Should You Still Use Zendesk in 2025? The Best Customer Service Tools Compared

Customer service is something that every company should be paying attention to. Businesses often live or die by the quality of support they provide to their customers, so having a top-tier customer service process can be the thing that makes or breaks the company.

With that said, it becomes easy to see that having a centralized, streamlined way of managing requests, complaints, or questions in general is the difference between having an organized process with accessible logs of data versus a complete chaos in which you’re not even sure if things are being done.

For example, if every rep is using their own tool (phone, e-mail account, or any other form of communication), there’s no easy way to know how many requests they’re getting, how long they’re taking to answer, or what are the most common problems your customers are facing. It’s absolutely vital that this sort of information is centralized and organized so your company can sort through and leverage data to get valuable insights, figuring out what’s working and what’s not.

You could, perhaps, use a shared e-mail inbox. But this brings into question a whole slew of security and operational issues that you should definitely be steering clear off. 

In this context, a lot of Customer Service tools have come to help companies manage all of their needs in an organized fashion. E-mail being the most prevalent means of requesting support, it’s one of the most vital things to do well, especially in B2B scenarios—though we should note that B2C companies highly benefit from this as well!

Zendesk is one of the market leaders in this segment. It’s one of the most popular tools to manage support tickets out there, and the heart of many customer service operations, where agents spend most of (if not all) of their time. 

An important question to ask yourself, however, is: how well will Zendesk fit my company, and are there other tools that can do email-based ticket management for me given the intricacies of my operations?

In this article, we’re going to compare Jestor and one of the most famous customer service tools, Zendesk, so you can decide which one will work best for your journey.

About Jestor

Jestor is a platform where companies can have customized internal apps for any of their needs, including Customer Service. Not only does it allow you to create ticket-based workflows with two-way e-mail communication, it also contains a wide range of additional out-of-the-box solutions (such as task management, internal communication, templates and more,) that are a perfect fit for companies who are looking for platforms where they can run the whole of their operations. 

Being a tool that incentivizes customization, it also allows for a lot of fine tuning that are not usually possible in software that focus solely on Customer Service. The flexibility of its automations make it so not only you can do expected things like assign Agents automatically, but also generate tasks, connect and pull related information, and even integrate with other tools natively to facilitate the resolution of cases.

Because Jestor is not exclusively a Customer Service tool, its features can be used to enrich ticket managing needs as well as fulfilling different business needs. For example, it’s possible to create dashboards and forms for your support ticket inbox, but you can also use its kanban boards and two-way communication features to have a full-fledged CRM within the same platform, sharing the relevant customer data between processes so that every interaction can be traced and the entirety of your customer’s journey mapped out and optimized. 

Apart from all the expected features of a customizable platform, Jestor excels by providing advanced features such as conditional fields and colors, customizable conditional forms, centralized chat features and more. From Customer Service, to Project Management, to CRM and anything you can imagine, Jestor’s got your company covered.  

The thing to keep in mind is that Jestor is a platform that allows you to have every single process of your company in just one place, making it a very competitive solution for those who not only want an excellent Customer Service took, but also to streamline their processes—and reduce costs—by centralizing operations into a unified, powerful software. 

About Zendesk

Zendesk is one of the most traditional Customer Service tools out there, allowing companies to have, among other things, a way to centralize e-mail requests and distribute this internally to agents so they can help out customers quickly and efficiently.

As we’ve mentioned before, e-mail being one of the most widespread communication tools, for individuals and corporations alike, having an efficient tool to manage such messaging is one of the most surefire ways of providing reliable support to customers. And it is in this context that Zendesk has historically excelled above many of its competitors. 

Of course, competition is still fierce and nowadays there are a wide array of different tools that mostly do what Zendesk does. Zendesk counters this by being extremely focused on what it does, providing a streamlined experience for agents so they can efficiently get their work done. This laser-focus, however, comes with a few costs: for example, Zendesk forgoes alternative views such as kanban boards (which are a very popular way of visualizing tasks or things to do by status) for keeping a standardized, list-based approach to solving tickets.

While this can help the agents focus on solving tickets as fast as they can by looking at it as a sort of to-do list, some may argue that this lack of flexibility can be detrimental when trying to boost productivity through visual techniques and customized sorting.   

While this is something to keep in mind when considering Zendesk as a primary tool for your company, the bottom line is that it’s still a very competent tool, one that is used by companies all over the world and across many different industries.

Feature by Feature Comparison

If we’re talking about e-mail based customer service, which one would work best for you? We’ll give you a rundown of the main features so you can understand the strengths and weaknesses of each software.

Email Tickets

Jestor:

Highlights:

• Separated internal chat.
• Unsend e-mails.
• Fully customizable ticket structure.
• Customizable views.
• Multiple connected inboxes.

Jestor’s email-to-inbox feature allows users to create multiple different inboxes, each one with its own e-mail address. This is possible because Jestor lets users create multiple different processes at the click of a button, and each of these processes can have an e-mail activated and attached to it. This means different teams (like Customer Support, Maintenance, or Sales) can have different e-mails addresses each with their customized processes, allowing them to hyper optimize workflows for their own activities.

One thing that sets Jestor apart from other ticketing platforms is that it by default separates internal from external communication. So, while in other tools the messages that go to the client are mixed with internal messages, Jestor keeps a separation between them so that it’s not as easy to send the wrong messages to customers. Of course, while we say the conversations are separated, they are still within the same ticket, so it’s always possible to have conversations open side-by-side.

Speaking of not sending incorrect messages, Jestor has an in-built “Unsend message” feature, which gives users a window of time to cancel a message before it is sent. This is a very important feature for companies that don’t want little mistakes (like sending a message as public instead of internal) to cause the sharing of sensitive information or misunderstandings with customers.

