Zendesk vs Zoho Desk: Choosing the Best in 2023

In the realm of customer support software, Zendesk, and Zoho Desk have emerged as market leaders, offering robust solutions that cater to the diverse needs of different businesses. 

Choosing between these two industry leaders can be daunting, as both have unique strengths and capabilities. 

While Zendesk and Zoho Desk are widely recognized among the best customer support software available, understanding their differences and finding the right fit for your organization can be challenging. 

In this article, we carry out a comparison of Zendesk vs Zoho Desk, two leading customer support solutions. From features and pricing to user experience, we provide insightful analysis to help you determine which platform best suits your organization’s needs. 

What is Zendesk?

Zendesk is a comprehensive software that facilitates effective customer support operations and enhances the overall customer experience. It stands out due to its user-friendly interface, customizable workflows, and scalability, making it suitable for businesses across various industries.

One of Zendesk’s prominent features is its ticketing system, which helpsorganize and track customer inquiries. With multichannel support, Zendesk enables businesses to engage with customers across different communication channels, ensuring a seamless and consistent experience.

Zendesk’s seamless integration with third-party applications adds versatility and expands its functionality to meet specific business needs. This adaptability makes it popular for customer support, helpdesk, IT service management, and contact center teams.

Zendesk finds particular utility in the e-commerce, SaaS, technology, and telecommunications industries. It excels in managing customer inquiries, handling order issues, and facilitating returns in e-commerce settings. 

What is Zoho Desk?

Established in 1996, Zoho Desk has continuously evolved to meet the changing needs of modern enterprises. 

Zoho Desk is a customer support solution that empowers businesses to deliver exceptional customer experiences. Its extensive range of features and customizable options sets it apart as a trusted and adaptable tool suitable for organizations of any size. 

With Zoho Desk, businesses can effectively manage and streamline their customer support operations, ensuring optimal efficiency and customer satisfaction.

Through its user-friendly interface and intuitive design, Zoho Desk enables businesses to address customer queries promptly, resolve more issues, and maintain strong relationships with their clientele. 

The software offers comprehensive ticket management, knowledge base creation, and collaboration tools that facilitate seamless communication and collaborative problem-solving.

Zoho Desk is a trusted customer support solution that has cemented its position in the market by consistently offering reliable and versatile features. With its commitment to customer satisfaction and continuous innovation, Zoho Desk remains a go-to choice for businesses seeking effective management of their customer support operations.

Features: Zendesk vs Zoho Desk

Let’s begin by comparing the features offered by both these platforms. Here’s the feature comparison of Zendesk vs Zoho Desk.

01. Ticket Management

Zendesk 

• Single and multiple shared inboxes for efficient creation, tracking, and management of support tickets across various channels: email, messaging, social media, bots, and community forums.

• Agents can access comprehensive customer context, including order history, loyalty status, and web activity.

• Collaboration among support agents is facilitated through features like internal notes, automatic and manual assignments, and follow-up notifications.

• Seamless integration with other software tools and platforms.

Zoho Desk

• Manage tickets from a single shared inbox, enabling omnichannel ticket management.
• Seamlessly integrate Zoho’s instant messaging tool with popular instant messaging channels to provide customer service.

• Organize tickets based on time, status, priority, or customer level (VIP, new, or normal).

• Create departments within the helpdesk based on criteria like product types or subscription levels.

• Integrate the helpdesk with Zoho CRM to access comprehensive customer information.

• Choose between direct assignment and round-robin assignment options for efficient ticket distribution.

02. AI and Automation

Zendesk 

• Zendesk incorporates AI-powered chatbots to automate customer support, capable of handling routine queries, offering self-service options, and escalating complex issues to human agents.

• Zendesk provides sentiment analysis capabilities to analyze customer interactions and identify their sentiment.

• Using Natural Language Processing (NLP), Zendesk’s chatbot comprehends customer queries and provides relevant responses.

• Users can define rules and automate actions based on specific criteria, including ticket routing, status updates, and notifications.

Zoho Desk

• Manage tickets by automating the process, ensuring each ticket is assigned to the most suitable agent.

• Set up notification rules to automatically update customers and agents regarding ticket progress.

• Zoho Desk offers automation to prevent SLA violations, automatically assigning overdue tickets to the appropriate manager or agent when violations occur.

03. Analytics and Reporting

Zendesk 

• Gain access to an extensive reporting system that provides a diverse selection of pre-designed reports and analytics, covering multiple aspects of customer support, such as ticket volume, response times, and agent performance.

• Compare support metrics against industry benchmarks, allowing businesses to assess their performance concerning industry standards.

