Zendesk for Customer Service

Customer Service Knowledge Management

Customer and/or agent-facing knowledgebase and search capabilities. Ability to create KBs, FAQs, wikis, and capture effectiveness ratings from customers.

Multi-Channel Support

Integration with email, telephone, and live chat, and with self-service and social media.

Customer Service Workflow Management

Ticketing and case management with automated assignment, escalation rules, priority routing, decision trees, and configurable resolution workflows.

Agent Collaboration

Enables agents to collaborate in real time with customers, colleagues, and specialists using shared cases, notes, chat, forums, and team workflows.

Customer Self-Service Capabilities

Customer portals for case submission, case status tracking, knowledge access, customer-facing resolution wizards, and guided service request flows.

Contact Center Integration

Agent desktop/contact center integration, CTI, IVR/voice, call scripting, call queuing, call recording, and prioritization by support channel.

Intelligent Search

Knowledgebase search with content indexing, and search of external content repositories. Proactive search and auto-suggestions. Natural language processing.

Mobile Customer Care

Can create custom-branded service applications for customers on a mobile device (preferably native application rather than a responsive design site).

Analytics and Reporting

Includes historical & real-time dashboard visualizations, detailed & summary reporting and easy data extraction for data analysis.

Customer Community Management

Creation and management of branded and focussed user communities.

Business Value Created

Software needs to create value for employees, customers, partners, and, ultimately, shareholders. This data expresses user satisfaction - or lack thereof - with the product's business value.

Ease of Data Integration

Use this data to determine whether the product will cause headaches or make data integration easy.

Ease of IT Administration

This data indicates whether IT personnel will be able to resolve issues and perform configurations efficiently and effectively.

Ease of Implementation

Successfully implementing new software is necessary to realize its full value and promote end user adoption. This data indicates whether or not the product is easy to implement.

Usability and Intuitiveness

End user learning curves cost the organization money. Pay attention to your end users' technical ability to determine how important UX is in your purchase.

Quality of Features

Feature quality is just as important as quantity. Use this data to determine if this product will do what you're purchasing it to do, easily, intuitively, reliably, and effectively.

Breadth of Features

Users prefer feature rich software that enables them to perform diverse series of tasks. This data expresses user satisfaction with the product's breadth of features.

Product Strategy and Rate of Improvement

Vendors who don't stay on top of emerging needs and trends won't enable you to meet your business goals. Use this data to separate innovators from imposters.

Ease of Customization

Don't get bogged down in a difficult customization; use this data to make sure you can easily achieve the functionality you need for your particular situation.

Vendor Support

The importance of vendor support will vary for each organization depending on internal capabilities, but there will always be issues that only the vendor can resolve.

Availability and Quality of Training

Effective and readily available training enables users to get the most out of the software you've chosen. Use this section to make sure your vendor's training programs and materials measure up.