ServiceNow vs Kayako

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Our analysts compared ServiceNow vs Kayako based on data from our 400+ point analysis of Help Desk Software, user reviews and our own crowdsourced data from our free software selection platform.

ServiceNow Software Tool
Kayako Software Tool

Product Basics

ServiceNow's Help Desk Software streamlines customer service processes, providing a centralized platform for issue tracking, incident management, and knowledge management. It's ideal for businesses seeking to improve their help desk efficiency and customer satisfaction. Key benefits include automated workflows, customizable dashboards, and self-service portals. Popular features encompass ticket assignment, SLA management, and knowledge base creation.

In comparison to similar products, ServiceNow excels in its comprehensive functionality and scalability. User experiences highlight its intuitive interface, ease of customization, and robust reporting capabilities. Pricing considerations include a subscription-based model with flexible payment options, allowing businesses to tailor their investment to their specific needs.

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Kayako is a comprehensive Help Desk Software designed to streamline customer support operations. It's ideal for businesses of all sizes seeking to improve customer satisfaction and streamline communication. Key benefits include centralized ticketing, automated workflows, and robust reporting for improved efficiency and visibility.

Popular features include a customizable knowledge base, self-service portal, and omnichannel support. Its user-friendly interface and intuitive navigation make it accessible to teams of all technical backgrounds. Compared to similar products, Kayako is highly rated for its ease of use, customization options, and excellent customer support.

Pricing varies depending on the number of agents and features required. It offers flexible payment options, including monthly and annual subscriptions, to suit different business needs.

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$4,500/User, Annually
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Windows
Mac
Linux
Android
Chromebook
Windows
Mac
Linux
Android
Chromebook
Cloud
On-Premise
Mobile
Cloud
On-Premise
Mobile

Product Assistance

Documentation
In Person
Live Online
Videos
Webinars
Documentation
In Person
Live Online
Videos
Webinars
Email
Phone
Chat
FAQ
Forum
Knowledge Base
24/7 Live Support
Email
Phone
Chat
FAQ
Forum
Knowledge Base
24/7 Live Support

Product Insights

  • Enhanced Productivity: Streamlined workflows and automation tools reduce manual tasks, allowing agents to focus on higher-value activities.
  • Improved Customer Satisfaction: Centralized knowledge base, intuitive self-service portal, and personalized communication channels elevate customer experiences.
  • Increased Efficiency: Automated ticket routing, escalation rules, and proactive notifications optimize ticket management, minimizing resolution times.
  • Enhanced Collaboration: Integrated communication channels and real-time collaboration tools foster seamless teamwork between agents and other departments.
  • Data-Driven Insights: Comprehensive reporting and analytics provide valuable insights into performance metrics, enabling data-informed decision-making.
  • Improved IT Service Management: Integration with IT infrastructure and monitoring tools provides a comprehensive view of IT service delivery, streamlining incident management.
  • Enhanced Employee Experience: Self-service capabilities, knowledge sharing forums, and personalized dashboards empower employees to resolve issues efficiently.
  • Reduced Costs: Automation and process optimization reduce operational expenses and minimize the need for additional staffing.
  • Improved Compliance: Adherence to industry regulations and standards through automated compliance checks and reporting capabilities.
  • Scalability and Flexibility: Modular design and cloud-based architecture enable ServiceNow to adapt to changing business needs and scale as required.
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  • Increase Support Effectiveness: Enforce workforce SLAs and standardize performance quality across staff. Automate common tasks such as sending reminders and notifications, escalating queries, assigning conversations, and optimizing response and resolution times. 
  • Offer Stellar Self-Service: Help customers find solutions without the need for a live agent through step-by-step troubleshooters and a comprehensive knowledge base. Answer queries at all hours with an AI-powered Instant Response System. 
  • Ensure Quality: Use knowledge base ratings and customer satisfaction surveys to measure agent performance. Gain insight into marketing segmentation, projected customer behavior and areas of improvement through reports. 
  • Engage Leads: Turn website visitors into potential customers with geographical visitor monitoring, proactive live chat and click-to-call (VoIP). 
  • Integrate Easily: Extend your customer support platform by integrating with APIs for products such as Zapier, Slack and Salesforce. 
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  • Customer Service Management: Enable the back, middle and front offices to address customer issues and automate common requests prudently. Get access to robust tools such as dashboards, cross-portal search and activity feed to enhance the customer experience and improve the team’s productivity. 
    • Communities: Connect customers with peers to solve problems, share ideas, solutions and experiences and find answers via online forums. 
    • Gamification: Encourage engagement through elements like levels, points and badges. 
    • Case Integration: Escalate unanswered questions or issues into cases manually or automatically. 
    • Harvest Knowledge: Allow moderators to turn solutions into knowledge articles.
  • Knowledge Management: Offer a customer-grade search experience to users with contextual knowledge powered by AI capabilities and machine learning. Monitor timelines, knowledge use, aging, gaps and feedback via dashboards and analytics to fine-tune processes and content. 
  • Microsoft Word Authoring: Offer a familiar writing experience to users with a Microsoft Word online integration. Create reusable knowledge articles to reduce repetition and redundancy 
  • Feedback Management: Manage feedback with exceptional automatic closed-loop processes. 
  • Performance Analytics: Solve customer issues with better insights into real-time trends and patterns. Improve team productivity and decrease repetitions and failures with dashboards, analytics hub, spotlights and KPI signals. 
  • Subscription: Allow users to subscribe to a knowledge base, articles and to receive automatic notifications about any new content. 
  • Virtual Agent: Help customers resolve issues instantly via an AI-powered chatbot. Transfer conversation history to the most appropriate agent who can resolve issues quickly through live-agent hand-off. Use a built-in NLU engine to connect Microsoft LUIS and IBM Watson Assistant to identify map entities and intents. 
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  • Self-Service: Give customers access to resources such as self-help articles, FAQs, videos and 24/7 virtual support help with automated replies to common questions. Monitor search terms to identify gaps and optimize content according to customer needs. 
  • SingleView: Capture entire customer journeys in a centralized, easy-to-use visualization. Easily enable collaboration among employees with unified resources. 
  • Live Chat: Provide convenient service to customers with instant chats on web and mobile platforms. Send proactive messages based on information from conversations and behavior. 
  • Integration: Build intelligent, multi-step workflows across various channels and apps in a few clicks. Automate systems to organize, customize and provide proactive support to customers. Generate reports to forecast customer behavior and strategically adapt business practices.  
  • Shared Inbox: Manage all conversations with customers in a central location. Categorize and route discussions to the most appropriate agents automatically. Access records of entire customer contact history. 
  • Ticketing Software: Assign and prioritize tickets through an AI-supported ticketing system. Sort communications by keyword and category in team inboxes. 
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Product Ranking

