Zendesk Sell, which was formerly Base CRM, is a simple-to-use customer relationship management solution and sales force automation tool that now falls under Zendesk's extensive customer service, marketing, and sales portfolio.
Zendesk Sell, which starts at $19 per seat per month, improves on Base CRM's simplicity and small to midsize business (SMB)-friendly feature set while reducing the overall price of admission.
The bigger benefit of the Zendesk acquisition is integration with its current and popular suite of self-service support, analytics, chat, and messaging solutions.
This can make Zendesk an end-to-end customer experience platform for many SMBs.
For its part, Zendesk Sell adds a solid CRM conduit to Zendesk's stable,though it doesn't quite offer the feature capabilities of our CRM Editors' Choice winners, which include Apptivo CRM and Salesforce Sales Cloud Lightning Professional.
However, it's still a robust offering and well worth considering for companies need to enhance productivity and sales pipeline productivity.
Zendesk acquired Base CRM back in 2018, renamed it Sell CRM, and worked to integrate it into Zendesk's core customer service offerings.
This gives new and existing customers new capabilities, including more integrations and a unified user experience across multiple services and subscriptions.
In January 2020, Zendesk Marketplace for Sell was announced with over 20 partners, this is an app store for companies to offer extension and components that extend the core capabilities of Zendesk Sell.
Some of the popular integrations include Dropbox, MailChimp, HubSpot CRM, and Intuit QuickBooks.
Zendesk Sell users can easily install these compatible integrations with one easy click.
This can be a huge advantage for SMBs looking for various solutions but who may not have the time or ability to test and figure out the right solutions for their needs as being compatible with their CRM tools.
As part of the Zendesk stable, Sell can help customers not only by offering a fast and easy-to-learn CRM solution, but also one that they can quickly expand into a full customer experience suite simply by adding new subscription capabilities to an already unified interface.
It is quite possible that former Base CRM customers might find this more connected and feature-rich version of the solution they once knew, as excessive for their CRM requirements.
Integration between Zendesk Sell and Zendesk Support is quite tight.
Account management and billing functions accessible from Zendesk Sell.
The end result for Zendesk customers is that they now have solutions spanning the full customer experience from sales to the support side and everything along the way.
The symbiosis between Zendesk's Sell and Support platforms now gives support agents even more context from the sales process.
It also makes it possible for support agents to notify sales once opportunities arise within their support conversations.
For SMBs that may or may not have a fully formed IT team or may still be developing an application or solution's strategy, they now have the necessary tool to support their sales process and cement better relationships with their customers.
Zendesk Sell Pricing
Zendesk Sell starts at $19 per set per month (billed annually) for the Team tier which provides a customized sales pipeline, full-featured mobile CRM, email integration (with Gmail), click to dial and call recording, basic sales reporting, admin-only fields, and public apps and integrations.
A $49 per seat per month (billed annually) Professional plan adds personalized bulk email, unlimited email templates, sales goals and forecasting, unlimited custom fields, Mailchimp integration, advanced call analytics, Core API, and private apps.
A $99 per seat per month (billed annually) Enterprise plan add up to 2 sales pipelines, activity reports, advanced permissions, product catalog, lead and deal scoring, Hubspot integration, task automation, cutomized notifications and power dialer and call scripts.
The Elite plan, which costs $199 per set per month (billed annually), bundles everything present in the Enterprise tier plus unlimited sales pipelines, rep performance dashboard, sales insights reportes, single sign on, Firehose API, sync API, search API, and premium CS support.
Zendesk Sell's selection of tiers is designed to suit the gamut of business needs and offers corresponding features that companies in different brackets might need.
A lot of thought has gone into segmenting Zendesk Sell's various tiers for corresponding business sizes.
For the purposes of this review, we focused on the $19 per seat per month Team plan which is also available for $25 per seat per month when billed monthly.
The Team plan is limited to three users and has a document storage ceiling of 2 GB per user as well as one sales pipeline.
It does feature the desired click to dial feature, call tracking and recording, as well as text messaging (SMS) support.
Zendesk makes it easy to sign up for a 14-day free trial of the various service tiers so companies can freely experiment and test the features they need most.
Dynamic User Interface
Zendesk Sell's user interface is subdued and easy on the eyes.
A top navigation ribbon contains all the main sections including the Dashboard, Leads, Contacts, Deals, Calendar, Tasks, Communication, and Reports.
Towards the right hand side of the navigation ribbon are a Notifications icon, a Quick Call functionality that conveniently allows you to enter a phone number, and the Add button (for adding new leads, contact persons, contact companies, and deals).
You also get a universal search box.
The dynamic nature of Zendesk Sell's interface automatically optimizes the display layout.
This means the navigation ribbon can shift to the left side.
This frees up space to display graphs and widgets as well as a secondary menus when necessary.
Zendesk Sell's UI translates well to the Android and iOS mobile applications that do a decent job of presenting critical information on smaller displays.
On an Android smartphone, you can see the Today view which shows a Revenue Report, Pipelines, and various Tasks, Calendar Events, and Communication in one glance.