One of the biggest advantages of using Jestor is that, at its core, it’s one of the most customizable tools in the market, and this extends to its ticket management tools as well. You can add custom fields and customize the interface to better fit the relevant information, so agents can have optimized workspaces to solve the requests.

Also, it’s possible to enable many different views to the inboxes. So, if you want to see them in a different way because it works better for your team, you can do that with just a few clicks. For example, one might enable a kanban board view with customized stages, something that can be quite handy for inboxes that have standardized steps across different teams. You can further optimize these workflows by setting up automations or things like conditional colors (for example: late requests are red, and requests from important customers are gold.)

Finally, because you can create multiple inboxes and internal processes that are not specifically ticket systems, you can have different workflows and databases like Client Onboarding or Projects, or Receivables or Client Record, all connected and working together.

Zendesk:

Highlights:

• Internal and external messages mixed together.
• No unsend feature.
• Fixed ticket structure.
• Only list/inbox views.
• Single inbox.

One might argue that the email-to-ticket feature is the core product of Zendesk, the one that really catapulted it to high adoption rates amidst businesses. And, in many ways, it’s a great feature that at its core works exactly as how you’d expect it to work: as soon as a customer sends an e-mail to one of the set up e-mail addresses, this e-mail becomes a ticket request in an inbox for one of your agents to solve. 

From within this inbox, agents can talk directly to customers as if on a chat, with every new e-mail from either the customer or the agent being seen as a message in the conversation. It’s also possible to leave internal messages in this chat so that coworkers can discuss things internally without sending these messages to the customer. Each ticket comes with a few default fields (such as Priority or Type) that helps sorting out work amongst the team members.

So, while everything may work as expected, there are some things to keep in mind when using the platform.

The first thing is that internal notes between team members and the actual conversation between customer and agent take place within the same space. While this does have its positive side (for example, in the fact that it’s easier to see things chronologically when you need to see historical data or review the agent’s actions,) it also comes with the negative of making it easier to send internal messages to the customer by mistake. This can be somewhat alleviated by its Side Conversations feature, which allows you to have discussions with team members in external platforms (such e-mail or Slack,) but it can feel a bit detached from the core product, and is only available in its top tier plans. In any case, users using the main Internal Notes feature should be wary as to avoid sending internal discussions straight to the customer, a big faux pas that should be avoided at all costs as it can lead to some very unpleasant interactions. 

This leads into another thing to be wary of: Zendesk does not allow you a grace period for “unsending” messages. As soon as you click Submit to send a message, it is out into the world. This is a feature that would greatly help avoiding mistakes and that most consider a must-have, as indicated by the fact that almost all mainstream e-mail clients allow for stopping a newly sent message in some capacity.

Another thing that is important to note is that Zendesk can be a bit inflexible with how agents are supposed to work within the platform. Though it is possible to customize some things (like visible fields in the Customer card,) the overall appearance of the platform is standardized and not really that much customizable. For example, the only possible standard way of viewing tickets is as lists, and though you can create customizable views, they are basically just lists with specific filters applied to them. There’s not really any other different sort of workflow view, such as kanban boards or Gantt charts.

Finally, though it is possible to connect many different e-mail addresses to Zendesk, the platform only really allows for a single inbox across the account. This means tickets sent to support@yourcompany.com and billing@yourcompany.com will be sent to the same shared inbox. You can work around this by creating different automations and filtered views for different teams to see different tickets, but there”s really no other way to fully segregate workflows. This, of course, is the consequence of the platform’s own maximum standardization philosophy, as there’s probably no need to have different inboxes since they all will operate the same.

Though there are these points to keep in mind, the platform will still absolutely get the job done. There’s even some advantage to the complete standardization, as there’s really no wrong way to use the platform and the learning curve to new agents will be very gentle, but companies looking to hyper-optimize and create custom workflows may find it hard to adapt Zendesk’s workflows to their specific desires.

Artificial intelligence

Jestor:

Highlights:

• Auto-categorizing.
• Text suggestion.
• Audio transcription and auto-filling.
• Document transcription (OCR.)
• App builder.
• Image generation.
• Integrated with main AI platforms.

Jestor is an AI-driven platform for process automation at its core.

Regarding customer service specifically, users may find a whole slew of different functionalities that can be used to help optimizing ticket solving. 

For example, users may use AI to autocategorize tickets based on their content, and even suggest responses to the customers based on said contents and other additional inputs such as company policies. 

Another interesting use of AI is allowing users to work with audio. This may be done internally by automatically transcribing audio recordings in internal communications, or externally by allowing customers to autofill forms with audio recordings (instead of typing at fields.)

Speaking of autofilling, Jestor uses AI for OCR capabilities: this means users may send documents or pictures when submitting tickets (for example, invoices or purchase orders) and Jestor will automatically fill the ticket information with data extracted from such files.

Should users want to use Jestor for other processes other than customer service, Jestor allows for the use of AI for building internal apps: users need only provide a description of what they want and files that can help the AI understand the process better (such as pictures of a flowchart or a spreadsheet with the necessary data.) Then, Jestor AI automatically builds an app with relevant parts such as kanban boards and forms.

In the case users have their own accounts in AI platforms and want to use them instead, they can connect their accounts either in no-code automations or low-code functions and use tools such as ChatGPT, Claude, or Gemini to optimize their workflows.

All-in-all, Jestor provides a very AI-positive ecosystem that can be used for any sort of process.

Zendesk:

Highlights:

• Autocategorizing and routing.
• Bots and autoreplies.
• FAQ suggestion.
• Writing assistance.
• Automatic solving.

