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CRM Software

Zendesk Sell

Excellent CRM for your help desk

4.0 Excellent
Zendesk Sell - CRM Software
4.0 Excellent

Bottom Line

Zendesk Sell remains an excellent option for SMBs that need an easy-to-use CRM, especially those seeking robust help desk integrations and user-friendly tools.
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  • Pros

    • Excellent integration with Zendesk's help desk software
    • Explorer feature has useful reporting options
    • Easy onboarding and team-creation features
    • Useful Smart Lists
  • Cons

    • Quickly gets pricey beyond the lowest tier
    • Limited pipelines, even at the highest-priced tiers
    • Basic email and template editor

Zendesk Sell Specs

24-Hour Support
Analytics
Automated Responses
Automatically Collects Social Networking Data
Builds Forms to Collect Data
Chatbot/Conversational AI
Creates Pipelines for Leads
Custom Dashboards
Document Library
Email Routing
Live Chat
Multi-Currency Support
Phone Support
REST API

You might know the Zendesk name from its help desk roots, but a few years ago, the company released Zendesk Sell, its customer relationship management (CRM) tool. We've previously reviewed Zendesk Sell, and found it a good choice for small to midsize businesses (SMBs). This year, Zendesk released a significant update to its original offering that centers on advanced analytics. Although we found those features impressive (particularly its help desk Smart Lists, and reporting options), Zendesk Sell still lags a bit behind our Editors' Choice winner for SMB-friendly CRM, Zoho CRM, mainly because it's got a much higher price tag for noticeably fewer features. Still, Zendesk Sell is an easy-to-use CRM application that has strong SMB appeal. 


Zendesk Sell home screen

What's New in Zendesk Sell?

As mentioned, Zendesk recently released a significant update to its CRM app. The two, big-ticket items are advanced reporting using Explore and prospecting using Reach. Explore is the only way to create a custom report in Zendesk Sell. The app has reporting capabilities without it, but they're canned reports with limited modification options. 

Explore offers a lengthy list of pre-built reports, reports with deep modification and customization tools, and the option to build entirely new ones. However, the feature will almost certainly require users to undertake training, which Zendesk makes available for free online. The builder is straightforward, with all the data and variables you want defined on the left; a report preview in the middle; and various options for selecting graphics and for manipulating results or operations on the right. Again, this isn't lightweight stuff, but once you understand the concepts, it's an intuitive interface that can add many insights.

Zendesk Sell's new Reach feature is similar to what you'll find in several other CRM software, namely the ability to scour numerous, third-party data sources for more information. You can use that to prospect for new opportunities based on selected criteria, such as your industry or product. In addition, you can dig up more information on a particular contact so you can build a more detailed profile. Zendesk says it has database access to more than 44 million businesses and 350 million contact records, so you've got a fairly deep pool to explore. You can even use this data to flesh out conversation and sequence steps. For example, you can create a trigger to hit up a contact using a particular social media channel. 


Getting Started With Zendesk Sell

After an admin-level user accesses Zendesk Sell, it's a quick matter of sending out email invites to get the rest of your sales team onboarded. You can build teams within that structure by assigning roles to users, so managers can pull in their direct reports and keep track of them on their own dashboards—provided you've paid for the permissions capability, which only happens at the Professional tier. If you're considering that, map out your plan before sending invites, so that users don't bounce between teams or managers. 

The main dashboard is similar to what you get with most of the mid-tier CRM contenders we reviewed, such as Act! CRM, Insightly, or Zoho CRM. The interface is a little less colorful than Insightly's, but it's easy to read and customize (so you can up the hues if you want). Like its rivals, Zendesk displays information in cards that the company calls "widgets." There are many default widgets that you can select by hitting the Add Widgets button. 

Zendesk Sell home screen widget selection

If you have custom widgets built around a report or live data, they'll appear on the above list. You can drag and drop widgets anywhere on the home screen so you can immediately see what you need. In addition, you can set up multiple home pages, as you can with competing CRM options. That way, you can have a home page per product or region. Or, if you're a manager, you can have one for your own sales and one for team data. 

We imported our initial contact list from a CSV file, as we did with all our CRM entries. This time, though, we split the sheet in half, importing one as a CSV file and the other as a straight Excel file, since Zendesk supports that, too. Both contact lists imported without issue. You simply drag your file into Zendesk's import box, and let it crunch a bit. After that, you're presented with a data verification screen, which means you're simply matching the data in your file to the default columns in Zendesk Sell. This is an easy, click-by-click operation with lots of examples to avoid confusion.

However, Zendesk doesn't recognize US states by default. It only has a Regions field, presumably to make the default field set more global. That might initially stump some users, but it's not a big deal in practice. It's a text field, so you can manually enter state names or abbreviations. If you need a State field, you can add a custom one in the Settings tab. Just make sure to do it before you import all your data.

