Zendesk is a helpful cloud-based customer support tool that helps companies easily handle service requests and consumer inquiries across various channels.
Founded in 2007, Zendesk provides businesses with a comprehensive customer support solution in the form of a single product that provides Support, Guide, Chat, and Talk. The tool is adaptable and expands with your company. One benefit of using Zendesk was that. We’ll now discuss this tool’s limitations and assist you in locating more potent Zendesk substitutes with a wealth of features.
You will likely learn about Zendesk (and its rivals) if you’re thinking about implementing customer support software for your company. And that’s no coincidence it’s unquestionably one of the most well-known help desk applications available, with features suitable for practically any kind of business. Although Zendesk markets itself as the best option for almost every kind of support team or company, many teams that don’t require it end up with feature bloat and complexity as a result of this “fit-all” strategy.
Best Zendesk Alternatives in 2024
One of the most excellent tools for handling client questions and support requests for any amount of time is Zendesk. But for a number of reasons, the platform has yet to operate at its best. Thus, you’ve come to the ideal spot if you’re looking for the top alternatives to Zendesk.
1. Freshdesk
One of the best Zendesk alternatives out there right now is Freshdesk, which provides self-service, bots, and omnichannel customer support options. More than 40,000 businesses rely on Freshdesk to provide excellent customer care thanks to a vast number of valuable features. You can work with numerous teams to divide, assign, and handle customer concerns in the shortest period by streamlining your company’s customer support operations. With an omnichannel support experience, you can astound customers by combining several channels onto a single dashboard.
2. Helpjuice
Given that it provides customers with an affordable, comprehensive bundle, Helpjuice is an excellent substitute for Zendesk. With Helpjuice, you can create and manage internal and external knowledge bases that are accessible to both customers and employees. Helpjuice is a cloud-based knowledge-based management solution. Businesses of all sizes and in a variety of industries can utilise the software. A single document can be edited by numerous agents remotely at once because of Helpjuice’s ability to permit simultaneous internal editing of knowledge base documents.
3. AzureDesk
AzureDesk is help desk software and online customer support for startups and small- to medium-sized businesses that are expanding. One of the most robust Zendesk substitutes is AzureDesk, which integrates with the company’s existing email system to provide email-based customer care.
Users can assign tickets, add inline images to issues, and manage customer care tasks, including private notes, with the aid of the program. Tickets are automatically assigned to agents via the ticket management module, which also tags them according to their priority. Users can run reports for a specified period using the reporting module, which also presents the results in a dashboard. The application integrates with Slack, JIRA, Chalio, Asana, ChargeDesk, smooch.io, and Freshbooks.
4. Kayako
Kayako provides SMBs with a fully integrated cloud-hosted help desk so they can start serving customers right away. With the robust out-of-the-box capability of Kayako’s help desk software, customer support teams can begin handling requests and discussions through any channel.
Kayako functions and looks like a ticketing system, with all customer requests going into a single shared inbox. With Kayako’s live chat feature, you can offer a captivating live chat experience all year round. Using Kayako’s dashboard, your customer service team can assist clients in real-time across all channels.
5. eDesk
A comprehensive customer support helpdesk explicitly designed for eCommerce vendors is called eDesk. By consolidating all tickets, order/shipping data, customer data, and KPIs into one location, it eases the burden of attempting to provide consistent customer care across numerous channels. eDesk can integrate with.
6. ServiceNow
Zendesk is more than capable of fulfilling your demands if you frequently handle requests for internal IT help; however, ServiceNow is an IT service management (ITSM) platform and offers a more focused option. This is for IT teams that place a high priority on automation, self-service, and ITIL compliance. You can adhere to a set of IT service management best practices with the assistance of ServiceNow.
For IT teams, ServiceNow is an appealing option to Zendesk due to its automation features. It provides a selection of automation solutions that teams can use to increase productivity and shorten response times.
7. Gorgias
Gorgias is a help desk designed especially for eCommerce companies that host their websites on Bigcommerce, Shopify, or Magento. Agents can view order data alongside tickets in Gorgias when you connect one of those platforms, which expedites response times. It excels at handling refunds and editing orders directly within the support desk because of its interface with Shopify.
Additionally, Gorgias integrates with Facebook and Instagram social media platforms, allowing you to respond to customer inquiries through social media straight from a single inbox. Many of Gorgias’ time-saving features, such as Automation, are only accessible with higher plans and expensive add-ons. Additionally, ticket volume limitations imply that your monthly expenses may change from month to month.