Zendesk is also pretty advanced with its AI capabilities. 

For starters, it has a wide array of triage capabilities, such as automatically categorizing tickets and assigning them optimally within agents. After a ticket is delegated to an agent, however, they might continue to use AI to enhance their capabilities to solve such tickets in the best possible way. This is done through writing assistance provided by the AI. It can suggest replies, revise writing, and even suggest articles within the company’s help center that seem to best fit the ticket content.

One of the main strengths of Zendesk’s AI features, however, might be in its automatic solving capabilities. The platform can use AI to reply automatically and try to solve the ticket with answers and suggestions in such a way that it never needs to get to an agent. As such, this can reduce the workload on the customer service team and expedite things greatly.

One warning regarding the AI automated resolution is that it is charged per ticket solved: so while in some scenarios it might save money by allowing for downsizing teams, companies with a huge influx of easy-to-solve tickets might be charged a hefty amount, and might have been better of relaying those tickets to an existing team.

Internal Communication

Jestor:

Highlights:

• Centralized chat feature.
• Chat works in three levels: DMs, Channels, and Comments on cards.
• Advanced features such as AI speech-to-text and thread-based conversation.

Alongside Tasks, Jestor also has a dedicated feature called Chat which allows users to communicate on three different levels:

1. Direct Messages allow users to send messages to other users in their account, such as other team members.
2. Channels may be created as private or public groups, which can then be used for different things such as discussing Marketing issues, known bugs, or even make company-wide announcements.
3. Comments from tickets or other processes, or even e-mails from customers, will also be centralized on the Chat feature.

Effectively, this means companies can use Jestor as their de facto internal communication tool. With features like threading and sending audio, it rivals dedicated communication tools like Slack and Microsoft Teams, while also keeping all conversations connected to the relevant tickets and parties. By having everything centralized in a single place, managing conversations becomes way easier: for example, agents may only need to keep an eye on the Chat icon to know if a customer has replied or if a team member is in need of help.

There are also some advanced features, like AI audio transcription, that can help agents be even more productive. If someone is away from the computer, they can send an audio message to a team member and not only will they receive the audio, they will also receive a transcription so they can easily see what needs to be done and get to work.

Zendesk:

Highlights:

• Internal notes within the ticket.
• Side conversations on external platforms.

There are basically two ways to communicate internally with Zendesk.

The first one is by sending internal notes within a ticket. This is a message that team members can see but is not sent to the customer, but they appear amidst the flow of conversation alongside interactions with the customer.

The second one is through Side conversations, a feature that allows users to start a conversation regarding a ticket on an external platform, such as a new e-mail thread or Slack. 

There are two issues users may be wary of when using these features: the first one is that it’s somewhat easy to send what should be an internal note as a public message, and send internal messages by mistake to customers. This issue is compounded by the fact that there’s currently no Unsend feature in Zendesk. The second issue is that the Side conversations feature, while useful, moves the conversation away from the platform itself. So, if you were to stop using Slack, for example, you would lose some communication capability within Zendesk itself.

If all you need is the ability to leave comments from other agents, those may be sufficient. If you need a full fledged communication tool, you may need to move internal conversations to other platforms.

Automations and Integrations

Jestor:

Highlights:

• About 400 automations and integrations.
• No-code and low-code available.

As Jestor is not only a customer service application, but also a full workspace that allows companies to create all different kinds of customized processes, automation is a big part of fully orchestrating how things run in the platform. As such, Jestor currently has an inventory of about 400 different automations and integrations which users can use to set up all different kinds of workflows amongst the platform. And, because tickets in Jestor are just seen as records/cards within the platform, all of those can be used to automate tickets as well.

So, while you have standard customer service automations like automatic distribution and AI autocategorization, you can also create automations that you would usually need a separate platform to operate. For example, you may create a button on the ticket interface to generate contracts automatically using a Google Docs template and then sending it via DocuSign, or you may create an automation that creates an Opportunity card on the CRM (within Jestor itself!) if the customer wishes to upgrade their plan. 

This sort of optimization is only really possible because Jestor goes beyond the realm of being just a customer service app and moves into the purpose of being a full work operating system for companies. So, while it possesses a full-fledged email-to-ticket feature that can be used as its own standalone product, users may find that by bringing even more processes to Jestor they might be able to increase their productivity many times by tuning automations into optimized workflows. A side-effect of this is that Jestor can be a cost-cutting measure that can even be net positive for the company depending on the number of other tools that it substitutes (saving money directly by replacing a specific software or indirectly by replacing integration tools such as Zapier or Make.)

If companies need very specific automations, it’s also noteworthy that Jestor allows for users to code custom automations from within the platform itself with its low code feature. So developers or more tech savvy team members are able to create very niche or complex automations that would usually not be possible in other platforms, such as complex mathematical operations or a sequence of calls/requests to external platforms. If Jestor’s many native automations are still not enough to cover a specific use case, low code guarantees users can bridge that gap with just a bit of coding knowledge.

Zendesk:

Highlights:

• Automations are either time-based or designed to run once.
• No integrations in Automation feature.
• No operational kinds of automation.
• Plenty of app integrations outside the automation feature.

Zendesk’s automations are designed with very clear-cut objectives: making sorting tickets easier, and notifying necessary agents. As such, users will find that most of its actions are either to set some information to a ticket (such as a tag or a type) or notifying specific agents in the course of the automation run.

And given that this is its purpose, it aces what it sets out to do. Automations are easy to understand and set up, with users only needing to set triggers and actions, much like they would do in any other platform that allows for custom automations. This sort of laser focus also means there are no native integrations in its automation feature as well as more operational kinds of automations (like creating a Purchase Order,) as this really isn’t the purpose here. 

