Support team, or any team really to get organized, stick to what they are doing, stay focused and make it all smoother and easier for them in the process.
Product Usage
4 - I have 4 in my company, but much more for the other companies that I have done work for,
At Johnson Business Technology Solutions I have molded Zendesk into a HelpDesk tool for our Desktop guys, an Escalation tool for our System Engineers, and a project tracker for both.
At Johnson Business Technology Solutions I have molded Zendesk into a HelpDesk tool for our Desktop guys, an Escalation tool for our System Engineers, and a project tracker for both.
1 - It only takes one person to sit down and spend a few hours playing with it to be able to fully support Zendesk.
- Disorganization.
- Loss of work.
- Time Tracking.
- Project Tracking.
- The break or loss of communication between multiple departments.
Evaluation and Selection
I have used all of them from Starter to Plus due to implementing and training my company as well as other companies on this product.
In my searches I have come across a lot of alternatives and I try to keep and open mind on each of them, here are a few of the tools I heard and saw a lot of chatter about while reviewing a looking for Helpdesk tools.
SpiceWorks - This was a freeware program that i had used in the past, it was primarily built for monitoring and they just added other additions such as the Help Desk and the Inventory. Like many other freeware programs similar to this, you run into the fact that it was not built as a HelpDesk tool and so the designers main focus was not on this tool. Over time the Database becomes very bogged down and slow. As well, their are a lot of key features and customizations missing in this product. Also, when the Network Monitor would kick in, the program would become virtually unusable due to all of its resources were pushed off to the Monitor. This is a prime example of "You Get What You Pay For."
SalesForce- Salesforce has a section with HelpDesk Tools, and they claim its for easy integration with your sales and marketing team, but like with Salesforce you run into the fact that SalesForce is a Sales and Marketing tool, it is not a HelpDesk tool. So once again they focus more on the sales and marketing stuff and not so much on the HelpDesk side of things. Now it is a great thing to have when your sales and marketing team have such a tight integration with your support or HelpDesk team, so that they can see the current issues with the products as well as which customers have the most and least amount of problems for recommendations. But from a HelpDesk perspective there just is not enough there; you miss out on better reporting, and what reporting you do get, it takes someone trained on it to find what they want and get it to look right for a presentation or meeting. NOT TO MENTION Zendesk has full integration with Salesforce, so your HelpDesk team gets what they need, and it exports only what the Sales and Marketing team need.
SpiceWorks - This was a freeware program that i had used in the past, it was primarily built for monitoring and they just added other additions such as the Help Desk and the Inventory. Like many other freeware programs similar to this, you run into the fact that it was not built as a HelpDesk tool and so the designers main focus was not on this tool. Over time the Database becomes very bogged down and slow. As well, their are a lot of key features and customizations missing in this product. Also, when the Network Monitor would kick in, the program would become virtually unusable due to all of its resources were pushed off to the Monitor. This is a prime example of "You Get What You Pay For."
SalesForce- Salesforce has a section with HelpDesk Tools, and they claim its for easy integration with your sales and marketing team, but like with Salesforce you run into the fact that SalesForce is a Sales and Marketing tool, it is not a HelpDesk tool. So once again they focus more on the sales and marketing stuff and not so much on the HelpDesk side of things. Now it is a great thing to have when your sales and marketing team have such a tight integration with your support or HelpDesk team, so that they can see the current issues with the products as well as which customers have the most and least amount of problems for recommendations. But from a HelpDesk perspective there just is not enough there; you miss out on better reporting, and what reporting you do get, it takes someone trained on it to find what they want and get it to look right for a presentation or meeting. NOT TO MENTION Zendesk has full integration with Salesforce, so your HelpDesk team gets what they need, and it exports only what the Sales and Marketing team need.
Implementation
- Implemented in-house
I performed the implementation myself, and do this through Johnson Business Technology Solutions for our customers.
Training
- Self-taught
This product is stupid easy to learn, and there are ample quantities of click by click documentation and explanations of everything on their site. As well, if you ever run into any issues, their support team has always been top notch.
Configuration
Zendesk DOES NOT require any custom code to work. The only custom code you need is if you are really wanting to personalize your public or agent site. As well as if you do want to use custom code, it is simple to find on the internet, or you can write it yourself with HTML or JavaScript.
Support
No - It is included in the Edition you choose.
Usability
Reliability
Integration
- SalesForce.
- Phabricator.
- Jira.
For SalesForce and Jira it was simple as they have a full integration app that you just download, input some simple information and you're done.
Where as with Phabricator, I had to do a custom integration which worked smoothly.
Where as with Phabricator, I had to do a custom integration which worked smoothly.
- QuickBooks, for time tracking.
Currently they do have a tool in place for it, but I have not tried it yet. Although I am looking forward to it.
Vendor Relationship
They do have a price scale, but they will work with you and your business as much as they can.