• Customize metrics and reports based on unique requirements, tailoring themto specific business needs.

• Experience engaging data visualizations, including appealing charts and graphs, for better comprehension and presentation of information.

• Benefit from data integration across various support channels, encompassing email, chat, phone, and social media, to obtain a comprehensive view of customer interactions.

Zoho Desk

• Access an overview dashboard that comprehensively views ticket status and overall ticket performance.

• The “Headquarters” section, specifically designed for managers, offers detailed team performance data.

• Generate time-based reports with metric data, including First Response Time, Average Response Time, and Average Resolution Time. These reports can be filtered based on date, channel, or agent.

• Benefit from Agent Scorecards, which provide in-depth information on the performance of individual agents.

• Leverage advanced analytics powered by the integration of Zoho Reports, enabling the creation of custom reports using an intuitive drag-and-drop builder.

04. Self Service

Zendesk 

• Access to a powerful knowledge base feature enables businesses to establish and maintain a centralized repository of self-service articles, FAQs, and documentation, catering to customer inquiries and delivering solutions.

• Harness the power of AI technology to optimize the search experience within the knowledge base, ensuring customers receive relevant and precise search results and facilitating quick access to answers.

• Establish community forums where customers can actively engage, inquire, and contribute solutions, fostering a collaborative environment that promotes self-service support.

Zoho Desk

• Seamlessly integrate Guided Conversations, enabling the creation of self-service experiences through a user-friendly low-code approach.

• Leverage the ASAP plugin to effortlessly embed customer self-service features, such as help centers and knowledge bases, directly into websites or mobile applications.

• Accommodate multi-brand companies by facilitating the creation of separate help centers for each brand, ensuring a tailored and cohesive customer experience.

• Establish a searchable, editable, and trackable knowledge base, empowering businesses to manage and maintain a comprehensive source of information efficiently.

Customer Support: Zendesk vs Zoho Desk

Zendesk

Zendesk offers a publicly accessible help center where anyone can find answers to common questions. However, the available customer support options on Zendesk are quite limited. 

One key restriction is that only registered users can directly communicate with the support team. While the sales team can be contacted for general inquiries, good customer support is only provided to those who have purchased Zendesk’s services.

Furthermore, users must pay an additional fee to access personalized assistance from a live person. The availability of support features is significantly tiered, with only the Enterprise level offering round-the-clock email, phone, and chat support.

Zendesk allows customers to opt for priority assistance by upgrading to the enterprise tier, which includes a service level agreement of 99.9% uptime and a service level goal of 1 hour. 

At all tiers, there is an extra cost associated with collaborating with a member of Zendesk’s success team for specialized projects or engagements.

Zoho Desk

Zoho Desk’s customer support operates exclusively on weekdays, which could pose a significant challenge if your business functions seven days a week. However, during those five days, the support service is available round the clock, ensuring continuous assistance.

To gain access to premium or enterprise support with 24-hour assistance, you must allocate around 20% to 25% of your license cost for the additional service. Furthermore, exclusive access to a technical account manager is limited to subscribers of the Enterprise plan.

Despite needing additional payment for personalized human assistance, Zoho Desk provides a comprehensive help center. This resource allows users to access information regarding integrations, webinars, and the latest product updates and features.

Lastly, Zoho Desk offers email support, although its responsiveness may be comparatively lower when compared to other support channels.

Pricing: Zendesk vs Zoho Desk

Zendesk

Zendesk has a variety of options when it comes to pricing. For smaller businesses, Zendesk offers basic plans. The basic plans come like this:

Support Team: $19 per agent/per month. Comes with a ticketing system, email, Twitter, and Facebook. Also has business rules, customer details and interaction history, out-of-the-box reporting, and analytics.

Support Professional: $49/per agent/per month. Additional features like business hours, CSAT scores, multilingual support, and service level agreements.

Support Enterprise: $99/per agent/per month. Additional features like skill-based routing, custom agent roles, contextual workspaces, and sandbox.

The Zendesk Suite Plans look like this:

Suite Team: $49/per agent/per month. Comes with a ticketing system, help center, standard bots, pre-built analytics dashboard, and online support from the Zendesk team.

Suite Growth: $79/per agent/per month. Additional features include a CSAT rating, business hours, and a self-service customer portal.

Suite Professional: $99/per agent/per month. Additional features like integrated community forums, data location options, and more.

Suite Enterprise: Custom pricing.

Zoho Desk

Zoho Desk also has a forever free plan limited to up to 3 agents. You can also get a 15-day free trial. The other pricing plans are:

Standard: $14/agent/month. Offers social and community channels, SLAs, customer happiness ratings, and more.

