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As designers, especially in large enterprises, we often might feel misunderstood and underappreciated. It might feel like every single day you have to fight for your users, explain yourself and defend your work. It’s unfair, exhausting, painful and frustrating.
Let’s explore how to present design work, explain design decisions and get stakeholders on your side — and speak the language that other departments understand.
As designers, we might feel slightly frustrated by the language that often dominates business meetings. As Jason Fried has noted, corporate language is filled with metaphors of fighting. Companies “conquer” the market, they “capture” mindshare, they “target” customers, they “destroy” the competition, they want to attract more “eye-balls, get users “hooked, and increase “life-time value.
Designers, on the other hand, don’t speak in such metaphors. We speak of how to “reduce” friction, “improve” consistency, “empower” users, “enable and help” users, “meet” their expectations, “bridge the gap”, “develop empathy”, understand “user needs, design an “inclusive” experience.
In many ways, these words are the direct opposite of the metaphors commonly used in corporate environments and business meetings. So no wonder that our beliefs and principles might feel misunderstood and underappreciated. A way to solve is to be deliberate when choosing words you use in the big meeting. In fact, it’s all about speaking the right language.
This article is part of our ongoing series on design patterns. It’s also an upcoming part of the 10h-video library on Smart Interface Design Patterns 🍣 and the upcoming live UX training as well. Use code BIRDIE to save 15% off.
Speaking The Right LanguageAs designers, we often use design-specific terms, such as consistency, friction and empathy. Yet to many managers, these attributes don’t map to any business objectives at all, often leaving them utterly confused about the actual real-life impact of our UX work.
One way out that changed everything for me is to leave UX vocabulary at the door when entering a business meeting. Instead, I try to explain design work through the lens of the business, often rehearsing and testing the script ahead of time.
When presenting design work in a big meeting, I try to be very deliberate and strategic in the choice of the words I’m using. I won’t be speaking about attracting “eye-balls” or getting users “hooked”. It’s just not me. But I won’t be speaking about reducing “friction” or improving “consistency” either.
Instead, I tell a story.
A story that visualizes how our work helps the business. How design team has translated business goals into specific design initiatives. How UX can reduce costs. Increase revenue. Grow business. Open new opportunities. New markets. Increase efficiency. Extend reach. Mitigate risk. Amplify word of mouth.
And how we’ll measure all that huge impact of our work.
Typically, it’s broken down into eight sections:
🎯 Goals ← Business targets, KRs we aim to achieve.
💥 Translation ← Design initiatives, iterations, tests.
🕵️ Evidence ← Data from UX research, pain points.
🧠 Ideas ← Prioritized by an impact/effort-matrix.
🕹 Design work ← Flows, features, user journeys.
📈 Design KPIs ← How we’ll measure/report success.
🐑 Shepherding ← Risk management, governance.
🔮 Future ← What we believe are good next steps.
🤔 Businesses rarely understand the impact of UX.
🤔 UX language is overloaded with ambiguous terms.
🤔 Business can’t support confusing initiatives.
✅ Leave UX language and UX jargon at the door.
✅ Explain UX work through the lens of business goals.
🚫 Avoid “consistency”, “empathy”, “simplicity”.
🚫 Avoid “cognitive load”, “universal design”.
🚫 Avoid “lean UX”, “agile”, “archetypes”, “JTBD”.
🚫 Avoid “stakeholder management”, “UX validation”.
🚫 Avoid abbreviations: HMW, IxD, PDP, PLP, WCAG.
✅ Explain how you’ll measure success of your work.
✅ Speak of business value, loyalty, abandonment.
✅ Show risk management, compliance, governance.
✅ Refer to cost reduction, efficiency, growth.
✅ Present accessibility as industry-wide best practice.
Next time you walk in a meeting, pay attention to your words. Translate UX terms in a language that other departments understand. It might not take long until you’ll see support coming from everywhere — just because everyone can now clearly see how your work helps them do their work better.
Useful ResourcesIf you are interested in similar insights around UX, take a look at Smart Interface Design Patterns, our 10h-video course with 100s of practical examples from real-life projects — with a live UX training later this year. Everything from mega-dropdowns to complex enterprise tables — with 5 new segments added every year. Jump to a free preview.
Meet Smart Interface Design Patterns, our video course on interface design & UX.
100 design patterns & real-life
examples.
10h-video course + live UX training. Free preview.
Are you looking for Zendesk alternatives for your small business’s customer support?
You’re not alone. While Zendesk is a popular choice, many users have complained about its high costs, complex interface, and limited support. These factors are important for small businesses, where every penny and minute counts.
Here at WPBeginner, we understand these challenges firsthand. We’ve tested many different customer service tools to optimize our own operations and helped millions of users with their projects.
