Zendesk is a popular customer support platform that has a range of features to elevate the customer experience.
However, the users have identified problems with the tool's integration, cost, user interface, automation, and customer service.
The end-users of a product give the most valuable feedback about its usability, pricing, features, and customer service. By uncovering the feedback of real users, you can understand the real pain points.
In this blog, we will uncover the most significant Zendesk pain points by analyzing customer reviews on various platforms, such as GetApp, G2, TrustRadius, Software Advice, and Reddit. We will also give a thorough overview of different Zendesk options that tackle these issues, showing actual user experiences and other choices.
Trust us, when we say there are better options in the market that are better than Zendesk!
Zendesk review from the voice of the real users
1. Better integration
Zendesk has a plethora of apps that you can integrate with. These apps range from helping you increase agent productivity to streamline workflows, applying themes to refresh your help center, and leveraging APIs to build anything you want.
But, the downside with Zendesk integration is that it is a cumbersome, clunky, and convoluted process that makes it difficult for users to be up and running in a matter of minutes. The Zendesk community assists users in taking full advantage of these integrations by eliminating issues with data sync.
The users find that pausing data sync with no admin notification is a nightmare that has deeper ramifications for their business and customer relationships. Let’s break down these ramifications with the help of an example. Imagine you have integrated Salesforce CRM with Zendesk customer support, and the data sync has stopped for days with no notification or log of this instance.
Here’s what would happen:
- The issue with data sync can cause a delay in resolving customer issues and queries, as customer agents will not have access to customer information from both platforms in one place
- The sales team will not have visibility into customer conversations. This will hinder their continuous learning about the market and the target audience, leading to difficulties in closing deals
- Hinder productivity of the support agents and the sales teams as they have to keep switching between tools back and forth to get context and clarity
The tool: Help Scout
Why?
- Hundreds of apps
- Build anything with APIs
Pricing:
Starts at $20/user/month
2. Better price
Zendesk is a robust customer support platform that offers a variety of features required to elevate the customer experience. However, the tool is quite expensive, and the customers are frustrated with its renewal practices, cancellation policies, value for money, and more.
Source: Software advice
The tool: Zoho Desk
Why?
Zendesk has five pricing plans, and Zoho Desk has four pricing plans. Here is a quick overview:
Zendesk:
- Has a free trial
- No free version
- They divide the pricing plans as Team, Growth, Professional, Enterprise
- The Team plan starts at $49, Growth at $79, Professional at $99, & Enterprise at $150
- No discount is available
Zoho Desk has four pricing plans, and here is a quick overview:
Zohodesk:
- Has a free trial
- Has a free version
- They divide the pricing plans as Standard, Professional, Enterprise
- The Standard plan starts at $14, Professional at $23, Enterprise at $40
- Discounts based on plan frequency
Overall verdict:
Zoho Desk offers all the features that Zendesk does, and yet you can save 59% with Zoho desk.
Pricing:
Starts at $14/user/month
3. Better UI/UX
There are murmurs about how the UI and UX of Zendesk could be clearer to comprehend, navigate through, and use. Some alternatives are simpler and easy to work with.
Source: Quora
The tool: Freshdesk
Why?
Freshdesk has better ease of use and is known for its simple and intuitive UI. Customers find the platform easy to use and navigate through.
The platform has curated reports, dashboards, custom reports, schedule reports, and more.
Pricing:
Starts at $15/user/month
4. Better automation
Zendesk offers a range of automation features, including macros, triggers, and automation. However, some users find Zendesk’s automation capabilities do not meet their specific needs for a few reasons: it has a steep learning curve, limitations with integrations, and Zendesk’s more advanced automation features can be costly.
Source: Reddit
The tool: DevRev
Why?
- Customizable ticketing
- Omnichannel customer support
- Bi-directional, synchronous view
- Snap-ins to install powerful automation
- Conversational AI learns from your knowledge base
- Generative AI for live chat
- Respond to customer queries with GPT-powered replies
- Tickets routing based on smart clusters
- Auto-generate product insights
DevRev is also better in terms of better pricing, customer support, integrations, and ease of use.
Pricing:
Starts at $9.99/month
5. Better support
One of the biggest pain points of Zendesk users reported across all community forums and review sites is their poor customer service. Quite ironic to see that a platform that helps its customer elevate customer experience does not fulfill that for its own customers.
Here are some instances where Zendesk users share their woes about lack of assistance - as on [Trustradius]
Source: Trustradius
The tool: Intercom
Why?
- Training webinars
- Email & chat support
- Premier Onboarding
- Premier Success
- Premier Support
Intercom has better support, as it has enterprise-grade security, advanced permissions, HIPAA support, 2-factor authentication, Google SSO, basic permissions, manual conversation restrictions, and regional data hosting.
Pricing:
Starts at $39/month
You can also check out some Intercom alternatives!
6. Better scalability
The customers of Zendesk do not particularly talk or worry about the scalability of the platform. However, if you are considering alternatives, here is a good one!
The tool: Salesforce Service Cloud
Why?
- Architecture can manage millions of users
- Built to scale
- Can accommodate the largest of teams
- Scales rapidly as the customer requires
Pricing:
Starts at $25/user/month
7. Better mobile app
Zendesk has a pretty good mobile app that enables users to work with support tickets from the comfort of their mobile devices. The features include sorting, filtering, creating tickets, updating tickets, getting notifications, and more. However, there are some instances where users need help navigating through and managing simple tasks on the app.
The tool: HappyFox
Why?
- A complete view of all the tickets
- Creation of private notes
- Read and respond to tickets
- Sort, search & filter tickets
- Monitor data
Pricing:
Starts at $26/user/month
Final Thoughts
In summary, Zendesk is a powerful customer support program, but many users have reported issues on different platforms. Whether it is the cumbersome integration process, steep pricing, difficult-to-navigate UI/UX, automation limitations, or poor customer support. These pain points have led users to search for alternatives.
We have analyzed several tools like Zendesk that have better customization, better integration, pricing, UI/UX, automation, and support and highlighted their features and pricing plans. By choosing an alternative that addresses these pain points, businesses can provide a better customer experience and streamline their customer support processes.
