SCSM vs Zendesk comparison

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Read 23 SCSM reviews
1,443 views|792 comparisons
64% willing to recommend
Zendesk Logo
3,124 views|2,028 comparisons
93% willing to recommend
Comparison Buyer's Guide
Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between SCSM and Zendesk based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out in this report how the two Help Desk Software solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI.
To learn more, read our detailed SCSM vs. Zendesk Report (Updated: May 2024).
772,649 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Featured Review
Quotes From Members
We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use.
Here are some excerpts of what they said:
Pros
"We've been in contact with Microsoft technical support mainly. After doing the research ourselves and troubleshooting, etc., if we can't find a permanent solution, we contact Microsoft to help us fix the issue. Sometimes the issue never gets fixed even by Microsoft. It can sometimes require us to reinstall the solution. However, these are very rare instances.""This solution is easy to use.""It is one of the most stable solutions in the market.""I've used SCSM a lot, and its features are valuable.""I like the reporting service. SCSM has a good reporting service and analysis service for analysis requests.""A very convenient package like an all-in-one tool but it is actually five or six products acting well together.""SCSM is easy to learn because all of the material, including training videos, can be found online.""The most requested feature from our customers is the helpdesk ticketing system."

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"Its agility and simplicity are the most valuable features. This tool is very user-friendly.""One of the most valuable features is that Zendesk gives you a lot of configurability, and a lot of leeway in terms of customizing the look and theme. Zendesk offers you the facility to design your own landing page, as well as the look and feel of the entire knowledge base. At the same time, they offer themes that you can simply purchase and implement. Either way, it can really be turned into the right look and feel of the knowledge base required by our company, which is very important—if you have a bland-looking page, most of the time, people will lose interest. Zendesk also allows you to test the customizations before you publish it. It gives you a sandbox location where you can test everything new that you're trying to create and publish, which is very interesting.""What is cool about Zendesk Guide is how it works together with others Zendesk products. Especially with support and with the analytics. Put those together for a small or medium-sized company and it's a really powerful tool.""The initial setup is simple and straightforward.""It's very convenient to use.""It's a very stable tool, very powerful.""The feature to move over my customer experience team tickets for different specialists is very valuable for my team.""I found the user experience with vendors on Zendesk to be straightforward, especially when it comes to understanding and searching for specific tickets. The search and navigation tools are easy to use, and I haven't encountered any issues with delays or communication gaps in ticket resolutions."

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Cons
"It crashes our client's computers. Sometimes they get blue screens. It would be useful if SCSM could check the upgrades or patches before we implemented them to see if they are going to crash a client's system. Or, if it does install, and the client's system crashes, it would be good if the solution could revert back somehow.""Once we had an issue with a desktop download that would not open.""One of the disadvantages in this product is that the reporting module is not very easy. It requires SQL development skills, which not all customers or IT professionals have.""It would be good if Microsoft added custom attributes or tagging like in Jamf.""The logs and reporting-related features of the product have certain shortcomings where improvements are required.""It's not too hard to compile stuff but it is hard to manage the solution. Even the design itself makes it difficult for management.""The product needs to improve its integration with other tools. It also needs to have a better UI and a simple dashboard.""We have had some issues with the SCSM on-premise deployment version in the imaging aspects."

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"As per me, there arent much significant issues or areas for improvement with Zendesk, as my usage of it is limited. I appreciate its ability to organize tickets effectively based on tags, allowing me to easily gather and analyze customer feedback and requests.""The data you get when logged in to Zendesk Support differs from the data you get when you programmatically query Zendesk Support through its API because of a sync time delay.""They have something called Zendesk Explore, which isn't as good as what they had in place previously.""The solution could integrate better with QR codes from some websites such as Facebook.""The solution itself wasn't easy to set up.""You couldn't give administrative access to new hires.""There is always a network issue with Zendesk. But we don’t know whether it is managed. The network issue is that when I call, it does not let us.""The price of the solution should be reduced."

