Zoho Desk Alternatives: Top 10 Help Desk Software for Customer Service

Zoho Desk is a popular customer service software, but it’s not the only one out there! In this blog post, we will explore 10 Zoho Desk alternatives that have similar or better features. 

These alternatives are: 

1. SurveySparrow
2. Zendesk Support Suite
3. Freshdesk
4. Intercom
5. Salesforce Service Cloud
6. Hubspot Service Hub
7. Help Scout
8. LiveChat
9. ProProfs Help Desk
10. Kayako

10 Zoho Desk Alternatives that Will Help You Boost Your Customer Service

1. SurveySparrow 

A Swiss Army knife among help desk software, Zoho Desk offers a vast array of tools for the whole company – including:

1. Multi-brand self-service portals/ help centers
2. AKB bot called Zia
3. Ticketing software
4. A response editor
5. Integration with Zoho CRM.

However, navigating these features can be confusing, especially if your primary focus is quick customer support. 

With SurveySparrow, you can create surveys that feel like conversations, allowing you to collect better insights and sentiments from your customers. Moreover, you can easily track and close feedback across channels and gather reviews. 

Key Features

• Omnichannel contact: Enable your customers to contact you effortlessly via email, social, embed, SMS, QR code, or portal. 
• Multilingual forms: Speak to your customers from any location in their language.
• Chatbots: Deploy conversational chatbots for each team, department, or product. 
• Personalization: Script consistent yet intuitive interactions with branding, custom themes, survey logic, and custom parameters. 
• SDK for iOS and Android: Seamlessly embed classic, chat, and NPS survey forms in your mobile app. 
• API and webhooks: Integrate SurveySparrow with your business apps and create webhooks to trigger actions. 
• Advanced analysis tools: Get detailed visual insights into your customer’s needs and shape your ideal customer profiles.
• Ticketing software: Ticket negative feedback, and enable your team to collaborate and close on them faster. 

Pricing: SurveySparrow offers a free plan for up to 100 responses per month. Contact us to learn more about our paid plans.

And you get an option to try it for free by signing up. 

2. Zendesk Support Suite 

One of the top-rated alternatives to Zoho Desk on G2, Zendesk is a comprehensive customer service platform. Their Support suite of tools assists teams in offering support through multiple channels, including phone, email, chat, WhatsApp, and social media. 

Key Features

• Agent workspace: Enable your support team to manage customer interactions across all channels from one virtual workspace. 
• Ticketing system: View customer history, track and resolve customer issues and enable CSMs to view team performance at a glance. 
• Response templates: Close conversations faster with pre-defined ticket responses.
• Ticket routing: Route conversations based on priority, agent availability, and skills. 
• Self-service channels: Scale up support with customer self-service through bots, AI-powered workflows, and content management tools for help centers and KBs.
• Integrations: Zendesk provides 700+ out-of-the-box integrations with popular software like Salesforce, Shopify, Google Apps, Atlassian, and WordPress.
• Pricing options: Zendesk offers two types of plans – Foundational and Suite. While their Foundational plans provide essential support functions, their Suite plans include more advanced features like customizable dashboards and analytics. 

Pricing: Paid plans start at $49/month per agent. 

3. Freshdesk 

Freshdesk is a cloud-based customer service software. It has features like a ticketing system, multi-brand self-service portals, a knowledge base, and more, which makes it a great addition to our list of Zoho Desk alternatives. 

Key Features

• Omnichannel capabilities: Respond to emails, web requests, phone calls, chat requests, and social media requests from one place.
• Request routing: Automatically assign the right agent to requests from different channels.
• Gamification: Freshdesk offers a gamification feature that allows agents to earn points and badges for their performance. 
• Sandbox: Test new features and settings securely without impacting agents or customers. 
• Freddy AI for CX: Use AI to manage your knowledge base and make agent interactions more efficient. 
• Custom reports and dashboards: Create custom dashboards from your Freshdesk data for unique insights. 

