Pros & Cons
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- Easy ticket management
- AI features are available at all tiers
- Capable asset and change management components
- Top-notch analytics tools
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- Most advanced AI features cost extra
- Interface could be simpler in places
Zendesk for Employee Service Specs
| Asset Management | |
| Chatbot Support | |
| Custom Reporting | |
| Knowledge Base | |
| Live Chat | |
| Remote Control | |
| Self-Service Portal | |
| Smartphone Apps | |
| Support Widget | |
| Tickets From Social Media |
Zendesk for Employee Service is a comprehensive IT help desk solution that can scale to support everything from startups to larger corporations. It can do far more than just enable your support staff to field and manage simple tickets, with useful asset and change management components. Furthermore, AI tools automate the ticket resolution process and allow you to generate analytics reports using natural language. Zendesk is easy to recommend, but falls just shy of our Editors' Choice winner for the category, HaloITSM, which offers a more user-friendly interface and even more compelling AI features.
How Does Zendesk for Employee Service Differ From Customer Service Help Desk Software?
Zendesk for Employee Service is an IT help desk product, meaning it helps you support internal employees. These types of services also tend to include asset and change management features. Other examples of internal help desk software include Freshservice, HaloITSM, Spiceworks Cloud Help Desk, and Vivantio. (Note: Spiceworks is owned by Ziff Davis, PCMag.com's parent company. For more, see the ethics policy in our Editorial Mission Statement.)
Customer support help desk software enables your staff to manage incidents from external customers. Zendesk falls into that category, as does Freshdesk Omni, HappyFox Help Desk, and Zoho Desk. Both types of help desk software allow you to create knowledge bases, facilitating self-service.
Pricing: It Scales as Your Company Grows
Zendesk's entry-level Suite Team plan ($29 per agent per month, billed annually) covers one help desk center that supports tickets via business messaging platforms (Microsoft Teams and Slack), email, and support portals. You also get basic AI features (automated resolutions, generative replies, and generative search), a live chat tool, and a knowledge base builder. You have to pay extra for the Advanced AI Agents (custom pricing) and Copilot ($50 per agent per month) add-ons. The former provides you with agents who can better resolve complex issues, while the latter helps improve efficiency through assistance suggestions, workflow recommendations, and writing tools. Other add-ons that handle task management, quality assurance, and advanced security are also available.
The Suite Growth tier ($59 per agent per month, billed annually) supports up to five help desk centers. It adds approval workflows, phone support tracking, and service level agreements (SLAs). It also unlocks IT asset management through objects (such as laptops) that can be tied to tickets.
Upgrading to the Suite Professional plan ($115 per agent per month, billed annually) gets you call management features (call time limits and recordings), custom reporting and analytics features, skills-based ticket routing, and version management tools. Importantly, this plan adds support for monitoring social media channels (Facebook, Instagram, LINE, WhatsApp, WeChat, X, and more).
Finally, the Suite Enterprise level (custom pricing) introduces audit logs, custom agent roles, and more knowledge management features.
For comparison, Freshservice costs $19 per agent per month to get started. You don't get the chance to use any AI features until you reach its Pro tier ($99 per agent per month), with the Freddy AI Copilot add-on going for an additional $29 per agent per month, billed annually. Moreover, Freshservice's most advanced Freddy AI Agents and Freddy AI Insights features are available only with the Enterprise plan (custom pricing). HaloITSM provides all of its features in its sole plan (around $95 per month).
On the other end of the affordability scale is Spiceworks Cloud Help Desk, which is free for up to five users and charges just $5 per agent per month for its Premium plan.
Interface and Ease of Use: Could Be More Consistent
Zendesk Employee Service runs in a browser and offers mobile apps (available for Android and iOS). I tested it in Chrome and Edge, as well as on my iPhone, and encountered no issues. The ticket management interface is the same across all the platforms, but you need to use the web version to adjust admin settings and work with the knowledge base, among other things.
The setup is very quick and primarily involves selecting a domain for your company and adding agents. A comprehensive tutorial guides you through the product's features, and training videos are also available. Of course, you can just skip all of this and dive into the product.
(Credit: PCMag/Zendesk)Despite Zendesk's complexity, the main ticket area is colorful and straightforward, presenting all tickets in a unified list. You can open browser-like tabs for each ticket, and it's simple to filter the list to see all open, recently addressed, unresolved tickets, and others.
The rest of the platform isn't as clear. For example, I had a difficult time finding the icon for the knowledge base component because it is located in the upper right corner of the interface, rather than in the left-hand sidebar where I expected it to be. Adding knowledge base articles was about as easy as creating a new Microsoft Word document—simple and straightforward. Companies should be aware that, for truly effective AI assistance and tech support, building an extensive knowledge base requires time.
Zendesk also hides its tech support chatbot in a support menu. I would have preferred a more prominent one-click way to access it. I'm also not a fan of how the software pushes you to a new tab to access the admin console, analytics and reporting portal, and knowledge base. It's slightly disconcerting to have to adjust to difference instances when you do a deep dive on support issues. Freshservice's and HaloITSM's user experiences are more cohesive overall.
