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Leaders in CX? I beg to differ.

Our first several years working with Zendesk were pretty good. We rarely required help and the feature set met our needs. About 5 years ago our experience with them started going downhill fast. At this point I would strongly recommend against anyone starting a business relationship with this company. The ticketing system works well most of the time.

▪️Their support is some of the worst I've ever experienced and keeps getting worse. - Their admin portal is buggy
▪️Their knowledge base tools requires you to learn a new programming language in order to set up a support site.
▪️Their knowledge base tool is buggy. It routinely deletes images from and messes up formatting in active articles.
▪️Their analytics tool is complex and requires a deep understanding of Zendesk architecture to use successfully.
▪️The few valuable features they introduce are made available to enterprise customers only.
▪️Most new development is focused on half-baked call center solutions that don't work as promised and decrease the quality of support offered to both their clients and yours.
▪️They do a terrible job of screening for junk and spam letting a significant numbers of spam and malicious messages through and flagging real customer message en masse after each update.
▪️They do not notify you in any way if your messages can't be delivered (bounces, etc).

A solid support platform, though not my favorite.

What I like best about Zendesk Support Suite is its user-friendly interface and ease of integration with other tools. It’s intuitive for daily use and works well for our support team, especially since we primarily handle email responses rather than phone support. I also appreciate the ability to use plug-ins—like our Snowflake integration—which makes it easier to collect and analyze data. While Zendesk has built-in reporting features, we rely more heavily on external data tools, and the platform makes that connection seamless.

While Zendesk is functional, it's not my favorite—especially when compared to Salesforce, which offers more robust reporting and dashboard capabilities. One of the key challenges we've faced is the lack of real-time visibility into agent productivity. We haven’t yet found an effective way to provide agents with dashboards or tools that track their metrics in real time within Zendesk. We've also experienced difficulties integrating it with some of our quality programs, which has limited transparency for our agents around performance feedback.

We use Zendesk Support Suite as our primary platform for handling customer support inquiries. Our team manages high volumes of support tickets, primarily through email—we do not use phone support—so Zendesk's ticketing system is well-suited to our needs. We also use it to track agent performance, support internal workflows, and integrate with third-party tools like Snowflake for data collection and analysis. It's central to our day-to-day operations in support, from ticket handling to team performance visibility.

Zendesk Support Suite helps us manage and streamline a high volume of customer support tickets efficiently. It centralizes communication, making it easy for our team to track, respond to, and resolve inquiries—especially since we focus on email support rather than phone interactions. This has improved consistency in responses and helped maintain a clear audit trail of user interactions. The platform also supports integrations with tools like Snowflake, allowing us to enhance our data collection and reporting processes. Overall, it supports a more organized and scalable support operation.

Fraud Experience. They fool the user for money to get paid reviews.

While Zendesk Support Suite is a strong platform overall, there are a few areas that could be improved:
▪️Pricing Structure: The cost can add up quickly as your team grows or if you need advanced features, making it less budget-friendly for smaller businesses.
▪️Customization Complexity: Some deeper customizations and integrations require technical expertise or support from Zendesk, which isn’t always straightforward for non-technical users.
▪️Reporting Limitations: The native reporting tools cover the basics well, but creating more advanced or highly customized reports can feel limiting without upgrading or using add-ons.
▪️Occasional Performance Lag: At times, especially during periods of heavy use, the system can be a bit slow to load or process updates.
▪️Learning Curve for Advanced Features: While the interface is generally easy, some advanced functions or workflow automations take time to master.

However Zendesk is helping me with:
▪️Faster Response Times: I can reply to customers more quickly because everything I need is consolidated and automated.
▪️Greater Efficiency: The reduction in repetitive tasks frees up time and energy for more meaningful work.
▪️Better Teamwork: My team can easily collaborate, share knowledge, and solve issues together, leading to improved results for our customers.
▪️Clear Performance Tracking: With reliable analytics, I can see what’s working, set goals, and make improvements.
▪️Seamless Workflow: Integrations with other tools minimize disruptions and help me stay organized.
▪️Zendesk Support Suite simplifies customer support, removes roadblocks, and empowers me to deliver better service every day.

Worst experience with Zendesk Suite - avoid at all costs.

Our overall experience with Zendesk Suite was dreadful. Despite being long-time users, we faced continuous hassles and struggles, particularly with their payment structure and unresponsive support team. When we attempted to downgrade our user numbers, a small oversight led to an automatic renewal, and our account manager failed to respond in time. This resulted in unnecessary charges that we could not afford, and Zendesk showed no willingness to provide a solution. In the end, we lost all our data and help center content. Their rigid policies, poor customer service, and illogical pricing model have caused significant damage to our business. I strongly advise against using Zendesk Suite as there are far better alternatives available.

The platform had a good reputation and seemed like a reliable choice based on its longstanding presence in the market.

Extremely poor customer service and support. Payment methods and structure are convoluted and inflexible. Account managers are solely focused on making money rather than helping customers. Unresponsive and evasive support team, often citing vacations as a reason for delays. Inability to downgrade user numbers in a timely manner, leading to unnecessary charges. Lost all our data and help center content due to their rigid policies. Overall, their pricing model and policies are illogical and harmful to loyal customers.

We chose Zendesk Suite over alternatives because of its longstanding reputation and perceived reliability. Being one of the oldest players in the market, we believed that Zendesk's experience and established presence would offer a robust and dependable solution for our customer support needs. Additionally, we liked the way the help center works, so it fit our needs.