Zoho Desk: A better alternative to Zendesk
Zoho Desk and Zendesk are both powerful, feature-enriched customer service software solutions. How do they fare against each other? Here's a detailed comparison to help you make the best choice for your business and customers.
Sign Up For FreeDoes Zendesk have all that you need?
Not really. Increased dependency on third-party integrations, multiple contracts, multiple add-ons, and a cluttered interface interfere with the implementation and usability of Zendesk making it unavoidable to look for an alternative.
Here's what Zoho Desk offers your business:
Effortless integration
Faster deployment
Transparent pricing
Free migration
Simplified onboarding
increase in first contact resolution.
faster response time.
increase in CSAT score.
reduction in customer churn rate.
* Metrics reported by our customers through an internal survey.
Zendesk locked you in? We'll get you out
Use Zoho Desk for free for the remainder of your Zendesk contract
(Up to 6 months).
What's the price difference?
Number of users: 25
Save $1475 or up to 59% in savings by switching to the best help desk software.
Feature comparison
When looking for a Zendesk alternative, you should strive for a solution that delivers robust features at a reasonable price. Customer service software should not only make life easier for your agents, but for the other stakeholders (your customers, managers, and administrators) as well. Let's take a look at how Zendesk Support and Zoho Desk compare in specific categories.
Zendesk Support limits your support channels to email and social media. To offer support via phone, live chat, or instant messaging channels, you are required to purchase additional apps.
Zoho Desk helps you provide a complete omnichannel experience to your customers with built-in email, live chat, telephony, social media, web forms, and instant messaging. You can view interactions from all your channels in one place, or from the dedicated modules for live chat, instant messaging, and social media, meaning your agents are better equipped to offer instant and personalized responses.
| Telephony | $ | |
| Live Chat | $ | |
| $ | ||
| Line | $ | |
| $ | ||
| Telegram | $ |
Telephony
$
Live Chat
$
$
Line
$
$
Telegram
$
Zendesk allows agents to manage ticket workflows by creating list views, but does not offer automatic organization of tickets into columns based on priority, due date, status, or CRM status. Furthermore, Zendesk does not allow you to create customizable filters to classify tickets based on various categories. In Zendesk, cloning tickets, tracking time, splitting tickets, and receiving article suggestions can be accessed through marketplace extensions.
Keeping in mind the needs of agents, Zoho Desk is designed to be user-friendly and accessible to all with its new UI, User Preferences, and Accessibility Controls. Along with these, agents can organize and view tickets according to their needs and preferences with Work Modes, Table View, and customizable filter views. Ticket management is a lot easier with all the essential built-in features in Zoho Desk.
| Quick Ticket View (Peek View) | ||
| Work Modes | ||
| Table View | ||
| Split Tickets | Marketplace extension | |
| Clone Ticket | Marketplace extension | |
| Night mode |
Quick Ticket View
(Peek View)
Work Modes
Table View
Split Tickets
Marketplace extension
Clone Ticket
Marketplace extension
Accessibility Controls
Night mode
Zendesk Support's self-service options are limited, increasing your reliance on other apps. To make the help center and community support available to your customers and agents, you'll be required to purchase an additional app. And for a chat bot, you'll be required to subscribe to an add-on.
With Zoho Desk, you can customize your help center to reflect your brand ideology, support customers globally with the multilingual knowledge base, reduce agent workloads with Zia and Guided Conversations, and help customers help each other with community support.
| Knowledge Base | $ | |
| Multilingual Knowledge Base | $ | |
| Community Forums | $ | |
| Guided Conversations | $ |
Knowledge Base
$
Multilingual Knowledge Base
$
Community Forums
$
Answer Bot in ASAP
$
AI should simplify the lives of your customers, agents, and managers. Sentiment Analysis and the Auto-Tagging feature are available as add-ons in Zendesk, while they come built-in with Zoho Desk. Plus, Zoho Desk's AI, Zia, caters to all stakeholders by offering reply assistance to agents communicating with customers, and anomaly notifications to alert managers about heavy traffic on incoming tickets.
| Reply Assistant | ||
| Sentiment Predictions | $ | |
| Ticket Auto-Tagging | $ | |
| Anomaly Notifications |
Reply Assistant
Sentiment Predictions
$
Ticket Auto-Tagging
$
Anomaly Notifications
Both Zoho Desk and Zendesk offer automation features, such as SLA and Workflow. Despite the different names, these do pretty much the same job. Zendesk has an auto-assign feature that allows automatic assignment of unassigned tickets to the agents working on them. However, it fails to offer automatic equal assignment of incoming tickets. It provides time tracking feature as a marketplace extension but with limited capabilities as you cannot automatically track the time spent on activities or set billing preferences.
Blueprint, a feature unique to Zoho Desk, facilitates agent understanding of process flows, so they can execute them seamlessly.
| Workflows | ||
| Multi-Level Escalations | ||
| Customer-Based SLA | ||
| Blueprints | ||
| Round-Robin Ticket Assignment by Load Balancing | ||
| Time Tracking | Marketplace extension |
Workflows
Multi-Level Escalations
Customer-Based SLA
Blueprints
Round-Robin Ticket Assignment by Load Balancing
Time Tracking
Marketplace extension
Both apps provide plenty of customization options, like custom fields and layouts, domain mapping, and multi-language support. Zoho Deskhas a slight edge here since it lets you write custom functions. This gives you the power to define how you want your Zoho apps to talk to each other via simple program code.