Pricing: Freshdesk offers different pricing plans for its support products. For more details, head to their pricing page. 

4. Intercom 

Like Zoho, Intercom integrates customer relationship management (CRM) and customer support. You can communicate with your customers, leads, and users via in-app messages, on-site messages, push notifications, and emails through Intercom.

Key Features

• Shared inbox: Manage conversations from multiple channels in one place.
• Live and scheduled chats: With Intercom, you can chat in real-time with customers or use bots to collect info and organize a conversation with them later.
• Intercom Messenger: Deliver consistent interaction on time and on-brand with this customizable no-code messaging tool. 
• Data hub: Target customers and prioritize conversations according to various data types – like company details, conversation history, behavior, or selected product. 
• Automated support: Automate product onboarding and trigger customer messages based on events.
• Reporting tools: Track message performance, customer satisfaction, and customer support KPIs. 

Pricing: Intercom offers a starter plan at $79 per month.

5. Salesforce Service Cloud 

Enterprise resource planning software Salesforce has tons of potential and functionality. For example, based on its flagship SalesCloud product, Salesforce’s Service Cloud helps businesses provide comprehensive customer service. 

Key Features

• Customer service console: Manage all your cases from a single console on desktop and mobile. 
• Community creation: Create communities around your product for self-troubleshooting.
• Omnichannel service: With telephony integration, social media monitoring, and omnichannel routing, enable your agents to deliver faster service. 
• Order management: Get the customer activity at a glance – including orders, support history, and more.
• Salesforce Chatter: With Chatter, Salesforce’s enterprise social platform, agents can quickly escalate critical cases, @mention relevant team members, or create groups for collaboration and learning. The Chatter feed is integrated into the Service Cloud console on desktop and mobile.
• Mobile-ready: Manage customer cases from anywhere with the Salesforce1 Platform. 
• Assist: Enable your IT help desks with Zoho Assist, their secure cloud-based remote support, and remote access software. 
• Reporting tools: Get a complete view of customer trends with custom reports and dashboards. 

Pricing: Salesforce Service Cloud starts at $ 25 per month per user. 

6. Hubspot Service Hub 

As a Zoho Desk alternative, Hubspot Service Hub is easy to onboard – especially if you are already a user of the CRM. The Service Hub is connected to HubSpot’s CRM platform, which means all your customer data and channels are already connected. 

Key features

• Universal Inbox: Let your agents access customer conversations from multiple channels within a single inbox itself. You can sort conversations by forms or tickets, check agent availability and assign each interaction to the appropriate agent.
• Inbound and outbound calls: Recieve and track inbound calls from your customers or call directly from Hubspot with its VoIP software. 
• Customer feedback surveys: Execute CSAT, CES and NPS surveys to measure customer happiness.
• Knowledge base: Create a custom knowledge base for better self-service. 
• Playbooks: Create a library of how-tos, resources and guides for your customer service team. Set auto-suggestions for recommended content. 
• Automations: Improve response times with conversational bots and canned responses.
• Team analytics: Measure customer service efficiency with Hubspot’s reporting tools.

Pricing: Hubspot Service Hub starts at $45/month for two users. 

7. Help Scout 

Zoho Desk’s plethora of features may seem unnecessary if your only communication method is email or chat. That is why we have included Help Scout on our list of Zoho Desk alternatives.

According to G2, Help Scout is one of the easiest software to use, offering a simple tool set without any catchy add-ons or extra features. A ticketing system, knowledge base, response editor, and integration with Zoho CRM are all included. 

Key Features

• Shared inbox: Have a single hub for customer conversations, assign to teammates with private notes for context, and speed up closure with saved replies. 
• Workflows: Automate repetitive tasks with if/then logic, create and send bulk replies, and sort conversations by folder. 
• Knowledge base: Build a custom knowledge base so your customers can find answers to their questions without contacting support. 
• Live chat software: Enable your agents to provide direct access to the knowledge base or step into live chat mode per the customer’s requirement.
• Targeted messaging: Send users targeted messages about product updates or new content in-app, shop, or the website with Help Scout’s Beacon feature. 
• Reporting tools: Measure performance across support channels – including email, chat, knowledge base docs, and more. 
• Personalized support: Deliver more personalized interactions as Help Scout lists customer data alongside every interaction.

