Item: Zendesk Suite
Rating: 8
Author: John Epok Pascual

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

On a given regular basis, Zendesk is mainly used in our organization as our main communication tool for support agents and customers catering to the most integrated channels at the moment: email, chat, and social media. We wanted a tool that eliminates working in silo and consolidates all inquiries onto 1 platform hence Zendesk was selected.

Pros and Cons

Channel integration: email, chat, social media
Automations and triggers
Asynchronous integrations between channels i.e when a customer leaves on chat they can continue on other channels like social media
Analytics and reporting

Zendesk FAQs - customizations wise on themes would need coders
Additional metrics based on specific use cases, specifically real-time dashboards are hard-coded. Most of our metrics are customized hence is not not useful.
Support can be average and as an enterprise customer, we need our vendor to be at par with the technology and support we provide to our end users.

Return on Investment

Higher CSAT scores as generally we can do service recovery on DSATs as it is convertible.
Uptick on first response time as tickets are being arranged in views.
Improved agent experience through Agent Workspace as it eliminated switch in between different screens.

Usability

Zendesk provides improvement on a general basis and not per what is needed by the client. In our experience some of the features released are okay but there are always follow-ups to check if additional features can be done based on our use case. These are acknowledged, however, there are no guarantees.

Customer Experience

Zendesk has always been an advocate of self-help hence there is a ton of documentation shared for customers. In the event whereby assistance is needed then there are options - directly liaising with support/premier support. Premier Support (mind you that this is a subscription service) works through severity levels.

Alternatives Considered

Kustomer and Freshdesk

Mainly falls on familiarity as I have been using Zendesk for more than 10 years now. The timeline was a bit strict during deployment quarters hence we have decided to go with the less friction software to be deployed. Additionally, Zendesk on agent's view is user-friendly which cuts the training time in half.

Key Insights

Do you think Zendesk Suite delivers good value for the price?

Not sure

Are you happy with Zendesk Suite's feature set?

Yes

Did Zendesk Suite live up to sales and marketing promises?

Did implementation of Zendesk Suite go as expected?

Yes

Would you buy Zendesk Suite again?

Yes

Other Software Used

Playvox, Time Doctor, Yellow.ai, Netomi, Kore.ai

Likelihood to Recommend

Start-ups looking for a platform for easy deployment as it is very easy to configure. Organizations who's looking for complex integrations and would need assistance - Zendesk will refer you to paid support to achieve your goals. Generally less trainings on basic features which is a good thing for organizations looking to launch on strict timelines.

Has improved a lot on features - but needs to be consistent and be more client-focused.

Software Version

Overall Satisfaction with Zendesk Suite