IT Teams

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Top 9 Zendesk Alternatives & Competitors [2024 Updated]

Tathagata Chakrabarti

16th January, 2024

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Zendesk is an IT help desk solution designed to create multiple user communication channels. These channels help them seamlessly connect with the IT support team and resolve their queries within no time. However, despite its comprehensive set of features, it has certain drawbacks that impede service management. Thus, exploring Zendesk alternatives is an ideal decision to take.  

Zendesk help desk solution helps your IT team resolve IT-related issues raised by employees or customers through single/multiple points of contact. Furthermore, it assists your IT teams in troubleshooting problems and monitoring and tracking the issues faced by the employees, customers, and stakeholders. This helps them to accordingly provide users the assistance associated with services, processes, or products to resolve the issue.

Furthermore, it provides self-service portals where employees can find solutions to queries related to IT processes, app approval requests, and more without the involvement of the IT teams. Also, it offers a suite of tools to handle complaints, customer inquiries, and customer feedback effectively, including knowledge management, reporting and analytics, and ticket management. 

However, it's crucial to understand that the Zendesk help desk has its own set of pros and cons. Here are some of them:

Zendesk Help Desk Pros

Here are some notable pros of the Zendesk help desk:

• Zendesk help desk provides your IT teams visibility into the recurring types of customer inquiries and cases, enabling them to identify solutions and accordingly create standardized processes to fix the problem

• Zendesk help desk enables your operations teams to categorize customer support teams into distinct departments based on roles, such as marketing, sales, or technical services. This structure simplifies the process for employees and clients to connect with the appropriate person for service support without confusion

Despite offering multiple benefits, the Zendesk help desk still falls behind due to its cons:

Zendesk Help Desk Cons

Here are a few of the major drawbacks of the Zendesk help desk:

• A notable limitation of the Zendesk help desk lies in the filtering feature, where the platform lacks the ability to selectively view only pending or solved tickets. This constraint poses challenges in reviewing specific ticket statuses, potentially causing disruptions in the smooth management and resolution of tickets

• Another downside of the Zendesk help desk is there are certain limitations in the trigger function. This limitation hinders the automatic deletion or redirection of tickets based on triggers, increasing the likelihood of ticket mismanagement. 

• Also, the search function is inefficient in identifying duplicate tickets, causing confusion within the IT team regarding the accurate count of tickets raised by employees and clients.

Nevertheless, sticking to one particular tool is not a compulsion; you, as a manager, can opt for a substitute offering comprehensive features to meet your service management needs. So, in this blog, we've curated a list of Zendesk competitors that might be more suitable for your organization.

List Of 9 Best Zendesk Alternatives & Competitors In 2024

Below are the 9 top-rated Zendesk alternatives that provide your users with solutions and assistance to troubleshoot any problems. 

1. Zluri

Zluri, an excellent Zendesk alternative, provides a wide range of advanced functionalities designed to enhance the efficiency of your IT teams in managing IT service processes and improve employees' experience. For example, it automates tedious and repetitive tasks, including managing application approvals, while offering a comprehensive overview of all raised tickets through a centralized dashboard. This robust feature aids in monitoring requests and inquiries systematically, facilitating prompt resolution. 

This was just an overview of what Zluri is capable of. To provide you with a better understanding, let's dive deeper into its capabilities: 

Zluri’s Enhances Employee Experience By Providing Self Serve Model 

To demonstrate its capabilities, let's take an example of a scenario: in an organization, multiple procurement and HR staff members need access to Procurify and BambooHR, respectively. 

However, manually providing them with access is time-consuming and prone to errors. Zluri addresses this challenge with its self-serve model, known as the App Catalog & Access Request. The App Catalog & Access Request is a curated selection of SaaS applications approved and verified by the IT teams. This empowers employees with the flexibility to select any application from the App Catalog & Access Request, granting them swift access without delays.

Streamlines Access Request Management Process 

Zluri streamlines the access request process, making it effortless for employees. Employees must simply submit an access request, and the IT admin will be notified immediately. Then, the admin verifies the employee's identity and grants secure access with just a few clicks. This saves valuable time and effort for both your employee and your IT admin and elevates the overall employee experience by eliminating unnecessary waiting periods.

App Catalog & Access Request, employees can submit a request for the same. The request undergoes a similar process but with additional steps. The raised request or ticket reaches the IT admin, who thoroughly reviews all application details, considering factors like threat level, risk score, compliance, and more. This ensures a thorough evaluation of the app's security before procurement.

Once the application details are verified, the request is forwarded to the procurement team. Leveraging Zluri's SaaS buying capabilities, the app is negotiated and purchased at the best deal. Upon procurement, the IT admin then grants the employee the appropriate level of access to the requested application, completing a seamless and secure access request journey.