#4

among all
Help Desk Software

#21

among all
Help Desk Software

Find out who the leaders are

Analyst Rating Summary

80
67
83
50
56
0
92
67
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Dashboards and Reporting
Platform Security
Platform Capabilities
Team Collaboration
Platform Security
Ticket Management

Analyst Ratings for Functional Requirements Customize This Data Customize This Data

ServiceNow
Kayako
+ Add Product + Add Product
Agent Productivity Call Center Management Dashboards And Reporting Email Management Live Chat Management Mobile Capabilities Platform Capabilities Team Collaboration Ticket Management 83 56 92 76 79 50 88 88 75 50 0 67 84 73 30 68 79 87 0 25 50 75 100
83%
0%
17%
50%
0%
50%
0%
58%
42%
0%
0%
100%
83%
0%
17%
67%
0%
33%
71%
0%
29%
86%
0%
14%
73%
0%
27%
64%
0%
36%
40%
0%
60%
40%
0%
60%
83%
4%
13%
63%
0%
37%
83%
0%
17%
67%
0%
33%
71%
6%
23%
88%
0%
12%

Analyst Ratings for Technical Requirements Customize This Data Customize This Data

68%
0%
32%
58%
0%
42%
78%
11%
11%
89%
0%
11%

User Sentiment Summary

Great User Sentiment 572 reviews
Great User Sentiment 551 reviews
82%
of users recommend this product

ServiceNow has a 'great' User Satisfaction Rating of 82% when considering 572 user reviews from 4 recognized software review sites.