One thing that must be mentioned here, however, is that Zendesk puts a heavy emphasis on only allowing automations to run once in the course of a ticket’s lifetime. It achieves this by making necessary two very specific conditions to creating automations: they must either be time-based (for example, running 10 hours after a ticket is created) or by setting nullifying conditions (that is: conditions that ensure an automation will run once and only once for a specific ticket.)

As you can imagine, these sorts of restrictions make the automation feature more limited than what users would be used to when using other kinds of automated software. While it is possible to work around this by using external platforms like Zapier or running custom code to make API calls, this makes more complex automation needs more cumbersome and costly than a user might expect going in.

One thing that should be pointed out, however, is that all we’re talking about here is Zendesk’s native automation feature. Outside of that, Zendesk also has a marketplace of apps you can add to your account to enhance functionalities, such as integrating with tools like Slack or Mailchimp. With that, the platform greatly enhances its capabilities.

The one thing that must be kept in mind about the marketplace is that, while some apps are created and maintained directly by Zendesk itself, other apps are maintained by third party developers. As such, there’s no guarantee it will work as intended as the platform itself is not responsible for them. Thankfully, Zendesk’s marketplace does provide a rating system that will allow users to avoid apps that are not working properly, instead focusing on apps that will truly help them with their daily activities. 

Forms

Jestor:

Highlights:

• Public forms.
• Update forms.
• Wide array of data fields.
• Customizable appearance and blocks.
• Conditional fields.
• Connected data.

Though e-mails are one of the most traditional ways of receiving ticket requests, it’s very common for companies to also provide a form for users to submit their requests manually. There are some advantages to this: users can provide additional information in an orderly manner that makes it easier for agents to act and direct the ticket internally to the correct team members. For example, instead of getting just the body of an e-mail, tickets can be submitted with specified Categories and even internal client IDs.

In this sense, Jestor provides an extremely capable form feature that allows users to create extremely customized forms with many advanced features. 

One of those advanced features is the usage of conditional fields. This feature allows users to create filling logic that changes the form behavior, guiding customers through the process of filling information. For example, you may set up a field for Invoice Number that only appears when the ticket is something related to billing, or have a field for EIN when the customer type is Corporation. Conditionals not only extend to showing or hiding fields or blocks, but also to making them required or optional given certain circumstances.

Another important thing to remember here is that Jestor allows for the creation of many different types of fields, not only the standard text/number/date ones. You can have fields for signatures, multiple selection, or YES/NO checklists, for example, which really helps customers provide the optimal amount of information for agents to get started on solving their issues. 

Other advanced features include appearance customization (such as colors, logo/covers, font, and fields per row) and operational customization (such as adding connected data, providing copies of responses via e-mail to your customer, or even paginating the form.)

As a final note, forms in Jestor can also be used not only to create tickets, but to update existing ones or even updating client info. So you can send customers forms to provide more information, rate the conversation, and even confirm their current contact information such as address and phone number. All of this makes Jestor’s forms not only a single point of entry for ticket creation, but tools that can be used to customize the flow of the conversation and optimize the path to solving an issue.

Zendesk:

Highlights:

• Somewhat customizable fields.
• Conditional fields.
• No out-of-the-box public forms.

Zendesk allows users to create forms that they may use to let customers submit tickets in a more orderly manner. Forms are useful in that regard because you can structure data better instead of receiving all of the ticket’s content in just one single block of information.

As for customizability, Zendesk’s forms do allow for some degree of freedom as you can select which data fields are available in a given ticket, and as there are some types of custom fields that users can add to the ticket structure itself, this does allow for a less rigorous setup to the forms themselves.

However, users that want customization to include a more personalized appearance and more advanced features may find the experience somewhat lacking. Zendesk’s forms are standardized in appearance, without much room for customization. Zendesk does provide conditional logic for forms, which is something not a lot of tools do, but it only allows for the showing or hiding of fields.

Perhaps the biggest hurdle users may face with forms, however, is that there’s no standard, out-of-the-box way of hosting these forms publicly, like for example hosting them on your website. These forms are used within the platform itself (that is, internally) or through the chat widget or Help Center if you choose to use those. However, if users wish to have the form directly embedded into their websites, there’s no real way to do so. Zendesk’s own recommendation to this issue on their documentation is creating a separate customized HTML form and feeding submissions into Zendesk via API, which can be a no-go to non-technical users, or at least to those who want a more ready-made solution.

Fields and Data

Jestor:

Highlights:

• 50+ types of fields.
• Fields can be for data entry or with dynamic features.
• True connected data.

As Jestor is not just a customer service platform, but a tools that is built around customization and letting users build on top of its out-of-the-box solutions, it has a distinct advantage in the manner of how capable and powerful it is when it comes to structuring data, whether it comes to how many different types of data fields the platform has or in how users can interact with said data. 

As it stands right now, Jestor allows users to create more than 50 types of different data fields in its databases, which means tickets can make use of all of those for added customization. The types of fields to be created range from standard, expected types of information (such as numbers, dropdown lists, text and so on) but they can also be more niche, specialized fields such as signatures or YES/NO checklists. 

There are also dynamic fields such as formulas (which allow users to create custom SLAs depending on ticket parameters, for example) or goals (which allows users to see a progress bar dictating how much time they have to solve the ticket or how far along it currently is toward completion.) Users may even use Timer fields to track how much time they spent on a specific task of the ticket, which can be useful when something requested is billable by the hour. 

Finally, Jestor is also first and foremost a relational database with true connected information, in which users may choose to connect data however they require. These connections are not only links to other records or tickets, but also usable information when automating processes. So, if you have a connected Project to the ticket, you may automate an e-mail to be sent with the Project information without having to fetch that information manually or replicating it to the ticket itself.

