Help Scout vs. SherpaDesk

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Help Scout
Score 7.9 out of 10
N/A
Help Scout is help desk software. The vendor’s value proposition is that that their solution reduces time spent on training users because Help Scout is simple to use and set up and scales like any enterprise product. This solution includes multiple mailboxes to support as many email addresses as needed in order to work collaboratively across teams, and manage several products or brands from one account. Reports on conversation trends, team performance, productivity, and customer happiness are…
$30
per month starts with 100 contacts
SherpaDesk
Score 8.4 out of 10
Mid-Size Companies (51-1,000 employees)
SherpaDesk is a help desk / ticketing platform with time tracking, invoice generation, and business intelligence capabilities.
$0
per agent
Pricing
Help ScoutSherpaDesk
Editions & Modules
Standard
$30
per month starts with 100 contacts
Plus
$90
per month starts with 200 contacts
Company
Contact sales team
1st Tech Free
$0
per agent
Adventure Package
$39
per agent
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Help ScoutSherpaDesk
Free Trial
YesYes
Free/Freemium Version
YesYes
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Help ScoutSherpaDesk
Features
Help ScoutSherpaDesk
Incident and problem management
Comparison of Incident and problem management features of Product A and Product B
Help Scout
8.8
Ratings
9% above category average
SherpaDesk
8.5
Ratings
6% above category average
Organize and prioritize service tickets9.00 Ratings9.10 Ratings
Subscription-based notifications10.00 Ratings9.10 Ratings
Ticket creation and submission8.10 Ratings8.90 Ratings
Ticket response8.10 Ratings8.90 Ratings
ITSM collaboration and documentation00 Ratings6.80 Ratings
Self Help Community
Comparison of Self Help Community features of Product A and Product B
Help Scout
8.5
Ratings
8% above category average
SherpaDesk
7.3
Ratings
7% below category average
External knowledge base9.00 Ratings5.50 Ratings
Internal knowledge base8.00 Ratings9.10 Ratings
Multi-Channel Help
Comparison of Multi-Channel Help features of Product A and Product B
Help Scout
8.0
Ratings
3% above category average
SherpaDesk
9.1
Ratings
16% above category average
Email support8.00 Ratings9.10 Ratings
Help Desk CRM integration8.00 Ratings9.10 Ratings
Customer portal00 Ratings9.10 Ratings
Best Alternatives
Help ScoutSherpaDesk
Small Businesses
Agiloft Service Desk (discontinued)
Agiloft Service Desk (discontinued)
Score 9.0 out of 10
Agiloft Service Desk (discontinued)
Agiloft Service Desk (discontinued)
Score 9.0 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Agiloft Service Desk (discontinued)
Agiloft Service Desk (discontinued)
Score 9.0 out of 10
Agiloft Service Desk (discontinued)
Agiloft Service Desk (discontinued)
Score 9.0 out of 10
Enterprises
SysAid
SysAid
Score 9.1 out of 10
SysAid
SysAid
Score 9.1 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
Help ScoutSherpaDesk
Likelihood to Recommend
7.1
(0 ratings)
8.0
(0 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
7.0
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Usability
10.0
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
Help ScoutSherpaDesk
Likelihood to Recommend
Small businesses that want a conversational type of customer support experience. Nothing wrong with support tickets, but it does make you feel like a number. Also, we needed to get up and running quickly so the "inbox" feel of the dashboard was already familiar with the team so they could adopt the new software quickly.
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[It's] well suited for cloud support applications as there's no installation or maintenance required.
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Pros
  • Extremely simple to use and understand as a user - treats communications like human beings and provides a much more personal feel to communication (as opposed to making people feel like numbers).
  • The email newsletter.
  • They are super responsive. They are pretty rad and transparent: if something goes wrong on their end they are not afraid of admitting fault. Which leads me to trust them because I can believe them. I know that tells you very little about the product, but as leadership, that's something that I really need
  • Help Scout does exactly what it needs to (facilitate organized, efficient conversations between customers and support people) without getting in the way.
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  • Easy for the end user to navigate
  • Integrates well with our Google systems
  • Has a fairly good phone app
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Cons
  • It is a bit slow sometimes, but not very often.
  • I've noticed more network errors with their server in the past year.
  • Small annoyance - they use a lot of lightbox popups and if you click outside the box all of your work is lost.
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  • Will load slow sometimes
  • Could have more knowledge base articles
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Likelihood to Renew
We are receiving feedback from the organizational level that they may want us to transition to a different solution to provide consistency across the company.
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No answers on this topic
Usability
Help Scout is a great solution for support teams. There are many articles and webinars to help you learn how to use Help Scout. There are also many features to help make your workflows easier and more efficient. I would readily recommend Help Scout to any small or medium-growing support teams.
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No answers on this topic
Alternatives Considered
This is tricky because there's helpdesk apps and chat apps (now Help Scout offers both). We first used just an email inbox (of course not scalable but we were very small), then we turned to Freshdesk, which was painful to use. It had some cool features but in general it was ugly, slow, using the interface was very non-intuitive and the prioritization was hard. I have to say this was more than a year ago, so probably they have changed, but anyway. Zendesk is very expensive considering the features are almost the same AND the chat app needs to be paid separately. As chat we used Tawk.to, it was functional but metrics were not that good and it was buggy at times. Comparing Help Scout with their competitors, at least for us, made it a no-brainer to hire them. The price was very attractive considering the amount of features, the great support and the quality of the app. I don't regret my decision at all because Help Scout, unlike other helpdesk companies, tries to have their app "smart" and not a big, corporate thing piled with features. It does what it needs, it's easy to use and helps you achieve your goals regarding support for your customers.
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When looking for solutions for our business, I personally looked at Aautotask. I am not the decision maker so I don't know what my boss looked at in full. Autotask seems good. It looked like it got a bit complicated and may be for very large enterprise customers. Just lots of features that we don't need.
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Return on Investment
  • We are able to retain our customer base due to the outstanding customer service our Customer Experience department provides. Without an organized tool like Help Scout, this would not be possible. We pride ourselves in quick response times to customers and are able to do so by effectively routing tickets to the right agents.
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  • As a single freelance consultant Sherpadesk has exceptional ROI because it's free but if my company had more support people I would definetly go with SherpaDesk again.
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ScreenShots

Help Scout Screenshots

Screenshot of Build better relationships with your customers, and work together better as a teamScreenshot of Tools designed specifically for team collaboration on customer supportScreenshot of Docs Knowledge Base provides self-service that sets your customers up for successScreenshot of The conversation report can change the conversation with your customers from problems to praise by pinpointing what they write in about and when.Screenshot of Productivity Reports track your team's customer-helping velocity and identify sticking points to push through with even greater momentum.Screenshot of Happiness Reports are the closest you can get to your customer's true feelings without hiring a telepath.

SherpaDesk Screenshots

Screenshot of Techs get instant access to what needs to be done and how they are performing against their teamScreenshot of Manage all open tickets and sort by priority on what needs to be completed firstScreenshot of Track and enter all billable and non-billable timeScreenshot of Review project progress and profitabilityScreenshot of Create flexible rate plans and compile invoices that can be sent out through QuickBooks or FreshBooks integrationsScreenshot of Update customer requests, add time and expenses remotely