Pricing: Help Scout’s plans start at $20 per month per user. 

8. LiveChat 

If live chat and messaging are the core of your support system, LiveChat is a great alternative to Zoho Desk. This live chat software has features like chatbots and canned responses, similar to Zoho Desk. In addition, it also delivers real-time analysis of customers online – a handy feature to have during peak hours. 

Key Features

• Automation: With LiveChat, you can use chatbots to automate customer support. You can also use canned responses to resolve customer issues quickly. 
• Website visitor tracking: This feature allows agents to provide more context-specific assistance. 
• Incoming message sneak peek: See what your customers are typing before they hit send. Load the correct canned response, so you’re ready to respond on time.
• Integrations: Enhance LiveChat’s experience by integrating with 200+ tools – from increasing your mailing list to communicating with people directly from your social media accounts. 
• Chat history: Extract important analytical data from each conversation.
• Message targeting: Trigger messages with customers in the right place at the right time.
• Chat auto-routing: Assign the right personnel to communicate with every customer. 
• Ticketing software: Convert chats to tickets and close the feedback loop. 

Pricing: LiveChat plans start at $20/month per agent.

9. ProProfs Help Desk

As a Zoho Desk alternative, the ProProfs platform offers all the products you need to maintain robust customer support, such as ticketing, chat, knowledge base, and online form creation. It has two standout products: employee training and project management tools for improving teamwork. 

Key features

• Clubbed inboxes: ProProfs lets you centralize your communication with a shared inbox that clubs all your customer-facing inboxes – like @billing or @support – into one shared space. 
• Chat window customization: With ProProfs chat software, you can brand and customize your chat window for different teams. 
• Round-robin ticket assignment: Avoid pile-ups by automatically assigning tickets to agents
• Child ticket feature: Managing multiple aspects of a customer issue? The ticket can be divided into smaller sub-tickets or child tickets, each handled by a different agent.
• Reporting tools: Get insights on vital help desk metrics, including average first response and ticket resolution times. 
• Multichannel support: While not as extensive as some tools on this list, ProProfs lets you deliver quick support via email, chat and help center.
• Ticket prioritization: Set ticket priorities and alerts according to your unique SLAs.
• Training Maker: ProProfs’s employee training tools can be used to train your agents on the ProProfs platform. 

Pricing: ProProfs Help Desk starts at $ 10 per month for each user. 

10. Kayako 

Kayako brands itself as a fully integrated, cloud-hosted help desk for SMBs.

Key features

• Multichannel support: Kayako provides email, live chat, help center and social media support functionalities. 
• Visual timeline: Get an overview of every interaction the customer has had with your business – like site visits, purchases, shipping history, previous inquiries, self-help searches, etc. 
• Live chat software: Embed Kayako’s software on your site, or integrate their SDKs into your apps.
• Macro creation: Macros are pre-defined workflows that can help you save valuable clicks. Macros can trigger canned responses, ticket actions, or updates to ticket fields. 
• Integrations: Kayako has many native integrations with popular CRMs and payment platforms like Salesforce, Shopify and Stripe. In addition, it supports 600+ integrations using Zapier. 
• Branded help centers: Build and customize multiple help centers with unique content and branding.
• Help center analytics: Enable your customer service teams to track search phrases. This will help them optimize content.

Pricing: Kayako starts with five agents, at $125 per agent per month. 

Wrapping Up

That is our list of the top Zoho Desk alternatives & competitors you need to consider if you are planning to switch your help desk software. 

What other Zoho Desk alternatives are you considering right now, and why? Share your comments below!