Kustomer vs. Zendesk Sell

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Kustomer
Score 8.7 out of 10
N/A
Kustomer is a customer service CRM platform built for managing high support volume by optimizing experiences throughout the customer service journey. Kustomer was acquired by Facebook in late 2020, but spun out in 2023 and re-launched as an independent entity, Kustomer, LLC.
$89
per month, per user
Zendesk Sell
Score 8.8 out of 10
N/A
Zendesk Sell (formerly Base CRM) is a CRM that aims to give reps access to integrated tools that provide the full context of a customer account. This keeps them in the loop and allows them to capitalize on opportunities. Zendesk Sell can be extended with Reach, a lead generation and engagement tool that automates the process of finding and keeping leads interested, so reps can focus more on building relationships and crushing their quotas. Base CRM was founded in 2009, and acquired by Zendesk…
$19
per seat/month billed annually
Pricing
KustomerZendesk Sell
Editions & Modules
Enterprise
$89
per month, per user
Ultimate
$139
per month, per user
Sell Team
$19.00
per seat/month billed annually
Reach prospecting enrichment add-on (requires a Sell Subscription)
$27.00
Per User Per Month (billed annually)
Sell Professional
$49.00
per seat/month billed annually
Sell Enterprise
$99.00
per seat/month billed annually
Sell Elite
$199.00
per seat/month billed annually
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
KustomerZendesk Sell
Free Trial
NoYes
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional DetailsAll plans require an annual subscription and 8 users minimum.
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
KustomerZendesk Sell
Features
KustomerZendesk Sell
Incident and problem management
Comparison of Incident and problem management features of Product A and Product B
Kustomer
8.1
Ratings
1% above category average
Zendesk Sell
-
Ratings
Organize and prioritize service tickets8.00 Ratings00 Ratings
Expert directory8.30 Ratings00 Ratings
Subscription-based notifications8.50 Ratings00 Ratings
ITSM collaboration and documentation8.00 Ratings00 Ratings
Ticket creation and submission8.00 Ratings00 Ratings
Ticket response8.00 Ratings00 Ratings
Self Help Community
Comparison of Self Help Community features of Product A and Product B
Kustomer
8.5
Ratings
8% above category average
Zendesk Sell
-
Ratings
External knowledge base8.00 Ratings00 Ratings
Internal knowledge base9.00 Ratings00 Ratings
Multi-Channel Help
Comparison of Multi-Channel Help features of Product A and Product B
Kustomer
8.0
Ratings
3% above category average
Zendesk Sell
-
Ratings
Customer portal8.60 Ratings00 Ratings
IVR8.30 Ratings00 Ratings
Social integration7.30 Ratings00 Ratings
Email support10.00 Ratings00 Ratings
Help Desk CRM integration6.00 Ratings00 Ratings
Sales Force Automation
Comparison of Sales Force Automation features of Product A and Product B
Kustomer
-
Ratings
Zendesk Sell
6.6
Ratings
15% below category average
Customer data management / contact management00 Ratings8.90 Ratings
Workflow management00 Ratings6.10 Ratings
Territory management00 Ratings4.90 Ratings
Opportunity management00 Ratings7.90 Ratings
Integration with email client (e.g., Outlook or Gmail)00 Ratings6.90 Ratings
Contract management00 Ratings5.40 Ratings
Quote & order management00 Ratings3.90 Ratings
Interaction tracking00 Ratings7.90 Ratings
Channel / partner relationship management00 Ratings7.80 Ratings
Customer Service & Support
Comparison of Customer Service & Support features of Product A and Product B
Kustomer
-
Ratings
Zendesk Sell
9.0
Ratings
18% above category average
Case management00 Ratings9.00 Ratings
Call center management00 Ratings9.00 Ratings
Help desk management00 Ratings9.00 Ratings
Marketing Automation
Comparison of Marketing Automation features of Product A and Product B
Kustomer
-
Ratings
Zendesk Sell
6.9
Ratings
9% below category average
Lead management00 Ratings6.00 Ratings
Email marketing00 Ratings7.80 Ratings
CRM Project Management
Comparison of CRM Project Management features of Product A and Product B
Kustomer
-
Ratings
Zendesk Sell
5.3
Ratings
36% below category average
Task management00 Ratings8.00 Ratings
Billing and invoicing management00 Ratings1.00 Ratings
Reporting00 Ratings7.00 Ratings
CRM Reporting & Analytics
Comparison of CRM Reporting & Analytics features of Product A and Product B
Kustomer
-
Ratings
Zendesk Sell
8.2
Ratings
8% above category average
Forecasting00 Ratings7.80 Ratings
Pipeline visualization00 Ratings7.90 Ratings
Customizable reports00 Ratings9.00 Ratings
Customization
Comparison of Customization features of Product A and Product B
Kustomer
-
Ratings
Zendesk Sell
4.2
Ratings
56% below category average
Custom fields00 Ratings7.80 Ratings
Custom objects00 Ratings4.90 Ratings
Scripting environment00 Ratings1.10 Ratings
API for custom integration00 Ratings3.00 Ratings
Security
Comparison of Security features of Product A and Product B
Kustomer
-
Ratings
Zendesk Sell
9.5
Ratings
13% above category average
Single sign-on capability00 Ratings9.90 Ratings
Role-based user permissions00 Ratings9.00 Ratings
Social CRM
Comparison of Social CRM features of Product A and Product B
Kustomer
-
Ratings
Zendesk Sell
