Zoho Desk Review—How Does This Software Stack Up?

Customer service is the backbone of any successful business.

You could have a great product or service and the best marketing team and still struggle to generate leads and retain clients without good customer service.

Enter online help desk software with their ticket management systems and innovative automation technology.

Zoho Desk is a leading help desk solution that empowers support agents and increases user satisfaction.

This article reveals the pros and cons of the platform and shows you how it measures up to its alternatives with brief Zoho Desk comparison reviews.

Keep reading to see what we found out during our research.

What Is Zoho Desk?

Zoho Desk is a cloud-based help desk program. It is the first “context-aware” platform, meaning it uses previous information about a customer to help agents solve the current query.

It is one of the best help desk software for small business organizations.

With features like multichannel communication, automation, and conversational AI, it can assist in nearly every aspect of customer service.

Features

The cloud help desk software allows you to stay on top of every facet of your customer service. The outstanding Zoho Desk features will give you an edge over your competitors.

Ticket Management

Zoho Desk’s unique multi-channel IT ticketing system enables the capturing and recording of the details of all incidents.

The platform collects customer requests from different channels, turns them into support tickets, and organizes them in a single point of contact.

Better yet, the Zoho ticketing system integrates with Zoho CRM to provide customer info for context and personalized support.

For a more streamlined process, Zoho Desk offers Ticket Assignment—a feature that allows you to set up rules for assigning tickets automatically.

Other tools like Direct Assignment and Round-Robin Automation save you time and effort so that you can focus on the critical tasks instead.

Automation

The Zoho Desk help desk software automates repetitive duties and the managing and reporting on ticket statuses and workflows.

Automatic Ticket Assignment ensures that the process of allocating and routing issues is simplified, giving you more control over your workload and your team—more autonomy.

Instead of going through all tickets manually, you can create rules that automatically send specific tickets to the right agents. For example, issues related to social media can always go to social media experts.

You can also set up notifications to keep customers in the loop about the progress made on their tickets.

These can be created internally, too—if agents are working on multiple tickets, they can get reminders at every stage of the process.

Analytics

Zoho Desk reporting tracks key metrics and empowers your team with insights.

You can get down to the nitty-gritty of agent performance and track metrics like average response time and ticket traffic. You can also monitor the ticket inflow to see whether agents use resources correctly and timely.

Lastly, thanks to the analytics tools, you can combine data from different sources to create comprehensive Zoho Desk reports and see the big picture.

Customization

Zoho Desk allows you to customize the design and function of your IT help desk system. You can personalize every aspect of it—from layouts and branding to custom fields.

You can create email and ticket templates that agents can use to save time by filling in predefined answers instead of typing the same response multiple times.

Another handy customization tool is domain mapping, which allows you to make your Help Center an extension of your brand by hosting it on your domain.

You can also customize the Help Center by creating SLAs, notifications, and custom Zoho Desk knowledge base articles. These features allow you to tailor the look and feel of your self-help center to your website design.

Finally, you can set up secure access to define whether your Help Center is open for public access or requires visitors to set up accounts.

Zia

Zoho Desk has an AI-powered virtual assistant Zia that can facilitate every aspect of customer service.

Zia can interact with customers on your behalf on multiple channels, process their questions, and suggest solutions from your knowledge base. If the answers aren’t helpful or available, the AI assistant will alert managers.

But it doesn’t stop there.

The Zoho Desk virtual assistant reviews tickets, identifies critical aspects like sentiment, and reports it to agents so they can prioritize and answer promptly.

To further facilitate prioritization, Zia automatically processes incoming tickets and tags them according to their severity. The tags also help agents identify issues that match their skills and expertise and even review past tickets to learn from them.

Integrations

The Zoho Desk helpdesk integrates with handy apps like Zoho Creator, telephony systems like Amazon Web Services, and tools you’re probably already using, like Salesforce.

Zoho CRM

By connecting Zoho Desk with Zoho CRM, you can take advantage of cross-selling opportunities. The integration also allows support agents to update customer details and enrich the info sales reps have.

The sales team can respond from within the Zoho CRM customer service platform and accelerate the buying decision when users ask for help before purchasing the product.

Zoho BugTracker

BugTracker is an efficient incident management and issue tracking system with several tools to resolve bugs, track progress, and administer workflows.

You can provide better customer service by allowing users to report bugs to your team, which will then submit the tickets as bugs in the Zoho BugTracker.

Twilio

Twilio is a cloud-enabled PBX platform that uses digital phone signals to send and receive phone calls.

It facilitates the regulation of your company’s incoming and outgoing calls from within the Zoho help desk app.

It also allows you to connect these conversations with tickets, contacts, and accounts.

Slack

The Zoho Desk software connects with Slack so that you can get ticket notifications, collaborate with your team, and boost productivity.

Slack brings all your chats into a single platform. Through real-time updates it keep agents in the loop about the status of issues.

Plus, with slash Slack commands, you can retrieve vital ticket information without switching tabs.

Microsoft Teams

Agents can work on Zoho Desk tickets from the Microsoft Teams platform.

They can receive notifications whenever a ticket is created or updated and collaborate right from within MS Teams.

