Have you ever thought, “I wish Zendesk had ___”? Perhaps it's a batch of new features. Or maybe it's something that they intentionally left out. Whatever the reason, you didn't find what you were looking for in Zendesk. Perhaps another customer service software might help you get more work done. This post will help you find the best alternative to Zendesk while exploring their similarities and differences.

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Best Alternatives to Zendesk in 2024

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ClearFeed

ClearFeed is a conversational support platform designed specifically for teams that support their customers and employees using Slack. Its core functionality transforms conversations from multiple Slack channels into a single shared queue of requests. The platform also acts as an internal or external ticketing system.

Key Features:

1. Triage channel and bi-directional integration with ticketing systems, engineering platforms, and CRMs.
2. AI-based SLA alerts and Slack announcement feature. 
3. Automatic and manual ticket creation and internal private comments within Slack.
4. Knowledge base integration and GPT-powered answers.
5. Auto responses based on business hours and custom workflows based on business rules.
6. CSAT surveys and reporting and analytics dashboard to understand customer happiness.

Pricing: When it comes to pricing, ClearFeed is flexible for both internal and external uses. For internal ticketing between your teams, pricing is simple: it's based on the number of agents using the system.

1. Free ($0/month): This includes one agent seat, 30 tickets, unlimited collaborators and requesters, SLA alerts, a triage channel, and OOO responses based on business hours.
2. Starter ($15/agent per month): Includes unlimited tickets, workload reports, multiple Slack workspace integrations, and integration with ticketing systems and engineering tools.
3. Professional ($30/agent per month): Includes starter and SLA management, advanced SLA reports, CSAT surveys, and APIs and webhooks.

In addition to the above, ClearFeed offers a customized package for enterprises with advanced features to meet their needs and requirements. And if you want to use the app for external support across your Slack channels, pricing shifts to be per channel instead.

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Help Scout

Help Scout is a popular customer service platform that provides different communication channels, including shared inbox, live chat, workflows, and reporting. They aim to assist businesses with responding to more messages, reducing email volume, and increasing customer loyalty and satisfaction.

Key Features:

1. Powerful customer support features, including shared inboxes, live chat, and a customizable help center.
2. Excellent reporting and analytics capabilities to measure team performance and customer satisfaction.
3. Easy integration with existing tools and platforms, enabling smooth workflows.
4. Scalable plans that cater to different team sizes and requirements.
5. The intuitive user interface makes it easy for new team members to onboard and use.

Pricing: Help Scout offers three pricing plans as follows:

1. Standard ($20/user per month): Limited users (25), one knowledge base support, and Beacon (help content embed functionality on a website or app).
2. Plus ($40/user per month): Includes five shared inboxes, two knowledge base integrations, reporting with unlimited history, and 25 free agents, among other features.
3. Pro ($65/user per month): Includes 25 shared inboxes, ten knowledge base integrations, 50 light agents, enterprise security, and HIPPA compliance, among other premium features.

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Freshdesk

Freshdesk is a cloud-based solution that enables customer support agents to engage with customers through various tools, including a knowledge base, forum, and support ticket system. By tracking, collaborating, automating, customizing, and analyzing customer support processes, Freshdesk enables businesses to improve their client interactions and overall customer satisfaction.

Key Features:

1. Customer support across email and social media channels.
2. Ticket routing to agents based on business rules (including round-robin and skill-based routing).
3. Automations (Scenario escalation, time, and event-based triggers) and multilingual knowledge base integration.
4. Analytics and reporting, SLA management and reminders, canned responses.
5. Sandbox, personalization in customer support, and CSAT surveys.

Pricing: Freshdesk offers four pricing plans, which are:

1. Free (up to 10 agents): Features include a centralized ticketing system across social media and email, knowledge base, analytics, and reporting
2. Growth (£12/agent/month): Includes automation, 1000+ app integrations, SLA management, ticket time tracking feature, and business hours
3. Pro (£35/agent/month): Features include 5000 collaborators, round-robin ticket routing, customized agent roles, personalized customer support, canned forms, SLA reminders, multiple SLA policies, and CSAT surveys
4. Enterprise (£60/agent/month): Additional features - sandbox, skill-based ticket routing, flexible knowledge base hierarchy, and audit logs

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Intercom

Intercom is a customer service platform that combines an AI chatbot, help desk, and shared inbox features to provide personalized and efficient customer service. It uses Fin, an AI chatbot, to answer complex questions, triage issues, and connect with customers across channels. Additionally, Intercom enables users to create interactive and customizable messengers, workflows, and reports, optimizing the customer experience and performance.

