Zendesk Review, Pricing & Features
What is Zendesk?
Zendesk is a leading customer support software platform. It combines help desk features like ticketing and a Help Center with live chat and voice software. Zendesk is particularly powerful due to skill-based routing rules, which makes it easier to funnel your customers to the right support agent.
Compared with similar companies, Zendesk is pricey, but one of the best customer support platforms available. Current customers are highly complementary, with the main complaint revolving around customer service availability. We recommend Zendesk to any business with more than intermediate customer support requirements.
Table of Contents
- What is Zendesk?
- Zendesk Review Summary
- Zendesk Pricing & Cost
- Zendesk Key Features
- Zendesk Customer Support
- Zendesk vs. Competitors
- Is Zendesk Right For You?
Zendesk Review Summary
Zendesk was founded in 2007 by Alexander Aghassipour, Mikkel Asger Svane, and Morten Primdahl. The company has more than 170,000 customers across the world, making them one of the largest customer support platforms in the world.
Zendesk is a particularly powerful platform and is well-suited for enterprises, though small businesses can also easily make use of the helpdesk features. Zendesk pricing costs between $49 per agent per month and $99 per agent per month, which is on the pricier side for help desk platforms. However, you certainly get what you pay for because Zendesk is uniquely powerful and includes more features than competitors offer.
Overall, Zendesk is a top customer support platform that’s ideal if you have a higher budget for your software tools or if you’re looking for the most powerful option. If you’re a smaller business, you should opt for a cheaper platform unless you have particularly advanced support requirements.
Zendesk Pricing & Cost
Zendesk, like most customer support tools, is priced per agent per month. The cheapest plan costs $49 per user per month, while the most expensive plan costs $99 per user per month. There is a separate pricing plan for enterprise companies.
Pricing Plans
| Plan | Pricing | Details |
|---|---|---|
| Suite Team | $49 per agent per month |
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| Suite Growth | $79 per agent per month |
|
| Suite Professional | $99 per agent per month |
|
Zendesk Key Features
Throughout this review, we’ll provide an overview of Zendesk’s features, usability, and customer service availability. Comparisons between Zendesk and similar tools will be provided throughout. We’ll also include images of Zendesk to give you a sense of what it’s like to work with the platform before you purchase it.
To learn more about how we research and rate software tools, read about SoftwarePundit’s review methodology.
Product Overview
Because Zendesk has so many nuanced features, it’s helpful to understand the broader product offerings. Zendesk has four main features: A ticketing system, live chat and messaging, voice software, and a help center.
This review will walk through those features in order to help you understand exactly how you can use Zendesk for customer support.
Ticketing
Zendesk’s ticketing is among the most advanced ticketing systems on the market. Customer support teams can respond to incoming tickets, generate tickets themselves, assign employees to tickets, and more.
Among other things, you’ll be able to:
- Assign tags
- Assign employees
- Add user notes
- Reply publicly or internally
- Merge separate tickets into one
- Add attachments and links
Routing Rules
Depending on your plan, you will be able to create rules that automatically route tickets to certain departments or team members. This is done by setting up skills within your organization and designating which employees have that skill, and tickets with tags will be automatically assigned to relevant employees.
For example, you can choose “Languages” as a skill. Then tickets from customers in various languages will be assigned to the employees who speak those languages.
Live Chat
Live chat is a feature on your website that allows you to chat in real time with your customers. You can send targeted messages, attach Help Center articles so customers can help themselves, or send messages back and forth with customers.
Zendesk Chat was given a SoftwarePundit rating of 84 because, while it sits within an extremely powerful support suite, it fell short against other live chat tools.
Answer Bot
Answer Bot, which is a basic chatbot offered by Zendesk, can be implemented once you have your Help Center set up. The Answer Bot can be designed to respond to simple customer inquiries, which takes some of the load off of busy support agents. While not as advanced as other chatbots, it’s still a helpful feature.
Voice Software
Zendesk Talk is a cloud-based call software that you can use as another avenue for customer support. Routing rules can be implemented, similar to the ticketing rules, that quickly route customers to the right support agent.
You can use voice calls as well as text, and voice-specific reports will be generated so that you can track support effectiveness.
Help Center
A Help Center provides a self-help option for customers to learn answers to their questions without having to contact your support teams. You’ll write articles about your business and frequently asked questions, and customers can refer to them for easy-to-resolve problems.
The Zendesk Help Center is easy to set up and easy to use on the customers’ end as well.
Analytics
Tracking your team’s effectiveness and efficiency is crucial to understanding whether or not your customer support strategy is helpful. You’ll be able to track many key points with Zendesk—more than most alternatives offer.
Zendesk Customer Support
Zendesk not only has multiple support avenues, but support avenues that are country-specific. Phone numbers and email addresses for a variety of countries are available for customers to utilize. There’s also live chat on the website that customers can use to instantly contact the sales team.
| Customer Support Channels | Live Chat, Help Center, Email, Phone |
| Other Support Resources | Product Videos |
| Application Status Page | Yes |
Zendesk Alternatives & Competitors
Zendesk is similar to other platforms that are well-suited for enterprise businesses, like Freshdesk. Zendesk is similar to other help desk and ticketing software platforms, such as:
Is Zendesk Right For You?
If you want the top help desk software available, Zendesk is right for you. Though it’s expensive, it’s the most powerful platform that a business could choose. It’s particularly well-suited for businesses with large support teams due to the advanced routing rules.
While it may be a bit more difficult to use than simpler tools, that shouldn’t be a barrier to choosing the platform. The main drawback is that Zendesk is more expensive than many alternatives, which could be cost-prohibitive for small businesses.
If you are interested in trying Zendesk, sign up for a free trial here.