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Zendesk offers comprehensive technical support through a chatbot, email, online tickets, and phone. These main support channels are available during normal business hours. An add-on (custom pricing) for 24/7 premier support, which includes white-glove service and onboarding, is also available.
When I tried sending a support request about resetting my login through Zendesk's chatbot, a human agent was able to send me to the correct knowledge base article, but it took a long time. All Freshservice plans include 24/7 email support and 24/5 chat and phone support. Its tech support team responded much faster during testing.
Ticket Management: Efficient and Powerful
Zendesk stands out for its effective ticket creation and management tools. They are approachable, even if you don't have existing experience with help desk software. You can easily view all open tickets with a single click and identify which issues require further attention. Freshservice requires you to click a few extra buttons to achieve the same result, whereas Zendesk does a slightly better job of letting you create, find, and organize tickets efficiently. Filters are readily available, as mentioned, and it's fast and easy to close, downgrade, and escalate tickets as needed. Searching for tickets is the same, although the related icon is easy to miss in the far-right corner.
(Credit: PCMag/Zendesk)Creating a ticket is quick and easy once you find the small Add button. Some people might also dislike the appearance of having several tickets open simultaneously in tabs, but I didn't have a problem with that. You can easily add attachments to any tickets, and their fields are customizable. Employees receive notifications about the status of tickets in relation to established guidelines for SLAs and response times. Automated routing options, such as transferring a ticket to another agent after a set time period or assigning based on skill level, streamline the support process and are quite extensive.
I also appreciate how Zendesk allows you to view employee contact information directly from a ticket. Freshservice instead makes that information available through its admin console.
The AI features are extremely useful for triaging tickets. For starters, since automated replies are available for all plans, employees can resolve their own issues without requiring support agents' time. Still, Viventio provides you with more options for customizing the appearance and functionality of the self-support portal. Of course, you have to build your knowledge base first so that the AI has something it can pull from. Later in the process, the generative reply and search can help your support staff find resolutions and craft responses more quickly. The stock replies are smart and useful, but, like all automated responses, tend to sound too generic.
Asset and Change Management: Ticket-Centric Tracking
Asset and change management features are core parts of the product. To create an asset for tracking, you have to learn the Zendesk vernacular. An asset is an object that you create and then can track as part of a ticket. This is helpful in terms of ticket management, but it means that reviewing all your company's assets is more difficult than in Freshservice. It's a similar story with change management features; the implementation makes ticket management the focus. Unlike Freshservice and HaloITSM, Zendesk doesn't include any project management features.
(Credit: PCMag/Zendesk)Reporting and Exporting Data: AI-Enabled
Although I don't like how the analytics and reporting features are part of a separate tab (called Zendesk Explore) apart from the main ticketing interface, they are still exceptional. I especially appreciate how the AI Copilot add-on can generate reports based on natural language prompts. For example, you can quickly create a report with a prompt such as “shows all agents working on high-risk tickets.” It's also possible to further customize that report using a drag-and-drop interface.
(Credit: PCMag/Zendesk)The Zendesk Explore tab might feel overwhelming due to the sheer number of customizations and reports it supports, but it's absolutely worth diving in and taking full advantage. Zendesk representatives even told me that the company is adding a report that analyzes how well AI agents are performing at resolving tickets. You can use these tools to triage tickets, including identifying those with slow response times. Whereas Freshservice primarily allows you to create PDFs of reports, Zendesk Employee Service enables you to export a CSV or Excel file, a PNG, or a PDF.
Integrations: Extensive Options
Thousands of integrations are available for Zendesk via its marketplace. This includes communication apps, such as Slack and Microsoft Teams, and productivity services, including Asana and Trello. Meanwhile, a range of HR apps, including BambooHR and Workday, connect to Zendesk's back-end systems, allowing employees to submit a ticket for a request, such as a vacation request, for Zendesk to process. Many integrations are free to use, while others, such as HubSpot CRM, incur additional costs. Freshservice's integration support is just as extensive.
Administration and Security: Standard Features
Like the knowledge base and Zendesk Explore portal for analytics, the admin functions are all part of a separate tab in the interface. Although the options are extensive, the admin console is straightforward enough that most users won't have trouble finding what they need. Freshservice and HaloITSM have just as many settings, but their more colorful interfaces make the experience a bit more pleasant.
(Credit: PCMag/Zendesk)Adding individual users is simple via the large Create Team Member button. You can also bulk import support staff members and employees if you follow Zendesk's formatting. It's also possible to export all agent records as a CSV file. Roles and permissions for agents are quite extensive. A Light Agent has select permissions, for example, and you can create roles with custom permissions.
Zendesk has a thorough, up-to-date privacy policy with clear sections. It supports multi-factor authentication for extra protection.
Final Thoughts
(Credit: Zendesk)
Zendesk for Employee Service
Zendesk for Employee Service is an excellent IT help desk service, offering extensive ticket management tools, productivity-boosting AI features, and both asset and change management capabilities.