Avantages
If you are thinking about choosing Desk.com as a help desk software solution for your company then this article is for you. Our B2B experts prepared a thorough review of Desk.com pros and cons and analyzed what it has to offer to help you make an informed decision before you spend your money.
Email to Ticket Conversion
Knowledge Base
Self Service Portal
Multiple Service Level Agreement policies
Automations – Ticket routing, scenario automations
Multi-channel support, including Facebook & Twitter
Community Portal with Idea Management & Voting
Multi-product/multi-brand Support
Integrations: Freshbooks, Google Apps, Harvest, CapsuleCRM
Multi-language & multi-time zone support
Satisfaction Surveys
Leaderboard & gamification
Support Channels
Both services use various channels for customer interaction and support such as email, Facebook, Twitter, and community forums. The messages from all these services are gathered in a combined queue of support work. Freshdesk is better than Desk.com in this area as it offers ticket support in addition to phone support, while Desk.com offers only phone support.
Canned Responses
Both Freshdesk and Desk.com provide a way to use a library of snippets that can be re-used. If you need to describe certain features regularly to users, you can use canned responses to speed up writing the responses. This can help your agents save time and focus more on query resolution.
Third-Party Integrations
Both Desk.com and Freshdesk offer a range of integrations with other services like CRMs, bug tracking, e-commerce and more. Top integrations for Desk.com include Salesforce, MailChimp, CampFire, and TalkDesk. Top integrations for Freshdesk include SugarCRM, Capsule, Harvest, and JIRA. Both apps also offer REST APIs to integrate your own apps.
Devices Supported
Both Freshdesk and Desk.com support a range of devices including Windows, Mac, Android, iPhone/iPad, and Blackberry.
Customizations Available
Freshdesk beats Desk.com in this category as it offers a wider range of customizations including templates, fonts, button images, fields, and backgrounds. In comparison, Desk.com offers customization of fields only.
Inconvénients
Desk.com’s new analytics dashboard lacks some basic functionalities and is not an upgrade compared to the older version. The company can also improve its customer support, and the Salesforce integation also needs some fine tuning. Freshdesk customers say the product is mostly good, but it can improve by extending multi-language support to the Solutions pages.
I found this software very useful to our support team. It also integrated well with the regular Salesforce.
Avantages
We use desk.com for all support interactions. It was priceless for the support team to be able to route support requests to support members, and keep track of all interactions for each client to spot issues with our support team, or issues with the client being too much of a drain on our support resources. The statistics are neat too. We had some healthy competition with some of the support stats (how many emails, calls taken, etc.) Being able to see how many positive rated interactions was the ultimate statistic to have. Their API is essential to integrating notes and other issues into 3rd party solutions.
Inconvénients
This had a learning curve. They were also going through completely switching the UI at the time, so having a beta was nice, but some features were only available in the classic interface. The new one is much better and pleasing to the eyes.
Avantages
Desk is extremely customizable. We have a bunch of different inbound emails that automatically tag and assign tickets which saves us a lot of time. You can set up almost any combination of rules for inbound tickets to make sure your most important customers get prioritized and the right people get assigned to help.
Desk also has an API that you can use to build a help center experience on top of their platform. We use it internally for bug reporting and feature requesting and our portal creates tickets right in desk.
Inconvénients
Desk isn't very user friendly. Once it's set up it's works really well but it takes a lot of time to learn all the nuances of the configuration.
The analytics have issues. Some of the metrics like last log in will show that I last logged in a month ago when I've logged in every day and am in fact logged in at the time. We don't use the metrics but if your customer service department relies on them that could be problematic.
It's allowed us to have a basic helpdesk tool that integrates with Salesforce.
Avantages
As a helpdesk case tool, it works. Great for simple troubleshooting and just general inquiry cases where by correspondences are kept to a minimum.
Inconvénients
Sold as having great integration with Salesforce, but the integration is extremely difficult to setup and not all fields are integrated. Everyone needs to have a Salesforce license to be able to use the desk tool properly and that gets very expensive. DO NOT try to use the tool as a task manger or PM supplement as it does not work well for these functions. There is also no place to store Client level notes in the tool itself so if someone was backing you up, there would be no place for them to reference client preferences or standard operating procedures for a specific client from Desk itself.
Avantages
Creating leads and contacts in Salesforce is a breeze with this tool. I love that I can instantly add a customer and log their email in Salesforce. I love the ability to add meeting invites or email templates to an email with a couple of clicks. Salesforce IQ has saved me hours of data entry into Salesforce. I don't know what I would do without this tool now that I have used it for close to two years.
