A guide for small business:

Choosing the right customer service software

We were once a small business like you. We know what it’s like to evaluate new software. You don’t have a lot of time, but you realize it’s an important decision. As a growing company, you need something you can get up and running easily, but that will also scale with your business. Finding the right thing can be a real pain.

The good news is you’ve already taken the most important step: realizing the value of a good service experience. We’d like to make the decision part of it a little easier for you with some tips and info we’ve collected. Even if you don’t end up choosing Zendesk, we wish you the best with investing in your customer experience. If you do it right, it will make your entire company smarter and your customers happier.

Best Wishes,

Vice President of Global Customer Advocacy

Evaluation tips

Before you evaluate customer service software, start by evaluating the “W” questions:

Why?

Think about why you’re looking for a new customer service solution. Most small businesses we talk to want a better way to keep track of customer communications. They also want a solution that can grow with the business.

Who?

Think about who in your company will be talking to customers. We find that small businesses often have a combination of people who:

  1. support customers full-time (e.g., Support rep, Community manager)
  2. support customers as part of their job (e.g., Product manager, Social media manager)
  3. gain valuable insights when they are able to review customer interactions (e.g., CEO, CTO)

When?

Think about when your customers usually want to contact you. What would be the best methods for them to reach you based on their expectations? Key communication methods are: phone, chat, webform, email, and social media.

How?

Consider some key metrics that will tell you how you’re doing. Ideally you regularly compare these metrics to peers.

  1. First response time: It’s proven that the faster your first response times are, the higher customer satisfaction will be.
  2. CSAT: Customer satisfaction ratings are a great way to measure how your team is performing.
  3. Volume: Knowing your ticket volume is the key to growing and staffing your support team.
  4. Self-service ratio: A measure of how well you deflect inbound requests through providing a searchable and discoverable knowledge base.

Here's where Zendesk shines

Which software is right for you?

Small businesses have a few different options for customer service software. Let’s look at the facts.

Zendesk

Desk.com

Freshdesk
Product originally launched 2007 2010 2011
Location founded Denmark USA India
Global product support presence
Multi-channel platform (email ticketing, knowledge base, chat, social, phone) no native phone
Integration to Salesforce Sales Cloud
Multiple plan options starting with free
System uptime stats see here see here see here
See the help center you’d be visiting support home support home support home
See the latest tweets on each brand twitter twitter twitter
Customer satisfaction rating 95%
Industry benchmarks for your key metrics that you can compare yourself to
Built-in Net Promoter Score surveys to track brand satisfaction
Largest customer base
Seamless upgrade path as you grow
Best practice tips and templates
Global user groups
Customer success programs
Most commonly used phrase to describe Easy to use
Overall product usability that is steeped in Danish design roots give us a try Why switch to Zendesk

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