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Zendesk raises their prices 60%-300%, users predictably revolt

support.zendesk.com

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Re: Zendesk raises their prices 60%-300%, users predictably revolt

#81

Post by drusenko »

jhancock wrote: post #43
ahoyhere wrote: post #17

I think anyone who uses ZenDesk will know that they don't love their users, or treat their tool like a serious business. (More like a cashcow.) Their software is horrible. There are 6 different ways to view the single table of incoming messages, and it's nondeterministic which one you will come to at any given time. And the first time you accidentally send an internal message to a customer, instead of your team - sin…

I need to setup a helpdesk system next week. Any recommendations? Our key requirement is to be able to reassign incoming tickets and have simple notification to the person it was reassigned.

We have been extremely happy with HelpSpot.

The software is awesome to use and was clearly made by someone who spends lots of time using help desk software -- minimal clicks to get things done, automation rules based on predefined responses, etc.

It's also extremely flexible, and fairly affordable. We manage a pretty decent request load (many 100s/day) with a fairly minimal support staff.

Re: Zendesk raises their prices 60%-300%, users predictably revolt

#82

Post by drusenko »

tyrelb wrote: post #2

Alternatives: http://www.activecampaign.com/help-desk-software/ http://www.kayako.com/ http://webhelpdesk.com/ http://www.atlassian.com/software/jira/default.jsp http://tenderapp.com/ http://www.cerberusweb.com/ http://www.thevisionworld.com/ http://www.autotask.com/software/service_desk.htm

I'd also recommend HelpSpot -- has worked great for us!

Re: Zendesk raises their prices 60%-300%, users predictably revolt

#83

Post by rmoriz »

jackowayed wrote: post #80
jhancock wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I need to setup a helpdesk system next week. Any recommendations? Our key requirement is to be able to reassign incoming tickets and have simple notification to the person it was reassigned.

Tender ( http://tenderapp.com/ ) is pretty nice, and it looks like it's almost always cheaper than Zendesk. (I think the only time Zendesk would really be cheaper is if you're a 1- or 2-person team that can get by on the starter plan.) As a support person, I don't find Tender especially amazing, but it gets the job done and never really gets in the way. But, more importantly, as an end user, I find Tender to be much…

I was evaluating both zendesk and tenderapp last week. Tenderapp had serious confirmed email problems so I had to wait one day to see mails appearing on tenderapp.

This is not the thing we would like as an early startup.

We've to evaluate other services now because neither zendesk nor tenderapp are usable (imho)

Re: Zendesk raises their prices 60%-300%, users predictably revolt

#84

Post by mtrichardson »

jackowayed wrote: post #80
jhancock wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I need to setup a helpdesk system next week. Any recommendations? Our key requirement is to be able to reassign incoming tickets and have simple notification to the person it was reassigned.

Tender ( http://tenderapp.com/ ) is pretty nice, and it looks like it's almost always cheaper than Zendesk. (I think the only time Zendesk would really be cheaper is if you're a 1- or 2-person team that can get by on the starter plan.) As a support person, I don't find Tender especially amazing, but it gets the job done and never really gets in the way. But, more importantly, as an end user, I find Tender to be much…

We user Tender and absolutely love it. They've occasionally have issues with delayed jobs, but they were minor quirks. We use it all the time and cannot recommend it enough.

Re: Zendesk raises their prices 60%-300%, users predictably revolt

#85

Post by Splines »

mikeryan wrote: post #66
paraschopra wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If there is one thing that I have learnt from "Predictably Irrational" book, it is that humans make their money-related decisions by having a reference point. Zendesk could have always been priced at thousand bucks and no one would have complained. But once you set the price, you provide your customers with a reference point which they are going to use. You can't run away from that. For example, even though Microsoft…

Its funny as we move to SAAS models this seems to be a bigger issue. With Desktop apps you could just stick people on a version and let them keep their existing pricing plan with some sort of dedicated EOL. Anyone wanting a newer/better/prettier version would need to pay for the upgrade. This breaks down severely on these web models, where you're more inclined to start out with a lower price and feature set while you…

You could try introducing a tiered pricing model. Allowing users on a lower tier to trial features on a higher tier (or introducing the higher-tier features at a limited mode) might help convert users up.

