Market Perspectives

We are happy to share some insights about Zendesk drawn from our latest Value Index research, the 2023 Ventana Research Value Index: Customer Experience Management, which assesses how well vendors’ offerings meet buyers’ requirements.

In all of our Value Indexes, we utilize a structured research methodology built on evaluation categories designed to reflect real-world criteria and derived from RFP responses and a vendor selection process for analytics and business intelligence. We evaluated Zendesk and 21 other vendors in seven categories, five relevant to the product — Adaptability, Capability, Manageability, Reliability and Usability — and two related to the vendor — TCO/ROI and Vendor Validation. To arrive at the Value Index rating for a given vendor, we weighted each category to reflect its relative importance in an RFP process, with the weightings based on our experience and on data derived from our Benchmark Research on Customer Experience (CX).

Zendesk develops software used primarily for customer service and support and for automating aspects of the sales process through CRM. Zendesk was categorized as a Vendor of Merit and ranked 12th overall. It performed best in Adaptability, where it ranked seventh.

The company’s two key products are Zendesk for Service and Zendesk for Sales. The service product includes a unified agent workspace, support for multiple communications channels, and self-service options that leverage artificial intelligence (AI) and bots. Sales includes features for contract and deal management, activity tracking and lead generation. The overall suite includes a full set of operational components: case tracking; messaging across multiple digital channels and voice; knowledge management; agent management, tracking and assist; and advanced workflow design to automate as much of the service process as possible.

Zendesk is strong in measures of Reliability and Adaptability, notably in its openness to integrations with application partners and business processes. There is room for improvement in Capability and its support for field service operations as well as in analytics for marketers.

This assessment was based on Zendesk’s customer experience management (CXM or CEM) products available in November of 2022. Since then, Zendesk has updated features related to support ticket handling and its Agent Assist tool.

Zendesk, like all vendors in this space, should continue working towards a holistic, integrated CX platform that addresses the needs of users across the enterprise. Connecting workflows from marketing, sales and service teams should be a key priority.

This research-based index is the most comprehensive assessment of the value of CXM software in the industry. Technology buyers can learn more about how to use our Value Index by clicking here and included vendors that wish to learn more can click here. Read the report here.