Zoho Desk Downsides

So far, we showed you where the service excels. In this section of the Zoho Desk review, we take a look at its shortcomings.

• Offers a relatively small number of features.
• Automation tools aren’t as advanced as you’d expect from software of this caliber.
• The API is limited. 
• The jump from the Zoho Desk free plan to the Standard plan might be difficult for smaller operators.
• The email integration can be a little buggy.

Plans & Pricing

You can choose between the three paid Zoho Desk plans and the free version.

Additionally, you can purchase light agent licenses from the Standard plan and above for $6/agent/month.

Zoho Desk Support

Zoho Desk has three support tiers that you can choose from.

The Classic plan is free and includes rudimentary services like a knowledge base, community forums, email support, and a Zoho Desk support portal. It comes with live chat and toll-free phone support, an eight-hour response time guarantee, and a five-day work schedule.

The Premium plan costs 20% of your Zoho Desk license fee and offers 24/5 support with a three-hour response time guarantee. It includes remote help, product onboarding, and configuration assistance.

Finally, the Enterprise plan costs 25% of your license fee and guarantees 24/7 support and one-hour response time. It adds to the previous perks a dedicated technical account manager and a quarterly report.

Although this pricing structure is a bit unconventional, most users leave positive comments in their Zoho Desk reviews.

We found the support efficient and helpful too.

Ease of Use

The software’s ease of use is the subject of many Zoho Desk reviews. Everything from the setup to the interface and functionality is made as straightforward as possible.

Plus, the useful Zoho Desk training videos are there to help you get started. If you’re familiar with how help desk systems work, you won’t need much time to get used to the platform.

And if you’re a complete newbie, the Zoho Desk trial room gives you access to plenty of resources like an FAQ section, training videos, and more.

You can also register for a free Zoho Desk demo to see how it can help you maximize productivity.

Zoho Desk User Reviews

We read numerous Zoho Desk reviews online to see how customers feel about the service. Overall, it has a good reputation—most help desk ticketing system reviews are extremely positive.

Users leaving Zoho Desk reviews on Reddit praise its exceptional functionality, ease of use, and affordability, mentioning the free plan too.

The most common complaints coincide with the downsides we pointed out earlier—the somewhat limited API, automation tools, and advanced features list.

Despite these minor complaints, nearly every 2022 Zoho Desk review we found was positive.

Is Zoho Desk Worth It?

Zoho Desk has powerful help desk capabilities like an omnichannel ticket management system, which lets you manage all Zoho Desk customer support conversations from one place. You can even integrate requests from different channels, draft responses, and perform follow-ups.

Zoho Desk also has excellent workflow automation that helps you reduce repetitive tasks, manage complex cross-functional issues, and spot bottlenecks in your support process.

Most importantly, Zoho Desk’s AI capability allows you to stay on top of every aspect of customer service with minimal effort.

All this, coupled with the impressive pricing structure and affordable plans, makes it more than worth the admission cost.

Zoho Desk Alternatives

Zoho Desk might be one of the best help desk software on the market, but it’s not the only one.

We included a few help desk software comparisons in our Zoho Desk review to give you more options to choose from.

Zoho Desk vs Freshdesk

We can’t make a help desk ticketing system comparison without mentioning Freshdesk.

At first glance, the two web-based help desks are evenly matched. But Zoho Desk has a few clear advantages.

The most obvious one is the price. Zoho Desk’s Professional plan costs $20/agent/month and has the same great features as Freshdesk’s Pro plan, which comes at $49/agent/month.

Zoho Desk also has some unique features like the AI-powered virtual assistant Zia and intelligent automation.

Although Zoho Desk wins in this competition, Freshdesk has its perks.

Read our dedicated Freshdesk review to see what it has to offer.

Zoho Desk vs LiveAgent

When comparing the best help desk software, it’s crucial to highlight the areas in which these otherwise similar platforms excel.

Zoho Desk is tremendous multichannel help desk software with competitive pricing, a handy free plan, and advanced AI capabilities and management features.

LiveAgent, on the other hand, provides over 179 help desk features, making it well worth the cost. It also has the fastest chat widget on the market, functionality in 43 languages, and gamification to increase agent engagement.

Zoho Desk vs Zendesk

In this brief Zoho Desk vs Zendesk review, we compare the features, pricing, and unique functionality of the two solutions.

There are a few differences that set them apart on closer inspection.

The most important one is the price. Zoho Desk has a free plan, but as we mentioned above, the jump from Free to Standard is $14/per agent/month. It might be too steep for smaller companies.

Zendesk’s basic plan starts at only $19/per agent/month and offers a more extensive set of features.

Also, you don’t have to pay for advanced support from Zendesk. It has free 24/7 live chat, email, and phone customer service.

Final Verdict

We hope with this Zoho Desk review, we managed to show you what makes this solution one of the top IT help desk services on the market.

The service desk software has handy features—from its unique ticket management system and agent productivity tools to extensibility capability and even an AI-powered assistant.

It is competitively priced and comes with a free plan, which is an excellent option for anyone looking to test out the platform without a financial commitment.

This outstanding functionality makes it one of the best help desk software for small business organizations and larger customer-focused companies.