4.0
Ratings
59% below category average
Social data00 Ratings1.00 Ratings
Social engagement00 Ratings6.90 Ratings
Integrations with 3rd-party Software
Comparison of Integrations with 3rd-party Software features of Product A and Product B
Kustomer
-
Ratings
Zendesk Sell
5.4
Ratings
30% below category average
Marketing automation00 Ratings9.80 Ratings
Compensation management00 Ratings1.00 Ratings
Platform
Comparison of Platform features of Product A and Product B
Kustomer
-
Ratings
Zendesk Sell
8.0
Ratings
9% above category average
Mobile access00 Ratings8.00 Ratings
Best Alternatives
KustomerZendesk Sell
Small Businesses
Agiloft Service Desk (discontinued)
Agiloft Service Desk (discontinued)
Score 9.0 out of 10
Salesmate
Salesmate
Score 10.0 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Agiloft Service Desk (discontinued)
Agiloft Service Desk (discontinued)
Score 9.0 out of 10
Creatio
Creatio
Score 9.7 out of 10
Enterprises
SysAid
SysAid
Score 9.1 out of 10
Creatio
Creatio
Score 9.7 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
KustomerZendesk Sell
Likelihood to Recommend
9.0
(0 ratings)
10.0
(0 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
7.9
(0 ratings)
9.0
(0 ratings)
Usability
10.0
(0 ratings)
8.9
(0 ratings)
Availability
9.1
(0 ratings)
10.0
(0 ratings)
Performance
6.4
(0 ratings)
10.0
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
9.4
(0 ratings)
8.8
(0 ratings)
In-Person Training
7.6
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Online Training
8.3
(0 ratings)
7.0
(0 ratings)
Implementation Rating
7.9
(0 ratings)
8.0
(0 ratings)
Configurability
7.9
(0 ratings)
10.0
(0 ratings)
Ease of integration
7.2
(0 ratings)
10.0
(0 ratings)
Product Scalability
9.1
(0 ratings)
10.0
(0 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
8.7
(0 ratings)
10.0
(0 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
9.1
(0 ratings)
10.0
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
KustomerZendesk Sell
Likelihood to Recommend
It works really well for you to ask a teammate to review a case/email/message and provide some input since you can all review the same conversations and client accounts. They can also cover your inbox using your email handle in case you are out of the office suing some well deserved PTO.
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I think that for a company that creates any sales and needs to house their client information, the Base is perfect. The price of the program makes it completely worth the investment. And to be able to use customizations makes it possible for any business that does sales use Base for their orders. I would say for companies that use legal contracts or binding contracts for their business, Base may be too simple for their needs. We work in tandem with a company that always has contracts going back and forth, and the build out of the customizations here weren't really going to work for them.
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Pros
  • All customer data (past orders, communication with customer service, rewards account data) is in one place. This helps agents avoid confusion and reduces the number of tabs they need to open.
  • The Knowledge Base (or K Base) is very helpful. Any time we roll out a new policy or have a limited-time promotion, we can add all the relevant information and worksheets there for the convenience of the agents. That way they can stay in a chat while looking up the answer to a question.
  • We can seamlessly move from chat into email if the customer leaves or the queue times are too long. All the interactions will stay on the customer profile page, so they are kept up to date.
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  • Integrates well with FullContact, Slack via Zapier, and Gmail and google calendar.
  • Excellent mobile app for iPhone lets salespeople have data at their fingertips and enter notes at conferences, in elevators, wherever.
  • Does all the basic things a salesperson needs to be productive, contacts capture, deal capture, documents, smart linking of contacts to deals, and nice reminder features.
Read full review
Cons
  • For our team, the feature that defaults all notes to begin in "done" status is difficult. Throughout each day we need to have notes open and assigned back and forth to different teams, and we have to remember to manually "open" each note. There is too much room for human error with this setting, and it is easy for important notes to be missed if a user forgets to open the note.
  • Similarly, it can be hard to remember to assign emails/notes to a particular team in addition to a user. We almost exclusively work out of team inboxes, and if someone on Care writes an email to a customer, the email will automatically be "done" when it is created, and it will be assigned to the user who wrote it, but not also to the user's team. There are instances where an email needs to be snoozed for several days/hours with further action needed, and unless the user remembers to assign the email to their team it may "awake" from the snooze and not be visible to anyone except the user who created it. Similarly to my first comment, this leaves a lot of room for human error and is not very intuitive.
