If you want to choose the best help desk solution for your company that will let you solve any issues your clients may have we’ve got your covered. Our B2B experts reviewed a wide selection of help desk solutions to help you choose the best-in-class software. After a thorough investigation of more than fifty help desk software products in our database, we narrowed down the choice to the top 3 solutions that offer the best functionality, value for money, and level of service quality:
Freshdesk – Score: 9.8; User Satisfaction: 98%
Zendesk – Score: 9.7; User Satisfaction: 96%
Salesforce Sales Cloud – Score: 9.6; User Satisfaction: 98%
Freshdesk is our no. 1 choice for help desk
Based on our close analysis of the features of the three services, we chose Freshdesk as the winner and gave it our Expert’s Choice and Best Help Desk Software for 2015 awards for exhibiting best ticketing, communication channels, and mobile features on the market. A close second is Zendesk, with its robust reporting & analytics tools.
In the top 3 we also included Sales Cloud–a CRM software with solid help desk tools–to reflect a common decision that buyers struggle with when subscribing to a help desk app: should I include CRM? Salesforce has a standalone help desk, Desk.com, but it’s so similar to Zendesk in functions and prominence, so we chose Sales Cloud as our number three option.
All three solutions excel in terms of ease of use, flexibility, and scalability. However, we matched the top three help desk solutions against each other using the critical factors that make a help desk software stand out: ticketing, communication channels, mobile, reporting & analytics, and integration. After reading our review, you’ll also understand why Freshdesk was granted our top award for the best help desk software of 2015. You can also test their solution for yourself using the Freshdesk free trial.
Overview of Freshdesk, Salesforce Sales Cloud, and Zendesk
1. Freshdesk – Score: 9.8, User Satisfaction Rating: 98%
Our team of experts chose Freshdesk as the best help desk software solution in 2015 and this service is currently at the very top of our help desk category. San Francisco, CA-based Freshdesk has 40,000 customers worldwide today who use its powerful cloud-based ticketing, multi-communication channels, and mobile platform to deliver responsive customer support. The software is built on a mission to provide customer support solutions for businesses of any size, but it’s most useful for small and medium companies because of its freemium that includes the software’s email and phone support as well as knowledge base. Paid plans start at $16 per agent/month. The app is scalable to enterprise-level features including IP whitelisting, portal customization, custom agent roles, and custom email servers. You can try most of its high-performing features by subscribing to Freshdesk free trial. There is also a detailed review of Freshdesk prepared by our team that discusses all important features and benefits of the software.
A sample Freshdesk ticket with customer profile on the right side.
2. Zendesk – Score: 9.7, User Satisfaction Rating: 96%
Like Freshdesk, San Francisco, CA-based Zendesk is known for its ticketing and multi-channel support. It’s also notable for its robust reporting & analytics module. Similar to Freshdesk, Zendesk has a self-service portal that lets you build a comprehensive knowledge base and customer portal based on frequently asked questions. At $1 per agent/month, this app offers an affordable way to start your help desk project. It’s also the second most recognized product in our help desk software category. You can find more information about Zendesk below or in our detailed review of Zendesk.
A sample Zendesk knowledge base self-service portal.
3. Salesforce Sales Cloud – Score: 9.8, User Satisfaction Rating: 98%
Sales Cloud, which is also headquartered in San Francisco, CA, is technically a CRM software with a help desk component. It’s part of the Salesforce suite of business solutions. As a help desk platform, it can only offer social media and email support, which for some businesses, are the only support channels they can offer. But as a robust CRM solution it can leverage customer support data to personalize sales or develop a tactical sales pitch. Sales Cloud is ideal for small companies that want to kickstart their help desk support and integrate it in the future with other Salesforce solutions. It’s quite pricey though with a starting price of nearly $30 per agent/month. You can learn more about this software from our detailed review of Salesforce Sales Cloud.
A sample Sales Cloud reporting & analytics data.
Comparison of Ticketing Features
Ticketing is the heart of any help desk software, the ability to accept customer queries, respond in time, and track engagements. Both Freshdesk and Zendesk have powerful ticketing management, while Sales Cloud needs to integrate with Desk.com to handle tickets.
In ticketing terms, it’s a toss-up between Freshdesk and Zendesk. They share similar strong ticketing features such as:
Agent collision detection
Service level agreements settings (SLAs)
Ticket queuing, status, and properties
Views based on ticket conditions
File attachments
Triggers and business rules
Macros to create standard replies
Specifically, once submitted by a customer, a ticket is automatically queued in Freshdesk and Zendesk and a live agent can right away pick it up. Both solutions also display the source of ticket–for instance, email, social media, or chat–and use rich-text format to help you highlight key messages in an email response. Likewise, both help desk apps allow for shared view to help agents collaborate on specific tickets.
However, we prefer Freshdesk’s individual ticketing dashboard, which displays customer information right inside the ticket, including her home/business/mobile phone numbers. This helps you reply in the right context or place a call for urgent issues while inside the ticket.
Likewise, Freshdesk gives smart suggestions for solutions next to the ticket based on its keywords. This feature makes it even faster to send standard replies.
On the other hand, Zendesk tickets can be shared with other Zendesk accounts, which means you can collaborate on customer service with teams outside of your support team, such as, vendor or retail partners. It’s a handy feature, but only applies to a unique scenario, that is, if you provide help desk in conjunction with other providers.
Comparison of Communication Channels
Freshdesk and Zendesk offer multiple channels to get in touch with customers, while Sales Cloud only provides social media and email support.