Maintains Transparency By Providing A Complete Overview Of Raised Requests 

However, the application request can also be rejected due to its pricing, or the app may not be secure enough to procure. In that case, the employees will be notified about the same through the comments. Also, if the change is made in the request or if any of the approvers provide any substitute for the application, it will be viewed in the "Changelogs." 

Additionally, IT teams can restrict the application view or customize which apps will be visible in the EAS as per specific requirements. This helps restrict employees from viewing and accessing apps with high threat levels, risk scores, and compliance.

Now, how are you going to monitor the approval workflow? Zluri conducts timely audits and generates reports and real-time analytics on ticket resolution rates, time taken to approve requests, and more, helping streamline the approval workflow process. 

So, what are you waiting for? Book a demo now to see how Zluri's compelling and advanced features will help you streamline your service management process. 

Pros

• Zluri provides your IT admins with a centralized dashboard, presenting a comprehensive overview of all tickets in one place. This includes insights like unassigned, overdue, and resolved tickets. Further, this initiative dashboard helps in the identification of priority tasks that require prompt resolution and highlights tickets that are yet to be assigned to the IT support team

  

  

• Also, this all-in-one solution generates curated reports to keep track of support team performance and how long it takes to resolve queries and issues. This helps identify areas that need improvement so that the service management process can be streamlined.

Cons

• Sometimes, setting up and integrating with other tools can be a bit complex and require attention to detail to make sure they work properly

• Zluri may not be the most suitable choice for small-sized businesses, as its features are predominantly designed to cater to the specific requirements of mid-size (medium) businesses and larger enterprises

Customer Rating 

• G2: 4.8/5

• Capterra: 4.9/5 

2. Jira Service Desk

Jira Service Desk, a notable alternative to Zendesk, is designed to enable your IT teams to manage internal IT and service operations efficiently. This comprehensive tool lets you present your services online, providing customers and employees with a seamless means to reach out to you promptly. 

This customer support tool also offers the flexibility to customize request forms to cater to the distinct needs of customers and employees. Also, the Jira Service Desk utilizes diverse customer communication channels such as chats, emails, and other online channels to respond to employee and client queries.  

Apart from that, the Jira Service Desk conducts customer satisfaction surveys. In this survey, users (clients and employees) provide feedback and ratings on whether the articles were helpful or not on knowledge-based articles. This helps in sorting the articles that have solved more problems, queries, and requests, improving the quality and relevance of the knowledge base content.

Pros 

• Jira Service Desk enables your IT team to monitor and prioritize service requests and incidents; this helps ensure that crucial issues are taken care of immediately

• Additionally, Jira Service Desk knowledge base capabilities allow you to create AI-powered self-service portals for both employees and customers. This powerful search engine lets users quickly find relevant articles by searching for keywords or phrases

Cons

• Jira lacks a notification feature that informs IT teams about newly submitted tickets. This deficiency requires teams to manually open the project to identify new requests, posing a risk of overlooking incoming tickets. This may result in ticket mismanagement and delayed responses

• The search function in Jira is not highly flexible. Locating specific tickets becomes challenging if words are not spaced correctly or lack appropriate symbols. As a consequence, your team may expend considerable time refining search keywords to obtain the desired results, impacting overall efficiency

Customer Rating

• G2: 4.2/5

• Capterra: 4.4/5

3. Help Scout

Help Scout is a centralized solution for your IT team to seamlessly manage customer and employee interactions through emails, chats, and calls. Also, this noteworthy Zendesk alternative provides you with automation capabilities. It helps automate routine tasks, including app approval requests, generating canned responses, and assigning conversations to IT support members. 

Furthermore, Help Scout features a knowledge base and self-service customer portal where customers and employees can access answers to common queries. The customer support platform also offers advanced analytics and reporting capabilities, enabling your team to monitor performance and enhance overall customer satisfaction.

Pros 

• Help Scout provides your team with a time-saving feature known as saved replies, enabling them to respond more quickly using predefined templates for common customer queries

• The tool also empowers your team to filter conversations based on their receipt time, facilitating efficient prioritization 

• Additionally, Help Scout uses a tag system that allows your team to categorize tickets, simplifying the search process and enhancing overall organization

Cons

• A notable drawback of Help Scout is it's difficult to search for old closed tickets, as the tickets lose their tags once the case gets closed. This creates a challenge for the IT team to revisit those tickets for future reference to resolve similar queries/issues

• Another downside is, sometimes, the website goes down without any warning, which interrupts the entire flow of work

Customer Rating

• G2: 4.4/5

• Capterra: 4.7/5

4. Zoho Desk

Zoho Desk is a well-recognized and one of the notable Zendesk alternatives, featuring diverse connections for seamless integration with various technologies. Also, this solution excels in service management by offering a wide range of features like a shared inbox, device integration, and chat functionality to enhance service efficiency.