  • Personally, I do not love that all tickets/emails/notes are jumbled together in the same inbox. While this gives visibility to everything on the "to do" list at the same time, it can be visually overwhelming. We have created unique folders for certain types of projects or categories of work, but have experienced tech glitches or just the awkwardness of another step to manually read the note, determine what type of category it is, and then manually assign it to another folder. Would love to have things auto-sort and take out this manual lift.
  • I love the idea of the autopilot setting, but we have not been able to use this for our work because it sorts items based on time, and not based on priority. In our line of work, we may have an urgent situation arise that needs attention before an email that was sent in 60 minutes ago. The autopilot feature would push the email to my associates sooner than it would the urgent situation from 5 minutes ago. Due to this, we manually monitor inboxes and assign work to ourselves and others.
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  • There was no ability to add prospects from a company domain or email to auto-fill any data.
  • You had to type in all of the data you gathered about that prospect.
  • The default only gave you two phone numbers for the company, too few.
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Likelihood to Renew
Because there's no other tool like Kustomer
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The integration with the other Zendesk products is key. Allows other people in the company, such as support, to be involved in the sales process.
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Usability
There is a learning curve, but it is more than worth it, especially to have a dedicated resource pointed at Kustomer and any other software it interacts with. The basic implementation is useful, and powerful - certainly a MASSIVE upgrade over taking care of your customers in an email inbox or shuffling between multiple windows and applications! It is also set up really well to grow and reconfigure with your business. I'm a big fan.
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I received about two hours worth of training on Zendesk Sell (formerly Base CRM). I will say it's a clean look and the ability to change views is extremely helpful. I do wish there were other features that allowed the views to be more simplistic. Some views can be overwhelming to look at. Nevertheless with the minimum training, I am still able to navigate through Zendesk Sell (formerly Base CRM) successfully due to the ease of usability.
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Reliability and Availability
Because Kustomer is available when you need it
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Always available and easy connection from Zendesk Support
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Performance
Because ages load quickly, reports complete in a reasonable time frame, given their complexity
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Never any latency issues
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Support Rating
It’s a great tool that has helped our company and overall customer service. I believe if we were able to edit certain setting for our specific company that would be hopeful. We have been told before that certain desires of ours would make a change throughout all of Kustomer. Which is not something we would want, we would just want that to change for our business.
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Due to the ease of the product, I have not had the chance to reach out to support yet. I’ve had no reason. The resources provided to clients are extremely helpful and detailed. So far my questions have been pretty basic and I generally just ask my colleague or teammate. They're able to assist with the answer.
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In-Person Training
Because they are very hands-on in training us and very approachable
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No answers on this topic
Online Training
It was very easy to understand.
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This product has a great backing of users, but needs more options direct from Base CRM on all operations of the software. YouTube videos do a great job of helping implement, and the back end support is a great help as well. The CRM is a great free option, and should be treated as such.
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Implementation Rating
Nothing really because it is easy to use. After an hour of using it, we're already getting the hang of it.
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Simple, and straight forward.
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Alternatives Considered
I find it baffling how little data can be stored or associated with a customer in many other systems, and how difficult that can be to set up. It is fine if you already have a robust CDP that you can hook up and use to power your CRM, but it is rare that an organization has the resources or the customer-focus to rally behind setting up their customer service/experience team up for success. With a platform like Kustomer, you can actually evolve the relationship over time, or use the past experiences (number of contacts, purchases, previous issues, etc.) to power your next steps with a customer, making for a much more nuanced relationship with a human, not just a ticket.
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Zendesk Sell is not as robust as other leading CRM tools I have used in the past like Salesforce. Salesforce is the market leader and is always leading the way in innovation. Salesforce objects management is better simpler and allows the user to customize different screens and have different dashboards for reporting reasons. This is definitely a good alternative to Salesforce especially if you are currently using any other Zendesk products like Zendesk support.
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Scalability
Because customer is flexible and scalable
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Always on, always available.
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Return on Investment
  • We’re getting so much positive feedback — which is not something you traditionally associate with a customer care team — because we’re making it effortless for customers to deliver both positive and negative feedback, and we can now resolve the bad feedback really really quickly.
  • Primarily from our increased efficiency with Kustomer, we’ve seen a significant reduction of $3 to $4 for every cost per contact.
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  • Increased efficiency with a central hub for all of our customer data.
  • Workflows are easy to set up and beneficial for us.
  • Received minimum training, therefore it's easy to navigate.
  • Reduced employee costs. Employees can spend more time completing other important tasks.
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ScreenShots

Kustomer Screenshots

Screenshot of Example of a customer profile within Kustomer.Screenshot of Example of how Kustomer’s automated chats can save agents time by handling less complex requests automatically.