With this combination of data connectivity, enrichment and flexibility, Jestor allows users to optimize their customer service to whatever level of detail they need.

Zendesk:

Highlights:

• 10 types of fields.
• Fields are not dynamic.
• Connected data with restrictions.

Zendesk allows for some degree of customizability in their ticket structure. Apart from the standard fields that are set from the get-go, users may use up to 10 different kinds of data fields to customize their ticket structure, such as text, numbers, or dropdown lists.

There’s even the possibility of creating connections between some objects within Zendesk (for example, connecting tickets to organizations or to other tickets.)

While as far as data entry goes it may be enough for some needs, users should keep in mind that there are no advanced types of fields that are more dynamic. For example, there’s no formula field to calculate or validate information. Also, connections are more of a navigational feature than a date enrichment or automation-oriented one. 

All in all, it provides a decent amount of customization as far as traditional customer service software goes, though users looking for a more extended range of personalization may find the current options somewhat lacking.

Alternate Views

Jestor:

Highlights:

• Kanban Boards, Gantt Charts and more.
• Customizable behavior settings (like disabling drag and drop).
• Customizable modal.
• Up to 4 open card panels.

One of Jestor’s many strengths is the possibility of seeing tickets in many different ways, as not every agent may work optimally seeing tickets as rows in a list.

In that sense, one of Jestor’s most used alternative views is the kanban board. The kanban board is a staple of process management, as it allows users to see projects, tasks, or (in this case) tickets in a more linear manner. In Jestor this view is called Smart Kanban and it is packed with custom features.

Such features come in the manner of functional settings as well as appearance settings. Regarding appearance, for example, users can set card size, which stages are visible in the kanban board, which fields appear on the card cover, and so on. Not only can users do this in a fixed way, but there are also dynamic settings, like for example setting up conditional colors or sorting (so that tickets assigned to the user are green and tickets from a specific customer are purple.)

On the functional side of things, users may choose to disable drag and drop within the stages or allow users to create a ticket directly to a more advanced stage. There’s also the possibility of creating dynamic or fixed filters to select the data to be shown. The features are designed to make it so users are fully in charge of what’s available to the agent, and how they can interact with the ticket to optimize workflows and reduce human error. 

When opening a ticket, users can define how many panels are opened at the same time and what sort of information they contain, such as for example showing connected data, tasks or SLA time tracking. 

And that’s just talking about the kanban board. Jestor allows for other alternative views such as Gantt charts, lists, tables, and calendars, all of which may be set up in whatever manner the user understands works best for that specific workflow.

Zendesk:

Highlights:

• Filtered views.
• Only list views.

Zendesk’s approach to views is pretty streamlined: agents can view tickets in a list view, and you can create multiple different list views for different purposes, such as having one that is filtered for specific tags or one that is sorted by priority.

As far as this feature goes, it works pretty well if what you need is creating predefined filters that make it easier for agents to sort the tickets without having to apply filters manually. This sort of optimization can be quite a timesaver depending on the number and complexity of tickets received.

However, this is as far as you will be able to go with Zendesk alone in terms of different views. There are no different native views such as kanban boards or timelines, and if users need those they will need to integrate Zendesk with external tools, which does not come without its fair share of issues.

As it is, it will work just fine if list views are all you need. However, should you wish to expand the process by changing how agents view information, trying to adapt to more visual ways of displaying information, the platform’s native features will not currently be able to take you there.

SLA and Time Tracking

Jestor:

Highlights:

• Stage time tracking.
• One-click to set up SLA.
• Sequential and aggregate tracking.

Jestor allows users to set up time tracking features easily with its dedicated SLA feature. It comes activated by default in its customer service app, but it’s built in such a way that it can be easily activated to a lot of different processes that are arranged by stages, such as CRMs, Purchase Orders, or even Reimbursement Requests.

This feature keeps track of stage movement, recording how much time it took for a ticket to move from one stage to another. It does this by registering stage’s enter and exit dates, as well as who was responsible for moving the ticket. In practice, this means you can check right on the ticket’s side panel how much time was spent on each stage with just a single click. 

One interesting part of this feature is that it keeps track of time not only in aggregate but in a sequential manner too. For example, a ticket may start at Triage, then be sent to In Progress, then be sent to Triage again. Users will be able to see how much time in total was spent in Triage, but also the sequence of movements and how much time was spent each time it moved.

Understanding how much time agents are spending on solving tickets is a vital part of optimizing workflows, so having this set up right out of the gate goes a long way of helping users understand their own processes as soon as they start using the platform.

Zendesk:

Highlights:

• Default time tracking measurements on dashboards.
• No native time-tracking by stage.

While there aren’t currently any native time-tracking features that are displayed directly on the ticket itself, Zendesk does count with some time-tracking capabilities.

First of all, users who use the Zendesk Explore product (Zendesk’s dashboards and reports feature) will be able to both use pre-made dashboards that already display some relevant information (like time to solve a ticket, or time until first response.) Should users need something more than the premade dashboards, they are able to create custom ones that can use a wide array of predefined variables that also are related to time. 

Secondly, users may add apps from the marketplace, like the Time Tracking app, to keep track of time users spend on the ticket, registering time from when they open the ticket to when they do some action (like providing a response.)

Finally, it’s also possible to use custom fields and Zendesk Explore dashboard formulas to monitor changes to said fields.

