Respond.io vs. Zendesk Suite

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Respond.io
Score 8.0 out of 10
N/A
Respond.io is a business messaging platform from the Hong Kong based company of the same name, that connects customers from any channel to every team. As consumers grow to demand personal communication on a wide variety of channels, businesses are looking to their software vendors and partners to innovate and deliver these customer experiences. Respond.io is designed to meet this challenge, simply.
$99
per month
Zendesk Suite
Score 8.8 out of 10
N/A
Zendesk is a customer support solution with built-in ticketing, conversational messaging, and live chat, designed to help businesses of all sizes and industries deliver personalized service at scale. Zendesk's AI agents are trained in CX to help Service teams resolve customer issues faster and more accurately while still providing a human-centered experience. Zendesk ultimately aims to help businesses improve time to value, reduce effort per ticket, and keep costs low.
$69
per month per agent
Pricing
Respond.ioZendesk Suite
Editions & Modules
Starter
$99
per month
Growth
$199
per month
Advanced
$349
per month
Enterprise
Custom
Suite Team
$69
per month per agent
Suite Growth
$115
per month per agent
Suite Professional
$149
per month per agent
Suite Enterprise
Contact Sales
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Respond.ioZendesk Suite
Free Trial
YesYes
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoYes
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeOptional
Additional DetailsUp to a 20% discount for annual pricing.20% discount available with annual pricing.
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Respond.ioZendesk Suite
Features
Respond.ioZendesk Suite
Incident and problem management
Comparison of Incident and problem management features of Product A and Product B
Respond.io
-
Ratings
Zendesk Suite
8.9
154 Ratings
10% above category average
Organize and prioritize service tickets00 Ratings9.2153 Ratings
Expert directory00 Ratings8.3102 Ratings
Subscription-based notifications00 Ratings8.6106 Ratings
ITSM collaboration and documentation00 Ratings8.4104 Ratings
Ticket creation and submission00 Ratings9.3153 Ratings
Ticket response00 Ratings9.3152 Ratings
Self Help Community
Comparison of Self Help Community features of Product A and Product B
Respond.io
-
Ratings
Zendesk Suite
8.5
139 Ratings
8% above category average
External knowledge base00 Ratings8.5133 Ratings
Internal knowledge base00 Ratings8.5127 Ratings
Multi-Channel Help
Comparison of Multi-Channel Help features of Product A and Product B
Respond.io
-
Ratings
Zendesk Suite
9.0
150 Ratings
15% above category average
Customer portal00 Ratings9.2121 Ratings
IVR00 Ratings8.659 Ratings
Social integration00 Ratings8.597 Ratings
Email support00 Ratings9.4147 Ratings
Help Desk CRM integration00 Ratings9.1112 Ratings
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Respond.ioZendesk Suite
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User Ratings
Respond.ioZendesk Suite
Likelihood to Recommend
10.0
(1 ratings)
9.0
(192 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(43 ratings)
Usability
-
(0 ratings)
8.9
(65 ratings)
Availability
-
(0 ratings)
8.6
(13 ratings)
Performance
-
(0 ratings)
8.0
(10 ratings)
Support Rating
-
(0 ratings)
5.6
(31 ratings)
In-Person Training
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(1 ratings)
Online Training
-
(0 ratings)
7.9
(9 ratings)
Implementation Rating
-
(0 ratings)
9.0
(18 ratings)
Configurability
-
(0 ratings)
9.3
(3 ratings)
User Testimonials
Respond.ioZendesk Suite
Likelihood to Recommend
Respond.io
If you're looking to implement the WhatsApp business api for your official number in your product Respond.io is the solution to go because the truth is that there is no easy way and most of the providers will assume that you have developers in order to create your own implementation and many of the other solutions our there are not even close to Respond.io and they are usually expensive. Also, most of the Customer Service software out there will offer you the typical channel but will skip Whatsapp while Respond.io does the opposite (check it out for the free tier if you're not convinced).
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Zendesk
Being a customer support agent, I found it very good when it comes to send an email or call or chat- with the user. I can do all that from the one single platform which is so easy and time saving for you. It does not take much time to use this, We can chat- with the user and at the same time we can send an email to them as well.
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Pros
Respond.io
  • Easy integration with WhatsApp business api, you just need a verified number
  • The CRM for WhatsApp is easy to use very friendly and let you make follow-ups to your users
  • They finally implemented the broadcast option where you can schedule broadcast messages to a specific list of users.
Read full review
Zendesk
  • UI/UX; mature macros and automations, slick and well thought out UI.
  • Reporting, reporting, reporting. With user, org, and ticket level tags, we can track every aspect of our ticket flow.
  • Extensibility; the app marketplace is a great resource for expanding functionality from the baseline offering.
Read full review
Cons
Respond.io
  • You have to be patient with Respond.io since many features are still in development I wish they can make features faster
  • In order to use WhatsApp business api you need a number that is provided by Twilio they also have implemented other number providers but it will be nice that they add more WhatsApp business number providers (since we have a US number instead of a Mexican number)
Read full review
Zendesk
  • Is there a way for AEs and CSMs to be informed in a weekly summary of all their accounts and any tickets? Example: Disney submitted a ticket on XYZ. Google has an urgent issue on X still unresolved.
  • Is there a way for CSMs or AEs to have a Dashboard that's specific to their accounts instead of seeing all the tickets in the queue that are not relevant to them?
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Likelihood to Renew
Respond.io
No answers on this topic
Zendesk
Zendesk is an amazing tool for communicating with your customers easily. The communication tickets from sellers to us or from us to sellers are stored, and there are statuses used to make communication easy. We have internal conversations between departments, linked with useful software such as Zingtree, Talkdesk, and Webs.
Read full review
Usability
Respond.io
No answers on this topic
Zendesk
Pros: The agent interface is sleek, contemporary, and relatively easy to learn compared to many other enterprise tools. For common tasks, admins are given point-and-click options- adding fields, modifying workflows, constructing macros. The knowledge base (Guide) editor is easy to use for non-developers. Drawbacks: Once you move past the initial things - complex automations, reporting/analytics in Explore, and/or customizations integrating the API, it requires much more advanced training to use successfully. Navigating between the different modules (Support, Explore, Chat, Guide) can feel very disconnected; often you are reminded that it really is a "suite" of products brought together -not really one unified platform. If you're using multiple brands managing simultaneous support tickets, or heavily customizing workflows to meet your brand, you may run into a bit of struggle with usability. So: it's a lot more user friendly than the palaces (Salesforce Service Cloud, ServiceNow), but is not used as quickly or with as much streamlined flow as a product made for a small shop. So if you are looking for a great balance, this is a good option if you are a net new organization or an organization on their way to scaling from 15 - 50 employee. Expect some elbow grease from the admin team once learning, adapting, and working efficiently once you move past the basics with your support tickets and initial customizations.
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Reliability and Availability
Respond.io
No answers on this topic
Zendesk
In the past year, I'd say I have only noticed maybe two hours total of downtime in my own usage. Very minimal.
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Performance
Respond.io
No answers on this topic
Zendesk
There has been minor performance degradation on a very few days out of the two years I have been using the product.
Read full review
Support Rating
Respond.io
No answers on this topic
Zendesk
We rarely need to contact their support team, but when we do they are responsive. However there have been notable times when communication between myself and the support rep was challenging despite me providing clear explanation of the issue, screenshots, and a thorough explanation of the goal we hope to achieve. It took several back and forth attempt, on a few occasions, to get resolution on an otherwise simple request
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Online Training
Respond.io
No answers on this topic
Zendesk
Zendesk has tons of available material for training - videos, webinars, articles, etc. The only reason this is not a 10 is because it can be hard to figure out how to navigate to these things and find what you are looking for.
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Implementation Rating
Respond.io
No answers on this topic
Zendesk
I was very satisfied. They have a free trial for 30 days and I recommend you do that and use it. It is very easy to get started with the basics and the build on over time.