Professional: $23/agent/month. Comes with ten email channels, round-robin ticket assignment, agent collision detection, and more.

Enterprise: $40/agent/month. You can get Zia – Artificial Intelligence, Multi-Level IVR, Multi-Brand Help Center, scheduled reports, and more.

Zendesk vs Zoho Desk: Which one is right for you?

Now, let’s cut to the chase and determine which option, Zendesk or Zoho Desk, fits your needs.

Zendesk is for you if…

If your business falls within the small to medium-sized category and is experiencing continuous growth, Zendesk is an ideal choice for several reasons. Zendesk enables SMBs to scale their customer support operations alongside their expanding business. 

Through automation capabilities, workflows can be streamlined, ticket volumes efficiently handled, and response times optimized, ensuring smooth support management.

In terms of pricing, Zendesk offers plans that cater perfectly to both small and midsize businesses. Their basic plans are well-suited for small businesses, while suite plans are designed to meet the needs of midsize businesses, providing a flexible and customizable pricing structure.

Zendesk’s tools are highly flexible and agile, allowing growth-oriented companies like SMBs to experiment, adapt, and optimize their customer support processes as their business evolves. 

This adaptability is crucial for SMBs seeking to navigate the dynamic customer support landscape while maintaining their growth trajectory.

Zoho Desk is for you if…

Zoho Desk will be an excellent choice if your business already uses various Zoho applications such as Zoho CRM, Sales IQ, or Forms. This eliminates the need for a complex transition from Zoho to Zendesk and ensures seamless integration within the existing Zoho system.

Zoho Desk is particularly beneficial for enterprise teams aiming to access enterprise-level features more cheaply. 

While it’s important to note that Zoho Desk may not offer the same level of customer support and customization capabilities as Zendesk, Zoho Desk presents itself as a highly suitable option if you can overlook those aspects. 

Its integration with other Zoho apps and cost-effective enterprise features make it a compelling business choice.

Why is Helpwise a Better Alternative?

Helpwise offers a user-friendly experience without sacrificing functionality. With Helpwise, you’ll find everything you need in a customer support tool presented simply and effectively. Say goodbye to the confusion and steep learning curves that come with Zendesk and Zoho Desk!

Helpwise provides a unified platform for managing customer communication across multiple channels, including email, chat, and social media. 

It boasts powerful automation and workflow capabilities tailored specifically for omnichannel customer communication. Integration with popular CRMs like Salesforce and HubSpot is seamless, ensuring smooth collaboration across your business systems.Their newly introduced AI features of summarsing, rephrasing and more are a must-have. 

In addition to its comprehensive features, Helpwise offers transparent and competitive pricing plans. With Helpwise, you’ll get access to the necessary features at a cost that suits your budget. 

Detailed analytics and reporting on channel performance, team productivity, and customer satisfaction metrics are also included, empowering you to make data-driven decisions.

Still not convinced? Don’t just rely on our words. Here is what our users have said:

“Excellent Intercom alternative at a fraction of the price”

A comprehensive support solution includes shared inboxes for email, SMS, website chat, WhatsApp, and many other channels, along with a help desk and knowledge base.

Switch to Helpwise, a customer support software that simplifies operations while delivering excellent results.

FAQs

Q. What are the key differences between Zendesk and Zoho?

Zendesk is known for its user-friendly interface and extensive customization options, while Zoho Desk stands out with its comprehensive suite of integrated business applications and seamless collaboration features.

Q. Which platform offers better customer support features, Zendesk or Zoho?

Zendesk and Zoho Desk offer robust customer support features, but Zendesk’s AI-powered chatbots and advanced ticket management systems provide a slight edge in automation and efficiency.

Q. How do Zendesk and Zoho compare in terms of pricing?

Zendesk tends to be more expensive than Zoho Desk, especially for larger teams but offers more advanced features and scalability options. In contrast, Zoho Desk provides cost-effective plans with comprehensive features. Helpwise, on the other hand, is more affordable and has no hidden costs as well!

Q. Which platform offers better integrations with other business tools, Zendesk or Zoho?

Zendesk has a wide range of integrations with popular business tools, making it a preferred choice for seamless workflow integration, while Zoho Desk offers a strong integration ecosystem with other Zoho applications.

Q. What are the main advantages and disadvantages of using Zendesk over Zoho and vice versa?

Zendesk’s advantage lies in its robust customization options and AI capabilities, but it can be more complex to set up and manage. Zoho Desk excels in its all-in-one suite of integrated applications but may have limitations in terms of advanced customization.