Agiloft Service Desk (discontinued) vs. Salesforce Service Cloud

Agiloft is a fully GUI based system that requires very little or no coding. That allows for a very quick deployment of a new install and for adding new features. Therefore, it works great for companies that don't want to write a new system from the ground up.

This cloud is a good option for attracting large numbers of customers for mid-scale and large-scale organizations. However, it’s not suitable for small companies or startups due to its high cost. For use cases where real-time input from customers is taken and then processed on the cloud to give them output, this platform is a must.

Incentivized

• Agiloft's performance has been excellent. This includes 1) Scalability, 2) System response, and 3) Reliability. We have not had a reported issue with the system for at least 2 years.
• Professional Services. When we had an issue interfacing with an external data mart we brought in Agiloft's Professional Services and got a quick, cost-effective solution.
• Strategic Planning. As we look to the future we are hoping to move to the ITIL model. We love Agiloft's solution and have embraced it as our future direction.
• Flexibility. This includes 1) Custom form design, 2) Routing based on just about any criteria, 3) Addition of attributes, 4) Search capabilities for end users.

• Super fast set-up of the service from design through to production.
• Robust method of release management from sandbox, to test, to production.
• User access controls can be fine grain, which is great for GDPR requirements, limiting access to only necessary data.
• Simple api integrations with other third party systems
• Broad range of features and functionality
• Einstein search features provides faster information mining for our agents as they help to resolve customer requests.

Incentivized

• They could build a slicker look to the graphical charts output for the reports. These look a bit dated, and I would like the ability to customize them more.
• I find that some features of the tool are difficult to find, and aren't necessarily in the most common sense of places. This definitely eases with experience with the tool, but initially it will take some time just to figure out the setup of the tool and where things are located. For example, permissions can be set on many different levels, which is great, but logically finding where to find the differing permission levels is difficult at first. I would suggest attending their admin training session to initiate yourself with the tool at first, so you're not as reliant on Agiloft initially to guide you in building the tool, which can get expensive.

• A free trial would be extremely valuable to customers who are not able to commit to a full plan.
• The pricing of this program is not priced competitively with other similar services.
• Can be quite time consuming to maintain.
• Not user friendly if you aren’t tech savvy/familiar with software.

Incentivized

We have invested a lot of effort in tailoring the solution to our needs. Our users (both internal and external) are comfortable with it and we have aligned it with our workflow. We have also integrated it into our implementation processes and are working to connect it to our SDLC.

Professional edition works best for a small company with lower call volumes and is very useful but as you grow exponetially I think it has limited ability to do all the things we want to - SLA management, defect, release management to name a few. Reports and dashboards being available in real time.

For the most part, it is an easy and intuitive system to use. There are many small things that could be improved to make the system work even easier. However, overall it is very easy to use if you have a good grasp on computer programs and using them to build things. I do not have any computer science or programming background, and I am able to use this system with few problems.

I love that the Salesforce Service cloud provides all of the functionality that I need when implementing business processes for our customer support representatives. It even has enough functions and features that allow us to customize and expand upon our current processes, giving us the ability to go above and beyond what we've thought we could ever do. Using cases coupled with Salesforce's automation tools help ease the workload and keeps our data integrity intact.

Incentivized

Salesforce's Trust Center clearly communicates occasional issues to anyone who subscribes, down to an organization's cloud instance. Bundled sandboxes ease updates, and seasonal upgrades are seamless, scheduled well in advance with plenty of information about what's coming. Support agents have noticed intermittent Omni-Channel disconnects due to internet connections, and these are clearly notified.

Load times can be slow, but this is also based on how much customization you have done. We added a lot of custom fields which could cause additional slowness in loading. This was never anything that affected our overall efficiency. I did not notice that Service Cloud slowed down any of the systems we had it integrated with

Incentivized

We often hear back very quickly with answers to our questions. They also support their answers at times with screenshots and videos to help further explain their advice and suggestions. The only reason it isn't a 10 is because sometimes using only the online support system, sometimes things aren't communicated as well as they would be over the phone. However, we know if there is a major issue going on, we can call Agiloft for support.

Salesforce offers support, although it generally gets routed to overseas support teams first, and once they are unable to help, it gets escalated up the chain to higher tiers. Frequently, the answer back from support is that there is no native solution, and we either have to turn to the AppExchange for some solution provided by another developer, or custom build our own solution.

Our in-person training was provided by our implementation partner and it was quite good. This was in part because we were already working with them and so it naturally leant itself to a good training relationship. And because they were building our customizations and configuring things, they could then provide training on those things naturally.

Incentivized

Trailheads are great but it was often unclear what actually applied to our organization. This made it difficult to get a whole lot out of it. Part of it is that because the basic Salesforce features didn't quite work for us, we had to add customizations, which then nullified a lot of the training.

Incentivized

I would go through an implementation very differently knowing what I know now. It was difficult coming from systems we liked in post-sales service and having to adapt to the clunky and underwhelming feature set in Salesforce. I would trim back our expectations

Incentivized

Agiloft's singular advantage is its ease of customization that allows you to capture automation requirements right at the point of use. We knew our company would always be developing new requirements for its customer-facing processes and any tool that made customization difficult was an inferior choice for us. Other vendors offered similar levels of customization, but when we dug deeper, Agiloft was the only one that delivered it. Our management team came from the IT and development side of NetSuite and we have used it to manage our business almost since inception. However, its support, marketing, and sales functionality was too difficult to modify and built to meet too broad a set of requirements, so we could never get full adoption or utilization, and it stood in the way of delivering the service levels we needed to provide our customers. We still use NetSuite for back-of-the-house financial functions which don't need that level of customization, but for everything else, the way forward has led us to choose Agiloft.

I honestly prefer Zendesk to Salesforce Service Cloud. I find that Zendesk is easier to manage both on the support ticket side, as well as the knowledge center side. It looks and feels easier to use than Salesforce Service Cloud. Salesforce Service Cloud is fine, but it is expensive as well.

Incentivized

The product has scaled up with our company growth just fine. No issues here other than slowness in clicking around and running reports

Incentivized

• Helps us organize tasks and projects and the data associated with each project
• Helps us organize our resources to meet the demand of issues and events
• This has helped us keep moving forward during times we otherwise would have pulled back.
• Completely revolutionized our way of work life. Upwards of approx 300 percent productivity and complexity..

• We have cut our service team in half over the past 5 years due to the efficiency of the tool
• The amount of direct inquiries to our technical team is less than 10% compared to the number support tickets that get entered in the system for them to work in a more organized manner
• Responses are 100% more timely because tickets can be responded to by any individual in the queue or on the team, as opposed to direct emails to just one person

Incentivized