Zendesk is among the world’s leading SaaS providers for customer support and help desk management. The 2007-founded company is headquartered out of San Francisco in California and has over 15 offices worldwide. It trades on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker ZEN and continues to be a rapidly growing company despite its scale.
In 2021, the help desk provider earned $375.4 million in revenues, an increase of 32 percent from 2020.
Despite its market leadership, Zendesk faces stiff competition from established and emerging companies around the world. Indeed, offerings comparable to Zendesk are available in CRM software like Salesforce and suite solutions like Microsoft Dynamics. Here is a breakdown of these and other competitors in detail.
1. Salesforce
Salesforce is popularly known as the world's no.1 CRM app, and it offers help desk software solutions for both small and large businesses. Small businesses enjoy a tailored Service Cloud offering, which enables help desk automation, 360-degree customer views, omnichannel support, and service personalization. Pricing for Salesforce Essentials starts at $25 per user per month.
Large organizations can implement a complete Salesforce customer service solution built on Service Cloud, priced at $75 per user per month. Such a deal includes proprietary AI technology called Einstein to optimize support workflows.
2. Dynamics 365 Customer Service
Dynamics is the enterprise resources planning (ERP) suite from the productivity software giant Microsoft. Dynamics 365 customer service is a helpdesk solution built on reliable Microsoft technologies, with embedded artificial intelligence for transcription, translation, and agent assist.
The tool fetches data from IoT devices when providing customer support. Users can benefit from several pre-built solutions and integrations, such as Sprinklr, Hootsuite, and Hitachi Health Plans for Dynamics 365 Customer Service.
Like Zendesk, it supports omnichannel interactions across voice, messaging, and chat, and pricing starts at £37.70 per user per month.
3. Freshdesk
Freshdesk is a customer service enablement platform by Freshworks, which offers a wide range of tools for marketing, CRM, sales, and HR. As its flagship solution, Freshdesk is an omnichannel customer support tool for inbound interactions, which also includes a built-in contact center feature.
Agents can engage with customers on social media, messaging apps, websites, or on calls, and Freshdesk simplified remote field service management for when customers need onsite help. Users can also leverage the Freshworks NEO platform to extend and customize its features.
Pricing for Freshdesk starts at $15 per user per month (free version available for unlimited agents).
4. Zoho Desk
Zoho is a close competitor to Freshworks, offering products across similar industries. Zoho Desk is the company’s omnichannel customer service software, which includes features such as ticket management, self-service, agent productivity enablement, and process automation.
Zoho Desk has its own AI technology - a feature not yet available on Zendesk - which powers automated customer conversations, sentiment analysis, ticket tagging, agent assist, and predictive analytics.
The solution functions across all customer channels and has a Blueprint feature to plan and manage complex processes. Pricing starts at €14 per agent per month (free for up to three agents).