While those are all valid solutions, there are some caveats. The Time Tracking app may not work for every case, and using fields and formulas will not measure changes to the standard status data of a ticket, only custom fields. As such, they may not be applicable to everyone. For Zendesk Explore’s pre-made and custom measurements, they are amazing if what you need is already contemplated by them, but users who need something a bit more customized will find that they’re not able to easily accomplish their goals. As it is now, for example, it’s not possible to easily set up stage by stage monitoring and display aggregate and sequential data.

The bottom line is that Zendesk’s time tracking features are pretty capable, but it’s not as easy to set up and, much like the rest of the platform, not as flexible as some users may need.

Low-code

Jestor:

Highlights:

• Custom low-code automations.
• Support to Python, PHP, and .NET.
• Custom webhooks.

Another interesting feature of Jestor is that not only does it contain a series of native no-code automations and integrations, but it also allows users to code their own scripts for custom automations if what they need is not currently covered by pre-made automations, or if they need something entirely too complex to solve with no-code capabilities.

As such, Jestor’s low-code feature allows users to write their own functions and automations that they may choose to run either based on events (such as when a ticket is created) or in custom scenarios, like at the press of a button. This allows for a good deal of flexibility, as it allows users basically to create their own functionalities into the ticket itself.  

Low-code automations can be written in Python, PHP or .NET, which are very popular languages that developers or tech-oriented team members will probably already be familiarized with. Not only are they able to use features native to such languages and frameworks, but Jestor also provides a series of native functions that streamline the process of automating tickets. For example, these functions may allow for creating a ticket or generating a PDF with a single line of code. 

Another interesting thing is that Jestor allows users to create custom endpoints to receive webhook information. As such, said endpoints can be attached to their customized functions, which will run their code when they receive information. This allows users to easily integrate Jestor with any other tool that sends information through webhooks, becoming even more flexible as users can easily integrate their customer service operations with different software. 

As a result, Jestor can, for example, receive tickets from a myriad of different sources, such as third party form tools or even opening a ticket as someone makes a booking for a hotel room.

Zendesk:

Highlights:

• Currently no low-code feature.

Zendesk does not currently possess a native low-code feature.

While it does have a developer area, it provides documentation and examples for using the API to integrate its products with external platforms. As such, it is expected of the user to be using the API, which often means users will need to use third party integrators (such as Zapier or Make) or run their own databases and services to relay information.

Access levels and Permissions

Jestor:

Highlights:

• Easy to set up customizable permissions.
• Enterprise-grade, granular access levels through Advanced Permissioning.

As a platform that goes beyond being a customer service app but can encompass the whole of a company’s processes, Jestor takes access control and data security pretty seriously. As such, it features an extensive capability of creating custom access levels through its Advanced Permissioning feature.

Basically, Jestor’s access management revolves around two things: Seats and Roles. A Seat is a system-wide permission that defines the user type: Builder, Member, or Viewer. Builders can customize the platform, Members can use what’s been built, and Viewers can access and view but not interact/edit data in an account.

Along with the Seat, each user must have a Role, which is basically the custom set of data filters and rules imposed on the user. For example, you may define the Role of Customer Success I and make it so they cannot delete tickets, or make it so they cannot see customer’s phone numbers. Whatever sort of rule you imagine to filter data or impede actions, it will probably be possible to set up with Roles. 

This is incredibly useful for customer service because if a company also manages Orders in Jestor, they can provide limited access to agents so that they can see Order information but not change it, or only receive Order information if it relates to a ticket they are assigned to.

This degree of control is something that is not often seen in SaaS applications, and one that can greatly help increase data security among the company.

Zendesk:

Highlights:

• Pre-made roles for most plans.
• Custom roles for Enterprise plans.

Zendesk comes with a bunch of different roles that can be assigned to users. Those are pretty useful to get things started because most of the time these pre-made roles will be sufficient for most use case scenarios, as Zendesk’s workflows are pretty much standardized. 

However, if users find the need to create their own custom role (for example, it may be the case that one does not want agents to be able to edit their views,) Zendesk does allow for the creation of custom roles within the platform, letting users toggle between settings for what a user is or isn’t allowed to do.

One thing to keep in mind, though, is the extent of these capabilities. While these custom roles do provide a ton of variability of control as to what a user may or may not do within the platform, it’s not very extensive when it comes to data control. For example, when it comes to access to tickets, there are only a handful of rules one may use to restrict access. Most of the settings and filters are pre-made and, as such, users who need extremely granular control of data may find the possibilities lacking.

While this standardization makes things simple to understand and streamlines the process of setting up agents, it may be restricting when companies grow in complexity and need customized rules and conditions for providing access.

Dashboards and Analytics

Jestor:

Highlights:

• Powerful dashboards with 20+ components, including calendar, Gantt diagrams, map, tables and more.
• Dashboards can pull information from any board.
• Dynamic filters.
• Interactive and analytical components.
• Customizable positions and mobile/desktop settings.
• Real-time or near real-time update.

Jestor’s capabilities as a builder for internal processes extends beyond customizing ticket structure and adding new processes and workflows. A good part of Jestor’s customization features comes from the ability to create dashboards, as they can be not only analytical but interactive as well.

For example, Jestor allows users to create charts and indicators, just the standard kind of thing you would expect from a dashboard. For example, you may want to see how many tickets were created per week, or how many by category, who’s the agent solving the most tickets, and so forth. All of this is possible with just a few clicks by selecting the component you need and what you want to monitor. 

The thing is: there are a lot of situations in which a user may need not only analytical data, but may want to have better ways of interacting with said data. For example, you may want to have a list of top 20 oldest tickets not yet solved, and want to solve them directly from the dashboard. Or, you may want to have a form directly on a dashboard to ask for help from team members regarding a specific ticket. Users may set up features that are both analytical and operational side by side, creating the best possible interface for agents to solve tickets and have insights in an optimized manner. 

