Our previous review of Zendesk Support focused on that product and nothing more.
Since then, Zendesk has introduced Zendesk Suite, which incorporates Zendesk Support, Guide (a knowledge base and self-service platform), Talk (call center software), and Chat (live messaging).
While you can still purchase Zendesk Support as a standalone, you won't get the full functionality unless you buy Zendesk Suite, available in Professional and Enterprise tiers priced at $89 and $149 per user per month respectively.
The company has also turned away somewhat from ITIL and more toward a product support focus for both internal and external use.
While the platform's help desk features aren't enough to compete with a dedicated enterprise-grade platform such as Editors' Choice winner Vivantio Pro, they are on par with our other Editors' Choice HappyFox for smaller business implementations.
Customers looking to more closely integrate marketing with helpdesk should give the Zendesk family a close look, although because of the company's pricing structure, it's important to tally up everything you want and might want and run the numbers against Zendesk's competitors before making your purchasing decision.
Zendesk launched a customer relationship management platform called Sunshine built on AWS in November of 2018.
This tool connects the support information with robust CRM features and an API for building custom standalone apps.
In May of 2019 Zendesk acquired Smooch which offers a conversation platform for connecting customers over a variety of social media platforms.
The firm also offers a sales support tool called Duet should you wish to combine that piece as well.
Features and Reporting
Zendesk has added a number of capabilities and integrations since our last review.
Tickets can be raised via the usual array of sources: email, chat, in-app support, social networking websites, phone, and the web.
Zendesk Suite also provides outbound messaging for agents, a self-service portal for the general population, and an open application programming interface (API).
The myriad of ways tickets can get into Zendesk Support is one of its strengths—one that is only slowly being matched by its competition.
Agents can add internal notes to tickets, which can be a huge help when tickets are being handled by multiple agents during their lifetime.
The new Explore reporting tool can be added to any plan for $9 per month and the Lite version comes with all plans starting with the Professional plan.
Zendesk Support Enterprise and Elite plans cost $99 and $199 per user per month respectively and include more advanced features such as contextual workspaces, skills-based routing and more.
Explore provides analytics plus a query tool to build just about any report you can think of.
The default dashboards are somewhat minimal but can be customized and modified any way you want.
Queries operate against datasets based on Support, Chat, or Talk information.
Five default datasets can be augmented with new ones pulled from any combination of the three apps.
One thing we liked was Zendesk Support's implementation of Business Rules.
By using this feature, service desk representatives can trigger automatic workflows based on changes to the original trouble ticket.
You can even add macros to this process to use shortcuts when responding to often-encountered problems.
Service reps can also dynamically route tickets outside of workflow rules, if necessary, simply by cc:ing other coworkers or sharing information using internal notes.
Pricing and Plans
Zendesk Support is available in five paid plans.
The menu starts at just $5 per user per month for the Essential plan.
This is the starter plan that we reviewed.
Depending on the features you need, you can opt for the Team, Professional, Enterprise, or Elite plan.
The Team plan costs $19 per agent per month (billed annually).
The Professional plan might be the best option for the majority of businesses, since it offers plenty of features for a fairly low $49 per user per month—not the cheapest we've come across, but likely worth it for many firms.
The Elite plan includes special support and product training.
Finally, a free trial is offered to anyone that wants to get their feet wet before committing to any of Zendesk's paid plans.
Interface and Workflow
Zendesk's user interface (UI) offers no transitions to grab your attention, and the density of data on screen at any one time is low.
That isn't to say the UI is too sparse, because we found that everything we needed was displayed at once, without no need to click between tabs or windows.
You will, however, need to work with Zendesk Support a bit to get familiar with it, because the UI doesn't have too many labels to go with its icons.
This made its overall impression a little less clear than something such as Freshdesk.
Still, it's not a bad interface and our opinion here is largely subjective.
For example, one of our favorite features is the Views screen which allows agents to see all unsolved or recently added tickets, helping you make sure that nothing falls through the cracks.
Views can be extensively customized to your preferences as well—an area in which Freshdesk tried to do something similar, but we preferred the way Zendesk Support shows the information, including ticket expiration times.
You can get into the meat of Zendesk Support by clicking on the plus button at the top of the screen.
This brings up a variety of choices.
Clicking the option to create a new ticket does just that, with a blank ticket loaded into the main part of the screen and a navigation pane remaining on the left side.