Inconvénients
In the last few months something changed in the way that it pulls the data when you go to add a contact. The previous version use to pull all of the information automatically and now I have to manually add a lot of the information. It is still quicker than adding new contacts into Salesforce but it does require a few more steps. I also wish there was more insight into who opened an email or web link when you include multiple people on an email.
Overall, it's a great program for managing all of the emails and social media requests from customers (except instagram).
Avantages
The user interface is attractive and easy-to-navigate making on-boarding new customer service reps easier. Also (unlimited?) macros make it easier to answer frequent questions/comments in minimal time. They can even be answered in mass. With labels, you can track types of comments and concerns.
The program also integrates with LiveChat, however, the execution is cumbersome.
Inconvénients
When there are technical issues, they are large technical issues. In the few months that I have used the program, I have experienced issues with facebook messages from the last 3 years suddenly reappearing in my inbox. This has happened twice. I've also experienced where the program stopped sending or receiving messages. There is a daily (or hourly depending on setup) desk event notification. However, it does not have any useful or actionable information.
Also, I've called Customer Support a few times when I could not find an answer to a problem. Each time they asked me to go search for the problem in their help articles. That's not very helpful.
I like the reporting function so I can get a view of how busy the group is. However, I wish there was a way to compare the metrics to others. In other words, it gives me a lot of data but it's not easy to turn that into information.
Our hospital is better able to communicate . We are able to provide better care for all of out patients because everyone has access to same data base . So if a volunteer noticed a patient sneezing the doctor can easily see that and be flagged to check on a patient. Before a volunteer may not be able to notify staff and go through correct channels. It could mean that nobody medical ever new that yeh patient sneezed because it was just too difficult to get information across, but now all volunteers know they can put a message in Salesforce and it will be taken care of.
Avantages
Salesforce allows my animals hospital to have better communication between staff and volunteers
Inconvénients
Search engine key words is not always able to direct to correct patient
The best advice that I can give to a company considering purchasing Salesforce's Desk.com is to document every single expectation and need regarding a CRM tool. Do not assume any functionality exists, regardless of how simple and standard that functionality may seem. There are definitely features and functionalities that the average person might expect any modern system to offer which it does not.
Examples:
List Views - Cannot sort by most fields, cannot add custom fields to list views, and cannot modify the number of records per page
Reporting - Cannot modify fields displayed in a report, cannot edit criteria for metrics, and cannot include custom fields in reports aside from picklists, and cannot export more than 2500 records at a time
Email - Does not include standard modern emailing functions such as underlining, highlighting, modifying font color, or pasting images/tables
Also, while some more complex workflows and automation can be built in Salesforce to update fields which are then passed back to Desk via Desk Connect (native sync between Desk and Salesforce), I strongly recommend against relying on Desk Connect for any business processes. Desk Connect can and has been turned off by Desk.com for all customers without first ensuring this is okay with the customer, interrupting daily business on a large scale. It is also extremely easy to break or surpass its capabilities of Desk Connect to the point that any modification, regardless of size, made to your Salesforce org must be communicated to Desk to ensure that Desk Connect will continue to function as expected.
If you are a small-scale organization/team with very basic case tracking and reporting requirements capable, Desk may very well be the answer for you. But you still better be prepared with extensive documentation of all requirements and expectations for a tool like Desk, no matter how small or obvious they may be.
Avantages
Simple UI
Simple workflow building and management
Inconvénients
Extremely limited in its capabilities
Desk Support reps are not thorough when reading emails
ETA's on fixes/patches pushed back for months
Avantages
Time management and organization are the top reasons to use this software. Being able to include information on new prospects and clients is very helpful and it's easy to add to do items. The sales funnel process is user friendly and easy for other employees to view.
Inconvénients
It can be hard to create clear expectations between management and employees on what information or processes should be done. With so many options of where to save information it can look like information is missing if you don't look in the right place. Processes should be put in place by each organization to clarify how to use the software.
I was able to save time in the company I work for. The software was easy to use and easy to implement into daily activities.
Avantages
I loved the fact that they worked on the integrations and being able to make things to the mainstream. I was able to quickly show other workers how to use this product and quickly incorporate it into our business. This is a lot easier than our last software.
