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Help Scout vs Zendesk: What are the differences?
Introduction
In this comparison, we will identify and highlight key differences between Help Scout and Zendesk, two popular customer support software solutions.
User Interface: Help Scout offers a clean and minimalist interface that focuses on simplicity, making it intuitive for users to navigate and use. On the other hand, Zendesk provides a more feature-rich and customizable interface, allowing for more advanced configuration and personalization options.
Ticketing System: Help Scout utilizes a conversation-based approach where each customer query is handled as a thread, making it easy to keep track of communication history. In contrast, Zendesk's ticketing system is more traditional, with distinct tickets for each customer issue, providing a structured and organized workflow.
Automation Capabilities: Zendesk provides robust automation features through its workflows and triggers, allowing for more complex and customizable automation rules. Help Scout, while offering automation capabilities, may not be as extensive or advanced as Zendesk's automation options.
Reporting and Analytics: Zendesk offers detailed and in-depth reporting tools, providing insights into customer interactions, ticket resolutions, and other key metrics. Help Scout, on the other hand, focuses more on simplicity in reporting, offering essential metrics and analytics without overwhelming users with data.
Price Point: Help Scout tends to be more cost-effective for small to medium-sized businesses, with simpler pricing plans and potentially lower overall costs. In contrast, Zendesk, while offering more features and customization options, may be pricier, especially for businesses with larger support teams or specific customization requirements.
Integration Ecosystem: Zendesk boasts a vast array of integrations with third-party applications and services, allowing for seamless connectivity with other business tools. Help Scout, while offering integrations, may have a more limited selection compared to Zendesk's extensive integration ecosystem.
In Summary, when considering Help Scout and Zendesk, businesses need to weigh factors like user interface, ticketing system, automation capabilities, reporting, pricing, and integration options to choose the solution that best fits their specific needs and budget.
We sell a high-touch, high ASP product (caskets) and have scaled to where we're adding several more customer service agents to our company. Customers often call or chat with us multiple times prior to the purchase and post-purchase, as these are emotional, time-sensitive purchases. Nearly every customer contacts us pre-purchase. We are a Shopify shop. Customer service is our brand.
We need a solution that allows whoever picks up the chat or phone to quickly see the history of that customer, their request, notes, and the status of their order. We need a powerful chat tool that can enable immediate engagement, have some basic automation, and allows users to drop in.
Finally, we also have some B2B customers (funeral homes) and expect this part of our business to grow significantly in 2021.
Hey Joshua,
Would recommend using Freshdesk as your tool of choice. It has a direct integration with Shopify and other tools including powerful B2B customer handling. It also satisfies all the requirements you’ve outlined including order history, interaction history, notes, tickets etc. Along with Omni channel integrations with chat (their own or other chat solutions), email, phone and so on.
My company, JindalX can help you set up your customer service automation and journeys along with helping handle any extra volume through our own customer service reps if required. Can provide you with a free assessment if needed? Let me know, I’m contactable at madhav.garg@jindalx.com
Best, Madhav
ActiveCampaign can do all of this for you. They have really great support. Their automation is second to none. They have a chat bot capability. They also have an integrated capability where you see everything related to the one customer in one spot - all their interactions with you, and can move the customer through your custom stages. If you do go with ActiveCampaign, I HIGHLY recommend that you take their paid training. It will really help you get up faster and understand the product deeper, and not waste time. I think they have the training every month. ActiveCampaign is difficult to learn on your own since it is so full featured. Sign up for a trial through a salesperson and then ask if it is possible to get in the class for less money. ActiveCampaign integrates with Shopify also.
If you don't go with ActiveCampaign, then Zoho would be my second choice. But their support and quality is not as good, they feel like a new product even though they have been in business a while. You keep having to get around their bugs, which you can, it is just annoying. ZohoOne may be less expensive than ActiveCampaign.
Both products are so full-featured that they both take quite a while to learn.
We needed a sophisticated help center solution as we provide extensive support with 3 support team tiers. Intercom is more about messaging and automation. We needed sub-tickets, tasks, reminders, SLAs, automation, and strong API connections. That's why we have chosen Zendesk and we are quite happy with that.
Pros of Help Scout
- Email based helpdesk19
- Great user experience18
- Reasonably priced10
- No helpdesk branding7
- Free plan for startups6
Pros of Zendesk
- Centralizes our customer support135
- Many integrations73
- Easy to setup59
- Simple26
- Cheap26
- Clean12
- Customization7
- $1 Starter Pricing Plan5
- Woopra integration4
- Proactive Customer Support3
- Remote and SSO authentication with CMSs like WordPress1
- Charitable contribution to SF hospital for $20 plan1
- Full of features1
- Integrations0
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