Furthermore, Zoho Desk extends multi-channel support for effective client interaction, covering phone, email, and social media. Additionally, Zoho Desk enables employees to address common queries through service capabilities, utilizing knowledge-based articles that appear when relevant keywords are entered into the portal.

Pros 

• Zoho Desk assists your IT team in attaching tags to each ticket, simplifying the grouping of tickets into specific categories for troubleshooting and analysis. This further helps accelerate the resolution process and enhance the overall experience of users 

• With Zoho Desk, your team gets the flexibility to adjust the ticket view as per their preferences. For example; they can tailor the view to display resolved tickets, eliminating the need for time-consuming searches for specific tickets

Cons

• A major drawback of Zoho Desk is it lacks filtering features, leaving your team unable to filter tickets based on dates. This limitation makes it more challenging to prioritize which tickets need to be resolved immediately

Customer Rating

• G2: 4.4/5

• Capterra: 4.5/5

5. Freshdesk

Freshdesk is an advanced IT help desk platform that allows your IT teams to prioritize, categorize, and assign tickets effectively so they don't lose track of them. Also, this Zendesk alternative increases their productivity by automating repetitive helpdesk tasks, including automatically assigning tickets to agents or groups based on requesters, keywords, or properties. 

Further, Freshdesk accelerates the resolution process by implementing actions on specific tickets when triggered events occur. Also, it notifies employees automatically whenever changes are made to their ticket request. 

Additionally, the customer service platform provides multi-channel support, elevating employee and customer experiences through email, phone, chat, social media channels, website, and even WhatsApp.

Pros 

• Freshdesk provides AI-powered chatbots that swiftly and accurately respond to employee and client queries by delivering instant information from knowledge-based articles. This ensures faster resolution with minimal reliance on IT teams

• Additionally, this single platform generates curated reports to assess agent performance, analyze ticket resolution times (response time), evaluate user experiences, and more. These reports assist in identifying areas for improvement, contributing to the streamlining of the service management process

Cons

• One of the drawbacks of Freshdesk is its user interface becomes challenging to navigate while managing multiple incoming tickets, requiring frequent page refreshes to access updated information. This delays the resolution process

• Also, the platform has a slow ticket search tool, causing frustration when looking for older tickets. This hinders the flow of work and slows down the issue-resolving process

Customer Rating 

• G2: 4.4/5

• Capterra: 4.5/5 

6. GoTo Resolve 

GoTo Resolve is one of the prominent Zendesk alternatives that provides your IT team with a reporting tool that helps gather crucial data, including tickets by agent, ticket statistics, agent information or IP address, end-user data (name, device type, and IP address), session records, and more. This comprehensive data set enables your IT teams to resolve issues quickly. 

Furthermore, by closely monitoring the support sessions and help desk ticket details, you will know how your IT teams perform and where they can improve to streamline the service management process. 

Pros

• GoTo Resolve provides your IT team the ability to record sessions. These recordings can come at help if anybody from the team has to resolve a similar issue in the future

• The platform facilitates collaboration with other agents for expert assistance in addressing complex issues. This collaborative approach ensures that your employees and clients do not experience prolonged wait times for query resolution. Ultimately, this enhances the overall employee experience and eliminates unnecessary delays 

Cons

• A notable drawback of GoTo Resolve is that it takes time to search previous tickets due to the slow indexing of tickets, making it difficult for your teams to view old tickets 

• Also, the platform lags occasionally and loses connection in the middle of the resolution process, disrupting the entire flow of work

Customer Rating 

• G2: 4.4/5

• Capterra: 4.5/5

7. HappyFox

HappyFox help desk management software provides your IT team with a robust ticketing system, SLA management, and intelligent ticket assignment features. These key features help ensure efficient handling of customer requests. 

Furthermore, this alternative to Zendesk offers a range of integrations. It seamlessly integrates with various third-party apps, including CRM systems, eCommerce platforms, and collaboration tools. This integration enhances its functionality and compatibility with existing tools.

Apart from that, HappyFox's knowledge base feature helps your IT team create an extensive repository of insightful articles and FAQs to resolve common issues, providing self-service options to customers and employees.