8. Kustomer
Help desk software and CRMs have always been sold separately, but Kustomer brought the two together to provide a novel kind of solution. You may update several systems at once and see a comprehensive picture of each customer using Kustomer, which will save you time and effort.
The customer provides support across many channels, such as social media, phone, chat, and email. Support requests can also be diverted to self-service alternatives via no-code chatbots. However, because Kustomer has a lot of add-on tools, the pricing is unclear, and the product is pricey. Furthermore, a lot of its features centre on deflecting inquiries, which might not be the best for organisations that prioritise customers more.
9. Front
The Front presents itself as a hub for customer communications where users are regarded more as people than as tickets. Its main selling points are its robust collaboration tools and shared inbox, which allows you to assign and filter both personal and group emails. It also “feels like email.”
Much of the automation and rules that save time are exclusive to the higher plans, just like with many of the Zendesk alternatives discussed here. For teams that value cooperation, coordination, and clear communication, Front is an excellent platform that fosters collaboration and efficiency.
10. HappyFox
HappyFox positions itself as a solution for customer service, IT operations, and HR & marketing. It is a hybrid help desk and project manager. HappyFox offers reporting, satisfaction surveys, task management, and the usual capabilities like automation, canned responses, knowledge bases, and ticketing.
HappyFox currently provides ticket-based pricing (with unlimited agents) and agent-based pricing (with infinite tickets). So, you’ll need to consider which plan structure is best for your company now and down the road if you expect to grow. The HappyFox suite also includes live chat, chatbots, and process automation at different prices.
11. Intercom
The goal of Intercom’s customer messaging platform is to help businesses develop genuine connections with their customers at every level of the sales process.
With Intercom, users can offer their clients multi-channel support through email, push notifications, in-app messaging, and live chat. This makes it possible for businesses to connect with the appropriate individuals at the ideal moment on the ideal platform.
Users of Intercom can also create knowledge bases aimed at customers. Customers can now quickly and easily find solutions to both straightforward and complicated issues, saving them from having to contact customer support for assistance. Naturally, agents can easily offer support when needed, thanks to Intercom’s messaging features.
12. LiveAgent
First and foremost, LiveAgent is a help desk tool designed to assist businesses in streamlining their ticketing and support delivery systems.
This is far more complex than it first appears, of course. For businesses wishing to establish a call centre, offer live chat on their website and social media pages, and develop a knowledge base that their clients can access whenever they’d like, LiveAgent offers an all-in-one solution.
By giving agents “badges” for doing specific customer-related tasks as needed, LiveAgent additionally gamifies the customer service process. This makes it possible for companies to recognise high achievers and to ascertain which areas require additional training.
13. Trengo
Trengo is an intelligent platform for customer engagement that helps businesses create the right touch points with customers at the right time across various channels like WhatsApp and more. It centralises all customer conversations into one inbox from which they can leverage intelligent automation, including chat- and flowbots, rules, and customer-facing routing, to a comprehensive knowledge base, all to optimise customer communication and ensure that CS and all other teams can work effectively.
14. Help Scout
This well-known brand offers simple yet efficient customer support software for businesses. Using Help Scout’s all-in-one customer care platform, teams with the tools necessary to deliver prompt, exceptional, and customised assistance can save costs and increase customer retention.
Agents may collaborate on issues using this program; they can also see who is in charge of what task and who is working on it at the moment, and they can promptly respond to client inquiries on a number of channels, including Facebook, Twitter, live chat, email, phone, and text message.
15. Tidio
If you’re searching for a chat-focused platform that charges based on usage, Tidio is an excellent substitute for Zendesk. Live chat, live typing previews, chat satisfaction surveys, automated chat routing, and multilingual support are some of its chat features.
Apart from chat, Tidio may assist you in managing additional channels such as email, social media interactions from Instagram or Facebook Messenger, or messages from messaging services like WhatsApp. Additionally, the platform connects with well-known software programs like Squarespace, BigCommerce, WooCommerce, and Shopify.
Chatbots are one thing that needs to be added to the list, and that might seem odd. Although Tidio offers chatbot products, they are not included in the entry-level customer care packages. The entry-level rule-based chatbot from Tidio is available for the same monthly price as the customer support packages. Their AI-driven