The features and functionality of Zendesk Sell translate marvelously from desktop to mobile.
Proactive Hub for CRM
The advantages of melding together Zendesk Support with Zendesk Sell become evident once you get to the Deals section of Zendesk Sell.
In this page you immediately see the value of the deal, the status of the deal (i.e.
Incomng, Contacted, Proposal, Agreeement, Closure, or Won), percent likelihood of a win, estimated close date, and referral information.
Users on this page can add a note or send the contact an email.
Conversations are easily accessible so anyone on the Deals page can see the latest interaction with the contact, they will also see if their their email was viewed and if any links in that email were clicked.
This page also shows contact information including phone numbers that can be clicked to call the contact.
Collaborators and Upcoming Appointments are visible here and can give users a good grasp of the deal's past and current information.
Having all the key details of a deal on hand makes calling and engaging contacts a lot easier and more fluid.
Calls to contacts are recorded and filed away for future reference.
Zendesk Sell really sets a high bar with how it organizes key account and contact information and makes this information actionable.
CRM managers will appreciate the number of steps saved in documenting contact history, maintaining up-to-date contact and deal information, and always having the deadlines and deliverables visible.
Zendesk Sell excels at offering a proactive hub for CRM that makes various processes easier for businesses.
Valuable Insights on Tap
Leveraging Zendesk's expertise with insights and analytics, Zendesk Sell has an automatic capture as well as various integrations that can generate helpful insights to help businesses improve their sales results.
Zendesk Sell makes it possible to peek into instant insights and team activities.
This includes an overview of calls, emails, appointments, and tasks.
Having the latest data makes it possible to compare people and teams over time to identify trends and scope out potential conflicts.
These include Funnel reports that expose bottlenecks in the pipeline process that should be solved to improve revenue potential.
Zendesk Sell goes beyond basic CRM and helps automate many of the more tedious customer relationship tasks while integrating useful insights from teams.
Zendesk's ability to dovetail its notable customer service offerings into a familiar set of tools and processes that also feed into sales, makes Zendesk Sell a valuable component of any businesses' CRM toolkit.
Similar to how Zoho CRM slots into a larger ecosystem of products from the same vendor, Zendesk Sell is the CRM component that completes Zendesk's impressive array customer support-driven SMB solutions.
Pros
Improved pricing options
Offers a 360' view of contact interactions
Powerful analytics for additional insights
Organized layout and UI translates well on the web and on mobile apps
View More
The Bottom Line
Zendesk Sell improves on the ease of use and lead management features of Base CRM while adding a whole new dimension of interoperability within the Zendesk ecosystem.
Zendesk Sell, which was formerly Base CRM, is a simple-to-use customer relationship management solution and sales force automation tool that now falls under Zendesk's extensive customer service, marketing, and sales portfolio.
Zendesk Sell, which starts at $19 per seat per month, improves on Base CRM's simplicity and small to midsize business (SMB)-friendly feature set while reducing the overall price of admission.
The bigger benefit of the Zendesk acquisition is integration with its current and popular suite of self-service support, analytics, chat, and messaging solutions.
This can make Zendesk an end-to-end customer experience platform for many SMBs.
For its part, Zendesk Sell adds a solid CRM conduit to Zendesk's stable,though it doesn't quite offer the feature capabilities of our CRM Editors' Choice winners, which include Apptivo CRM and Salesforce Sales Cloud Lightning Professional.
However, it's still a robust offering and well worth considering for companies need to enhance productivity and sales pipeline productivity.
Zendesk acquired Base CRM back in 2018, renamed it Sell CRM, and worked to integrate it into Zendesk's core customer service offerings.
This gives new and existing customers new capabilities, including more integrations and a unified user experience across multiple services and subscriptions.
In January 2020, Zendesk Marketplace for Sell was announced with over 20 partners, this is an app store for companies to offer extension and components that extend the core capabilities of Zendesk Sell.
Some of the popular integrations include Dropbox, MailChimp, HubSpot CRM, and Intuit QuickBooks.
Zendesk Sell users can easily install these compatible integrations with one easy click.
This can be a huge advantage for SMBs looking for various solutions but who may not have the time or ability to test and figure out the right solutions for their needs as being compatible with their CRM tools.
As part of the Zendesk stable, Sell can help customers not only by offering a fast and easy-to-learn CRM solution, but also one that they can quickly expand into a full customer experience suite simply by adding new subscription capabilities to an already unified interface.
It is quite possible that former Base CRM customers might find this more connected and feature-rich version of the solution they once knew, as excessive for their CRM requirements.
Integration between Zendesk Sell and Zendesk Support is quite tight.
Account management and billing functions accessible from Zendesk Sell.
The end result for Zendesk customers is that they now have solutions spanning the full customer experience from sales to the support side and everything along the way.
The symbiosis between Zendesk's Sell and Support platforms now gives support agents even more context from the sales process.
It also makes it possible for support agents to notify sales once opportunities arise within their support conversations.
For SMBs that may or may not have a fully formed IT team or may still be developing an application or solution's strategy, they now have the necessary tool to support their sales process and cement better relationships with their customers.