Re: Zendesk raises their prices 60%-300%, users predictably revolt

#86

Post by ErrantX »

megamark16 wrote: post #67
ryan-allen wrote: post #58

ZenDesk pricing has always confused me. They always pitched themselves as 'for the small smart guys' with all the 37s type philosophies that were popular at the time. And I looked at the product and thought "Wow, this product is actually quite nice!". But we had 5 staff and only one full time support person, but everyone needed an account. The starting price was a bit rich for how small we were and I met the head eva…

"We ended up using eSupport ( which is a complete piece of shit )" Whenever I read something like this I can't help but think "Here's a potential customer to whomever can get this right and at the right price". It seems like there's still a huge opening in this market for someone to come in and take all of ZenDesk and eSupport's customers.

Do you really think so?

It always struck me that there was 1001 support desk providers out there... is there really that much space?

(cos if so it's going on my list of maybe projects :))

Re: Zendesk raises their prices 60%-300%, users predictably revolt

#87

Post by Kaizyn »

megamark16 wrote: post #69
Kaizyn wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

JIRA is horrible. Don't use it if you can avoid it. While it kind of works once it's setup, the software really is terrible.

What's horrible about it? I ask because I really want to know, not because I'm defending JIRA (which I've never used).

The main issue it has is that the management tools are a hack. They (Atlassian) started with a very simple system built around their relational database schema. As more users adopted the system, there was increased demand for a number of additional features to be added in. These have all been tacked in and the fact that they are all an afterthought really shows through in how you setup and manage JIRA projects.

From an end user point of view, JIRA is bad because it is slow, has a bad user interface, and really doesn't quite fit most workflows. If you're trying to track a trouble ticket, which is what JIRA was originally designed for, then it will perform the job adequately. However, anything else forces you to fight more against the system design to get things just the way your work process needs to be.

Re: Zendesk raises their prices 60%-300%, users predictably revolt

#88

Post by jfager »

ahoyhere wrote: post #79
jfager wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is that not an answer? Do you think ZenDesk has anywhere near saturated their market? Why should a company that's aiming to grow take the marketing hit that comes from pissing off their current customers? Why turn potential evangelists into angry detractors?

Why would you assume that market saturation is the goal instead of the highest possible profit margin? Not everyone thinks saturation is economically viable, or even desirable. And honestly, in a market like SaaS web apps, it would be very hard to achieve, even at rock bottom prices. A help desk tool, no matter how crappy, is not a true commodity. One will serve a given customer better than another. Also: I wasn't as…

I didn't say saturation should be a goal, I said that they didn't have anything like it and therefore had room to grow. When each additional paying customer over a certain number is almost pure profit, the number of customers you have is a pretty important factor in determining how to reach the highest possible profit margin, but you know that.

Nobody in this thread ever said "don't raise prices", so I don't really understand why you're preaching the price-raising religion so hard. Fine, yes, raise prices, but grandfathering existing users might be an easy way to do so without causing a backlash that might hurt your ability to acquire new customers at the raised prices. It's certainly not such a stupid idea as to be "not really an answer", like you claim.

Re: Zendesk raises their prices 60%-300%, users predictably revolt

#89

Post by imagetic »

rmoriz wrote: post #83
jackowayed wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tender ( http://tenderapp.com/ ) is pretty nice, and it looks like it's almost always cheaper than Zendesk. (I think the only time Zendesk would really be cheaper is if you're a 1- or 2-person team that can get by on the starter plan.) As a support person, I don't find Tender especially amazing, but it gets the job done and never really gets in the way. But, more importantly, as an end user, I find Tender to be much…

I was evaluating both zendesk and tenderapp last week. Tenderapp had serious confirmed email problems so I had to wait one day to see mails appearing on tenderapp. This is not the thing we would like as an early startup. We've to evaluate other services now because neither zendesk nor tenderapp are usable (imho)

Hey rmoriz. I just wanted to follow up on your email issues with Tender. Did you have an open support discussion I could pull up? We certainly strive to provide the best service possible as we built Tender for supporting our own services and clients and are highly dependent on it.

Re: Zendesk raises their prices 60%-300%, users predictably revolt

#90

Post by jacquesm »

jhancock wrote: post #43
ahoyhere wrote: post #17

I think anyone who uses ZenDesk will know that they don't love their users, or treat their tool like a serious business. (More like a cashcow.) Their software is horrible. There are 6 different ways to view the single table of incoming messages, and it's nondeterministic which one you will come to at any given time. And the first time you accidentally send an internal message to a customer, instead of your team - sin…

I need to setup a helpdesk system next week. Any recommendations? Our key requirement is to be able to reassign incoming tickets and have simple notification to the person it was reassigned.

Try trac for a bit.

We tried it and got hooked.

5 people doing support, thousands of tickets by now and not a single glitch. The built-in wiki also comes in handy.

I had to fiddle for a bit with plug-ins to get email notification and ticket handling to be working properly.

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