Key Features:

1. Shared inboxes and support across live chat, inbound email, social media (Facebook and Twitter), SMS, WhatsApp, and phone.
2. Bots, workflows, and automations for triaging tickets.
3. Customizable bots for automated responses and actions.
4. Public and multilingual help center setup for customer self-service.
5. Report suite to measure and analyze customer interactions and SSO & identity management.

Pricing: Intercom offers four main pricing bundles that cater to different business needs:

1. Essential ($39/seat/month): This package includes a shared inbox, basic chatbots, and automation, a public health center, and unlimited articles and collaboration.
2. Advanced ($99/seat/month): The Pro package includes everything in Essential plus multiple team inboxes, workflows for advanced automation, and a multilingual help center.
3. Expert ($139/seat/month): The Premium package extends the Advanced offer with further capabilities to manage team efficiency, harness more automation, and tailor your customer journey with data.

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Zoho Desk

Zoho Desk is a cloud-based helpdesk solution aimed at businesses of all sizes. It provides various functionalities to simplify customer service operations, including omnichannel self-service, sentiment analysis, service level agreements (SLAs), and artificial intelligence. This set of features makes Zoho Desk suitable for startups, SMBs, and enterprise businesses.

Key Features:

1. Shared inboxes to manage tickets coming via emails, social media (Facebook and Twitter), and live chat.
2. Ticket tagging, resolutions using knowledge bases, and suggested articles.
3. Round-robin ticket routing by agent load balancing.
4. Workflows, time-based rules, SLAs, and multi-level escalations.
5. In-app messaging and live chat capabilities.
6. Pre-defined and custom reports, customer happiness ratings dashboards, and advanced dashboards.

Pricing: Zoho Desk's pricing plans can be generally categorized as follows:

1. Standard Plan ($14/agent/month): Features include five email channels, a help center, 20 tags/ticket, product-based ticket tracking, five workflows, four SLAs, five time-based ticket rules, 50 custom fields, 50 custom reports, ten custom dashboards
2. Professional Plan ($23/agent/month): It offers ten email channels, 30 tags/ticket, round-robin ticket assignments, 10 SLAs, 15 time-based ticket rules, and unlimited custom reports, among others
3. Enterprise Plan ($40/agent/month): In addition to the features of the professional plan, users get advanced permissions, data sharing access, report scheduling, layout, and validation ticket rules

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HubSpot Service Hub

HubSpot Service Hub is a customer service software designed to cater to small to enterprise businesses, enabling them to establish long-lasting customer relationships. The platform allows users to boost productivity and connect with their team through ticketing, team email, live chat, email templates, and ticket creation bots.

Key Features:

1. Slack ticketing system and Facebook messenger integration.
2. Shared inboxes, reporting dashboards, and canned snippets.
3. Ticket tags, conversation routing, and ticket automation.
4. Knowledge base integration, SLAs, custom reporting, and custom objects.

Pricing: HubSpot Service Hub's pricing is divided into two categories: For businesses and enterprises and individuals and small teams

For businesses and enterprises:

1. Professional (Starts at $450/month for five paid users): This package includes 15 tickets per account, 25 dashboards, up to 100 shared inboxes, conversation routing, up to 300 workflows for ten teams, customer feedback surveys, and one knowledge base per account
2. Enterprise (Starts at $1200/month for ten paid users): This package includes everything in the professional plan (with an increased limit) and advanced features such as Salesforce custom object sync.

For individuals and small teams:

1. Free ($0/month): Includes Slack ticketing system, one ticket per account, ten custom properties, three dashboards, and five canned snippets
2. Starter ($18/month): Includes everything in the free plan (with increased limit), simple ticket automation, and ten ticket tags per account
3. Professional ($450/month): Everything from starter plan, including service analytics, SLAs, ticket routing, knowledge base, Salesforce integration, and custom reporting

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Finding the Right Zendesk Alternatives

Choosing the perfect Zendesk alternative is a balancing act. You want to nail your immediate needs without painting yourself into a corner.  First, take a deep breath and get clear on what you need right now. An all-in-one tool? Something simple for a single task? Identify your must-haves.

Then, peek around the corner. How might those needs change down the road? Will you want advanced features eventually? Plan for your future self. Now, vet the options and see what each competitor offers today and where they’re headed. Take a few on a test drive with free trials.

Find the solution that feels just right. It should check your boxes for current needs without limiting future flexibility. The right Zendesk alternative fuels success today and seamlessly scales with you over time. With a little forethought, you can choose software that flexes with your evolving needs. And if you would like to explore ClearFeed, give us a shout here.