The only thing technically complex was single sign-on and integration to Salesforce.com required some tweaks – otherwise setting up system was very easy
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Alternatives Considered
Respond.io
When we were implementing WhatsApp business api number in Bussi. We had 2 options the first Zendesk smooch.io and the second one a Twilio WhatsApp number. In the beginning, it seemed that Zendesk smooch.io was the option to go but the conversation was quite slow also the integration was easy but you needed to manage this conversation from zendesk which we were not completely sure about since it's more like a ticketing platform. Fortunately, we were looking and testing solutions until we found Respond.io, and even if they didn't have at the time the broadcast feature they let us know that feature was already in development so we felt that they were building a solution we were looking for so we decided to give them a few months and in those few months they built this feature and is a more dynamic way to answer customers than tickets so we decided to go with them.
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Zendesk
The customisable reporting every time. Our leadership reply on me to run my team and want to know what customers are telling us so they can elevate our products. We have extensive custom reports that tie up all aspects of our product and customer journeys. I've not found another product that allows me as much freedom as Zendesk Suite explore does, so far.
Read full review
Scalability
Respond.io
No answers on this topic
Zendesk
WHY we will use Zendesk in HR and PD internally
Read full review
Return on Investment
Respond.io
  • Most options we saw before Respond.io needed a minimum number of messages, contracts, or costly integrations from the side of the vendor while Respond.io is actually helping you to integrate the product with no extra cost.
  • Our users choose the communication channel they want so before we were losing leads and money because we were not able to attend this channel.
  • It requires a $0 investment to implement or maintain from the side of the developer area so we use our technical resources to develop our main core product not a WhatsApp chat integration feature.
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Zendesk
  • Integrating other AI solutions for an organization with high volumes can cost about USD5000 monthly. With Zendesk AI and by building onto the same with AI powered apps built for Zendesk Suite we save a projected USD4000 monthly.
  • Robust Zendesk APIs have enabled us to integrate our internal system with a customized app saving us hundreds of hours every quarter spent loading customer profiles that are not loaded instantly from the app.
  • Plug and play apps like Round robin save us weeks of sprint delay timelines as they do not require additional coding or developer support to install and start using.
Read full review
ScreenShots

Respond.io Screenshots

Screenshot of Unified Contact Management. This is the location to manage all customer profiles on a single page and track their details across all connected messaging channels. Merge, filter, or edit contacts from one centralized location.Screenshot of Omnichannel Messaging Inbox: A single customer story containing every message, call, email, web chat and internal discussion.Screenshot of Comprehensive Supervisor Dashboard: A daily dashboard for managers to pick up on conversation or agent anomalies at a glance. Identify conversations that have been on hold or unresolved for too long and monitor agents’ performance and workload in real time.Screenshot of Mobile Messaging: The AI-powered native mobile app can be used to sell and chat with customers on the go. Stay connected and manage interactions directly from a mobile device.Screenshot of Efficiency Through Workflows: Automate tasks and streamline processes with customizable workflows, boosting efficiency and ensuring smooth operations by handling repetitive tasks.Screenshot of Data-Driven Insights: Insights with comprehensive reports that track key metrics, monitor trends and visualize performance data. Analyze conversations and team productivity to make informed, data-driven decisions.

Zendesk Suite Screenshots

Screenshot of the Zendesk Agent WorkspaceScreenshot of Omnichannel MessagingScreenshot of Zendesk TicketingScreenshot of Bots powered by Zendesk AIScreenshot of Tone shift with Zendesk AIScreenshot of Zendesk ticketing side conversations