At this point, you just need to enter the necessary data, filling in the Description, Requester, and Subject fields.
Once those are populated, we recommend you head to the area where agents can assign the newly created ticket to either a person or team via the Assignee box (with either being auto-filled as agents type).
This is useful when raising tickets to the right people and can truly save time when triaging later.
With all relevant boxes complete (not all are required), save the ticket.
You'll be taken back to the main view with all open tickets displayed.
This inbox of sorts gives agents a bird's-eye view of what's currently active within the service desk.
If done right, this can save time, letting agents avoid having to open and close tickets just to find rudimentary information such as expiry time.
Zendesk Support gets it right by letting you edit this view, giving you the option to add whatever data suits your company's needs.
Customization is always welcome, especially when it brings functionality with it.
Closing Tickets
You can add internal or public notes to open tickets via the main ticket view.
Once complete, a ticket can be resolved by clicking Submit as Solved, which marks the ticket as finished and returns you to the main ticket view for the next ticket on which to work.
Tickets that have been handled recently can easily be found via the Recently Solved Tickets view, accessible via the Navigation pane.
Other views offered here include Recently Updated Tickets and Pending Tickets.
Zendesk Support is a capable helpdesk solution.
It has most of the features that a small, midsize, or even large organization will need—as long as that's defined as raising and managing tickets.
In other words, don't look to Zendesk Support to handle projects, code and system changes, or assets, even using one of its many add-on products.
Still, it's a sleek, workable solution that will suit plenty of companies, though it's easy to find the price creeping up as you order extras.
Pros
Solid ticket management options, including social media
New Explore tool brings customizable reports and dashboards plus flexible queries
Good integration options
Cons
Potentially high price tag
Best features only available at higher pricing tiers
Lacks enterprise features such as change and asset management
The Bottom Line
Zendesk Support takes a marketing-oriented approach to help desk, integrating its offering with a larger suite aimed at customer experience management rather than straight service desk operation.
For many SMBs, however, this could be a boon.
Zendesk Support Specs
Asset Management
Yes
Tickets From Social Media
Yes
Remote Control
No
Knowledge Base
Yes
Self-Service Portal
Yes
Smartphone Apps
Yes
Support Widget
Yes
Live Chat
Yes
Chatbot Support
No
Custom Reporting
Yes
Our previous review of Zendesk Support focused on that product and nothing more.
Since then, Zendesk has introduced Zendesk Suite, which incorporates Zendesk Support, Guide (a knowledge base and self-service platform), Talk (call center software), and Chat (live messaging).
While you can still purchase Zendesk Support as a standalone, you won't get the full functionality unless you buy Zendesk Suite, available in Professional and Enterprise tiers priced at $89 and $149 per user per month respectively.
The company has also turned away somewhat from ITIL and more toward a product support focus for both internal and external use.
While the platform's help desk features aren't enough to compete with a dedicated enterprise-grade platform such as Editors' Choice winner Vivantio Pro, they are on par with our other Editors' Choice HappyFox for smaller business implementations.
Customers looking to more closely integrate marketing with helpdesk should give the Zendesk family a close look, although because of the company's pricing structure, it's important to tally up everything you want and might want and run the numbers against Zendesk's competitors before making your purchasing decision.
Zendesk launched a customer relationship management platform called Sunshine built on AWS in November of 2018.
This tool connects the support information with robust CRM features and an API for building custom standalone apps.
In May of 2019 Zendesk acquired Smooch which offers a conversation platform for connecting customers over a variety of social media platforms.
The firm also offers a sales support tool called Duet should you wish to combine that piece as well.
Features and Reporting
Zendesk has added a number of capabilities and integrations since our last review.
Tickets can be raised via the usual array of sources: email, chat, in-app support, social networking websites, phone, and the web.
Zendesk Suite also provides outbound messaging for agents, a self-service portal for the general population, and an open application programming interface (API).
The myriad of ways tickets can get into Zendesk Support is one of its strengths—one that is only slowly being matched by its competition.
Agents can add internal notes to tickets, which can be a huge help when tickets are being handled by multiple agents during their lifetime.
The new Explore reporting tool can be added to any plan for $9 per month and the Lite version comes with all plans starting with the Professional plan.