That would have avoided another little snag: Our test CSV file assigned an owner to each contact by the owner's name (Oliver). When we imported that file, Zendesk asked that we map the owner name to an existing owner role in our demo system (Press Demo). To get "Oliver" to appear as the owner, we needed to configure that user as a viable owner prior to the import. If we didn't, all owners appeared as Press Demo and we had to manually change them back. Again, this is not rocket science, but it's something you should do before adding a file with a thousand or so names in it. 

Zendesk Sell contacts custom feed builder

Zendesk Sell's Smart Lists

Once you've imported leads, you can view them in a default list view by clicking the Leads icon in the left-hand nav. The view is pretty sparse at first, information-wise, but you can quickly fill that out by turning it into what Zendesk calls a "Smart List." This is just the basic list with whatever additional data columns and filters you add. You set that up in the Edit view, give it a name, and then save those settings. So, instead of seeing just a contact name, organization, and owner, you'll see addresses, states, zip codes, email addresses, or whatever other information you think is important.

After you create a Smart List, those filters automatically update since the list is based on live data. If it's a contact list, for instance, Zendesk adds or removes contacts if they no longer fit the filters you set up (for example, if a contact changed owners to another sales rep). However, there's no alert for this, so you might check a list and wonder where a certain contact went. Another thing we didn't like about setting up a Smart List is that once you add a custom field to the basic display, there doesn't seem to be a way to remove it.

Zendesk relies heavily on Smart Lists to make the system work well. For example, in the default contacts view, you'll see a long list of contact, company, and organization names. Each is presented as a separate entry. That may throw you off if you're coming from a system that breaks these into separate entries, like Onpipeline

You must build a Smart List to see contact or organization names. Fortunately, if you click Settings, you'll find the ability to create a Smart List template for any major data view: Contacts, Deals, or Leads. The template-creating process is the same as it is for an individual user; you can save it as a template, and an admin can assign it to a team (or it can just pop up as an option for users when they first get into the system). 


Zendesk Sell contact detail view

Leads and Deals

Like Insightly, Zendesk Sell's Leads and Contacts are separate elements in the left-hand nav, with separate data entry operations. Until you click "Convert, " a lead stays a lead. Once it's converted, the lead moves to contacts, and will be assigned an organization and a deal if that hasn't already happened. Aside from the convert option, however, a lead's view is the same as a contact's view. 

That view is divided into three columns. On the far left is the lead or contact's basic information (name, address, phone, and the rest). In the middle are three tabs for adding a note, sending an email, or sending a text message or a phone call if you integrate with a business VoIP system, such as RingCentral. If you start a communication, Zendesk tracks it, plus any email responses you get from the contact, return texts, or voice messages. 

It's the column on the far right that holds the most information, however. There, you'll see everything Zendesk has about this contact. If you've set up a sequence (described below), its information displays, too. If you collaborate with a sales reps, any upcoming appointments or tasks associated with that person are also listed; quotes, contracts, and other documents can be attached and accessed here, too.

At the very top of that far-right column is Zendesk's most-touted integration: Zendesk's own help desk system. Customers with access will see their ticket history, and have the ability to browse them. They'll also see any unsolved tickets. The only downside is if you don't have Zendesk for Service, you'll need to do an integration with whatever tool you use. Otherwise, you'll simply see empty fields. 

Zendesk Sell deals summary page

Aside from adding new people, most sales folks will spend the majority of their time in the Deals view. This is also a clean and easy-to-understand screen that's set up around your sales pipeline. The pipeline's stages appear at the top with a list of which deals are active in each stage below. Click through the stages to see them. As with Leads and Contacts, you can (and should) customize this view as a Smart List. Your default information is just the deal name and its associated revenue, so you'll want to add stuff like the owner, region, or the product.

Click a deal, and you're presented with a detailed view that's set up just like the ones in Leads and Contacts, which makes the whole system easy to learn. The only differences are that the far-left column has summary information about the deal, such as where it is in the pipeline, projected revenue and close date, and similar data. The middle column lets you send communications to the primary contact for that deal, and keep a history and responses. Finally, the right-hand column has the most information, including all contacts associated with the deal, any other sales reps working on the deal or with the contact, and any associated help desk information. 

Tasks and appointments related to the deal live here, and you can attach Deal docs that are separate from the Contact docs. All contacts are linked, so you can hop back and forth between the deal and its data. It's a nice setup that's made easy by the data's presentation.

Back in the Deal summary view, you can select between multiple pipelines at the top of the screen, and even set up individual Smart Lists. What you can't do is set up a new pipeline. For that, you need to visit the Settings screen and find the Pipelines option. 

Zendesk Sell pipeline builder

Click Add New Pipeline and you'll have the option to name your pipeline and define the stages. It's easy, except for the fact that you must add a win percentage likelihood to each stage. This is meant to be in sequence, so the first stage should have the lowest likelihood of success, and the last stage should be nearly certain. However, you can set it up any way you want. 

If you'd rather not see your deals mapped to a pipeline, there's also a view that simply lists all active deals to which you're attached. Again, this is customizable as a Smart List, and you can opt for custom fields to give your filters as much leeway as possible. 