Zendesk Sell Pricing
Zendesk Sell starts at $19 per set per month (billed annually) for the Team tier which provides a customized sales pipeline, full-featured mobile CRM, email integration (with Gmail), click to dial and call recording, basic sales reporting, admin-only fields, and public apps and integrations.
A $49 per seat per month (billed annually) Professional plan adds personalized bulk email, unlimited email templates, sales goals and forecasting, unlimited custom fields, Mailchimp integration, advanced call analytics, Core API, and private apps.
A $99 per seat per month (billed annually) Enterprise plan add up to 2 sales pipelines, activity reports, advanced permissions, product catalog, lead and deal scoring, Hubspot integration, task automation, cutomized notifications and power dialer and call scripts.
The Elite plan, which costs $199 per set per month (billed annually), bundles everything present in the Enterprise tier plus unlimited sales pipelines, rep performance dashboard, sales insights reportes, single sign on, Firehose API, sync API, search API, and premium CS support.
Zendesk Sell's selection of tiers is designed to suit the gamut of business needs and offers corresponding features that companies in different brackets might need.
A lot of thought has gone into segmenting Zendesk Sell's various tiers for corresponding business sizes.
For the purposes of this review, we focused on the $19 per seat per month Team plan which is also available for $25 per seat per month when billed monthly.
The Team plan is limited to three users and has a document storage ceiling of 2 GB per user as well as one sales pipeline.
It does feature the desired click to dial feature, call tracking and recording, as well as text messaging (SMS) support.
Zendesk makes it easy to sign up for a 14-day free trial of the various service tiers so companies can freely experiment and test the features they need most.
Dynamic User Interface
Zendesk Sell's user interface is subdued and easy on the eyes.
A top navigation ribbon contains all the main sections including the Dashboard, Leads, Contacts, Deals, Calendar, Tasks, Communication, and Reports.
Towards the right hand side of the navigation ribbon are a Notifications icon, a Quick Call functionality that conveniently allows you to enter a phone number, and the Add button (for adding new leads, contact persons, contact companies, and deals).
You also get a universal search box.
The dynamic nature of Zendesk Sell's interface automatically optimizes the display layout.
This means the navigation ribbon can shift to the left side.
This frees up space to display graphs and widgets as well as a secondary menus when necessary.
Zendesk Sell's UI translates well to the Android and iOS mobile applications that do a decent job of presenting critical information on smaller displays.
On an Android smartphone, you can see the Today view which shows a Revenue Report, Pipelines, and various Tasks, Calendar Events, and Communication in one glance.
The features and functionality of Zendesk Sell translate marvelously from desktop to mobile.
Proactive Hub for CRM
The advantages of melding together Zendesk Support with Zendesk Sell become evident once you get to the Deals section of Zendesk Sell.
In this page you immediately see the value of the deal, the status of the deal (i.e.
Incomng, Contacted, Proposal, Agreeement, Closure, or Won), percent likelihood of a win, estimated close date, and referral information.
Users on this page can add a note or send the contact an email.
Conversations are easily accessible so anyone on the Deals page can see the latest interaction with the contact, they will also see if their their email was viewed and if any links in that email were clicked.
This page also shows contact information including phone numbers that can be clicked to call the contact.
Collaborators and Upcoming Appointments are visible here and can give users a good grasp of the deal's past and current information.
Having all the key details of a deal on hand makes calling and engaging contacts a lot easier and more fluid.
Calls to contacts are recorded and filed away for future reference.
Zendesk Sell really sets a high bar with how it organizes key account and contact information and makes this information actionable.
CRM managers will appreciate the number of steps saved in documenting contact history, maintaining up-to-date contact and deal information, and always having the deadlines and deliverables visible.
Zendesk Sell excels at offering a proactive hub for CRM that makes various processes easier for businesses.
Valuable Insights on Tap
Leveraging Zendesk's expertise with insights and analytics, Zendesk Sell has an automatic capture as well as various integrations that can generate helpful insights to help businesses improve their sales results.
Zendesk Sell makes it possible to peek into instant insights and team activities.
This includes an overview of calls, emails, appointments, and tasks.
Having the latest data makes it possible to compare people and teams over time to identify trends and scope out potential conflicts.
These include Funnel reports that expose bottlenecks in the pipeline process that should be solved to improve revenue potential.
Zendesk Sell goes beyond basic CRM and helps automate many of the more tedious customer relationship tasks while integrating useful insights from teams.
Zendesk's ability to dovetail its notable customer service offerings into a familiar set of tools and processes that also feed into sales, makes Zendesk Sell a valuable component of any businesses' CRM toolkit.
Similar to how Zoho CRM slots into a larger ecosystem of products from the same vendor, Zendesk Sell is the CRM component that completes Zendesk's impressive array customer support-driven SMB solutions.
Pros
Improved pricing options
Offers a 360' view of contact interactions
Powerful analytics for additional insights
Organized layout and UI translates well on the web and on mobile apps
View More
The Bottom Line
Zendesk Sell improves on the ease of use and lead management features of Base CRM while adding a whole new dimension of interoperability within the Zendesk ecosystem.