| Customize Tabs | ||
| Custom Ticket Status and Grouping | ||
| Customize Form Fields and Layouts | ||
| Field Dependencies | ||
| Department specific Layout |
Customize Tabs
Custom Ticket Status and Grouping
Customize Form Fields and Layouts
Field Dependencies
Department specific Layout
Most useful reporting features that help you track important customer service metrics are not built in to Zendesk—they’re available through another app. It's important to note, you will have to be on Zendesk Support’s Professional Plan or higher to use their add-on. Zoho Desk provides a host of built-in reports and dashboards, along with the option to build your own.
| SLA Dashboards | $ | |
| Agent Dashboard | $ | |
| Global Analytics (All Departments) | $ | |
| Custom Reports and Dashboards | $ | |
| Response, Resolution, and FCR Dashboards | $ | |
| Zia Dashboard | ||
| Radar Mobile App (for managers) for iOS and Android |
SLA Dashboards
Agent Dashboard
$
Global Analytics (All Departments)
$
Custom Reports and Dashboards
$
Response, Resolution, and FCR Dashboards
$
Zia Dashboard
Radar Mobile App (for managers) for iOS and Android
Pricing comparison
| Free | $0 - | Free | |
| Standard | $14 | Support Team | $19 |
| Professional | $23 55 | Support Professional | $55 75 |
| Enterprise | $40 115 | Support Enterprise | $115 150 |
Free
Free
$ 00
-
Standard
Support Team
$ 14 19
-
Professional
Support Professional
$ 23 49
$55 75
Enterprise
Support Enterprise
$ 40 115
$115 150
Zoho Desk comes at a better price, when compared to Zendesk, and it offers integration with other Zoho applications so you can keep your information in a single place. Their support is good and will guide you through many things. Also, their API is similar to other Zoho platforms, so employees can already be familiar with the technology. Their mobile app lets you work from any place and be informed about organization's tasks and communications.
Miguel UsecheFull-Stack Developer, Webdibs
Diamond Standard came up with the idea to create a ticket for every online inquiry from a client via Zoho Desk. It would then review said ticket and parse that information to the appropriate executive internally, effectively and even more efficiently usurping any need for technology like Zendesk.
Chris Dessi Chief Revenue Officer, Diamond Standard
The simplicity of Zoho Desk's UI has really helped my digital transformation team to reduce the number of hours spent, from 5 to only 2.5 or 3 hours, in training and onboarding the new agents/users of the help desk technology.
Kushagra SahniChief of Staff, Centilytics
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Frequently asked questions about Zendesk alternatives
Zoho Desk offers a free trial for 15 days, and a Forever Free plan, which you can explore here. If you are a small team looking for an easy-to-use and scalable customer service solution, Zoho Desk's Express edition, starting at just $7, could be a great fit for you.
There are multiple players in the market like, Freshdesk, and Salesforce Service Cloud, but Zoho Desk stands out for offering a robust feature set at a competitive price. It is a highly reliable and value-focused alternative to Zendesk.
Zoho Desk's 15-user plan is available for $600, while Zendesk Support costs $1,725 for 15 users per month, billed annually.
However, if you delve deeper into the pricing, you will notice that most essential features are only provided by Zendesk as add-ons, despite its higher price tag. There is no doubt that Zendesk has a good feature set, but the app does little to enhance the employee experience. Its outdated UI and limited customization options can severely affect agent productivity and customer satisfaction levels. This is why, while focusing on the license cost is important, it is crucial to consider the total cost of ownership.
Zoho Desk offers a free trial for 15 days, while Zendesk offers 14 days. Zoho Desk stands out as the best alternative to Zendesk, not only because it is a feature-rich software solution, but also because it is flexible, scalable, adaptable, accessible, and meant for every business size and type.
Freshdesk Support Desk and Zendesk Support allow customers to connect with you through multiple channels. Email is a primary offering by both apps, but in Zendesk, live chat, telephony, WhatsApp, WeChat, LINE, community, and help center are only available as add-ons. In Zoho Desk, email, live chat, telephony, social media, web forms, and instant messaging channels are built-in, and requests coming from these channels can be viewed in one place, meaning your agents are better equipped to offer instant and personalized responses.
In terms of boosting agent productivity, all three applications make it easier for agents to manage incoming tickets by creating views. However, Freshdesk and Zendesk do not allow seamless categorization of tickets into columns based on ticket status, priority, due date, and CRM status, though this is possible with Zoho Desk. Other common features, like the ability to clone tickets to create same ticket for different customers, or help new hires work on existing tickets, are only available as marketplace extensions in Freshdesk and Zendesk, though they come built in with Zoho Desk.
Coming to automation, Freshdesk offers round-robin ticket assignment (Zendesk does not offer this feature yet). Both applications offer time tracking, but Zendesk offers it as an add-on, and Freshdesk's offering is limited as it excludes "activity time tracking." Meanwhile, Zoho Desk not only offers automatic ticket assignment but also a customizable time tracking feature.
Another key differentiator is the price of these three applications. Zoho Desk's most comprehensive edition is available for just $40. The highest edition of Zendesk Support will run you $115 per use per month, and Freshdesk Support Desk costs $79 per user per month, billed annually.
Head to this page to learn more about Freshdesk vs Zoho Desk vs Zendesk.
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Disclaimer: All names and marks mentioned here remain the property of their original owners. Prices are as published by the named competitors on their website(s) as on 11-08-2023 (without taking into account the taxes or discounts), and are subject to change based on the pricing policies of the competitors. The details provided on this page are for general purposes only and cannot be considered as authorized information from the respective competitors. Zoho disclaims any liability for possible errors, omissions, or consequential losses based on the details here.