Zendesk Support Enterprise and Elite plans cost $99 and $199 per user per month respectively and include more advanced features such as contextual workspaces, skills-based routing and more.
Explore provides analytics plus a query tool to build just about any report you can think of.
The default dashboards are somewhat minimal but can be customized and modified any way you want.
Queries operate against datasets based on Support, Chat, or Talk information.
Five default datasets can be augmented with new ones pulled from any combination of the three apps.
One thing we liked was Zendesk Support's implementation of Business Rules.
By using this feature, service desk representatives can trigger automatic workflows based on changes to the original trouble ticket.
You can even add macros to this process to use shortcuts when responding to often-encountered problems.
Service reps can also dynamically route tickets outside of workflow rules, if necessary, simply by cc:ing other coworkers or sharing information using internal notes.
Pricing and Plans
Zendesk Support is available in five paid plans.
The menu starts at just $5 per user per month for the Essential plan.
This is the starter plan that we reviewed.
Depending on the features you need, you can opt for the Team, Professional, Enterprise, or Elite plan.
The Team plan costs $19 per agent per month (billed annually).
The Professional plan might be the best option for the majority of businesses, since it offers plenty of features for a fairly low $49 per user per month—not the cheapest we've come across, but likely worth it for many firms.
The Elite plan includes special support and product training.
Finally, a free trial is offered to anyone that wants to get their feet wet before committing to any of Zendesk's paid plans.
Interface and Workflow
Zendesk's user interface (UI) offers no transitions to grab your attention, and the density of data on screen at any one time is low.
That isn't to say the UI is too sparse, because we found that everything we needed was displayed at once, without no need to click between tabs or windows.
You will, however, need to work with Zendesk Support a bit to get familiar with it, because the UI doesn't have too many labels to go with its icons.
This made its overall impression a little less clear than something such as Freshdesk.
Still, it's not a bad interface and our opinion here is largely subjective.
For example, one of our favorite features is the Views screen which allows agents to see all unsolved or recently added tickets, helping you make sure that nothing falls through the cracks.
Views can be extensively customized to your preferences as well—an area in which Freshdesk tried to do something similar, but we preferred the way Zendesk Support shows the information, including ticket expiration times.
You can get into the meat of Zendesk Support by clicking on the plus button at the top of the screen.
This brings up a variety of choices.
Clicking the option to create a new ticket does just that, with a blank ticket loaded into the main part of the screen and a navigation pane remaining on the left side.
At this point, you just need to enter the necessary data, filling in the Description, Requester, and Subject fields.
Once those are populated, we recommend you head to the area where agents can assign the newly created ticket to either a person or team via the Assignee box (with either being auto-filled as agents type).
This is useful when raising tickets to the right people and can truly save time when triaging later.
With all relevant boxes complete (not all are required), save the ticket.
You'll be taken back to the main view with all open tickets displayed.
This inbox of sorts gives agents a bird's-eye view of what's currently active within the service desk.
If done right, this can save time, letting agents avoid having to open and close tickets just to find rudimentary information such as expiry time.
Zendesk Support gets it right by letting you edit this view, giving you the option to add whatever data suits your company's needs.
Customization is always welcome, especially when it brings functionality with it.
Closing Tickets
You can add internal or public notes to open tickets via the main ticket view.
Once complete, a ticket can be resolved by clicking Submit as Solved, which marks the ticket as finished and returns you to the main ticket view for the next ticket on which to work.
Tickets that have been handled recently can easily be found via the Recently Solved Tickets view, accessible via the Navigation pane.
Other views offered here include Recently Updated Tickets and Pending Tickets.
Zendesk Support is a capable helpdesk solution.
It has most of the features that a small, midsize, or even large organization will need—as long as that's defined as raising and managing tickets.
In other words, don't look to Zendesk Support to handle projects, code and system changes, or assets, even using one of its many add-on products.
Still, it's a sleek, workable solution that will suit plenty of companies, though it's easy to find the price creeping up as you order extras.
Pros
Solid ticket management options, including social media
New Explore tool brings customizable reports and dashboards plus flexible queries
Good integration options
Cons
Potentially high price tag
Best features only available at higher pricing tiers
Lacks enterprise features such as change and asset management
The Bottom Line
Zendesk Support takes a marketing-oriented approach to help desk, integrating its offering with a larger suite aimed at customer experience management rather than straight service desk operation.
