Zendesk

Zendesk was founded by a group of three friends, Mikkel Svane, Morten Primdahl and Alexandar Aghassipour, in a Copenhagen loft, back in 2007. Currently based in San Francisco, Zendesk has been a publicly-traded company since 2014. The provider has also grown their expansion with major offices all around the world, and service available globally. Zendesk offers a suite of products that enables your business to provide the best customer experience possible, and to engage customers in the channels they prefer.

Whether your business is looking to offer phone support, proactive campaigns, an online knowledgebase, chat support, or is looking to organize the mass amounts of customer data collected, Zendesk's platform covers it all. Overall the platform is known for not only covering a wide array of functionalities, but also its ability to integrate with a wide array of existing technologies like CRMs and web apps.

The provider has won numerous accolades for innovation, and has made a number of acquisitions aimed towards enabling companies to provide superior customer service.

Zendesk Chat Pricing and Services

• Triggers - Send targeted and behavior-based messages to customers
• Pre-chat Forms - Ask your visitors for their contact information before starting a chat
• Visitor List - Monitor website visitors and pages they are browsing
• Offline Forms - Enable offline forms on your website to ensure customers can contact you while you are away
• Chat Ratings - Gather feedback and continue to improve performance
• File Sending - Share any file with your customer, like pictures or product guides, and solve problems faster
• Chat and Agent Reports - Track chat volume, monitor agent productivity, and analyze metrics to anticipate customer needs and increase satisfaction
• Real-Time Monitor - Monitor live data on chat volume, visitor experience, and agent performance
• Conversion Tracking - Create business goals to measure how often customers complete target objectives
• Chat Badge - Customizable Chat Badges let you put an inviting face on the chat widget
• Web SDK - Build a fully customized end-user facing chat widget to offer a unique experience
• Third-party Services - Chat can be added to any CMS including WordPress, Drupal, Joomla, Wix, Squarepsace, Shopify and more
• Chat Routing - Automatically assign incoming chats to active agents
• Chat Tags - Add tags to your chats to give conversations context
• Departments - Organize agents into different teams based on skills, language and more
• Operating Hours - Create a daily or weekly schedule for the chat widget to appear
• Shortcuts - Create templated responses for common requests and deliver swift replies
• Roles and Permissions - Specify granular permissions for agents
• Multi-profile Linking - Link multiple profiles from Facebook, Twitter and LINE
• Timeline - Jump back to different points in a customer's history
• Chatbot Handover - Bring questions from your chatbot over to Message when customers request an agent
• Mobile Chat SDK - Add live chat to your mobile app
• Mobile Optimized Widget - Chat widget is optimized for any and all screen sizes
• Mobile apps - Chat apps for Android and iPhone keep support going when agents are on the move

Plans and Pricing

Lite - $0

• 1 concurrent chat
• Chat rating
• 30-day chat history

Team - $14/agent/mo

• All lite features, and
• Unlimited chats
• 2 triggers
• 2departments
• Zendesk Message
• Widget customization
• Public Apps**

Professional - $29/agent/mo

• All team features, and
• Unlimited triggers
• Unlimited departments
• Operating hours
• Chat and agent reports
• Conversion tracking
• Private apps** (requires support)

Enterprise - $59/agent/mo

• All professional features, and
• Widget unbranding
• Real-time monitor
• Roles and permissions
• Skills-based routing
• Web SDK
• 24/7 live chat support

**Public and Private apps require a Zendesk Support account

Editor's Bottom Line of Zendesk Chat

Zendesk made waves back in 2007 when they first released their customer service platform. Built to address the shortfalls of existing call center solutions, Zendesk's unique approach expanded functionality to handle live webchat while providing organizations with the tools they need to appropriately interact with customers, maintain relationships, and organize data. Their entire suite of products includes everything your business would need to provide a modern support experience, including integrated customer support, an online knowledgebase and guides, Live Chat, telephony service, proactive campaigns, and even analytics and reporting.

However, that does not mean your business must subscribe to every single solution offered by Zendesk. Instead, your business can decide which pieces fit into your specific puzzle best. With their Live Chat solution, Zendesk offers businesses a powerful service to directly integrate a real-time, live chat widget into both their website and mobile applications. Of course this is standard in the industry, but Zendesk's unique take provides a solution that is as easy to use, as it is powerful.

With a compelling pricing structure, Zendesk offers a Live Chat solution that can fit into the needs of any business of any size, even offering the one-man entrepreneur service with their free plan, known as Lite. Even working your way up market, towards the Enterprise solution, and pricing stays competitive. While the free Lite plan is limited to only 1 concurrent chat and 30-days of history, the service really comes into its own even with just the first paid plan, Team. This solution provides unlimited chats, 2 departments, and even widget customization -- a functionality normally reserved for the most expensive plans.

Of course, the power behind Zendesk's protfolio is the collection of different products and solutions into one platform. However, even as a stand-alone option, Zendesk Live Chat is a compelling solution. Zendesk's proven history of innovation, quality products, and a clear vision of a simple user experience can absolutely be felt even within their Chat application. Zendesk has since spawned many imitators, but not many come close to what the provider offers.