81%
of users recommend this product

Kayako has a 'great' User Satisfaction Rating of 81% when considering 551 user reviews from 5 recognized software review sites.

n/a
4.9 (16)
4.0 (248)
4.1 (197)
n/a
3.99 (162)
4.3 (50)
4.0 (156)
4.4 (82)
n/a
4.1 (192)
3.2 (20)

Synopsis of User Ratings and Reviews

Robust Ticket Management: Efficiently manage and track tickets from submission to resolution, with customizable workflows and automated notifications.
Seamless Integrations: Effortlessly connect with other business systems, such as CRM, ERP, and HR, for a unified view of customer interactions.
Comprehensive Knowledge Base: Empower users with self-service options by creating and managing a searchable knowledge base of FAQs and solutions.
Automated Workflows: Streamline processes by automating repetitive tasks, such as ticket assignment, escalation, and status updates.
Real-Time Analytics: Gain valuable insights into performance metrics, customer trends, and areas for improvement through customizable dashboards and reports.
Mobile Accessibility: Provide remote teams and users with access to the help desk platform anytime, anywhere, through mobile applications.
Enhanced Collaboration: Foster teamwork and knowledge sharing among support agents through integrated chat, forums, and collaboration tools.
Scalability and Flexibility: Easily adapt the platform to changing business needs, with the ability to handle large volumes of tickets and integrate with new systems as required.
Excellent Customer Support: Receive dedicated support from ServiceNow's team of experts to ensure smooth implementation and ongoing assistance.
Proven Track Record: Leverage a platform trusted by leading organizations worldwide, with a proven track record of delivering exceptional help desk solutions.
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User-Friendly Interface: Kayako's intuitive design makes it easy for users to navigate and find the information they need quickly.
Comprehensive Features: Kayako offers a wide range of features, including ticketing, knowledge base, live chat, and reporting, all in one platform.
Automation Capabilities: Kayako's automation tools, such as auto-responders and ticket routing, streamline workflows and save time.
Mobile Accessibility: Kayako's mobile app allows users to access and manage their help desk from anywhere, at any time.
Excellent Customer Support: Kayako's support team is highly responsive and provides personalized assistance to users.
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Steep Learning Curve: Navigating ServiceNow's complex interface and functionality requires significant training and experience, leading to slow adoption and productivity challenges.
Customization Limitations: While ServiceNow offers customization options, they can be restrictive and time-consuming, hindering organizations from tailoring the platform to their specific needs.
Costly Implementation: Implementing ServiceNow can be expensive, involving licensing fees, professional services, and ongoing maintenance costs, which may not align with all budgets.
Limited Reporting Capabilities: ServiceNow's built-in reporting features may fall short of providing comprehensive insights and analytics, requiring additional third-party tools or custom development.
Slow Performance: Users have reported instances of slow performance and responsiveness within ServiceNow, particularly during peak usage times, affecting productivity and user satisfaction.
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Limited Customization: Users complain about Kayako's limited customization options, making it difficult to tailor the software to their specific business needs.
Complex User Interface: Kayako's user interface is often criticized for being overly complex and difficult to navigate, leading to a steep learning curve for new users.
Frequent Bugs and Glitches: Users report experiencing frequent bugs and glitches within Kayako, which can disrupt their workflow and hinder productivity.
Slow Response Times: Kayako's response times for support queries have been reported as slow, leaving users waiting for extended periods to resolve issues.
Lack of Integration Options: Kayako's limited integration options make it challenging to connect with other business applications, hindering seamless data flow and automation.
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ServiceNow's Help Desk Software receives consistent praise for its intuitive interface, robust automation capabilities, and comprehensive reporting features. Users appreciate its ability to streamline workflows, improve efficiency, and provide real-time visibility into support operations. However, some reviewers note that its complex configuration and customization options can be daunting for small teams or those with limited technical expertise. Compared to similar products, ServiceNow stands out for its scalability, enterprise-grade security, and extensive integration options. Its ability to handle large volumes of support requests and integrate seamlessly with other business systems makes it a popular choice for large organizations. However, its higher cost and steep learning curve may not be suitable for smaller businesses or those with less demanding support needs. Overall, ServiceNow's Help Desk Software is best suited for large organizations seeking a comprehensive and scalable solution. Its strengths in automation, reporting, and integration make it a valuable tool for streamlining support operations and improving customer satisfaction.

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Kayako is well-regarded by users for its comprehensive feature set, intuitive interface, and excellent customer support. Many users find it to be a superior alternative to Zendesk due to its more affordable pricing, customizable automation, and robust reporting capabilities. Additionally, Kayako's omnichannel support, which allows for seamless communication across multiple channels, sets it apart from other help desk software. However, some users have reported occasional glitches and limited customization options compared to more expensive competitors. Nevertheless, Kayako remains a highly recommended choice for businesses seeking a reliable and user-friendly help desk solution, particularly for those looking for an affordable and feature-rich option. Its strengths in automation, reporting, and omnichannel support make it an excellent fit for businesses looking to streamline their customer support operations and provide a seamless customer experience.

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