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Pricing and Cost Advice
  • "It is a lower price vs. other things on the market."
  • "It is an expensive solution."
  • "Licensing can be complex and confusing."
  • "The price should be lower."
  • "The price of the solution could be better. My organization has an enterprise annual license with Microsoft which provides us support."
  • "It comes free with the enterprise agreement that we have, but the expense really is in having to buy another product to sit on top of it to make it work properly. You wind up having to buy additional support and additional product with their own support and maintenance costs on top of that."
  • "The license for SCSM is cheap."
  • "I would rate the pricing as two out of five."
  • More SCSM Pricing and Cost Advice →

  • "We pay for the solution on a yearly basis and my understanding is that the cost is about $30,000. That's the cost for 24 to 25 agents."
  • "The price is very competitive."
  • "Zendesk's licensing is not cheap. For Enterprise, we are paying $200 per agent. It's a per-month cost, so it's pretty steep. There are some services you need to pay extra for. For example, with Zendesk Guide, we had to buy the most expensive offering in order to get Multibrand and everything. We also had to pay a lot of money for themes."
  • "There are different plans that are offered. We are using the entry-level plan. The overall price of the solution should be reduced. The price is too high."
  • "You have to pay extra for better support. So it's not only the license that you pay for, but you have to pay extra for the support as well."
  • More Zendesk Pricing and Cost Advice →

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    Questions from the Community
    Top Answer:The solution offers good productivity at a low price point.
    Top Answer:The solution offers good productivity at a low price point.
    Top Answer:For any weaknesses in the product, our company's security team maintains the application for our environment. The logs and reporting-related features of the product have certain shortcomings where… more »
    Top Answer:I found the user experience with vendors on Zendesk to be straightforward, especially when it comes to understanding and searching for specific tickets. The search and navigation tools are easy to… more »
    Top Answer:You have to pay extra for better support. So it's not only the license that you pay for, but you have to pay extra for the support as well. The pricing is expensive. Back then, we were paying $51 per… more »
    Top Answer:As per me, there arent much significant issues or areas for improvement with Zendesk, as my usage of it is limited. I appreciate its ability to organize tickets effectively based on tags, allowing me… more »
    Ranking
    14th
    out of 59 in Help Desk Software
    Views
    1,443
    Comparisons
    792
    Reviews
    8
    Average Words per Review
    517
    Rating
    8.0
    10th
    out of 59 in Help Desk Software
    Views
    3,124
    Comparisons
    2,028
    Reviews
    6
    Average Words per Review
    539
    Rating
    8.2
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    Also Known As
    System Center Service Manager
    Zendesk Support, Zendesk Guide, Zendesk Sell
    Learn More
    Overview
    System Center Service Manager is a software product by Microsoft to allow organizations to manage incidents and problems. Microsoft states that the product is compliant with industry best practices such as the Microsoft Operations Framework (MOF) and in the Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL). SCSM has integrated ITIL compliant fulfillment of service requests. Service requests are submitted by the end user in order to obtain information, access to a new application or the most common of all, password reset.

    Zendesk Support is intuitive, and it's built with support agents in mind. Everything they need lives in a single, dynamic help desk interface so it's easy to be productive and manage customer interactions.

    Sample Customers
    Fibabanka, UMC Health System
    Mailchimp, Tesco, Vimeo, Instacart, Mediaocean, Slack, Uber
    Top Industries
    REVIEWERS
    Financial Services Firm20%
    Hospitality Company10%
    Comms Service Provider10%
    Government10%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Government26%
    Computer Software Company11%
    Financial Services Firm10%
    Manufacturing Company9%
    REVIEWERS
    Computer Software Company24%
    Financial Services Firm14%
    Construction Company10%
    Non Profit7%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Computer Software Company22%
    Educational Organization10%
    Financial Services Firm7%
    University6%
    Company Size
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business38%
    Midsize Enterprise21%
    Large Enterprise42%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business13%
    Midsize Enterprise22%
    Large Enterprise65%
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business46%
    Midsize Enterprise35%
    Large Enterprise19%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business25%
    Midsize Enterprise20%
    Large Enterprise55%
    Buyer's Guide
    SCSM vs. Zendesk
    May 2024
    Find out what your peers are saying about SCSM vs. Zendesk and other solutions. Updated: May 2024.
    772,649 professionals have used our research since 2012.

    SCSM is ranked 14th in Help Desk Software with 23 reviews while Zendesk is ranked 10th in Help Desk Software with 57 reviews. SCSM is rated 7.0, while Zendesk is rated 8.2. The top reviewer of SCSM writes "Helps us manage IT operations, including incident and service requests, but could be easier to create reports". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Zendesk writes "Straightforward, very transparent, and very well organized". SCSM is most compared with ServiceNow, ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus, JIRA Service Management, BMC Helix ITSM and Freshservice, whereas Zendesk is most compared with ServiceNow, JIRA Service Management, Atlassian Confluence, Freshservice and Microsoft Dynamics CRM. See our SCSM vs. Zendesk report.

    See our list of best Help Desk Software vendors and best IT Service Management (ITSM) vendors.

    We monitor all Help Desk Software reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.