Freshdesk and Zendesk feature social media integration, an integrated phone, email, and live chat support, and self-service center. Specifically, you can integrate your Facebook and Twitter pages to Freshdesk or Zendesk and provide customer support right inside your customers’ favorite social networks.
Likewise, both applications have a self-service portal to build your knowledge base and community forum. Both solutions also allow customization to fit your brand feel and colors, but Freshdesk takes it further up the CSS level. This means, with Freshdesk, your website’s CSS style can be replicated in the help center for seamless branding.
On the other hand, Zendesk’s self-service center is available in 40-plus languages, which is valuable when non-English speaking countries comprise a main slice of your market.
Freshdesk and Zendesk also offer support widget that you can embed on your website so visitors don’t have to leave the site page to submit a ticket or access your help center.
We’re especially impressed with the Freshdesk widget because you can place it as a subtle tab anywhere on the page and it expands when clicked, while the Zendesk widget only appears in the bottom part of your website. Likewise, in the Freshdesk widget, customers can click smart suggestions that appear in the right panel based on the customer query’s keywords.
As for Sales Cloud, it also allows you to tap into your customers’ social media activities on, among others, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, to know more about their issues so you can provide the right answers. Likewise, it allows you to send email messages from your cloud account, mobile app, or desktop client, or integrate other email apps to track customer messages from these channels.
Because Freshdesk and Zendesk are full service help desk, they are superior to Sales Cloud in offering multiple communication channels.
Comparison of Mobile Features
All three applications come with a mobile interface, but with varying capability levels. As for features, Freshdesk has the most robust platform, while Zendesk has the most extensive reach because it has versions for Windows and Kindle, which the other two software don’t have.
However, Zendesk only features select capabilities depending on the mobile OS. You need to tinker with its mobile SDK (Android and iOS only) to bring ticket submission, knowledge base, and live chat into the mobile interface, which we thought are essential to make a helpdesk fully mobile.
Freshdesk, on the other hand, has all the powerful capabilities available in both its Android and iOS apps. You can respond to tickets, change priorities, mark spam, and pass the ticket to an office-based agent if need be, for instance, if you suddenly need to close your mobile device inside the bank or an airport or you’re low on battery life.
Meanwhile, Sales Cloud’s Salesforce1 Mobile App only lets you pull customer profile and insights from the contact management module so you can take the information in the field. The rest of its functions are designed for CRM, including, lead management, sales forecasting, and sales collaboration.
Comparison of Reporting and Analytics Tools
Both Freshdesk and Zendesk offer strong reporting and analytics tools to help you measure customer support performance. The more important features present in both solutions are:
Customer satisfaction ratings that help assess agents’ performance
Track important ticketing data from number of resolved tickets
Average response time
Overall customer satisfaction surveys
Time tracking for individual tickets
Dashboard that helps monitor agents’ performance and pinpoint star performers, bottlenecks or weak links in your team
Equally important, Freshdesk and Zendesk have powerful reporting tools that let you pull out visual reports and metrics at the big boss’ whim for hard data.
For unique features, we like how Freshdesk simplifies customer satisfaction analytics with emoticons. Emoticons, although trivial, help to grasp your team’s performance with a quick glance.
Likewise, although it’s not technically part of reporting module, Freshdesk Arcade gamifies customer support with awards and leaderboard scoring. Award your best performers for fast resolution, first call resolution, or customer satisfaction and see how your reports and analytics improve.
On the other hand, we’re impressed with Zendesk’s 50 best practice reports, including operational efficiency, agent performance, and customer experience. In fact, its Enterprise plan has up to 200 custom fields. You can also compare your support performance against your competitors that use Zendesk, too. This helps to motivate you to improve or not to be complacent.
Sales Cloud, meanwhile, has a contact management that lets you get a 360-degree view of customers, including their past activities, communication history, and their social engagement. They are useful help desk tools, but they are designed first for assessing online campaigns and deals.
Comparison of Integrations
All three solutions display strong integration capabilities.
Sales Cloud, being part of Salesforce suite, can integrate with other Salesforce business apps, notably, Desk.com, Pardot, and Marketing Cloud. The Salesforce suite is also noted for its AppExchange, home to hundreds of business solutions from sales to customer service, HR to finance, and ERP to analytics.
Similarly, Freshdesk integrates with a suite of popular business platforms from CRM and e-commerce solutions to invoicing and productivity apps. Top brands like Google, MailChimp, Shopify, Zapier, Dropbox, Nimble, JIRA, and more work well with Freshdesk, which also integrates with Salesforce, in case you’re already using any of its business apps.
Zendesk also has a comprehensive app store that allows you to add more features, such as live chat, e-commerce, marketing automation, and even project management. Most add-ons are free, while the rest are minimally priced. Likewise, the Zendesk’s API helps you create your own third-party app.
Our Final Verdict
For being full service help desk solutions, Freshdesk and Zendesk clearly have better customer support features than Sales Cloud. For general help desk needs, Freshdesk is an excellent choice because of its best-in-class features. It emerges as our top choice since it exhibits better functions in ticketing, communication channels, and mobile platforms, the top critical functions for any customer service software. You can also easily try out their service and get Freshdesk free trial.
On the other hand, Zendesk has a robust reporting & analytics module. It also works okay if you have unique needs like providing multilingual customer support or your help desk is part of a bigger help desk infrastructure, for instance, you’re a retail branch.
Lastly, Sales Cloud, although it lags behind in help desk features, is ideal for small businesses that only offer email customer support. In the meantime, they also get a strong CRM solution.
The post Top 3 Help Desk Software: Comparison of Freshdesk, Salesforce Sales Cloud, and Zendesk appeared first on Financesonline.com.