Calendar, Email, and Tasks

Zendesk's calendar is where you view all your tasks and appointments, and create new ones. If you're mostly working in either Google Workspace or Microsoft 365, check out the one-click integrations that worked smoothly with our test accounts. Any entered tasks show up there, and vice versa. 

If you're using something other than one of these big-name email providers, you'll need to add IMAP or POP information to make this synchronization work—it didn't work, in our tests. This means you might need an IT person to run interference. 

While you aren't forced to add an email address, as you are with Salesflare, it's definitely worth the effort. Not having an email associated with your Zendesk Sell account means you'll lose out on a lot of the information that Zendesk provides. Being able to send an email from inside the app is good, but the history of your email interaction with any particular contact or lead is probably even more important. 

Zendesk Sell calendar

Zendesk sends appointment alerts to the synced email, which is practically required if you're relying on your mobile device for scheduling. Sure, you can download Zendesk's Android or iOS mobile apps to view your schedule. Still, if you want that at-a-glance information, you must sync your email address. 

In the Contact, Deal, or Lead detail views, you'll find a basic email editor, as well as the option to select a template before you start typing. You can send email from within the mobile apps, but its not ZenDesk's strong point. Hubspot CRM and Insightly do it better. The problem is that if you want to use more advanced options, you must build your template outside of Zendesk and then import it (that's something for your company's IT team). Zendesk makes it easy to drop certain data fields into your email, such as automatically adding the contact's first name to the template subject line. If you're looking to add images, however, you must use a link instead of HTML or drag-and-drop functionality. 

Tasks are also on par with what you'll find in other CRM tools. You can create them from any of the core views—Contacts, Deals, or Leads—and assign them to yourself or someone else. After that, they'll appear wherever the contact or deal show up, as well as in the task owner's calendar. Managers can check on team members' tasks, though this isn't quite as advanced as it is in Zoho CRM (there you can almost use the CRM as a project management tool). Still, it'll be enough for the vast majority of SMBs, and it's easy to learn.


Zendesk Sell sequence configuration

Automation: Sequences and Triggers

In the Settings tab, advanced users can configure custom workflows under the Business Rules heading. This is organized less around workflows, however, than it is around the various stages in the customer conversation. It's almost like you're building automations specific to the different stages of your pipeline. Automations primarily take the form of Sequences or Triggers. 

A sequence lets you define a series of steps, each with a task automation associated with it. These steps are automated to an extent. They'll automatically show up in the appropriate person's task list or the associated contact or deal view, but not to the extent that the Zendesk system sends out emails on its own without human intervention. That's a good thing. Using a sequence for an upsell email, for example, means an email prompt pops up in a contact, the associated deal view, or in the deal or contact owner's view at the right stage in the conversation. That prompt has the correct template already associated with the view, so you can simply modify, sign, and send. You can define as many sequences as you like, and assign them to stages, users, or teams. Alternately, you can select them, add lead or deal data as necessary, and have the sequence run that way, on-demand. 

Triggers are what they sound like: automatic actions that happen when certain conditions are met. Think of them as if/then statements. If someone updates a deal, the trigger could be set to update a custom field with a "Modified" indicator, for example. The language on the Trigger configuration screen is a little database-like, but it's still easy enough to figure out once you play around with it a little. 

Zendesk Sell Explore report builder

How to Buy Zendesk Sell

Compared to its rivals, Zendesk is definitely priced at the high end of the CRM field. The most pared-down Team tier goes for $19 per user per month. This gives you the contact and lead features, customizable deal pipelines, activity and deal tracking, and basic reporting. It's probably too feature-poor to work for any but the smallest businesses, though.

The Growth tier, which costs $49 per user per month, has a better feature set that includes the Reach capability, forecasting, and more advanced reporting options (though still canned). It features bulk email and templates.

The $99-per-user-per-month Professional tier has all the goodies, including the full set of automation features, Explore analytics, lead and deal scoring, as well as permissions and roles (that last one really should be available at least at the Growth stage, though). 

Finally, there's an Enterprise tier for $150 per user per month that builds upon Professional by adding a larger user capacity. 

By way of comparison, Editors' Choice winner Zoho CRM costs $23 per user per month at its Professional tier. Its Ultimate tier, which is comparable to Zendesk's Enterprise tier, is roughly a third of the cost at only $52 per user per month.


A Good CRM App With a Help Desk Focus

Overall, Zendesk Sell is a full-featured product when viewed through an SMB lens, even without the snazzier features. If you're already a Zendesk customer, Zendesk Sell is a no-brainer decision. The Explore and Reach tools keep it competitive with rival CRM offerings, and the interface is easy enough to use that most people won't need significant training to get started. The only drawbacks are its price and focus on help desk features. If help desk is your jam, you'll be happy. That said, if your company needs marketing automation more than help desk data, check out our overall Editors' Choice pick for SMB-friendly CRM, Zoho CRM.

About Oliver Rist