Another thing that should be mentioned is that Jestor allows users to customize components’ positions and sizes both for the desktop as well as the mobile experience. As such, it’s possible to have a dashboard that is optimized for viewing and usage not only on a computer monitor, but also when looking at a smartphone when on the go.

Finally, Jestor’s dashboards by default update data either in real time or nearly at real time (with a few minutes delay at most) depending on the amount of data being processed at once. This can be extremely important for users who need the most updated information constantly, so they can act immediately if necessary.

Zendesk:

Highlights:

• Detailed pre-made and customized dashboards and reports.
• Lots of pre-made variables.
• Variable time to update data.

Zendesk’s dashboards and reports are accessed through its Explore product, which centralizes data insight and analysis in a single place. 

One nifty thing about Zendesk is that it comes with prebuilt dashboards and reports that are pretty detailed and will cover most scenarios for customer service performance analysis. As such, a lot of the time users may not even feel that inclined to customize things further.

Should they want to customize, though, it is also possible to do so. Users may create custom dashboards and reports using pre-made variables (such as Time to solve or Number of tickets created since a certain date.) While there are some things users will not be able to measure with these variables, they are diverse enough to cover the standard needs of most businesses. 

One thing to keep in mind regarding Zendesk’s dashboards, however, is that the frequency with which they are updated is variable, usually depending on whether a dashboard is pre-made or custom, and what is the current plan the user is subscribed to. As such, while in some situations data can be updated in real time (such as for pre-made dashboards on certain plans,) there are cases in which data is updated only once a day.

As such, users may have to keep in mind the fact that changes (like a sudden downturn in an agent’s performance/time) may not be immediately available depending on these conditions.

Task Management

Jestor:

Highlights:

• Dedicated centralized Tasks feature.
• Tasks can be created without being assigned to cards.
• You can keep track of tasks assigned to others, deadlines and progression.

One thing about ticket solving is that a lot of the time they cannot be solved immediately. There are plenty of situations in which agents may need to perform certain activities later or delegate tasks to other team members. Without a way of registering said tasks, it may be difficult to gauge the amount of work to be done on a request, and word: it can be quite easy for an agent to forget to do or follow up on something. 

Luckily, Jestor has a dedicated Tasks feature that allows users to create tasks that may be attached to tickets, other processes, or as single offs, and then assign them to themselves or other users. All created tasks assigned to or by that user are then centralized in the Tasks section, where they can see all tasks they have pending, as well as deadlines and subtasks.

This means that if an agent gets a ticket that needs further investigation, they may create a task for themselves or other teams and create a deadline for it, and then all they have to do daily is to sweep through their tasks to guarantee that nothing was left behind.

As tasks are pretty easy to create and attach/assign (merely one click or key press away) and even easier to see at any given moment, it is incredibly helpful for users to work collaboratively as well as improve their own time management capabilities.

Zendesk:

Highlights:

• No dedicated Tasks feature.

As of now, Zendesk does not possess a dedicated Tasks feature in its Support product. Rather, tickets may be categorized as a Task so that agents can define a deadline to it. Other than that, however, not much is changed from the default ticket structure.

While having a deadline is useful for keeping track of things to be done, a lot of times agents will need to perform multiple checks and tasks depending on the complexity of a request, especially in corner case scenarios. As such, they would probably be benefited by having attached tasks or to-do lists. 

It’s possible to work around this with apps from the marketplace, but it’s not something native to the platform. 

Mobile

Jestor:

Highlights:

• Customizable mobile apps.
• More mobile-friendly ways of handling processes.

One of the perks of using Jestor is that the platform itself is designed to be fully compatible with smaller screens. That is: it’s designed for having all of its features available on mobile use. The interface resizes and rearranges itself as necessary, and anything you create (be it a kanban board for the tickets or a custom dashboard to keep track of things to do) will work just as fine on mobile as they work on desktop. 

Because of this, users will find that there’s no disconnect between desktop use and mobile use. While it’s common for software to have dedicated apps that are a smaller, less functional version of the full app, in Jestor they are always able to use the whole of the platform on the go.

While things are automatically resized, users who want to further customize their mobile use are incentivized to do so. Jestor allows users to customize the mobile view, changing the size and ordering  of components, so that they always have the optimal interface for their needs.

Also, one of the most impactful things about Jestor productivity-wise is that interfaces and views are not set: users may create as many as they need, even to see the same information. This means that if something is not really that great for mobile use (like a kanban board with too many stages or fields,) users can create separate views to be used when on mobile, like lists with custom buttons and components to optimize for the smaller, vertical screens of smartphone devices.

Zendesk:

Highlights:

• Decent mobile app with streamlined set of features.

Because Zendesk Support is a product designed to do a very specific thing (customer service,) Zendesk’s approach to its mobile app is to basically have a streamlined version of the platform which is a very e-mail inbox-like interface that allows users to jump into conversations and respond to customers in a chat-like interface.

It’s a very simple, easy-to-use app that frankly gets most of the job done. It will not cover scenarios where you need to configure the platform in specific ways, or when you need to easily fetch nested information of custom objects, but it will work perfectly for opening the app and start answering tickets right away.

Flexibility

Jestor:

Highlights:

• More varied ways of handling different processes.
• Extremely customizable (including menus and navigation.)

As a platform that focuses on customization, one could say that total flexibility is one of Jestor’s main strengths. Not only because it allows for customization of existing processes (like customer service) but because it allows for the creation of different operational workflows and having all of those work in sync in the same tool. 

Most of what a user sees in Jestor is customizable, even the menus. It’s possible to create side, top, or bottom menus as needed to optimize how agents see and interact with information on the platform. The ticket structure and views themselves can be customized with an extensive set of data fields and dashboard components. 

