Looker vs. Zendesk Explore

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Looker
Score 8.5 out of 10
N/A
Looker is a BI application with an analytics-oriented application server that sits on top of relational data stores. It includes an end-user interface for exploring data, a reusable development paradigm for data discovery, and an API for supporting data in other systems.N/A
Zendesk Explore
Score 8.8 out of 10
N/A
Zendesk offers Explore, a business intelligence and customer analytics tool which integrates with the Zendesk suite featuring ticket analytics, custom fields, dashboards, and other features. Zendesk is migrating customers of the BIME analytics product, which is approaching end of support, to Zendesk Explore in 2019.N/A
Pricing
LookerZendesk Explore
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
LookerZendesk Explore
Free Trial
YesNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeRequiredNo setup fee
Additional DetailsMust contact sales team for pricing.
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
LookerZendesk Explore
Features
LookerZendesk Explore
BI Standard Reporting
Comparison of BI Standard Reporting features of Product A and Product B
Looker
8.3
Ratings
2% above category average
Zendesk Explore
9.0
Ratings
10% above category average
Pixel Perfect reports7.90 Ratings7.10 Ratings
Customizable dashboards8.90 Ratings10.00 Ratings
Report Formatting Templates8.30 Ratings9.90 Ratings
Ad-hoc Reporting
Comparison of Ad-hoc Reporting features of Product A and Product B
Looker
8.4
Ratings
4% above category average
Zendesk Explore
8.3
Ratings
3% above category average
Drill-down analysis8.10 Ratings9.50 Ratings
Formatting capabilities7.80 Ratings9.00 Ratings
Integration with R or other statistical packages8.70 Ratings4.80 Ratings
Report sharing and collaboration9.10 Ratings10.00 Ratings
Report Output and Scheduling
Comparison of Report Output and Scheduling features of Product A and Product B
Looker
8.7
Ratings
5% above category average
Zendesk Explore
8.4
Ratings
1% above category average
Publish to Web8.30 Ratings6.90 Ratings
Publish to PDF9.00 Ratings9.00 Ratings
Report Versioning8.50 Ratings9.00 Ratings
Report Delivery Scheduling9.10 Ratings8.90 Ratings
Delivery to Remote Servers00 Ratings8.00 Ratings
Data Discovery and Visualization
Comparison of Data Discovery and Visualization features of Product A and Product B
Looker
6.9
Ratings
14% below category average
Zendesk Explore
7.2
Ratings
10% below category average
Pre-built visualization formats (heatmaps, scatter plots etc.)8.00 Ratings6.60 Ratings
Location Analytics / Geographic Visualization8.00 Ratings7.10 Ratings
Predictive Analytics4.60 Ratings5.50 Ratings
Pattern Recognition and Data Mining00 Ratings9.40 Ratings
Access Control and Security
Comparison of Access Control and Security features of Product A and Product B
Looker
8.2
Ratings
3% below category average
Zendesk Explore
9.1
Ratings
7% above category average
Multi-User Support (named login)8.70 Ratings9.50 Ratings
Role-Based Security Model8.10 Ratings9.50 Ratings
Multiple Access Permission Levels (Create, Read, Delete)8.00 Ratings8.00 Ratings
Report-Level Access Control8.10 Ratings8.60 Ratings
Single Sign-On (SSO)00 Ratings10.00 Ratings
Mobile Capabilities
Comparison of Mobile Capabilities features of Product A and Product B
Looker
6.1
Ratings
25% below category average
Zendesk Explore
7.8
Ratings
1% below category average
Responsive Design for Web Access7.40 Ratings6.10 Ratings
Mobile Application5.00 Ratings8.30 Ratings
Dashboard / Report / Visualization Interactivity on Mobile7.20 Ratings9.00 Ratings
Application Program Interfaces (APIs) / Embedding
Comparison of Application Program Interfaces (APIs) / Embedding features of Product A and Product B
Looker
-
Ratings
Zendesk Explore
5.9
Ratings
28% below category average
REST API00 Ratings5.40 Ratings
Javascript API00 Ratings5.90 Ratings
iFrames00 Ratings5.50 Ratings
Java API00 Ratings5.60 Ratings
Themeable User Interface (UI)00 Ratings6.20 Ratings
Customizable Platform (Open Source)00 Ratings7.00 Ratings
Best Alternatives
LookerZendesk Explore
Small Businesses
BrightGauge
BrightGauge
Score 9.0 out of 10
BrightGauge
BrightGauge
Score 9.0 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Reveal
Reveal
Score 10.0 out of 10
Reveal
Reveal
Score 10.0 out of 10
Enterprises
Kyvos Semantic Intelligence Layer
Kyvos Semantic Intelligence Layer
Score 9.9 out of 10
Kyvos Semantic Intelligence Layer
Kyvos Semantic Intelligence Layer
Score 9.9 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
LookerZendesk Explore
Likelihood to Recommend
8.7
(0 ratings)
9.5
(0 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
9.5
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Usability
8.8
(0 ratings)
10.0
(0 ratings)
Availability
10.0
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Performance
6.0
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
8.8
(0 ratings)
10.0
(0 ratings)
Implementation Rating
10.0
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Configurability
10.0
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Ease of integration
10.0
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Product Scalability
10.0
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
10.0
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
10.0
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
LookerZendesk Explore
Likelihood to Recommend
When you need to create a centralised dashboard for multiple stakeholders that blends cross-channel reporting. As an SEO agency reporting for clients - Looker is a great solution. It's less appropriate depending on the intended users. For instance, in my experience Looker reports have been under-utilised because they're not accessed regularly, provide too much noise or often simple PDF reports are preferred
Read full review
Compared to other analytics functions of other Ticket Management System, Zendesk Explore is the easiest to learn. Moreover, the learning curve is high. Once you pick up the fundamentals, you will be able to create all types of analytic reports. In addition, if you know basic coding or SQL, you can create your own metrics and attributes to capture extremely specific elements such as the tickets that contain a certain word or etc.