Inconvénients
Running the reports is something we would all have a bit of trouble to do, there would be little things here and there that prevented our productivity. There are also some filters or basic features that should be fine-tuned a bit more but nothing too bad.
Avantages
Desk has been getting things done for us. We've got teams, we can pass tickets easily, tags help to connect disparate tickets.
Inconvénients
The search/filtering is broken (and has been for as long as I've used the software), it works at about 98% accuracy. You can't really rely on a search of 'all tickets assigned to X' to find every ticket, or "all resolved tickets in X department", and etc. Frustrating when reporting or setting up custom views and such. Similar in frustration created, is the limitations around what fields you can search/sort by. It's always a pet-peeve of mine to see software limit these things.
Happy with what we use the product is used for. One of the Best
Avantages
Sales reporting feature is the most I like. IT easy to use drag and drop feature to customize, the reports and filters features and setting the date range options are the feature that makes it the top feature.
Inconvénients
help to solve any abnormality in the data. The feature shows only the problem and does not give any suggestive pointers to correct that.
Easy to use/setup CRM tool for the team, we have customised the tool as per our product requirements, the ability to use mass action & less pricing as well.
Avantages
Few features stand out - like the advance search option, mass actions, easy export, their helpful & courteous support team, lesser pricing than Zendesk, doesn't have bloat like zendesk.
Inconvénients
Reports are still a step behind, lack of integration of certain apps(limited apps) that helps in workflow
Avantages
Can handle large amounts of incoming, outgoing emails.
Easy to train new employees on it.
Has a lot of customization.
Good Customer service.
Inconvénients
Very difficult to set up and figure out the rules.
Does not have newer features such as smileys and GIFs.
The chat box that many other companies have is clunky and not well designed.
Has not had updates, because its being take over and migrated to Salesforce.
So many. Ease of use, trackable for sales cycle, many more.
Avantages
This software is awesome. It takes the stress out of constantly updating your CRM by making it seamless and integrated with our email. It captures a lot automatically, giving my team more time to close deals. We love the customizable pipeline features as well. Great software overall.
Inconvénients
I have hard time thinking of cons for this software. It was so easy for my team to implement. It is expensive I guess, that'd be the only con.
We got to have our email's interaction (with our customers) well organized. We can get through our data to send monthly reports with no problems.
Avantages
It is very user friendly. My team mates and I can navigate through our system with no complications.
Inconvénients
Not getting a pop-up message (notifications) w/o an additional feature is probably what I like least about Desk.com.
Avantages
This app is very convenient. you can easily access this through mobile app. you can respond to clients request and support them with their issues using this platform
Inconvénients
Sometimes when using this app in mobile phones, it crashes way too often, and also sometimes im having problems in recognizing url.
Avantages
We've been using this for years and I can say that it really helped build better relation with our clients. This platform gives us better way to give support and suffice their needs.
Inconvénients
When I access this on my phone, it gets crashed. I experienced it only thrice. But now it runs smoothly
Avantages
Collect, track and manage all your support tickets in one spot. Our company uses Desk.com for our customer support tickets. It keeps us organized and on-top of our customers needs.
Inconvénients
There is nothing that I do not like about desk.com. The software meets all of our customer support needs.
It has helped me find users and assist customers
Avantages
I like how it makes finding information around different users and files easy, also it has helped me organize my work better
Inconvénients
it has too much updates and it changes how it looks, this way, once it updates it is hard to understand how to use it
Avantages
Desk.com has a user friendly layout along with a number of features to assist in managing customer contact.
Inconvénients
The requirement to create a customer for every communication being sent can be tedious and search functions could be expanded to include individual emails.
Avantages
This software is very intuitive and all around easy to use. It's especially great to keep the whole sales team on the same page.
Inconvénients
There are just a few quirks, like double posting, and lack of administrative functions. Customer service can be a little tricky...
Avantages
Everything is contained in one spot. I have the ability to manage my pipeline, create my calendar and add new contacts.
Inconvénients
Not all the same functions exist on the ap that exist on the desk top feature. Also, you cannot run excel reports out of Salesforce
Avantages
most comprehensive crm out there
pretty much has solution for any business problem easy to scale and develop
Inconvénients
learning curve
expensive licensing
need some sophostication in customization
license per user and has some limits of what u csn do overall
Avantages
It is easy to use DESK and submit tickets and track and search for your submitted tickets to see the status of those tickets.
Inconvénients
It is easy to search but I do believe there could be additional ways to search more easily and produce more accurate results.