Pros

• The HappyFox help desk provides an intuitive interface that promotes smooth collaboration among agents, effective ticket assignment, and seamless communication with customers

• Also, this customer service solution offers pre-built reports and customizable dashboards, allowing your IT team to track key metrics and make well-informed, data-driven decisions

Cons

• There are instances where IT teams receive ticket notifications after one or two days. This causes disruptions in the resolution process and affects the experience for employees and clients

• Another limitation is observed in HappyFox's basic "smart rules," which have restricted triggers and actions. For instance, the team cannot change the ticket status and assign it to an agent in a single step; each task must be performed separately. This sequential process consumes additional time

Customer Rating 

• G2: 4.5/5

• Capterra: 4.6/5

8. SolarWinds Service Desk

SolarWinds Service Desk is one of the notable Zendesk alternatives designed to streamline and automate service requests, decrease the support workload, and deliver an outstanding service experience to your employees. It incorporates intelligent technology into the service desk, enabling your IT teams to focus on core IT tasks rather than spending time on mundane and time-consuming IT activities.

Furthermore, its automated ticket routing, smart suggestions powered by artificial intelligence (AI), and machine learning functionalities all contribute to the IT service desk's ability to efficiently provide services throughout the organization. 

Pros

• SolarWinds service desk provides employees with easy access to necessary resources, including live chats for direct customer communication to resolve issues and self-service solutions that offer automated suggestions to address common issues

• This platform seamlessly integrates with apps such as Slack and Gmail, ensuring that employees receive notifications regarding the status of their tickets and requests

Cons

• SolarWinds service desk provides limited layout options for incidents or changes; currently, it offers only one list format. This limitation can make it challenging for your team to effectively organize and prioritize tickets

• Updates or changes made to a ticket by any member of your IT team may not be immediately reflected, potentially confusing within the team regarding the status of the request

Customer Rating 

• G2: 4.3/5

• Capterra: 4.6/5

9. SysAid 

SysAid, a notable Zendesk alternative, is a help desk software that provides a wide range of functionalities, including change, problem, request management, and more. These advanced features empower your IT team to streamline the service management process effectively. 

It also offers up to 200 custom columns per entity and unlimited templates and forms, making it easier for your IT team to customize SysAid as needed. Additionally, SysAid enables users to identify service requirements and monitor reports on service level agreements (SLAs) aligned with service management objectives.

Pros 

• The SysAid help desk provides your IT admins with a quick summary of the open tickets in a single dashboard. This helps in identifying and understanding what kind of issue or query they will be dealing with, whether it requires the involvement of other team members or not, and how much time it will take to resolve 

• Also, it sends email notifications to keep you informed about any modifications made to the tickets. This ensures constant updates at each step, maintaining proper transparency

Cons

• One major drawback of the SysAid help desk is, at times, the platform goes off and displays error 504, and this affects customer-initiated requests and delays the response time

• Another downside of this platform is that it doesn't have an editing feature. Due to this limitation, IT teams cannot edit the tickets and add text to descriptions or the title after submitting the ticket. Further, they have to again connect with the employee or client and explain all the details, which consumes more time

Customer Rating

• G2: 4.5/5

• Capterra: 4.5/5

How To Choose An Ideal IT Help Desk Tool?

This was an overview of the 9 best Zendesk alternatives & competitors. The ultimate choice is yours on which one to delve into further. However, selecting an ideal help desk platform requires thoughtful consideration of various factors to ensure it aligns with your organization's unique needs and goals. 

By evaluating features such as ticketing features, automation capabilities, scalability, integration options, user-friendliness, and customer support, you can make an informed decision that empowers your team to provide efficient and effective support services. 

Additionally, keeping an eye on emerging technologies and industry trends will help future-proof your choice, ensuring long-term success in meeting evolving customer support demands. Ultimately, the key lies in finding a help desk platform that addresses current challenges and adapts and grows with your organization's changing requirements.

FAQs

What Is a Help Desk?

A help desk serves as the initial contact point for customers and employees. Customers seek answers, and the help desk is their primary source of assistance. Likewise, when employees encounter issues such as printer troubleshooting, laptop security upgrades, or gaining access to new systems, the help desk is the go-to resource for resolution.

Is the Help Desk the Same As CRM?

Help Desk and CRM share some similarities but are not identical. A help desk tool provides online technical support for customers. On the other hand, customer relationship management (CRM) systems store customer information and enable agents to enhance customer service by leveraging this data.

About the author

Tathagata Chakrabarti

Tathagata is a Technical Content Writer with 4+ of experience in the SaaS industry. He has a keen eye for research and understanding macro trends in the SaaS & AI-based technology space. He has worked across several marketing & strategy roles in various domains like banking, e-commerce, and education sectors. In his leisure time, Tathagata is a full-time PC gamer.