Read full review
Pros
  • It is very easy to start a new dashboard and configure what you want to display by just selecting/dragging from the list of available columns.
  • It is intuitive, mainly if you use other Google services like Google Sheets.
  • The look and feel is modern and nice.
  • It it very useful to have an immediate visual overview of the data in a spreadsheet.
Read full review
  • As with most "suite" products, if you already use other Zendesk features (Chat, Talk, etc), then Zendesk Explore adds an extra facet to the customer experience. The more we know about our clientele, the better we can understand/anticipate their needs.
  • I like that we can get as in-depth as we feel is necessary. For example, is just one customer having an issue? Or are many experiencing a similar problem? We can better rack this type of trend using Explore.
  • Our team can dive deep into the data based on exactly what we're looking for. If the marketing team wants a certain kind of segment, we can give them that info. If we want to sort by date or another set of parameters, we can do that as well.
Read full review
Cons
  • I wish I could get more granular in the Google ad data, such as down to the campaign type, instead of having to see only all campaigns.
  • The setup can be time-consuming if you're not using the product regularly.
  • Editing the dashboard requires a few logins; I wish it was more seamless.
Read full review
  • More detailed pieces of training on where to find datasets/queries.
  • Have demo reports to do live trainings; instead of watching videos.
  • Have a key as to what all of the datasets mean.
  • Have a pop-up that analyzes the data "looks like your csat dropped this week!" etc...
Read full review
Likelihood to Renew
We are very haooy with Looker, it provides us with all the funciomalities we need for both the day to day oerformance tracking and longer periods reporting. It is easy to use for account managers, configurable and customizable for soecialists and what is most imoortant, our clinets generally really love it
Read full review
No answers on this topic
Usability
Looker is relatively easy to use, even as it is set up. The customers for the front-end only have issues with the initial setup for looker ml creations. Other "looks" are relatively easy to set up, depending on the ETL and the data which is coming into Looker on a regular basis.
Read full review
I rate Zendesk Explore 8 out of 10 for it's overall usability because it offers powerful reporting and analytics with an easy to navigate interface and intuitive dashboards. It helps improve customer satisfaction by providing valuable insights into ticket handling, agent performance and customer satisfaction. Though the complex query builder can be challenging for non technical users.
Read full review
Reliability and Availability
No objections
Read full review
No answers on this topic
Performance
Somehow resources heavy, both on server and client. I recommned at least 50Mbs data rate and high performance desktop comouter to be abke to run comolex tasks and configure larger amount of data. On the other hand, the client does not need to worry when viewing, the performance is usually ok
Read full review
No answers on this topic
Support Rating
Never had to work with support for issues. Any questions we had, they would respond promptly and clearly. The one-time setup was easy, by reading documentation. If the feature is not supported, they will add a feature request. In this case, LDAP support was requested over OKTA. They are looking into it.
Read full review
Zendesk Community is extremely useful for Zendesk Explore beginners. The live support provided by Zendesk will also help a lot. If you don't know anything you can ask live support right away. However, one drawback of Zendesk Community and Support is the creation of complex reports on Zendesk Explore. Zendesk Community and Support cannot really help you much if you are trying to build a complex report as they are not a complete expert on it as well.
Read full review
Implementation Rating
Very satisfied, easy to implement
Read full review
No answers on this topic
Alternatives Considered
In my opinion, Looker is no Power BI. It is good, but I think Power BI is amazing. That said, in my experience, Power BI is nowhere near as easy to setup and report on Google services as Looker is. We plan to continue using Power BI for c-suite and corporate reporting, especially for internal databases, but will gladly use Looker for our marketing information for AdWords, Analytics, Search Console, and YouTube.
Read full review
Zendesk Explore stands out against Freshchat and Freshdesk for it's deeper analytics capabilities and seamless integration with Zendesk ecosystem. While Freshdesk offers reporting, it lacks on the same level of granular insights and customization that Zendesk Explore provides. Compared to Freshchat which focuses more on live chat and conversational analytics Zendesk Explore excels in historical trend analysis and comprehensive dashboarding. We choose Zendesk Explore for it's robust reporting and drill down capabilities.
Read full review
Return on Investment
  • Other than some people not liking the numbers, I don't see any negative impacts; we haven't experienced that.
  • The reports help us unravel the story of our users and how they are sifting through our pages.
  • Our clients enjoy seeing the numbers to understand better what stands out on their sites.
  • The reports have helped us see what campaigns are working and where we need to tweak things.
  • The reports have enabled us to have better conversations with stakeholders about how their web pages should be modified, edited, etc., to reflect the data.
Read full review
  • Positive impact of around 5 hours/week in Dashboard building and visualization
  • 10 hours from Product to review dashboards and find potential patterns
  • Enabler to find opportunities based on agents´ occupancy rates
Read full review
ScreenShots

Looker Screenshots

Screenshot of a Looker dashboard with a geo chart.