However, if users need to manage other different processes, like sales or billing, they may not only download standard templates for managing those, but they may also create their own custom processes from scratch and have them work just as well as native solutions. Better yet: all of this can be connected so that information is shared as needed between processes, and workflows can be automated between themselves.

The bottom line is that all that has been discussed here regarding customer service is also applicable to different teams and processes, and many companies can run the entirety of their operations solely within Jestor.

Zendesk:

Highlights:

• Standardized product with some customizability.
• Different products for different needs.

Zendesk, unlike Jestor, is not designed to be a customized platform. Zendesk Support, specifically, is designed to be a tool optimized for customer service, and as such standardizes the way agents interact with the platform, and restricts the customizability of the platform within the realms of what the platform perceives as optimal for this specific goal. 

As such, while it does have some customization features (like custom fields, automations, filters, and marketplace apps,) total flexibility is not a thing that it achieves, mostly because it is not designed to be such a thing. Menus are standardized and workflows are mostly the same regardless of whoever is using it.

While this does bring the advantage of being a tool that is simple to set up as well as easy to understand, it is not a tool designed for those who want to create their own custom tools and hyper optimize by setting details right down to the interface and menu disposition. 

Also, it should be noted that because of this approach, it’s not possible to customize Zendesk to solve any kind of operation process. Zendesk possesses different products for different needs (such as a CRM with its Zendesk Sell) which will provide experiences within this mindset of “standardized off-the-shelf solution.”

Other Support Channels

Jestor:

Highlights:

• Public dashboards and forms.
• Product roadmap.
• FAQs.
• Portals.
• Client apps.

Apart from the ticket management features, Jestor also allows users to create public pages and dashboards for a lot of varied purposes. 

For example, users can create public dashboards to relay information that is important to customers, sharing information such as service uptime or a roadmap of future features (or maybe even a list of known bugs being worked on.)

Those dashboards may also contain text and embedded videos or documents, allowing users to create FAQ pages, or even centralize a list of different forms (like Talk to Sales or Submit Request forms) to create portals. 

They might even apply these features to different non-support usages like creating a list of job openings and application forms.

Also, by combining advanced permissioning with viewer users, it’s possible to provide customized access to clients so that they can check on their requests’ status, as well as any other relevant information (such as Order status or Project progress) that is assigned to them.

Zendesk:

Highlights:

• Voice calling.
• Social media.
• FAQs and Help Center.
• Chat widgets.
• Logged users.

This is where Zendesk really shines through. Being one of the most well established and most traditional customer service tools in the market, it has a lot of customer service features apart from e-mail and ticket management. 

For example, it is possible to call customers from within the tickets themselves. This will allow agents to get in touch with customers that open tickets but fail to follow through with e-mails. It may also cut the time to solve a ticket, as in these scenarios things may be dealt with in a single phone call. 

Also, Zendesk is integrated with social media platforms, like Instagram and X. This allows companies to create new channels of communication for customers to submit requests.

Another channel of communication is the possibility of adding chat widgets, so customers can chat directly with agents from your website without sending e-mails.

Finally, Zendesk has a wide array of different other customer service oriented tools, like Help Centers, FAQs, and allowing customers to log in to a company’s own Zendesk account (if allowed) and have pre-made accesses to see only their own information and tickets.

All in all, when it comes to covering a lot of different ground, Zendesk remains one of the most capable tools out there.

Pricing

Jestor:

• From $10/user/mo (Jestor plan) to $45/user/mo (Expert plan.) 
• Pricing page.

Jestor’s standard plan (also called “Jestor”) encompasses almost all of the features discussed in this article. At a very competitive price point, it’s one of the easiest ways to have a fully fledged ticket managing system implemented in your company, as well as having amazing ROI doing so: not only because of its price, but because Jestor’s flexible nature allows companies to drop other tools as Jestor substitutes them.

What this all means is that while a Jestor user may cost $10/month on the yearly subscription, it’s very possible that it helps save money by allowing the company to reduce their cost with other tools like Zapier, Slack, or OCR tools. In some cases, it might even be a net positive software depending on which tools it replaces.

Jestor’s Enterprise plan was not used for this comparison.

Zendesk:

• $55/user/mo (Suite Team plan) to $115/user/mo (Suite Professional.)
• Pricing page.

We selected the Suite package for this comparison as a lot of different features discussed here are not included in the Build your own plan Support packages.

Zendesk, as one of the most traditional customer service platforms, is in the upper range of what is traditionally charged for similar tools. Plans for the features discussed in this article will start at $55/user/mo, but we should also note that some of the things discussed here are only included in the Suite Professional plan, which goes for $115/user/mo. 

That being said, everything here works pretty well and it should be noted that, while you’re only getting customer service capabilities, you’re getting a ton of them across many different channels like social media and voice calling.

Zendesk’s Enterprise plan was not used for this comparison.

Which works best for you?

This depends, of course, on your needs!

If what you need is very customizable email-to-ticket platform that will allow you to get requests from customers while also providing extreme customization features, or if you’re looking for a platform that does more than customer service and that allows you to run the entirety of your company’s operations on it, look no further than Jestor. Not only are you getting all the features discussed here, there are a lot of other features and applications not mentioned in this article that can help you solve problems from billing to project management or even hiring.

If what you need is a tool that is extremely optimized for customer service and integrates with a lot of different channels, allowing you to get requests directly from social media and letting agents call customers directly from the platform, then Zendesk might be the tool for you. While it lacks in flexibility and customizability, it is an extremely capable tool in what it does, being a product entirely designed for a single, specific purpose in mind.