G2 Crowd released the first-ever Grid for Help Desk for Customer Support, which ranks 8 products based on more than 200 user reviews from customer support professionals. Zendesk earned a Leader ranking on the Grid℠; it received the fourth-highest customer satisfaction score, as well as the highest scale score based on its substantial market share and resources. Freshdesk, HappyFox, IssueTrak, and TeamSupport all earned High Performer status based upon high customer satisfaction scores and lower scale scores. Overall, help desk users report an 88% rate of satisfaction with their software. This Grid℠ charts only best of breed help desk software by scale and satisfaction and excludes broader CRM suites that also include strong help desk capabilities such as Salesforce CRM, Microsoft Dynamics CRM, and SugarCRM, which are included in a separate Grid℠ for CRM. Based on their budgets and requirements, buyers can use the Grids℠ and reviews on G2 Crowd to help decide whether a standalone help desk product or a broader CRM suite is a better fit for their requirements. Customer support professionals report high ROI for investments in help desk software; on average, users earn a financial payback period within 9 months of implementation and were typically able to go live within 1 month. “Customers today are purchasing via the web and mobile devices, and they expect to be able to seek and receive support on those same channels, and quickly. Help desk vendors are responding to these trends by adding new functionality, including self-service capabilities, automated responses, and social integration,” said Godard Abel, cofounder of G2 Crowd. “In-depth reviews from users of the products combined with social data on the vendors can help customer support teams pick a product that delivers the features they need to provide the best service.” The Grid℠ ranks help desk software by scale and satisfaction to help professionals find platforms that best match the specific needs, size, and budget of their organization. Satisfaction rankings are generated from the 60-question user reviews, and scale is calculated from vendor size, market share, and social impact. Based on a combination of these scores, each software solution is categorized as a Leader, High Performer, Contender, or Niche. G2 Crowd users can compare products on the Grid℠ by both overall customer satisfaction and by vendor scale and momentum data. In help desk, reviewers also rated specific features such as ticket and case management, call center, and self-service. Future refreshes of the Grid℠ will provide updated rankings based on the latest reviews and social data.

1. G2 Crowd Grid for Help Desk - Winter 2014
Contenders
Leaders
Scale
Zendesk
Parature
Desk
Kayako
Freshdesk
IssueTrak
TeamSupport
HappyFox
Niche
High Performers
Satisfaction