In this guide, we will walk you through the best Zendesk alternatives for small businesses.
| Rank | Platform | Best For | Starting Price |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🥇 | Groove | Complete customer support solution | $16/user/mo |
| 🥈 | Heroic Inbox | WordPress ticketing system | $199.50/yr |
| 🥉 | Nextiva | Phone support | $23.95/user/mo |
| 4 | HubSpot | Support + CRM | $15/user/mo |
| 5 | HelpDesk | Advanced ticket management | $29/user/mo |
| 6 | LiveChat | Live chat support | $20/user/mo |
| 7 | ChatBot | AI chat support | $52/mo |
| 8 | Help Scout | Simple help desk | $20/user/mo |
| 9 | Freshdesk | Freemium solution | $15/user/mo |
The WPBeginner editorial team has over 16 years of experience in WordPress, digital marketing, and eCommerce. We’ve tried and tested various plugins and software on real websites to find the most suitable ones for our readers’ specific needs.
Want to learn more? Just check out our editorial process.
To review the best Zendesk alternatives, we focused on one key question: why are people moving away from Zendesk in the first place?
Our research found 3 key problems:
From there, we decided to focus on finding the best Zendesk alternatives with the following criteria: ease of use, value for money, and great support.
Some options on the list just happen to be products we already use on our WordPress websites, so we are confident in recommending them. The ones we don’t use are popular platforms that we tested ourselves.
We are honest with our reviews and will let you know if there are any drawbacks you should consider. We would not recommend a product that we personally would not use.
Here’s some more advice on how to pick customer support software for your business:
“To pick the right platform, identify the communication channels that resonate best with your customers and determine the solution based on your business needs. From there, narrow down products based on price, essential features, user reviews, and your experience during a free trial or demo.”
Jess Pingrey from Fit Small Business
Out of all the customer service software we’ve tested, Groove is the best Zendesk alternative by far. We’ve been using Groove to manage both support and marketing emails across our projects, and it’s been a smooth experience from day one.
What truly sets Groove apart is its easy-to-use interface. Even if you are a small business owner with no prior experience with help desk software, you’ll be up and running in no time. The design is clean and clutter-free, with straightforward language that makes every button and tool clear.
Here’s the best part: Groove offers a powerful omnichannel customer support platform for a fraction of the price of Zendesk’s basic plan. With Groove, you can create a shared inbox, add live chat functionality, manage social media messaging, and build a knowledge base – all under one roof.
Groove also has exceptional customer support. They offer onboarding assistance to get you started quickly, and their 24/7 support is available to all users, regardless of their plan.
Pros of Groove:
Cons of Groove:
Pricing: Starts at $16/user per month, with a 7-day free trial. Their highest plan costs $56/user per month and unlocks advanced features like advanced rule automation, team-specific reporting, and load balancing for optimized conversation assignments.
Why we chose Groove: It’s simply the best Zendesk alternative for anyone seeking a user-friendly and affordable customer software solution. The user-friendly interface, powerful features, and exceptional customer support make Groove a strong competitor.
For more details, you can read our full Groove review.
If you use WordPress to manage your website, then Heroic Inbox is a great alternative to Zendesk for handling customer support emails. We’ve talked extensively about this help desk plugin in other reviews, and that’s for a good reason.
With Heroix Inbox, you can manage all your emails from Gmail or Outlook in one place, right within your WordPress dashboard. Plus, you can have unlimited inboxes for not just your customer support teams but also other departments like marketing or sales.
Heroic Inbox integrates seamlessly with WooCommerce, so you can see the customer’s purchase history directly within the ticketing system. This lets you provide more targeted and helpful support. Plus, you have access to a complete history of all your support tickets for easy reference.
Another benefit of Heroic Inbox is that it supports multiple languages right out of the box, which is helpful if you have customers around the world. This is a major advantage over Zendesk, where you need a higher-tier plan to offer multilingual support.
Pros of Heroic Inbox:
Cons of Heroix Inbox:
Pricing: Heroic Inbox’s pricing structure is based on website licensing. It starts from $199.50 per year for a single website.
For the best value, consider the Heroic Bundle Essential for $299.50 per year. This bundle includes both Heroic Inbox and Heroic KB, so you can create a knowledge base for customers to help themselves and reduce your support tickets.
Why we chose Heroic Inbox: This help desk solution stands out as a Zendesk competitor for WordPress. While it doesn’t include a built-in live chat feature, you can easily add that functionality with another plugin if needed.
You can learn more about Heroic Inbox in our HeroThemes review.
While chat and knowledge bases are popular, some customers still prefer talking directly to agents. That’s why we wanted to show you a Zendesk alternative that can fulfill this need.
Meet Nextiva, the top-rated business phone service. This platform offers comprehensive customer service tools, including call center, voicemail, SMS, live chat, video, and social media support.
Fun fact: we use Nextiva at WPBeginner for our call center. It lets our teams easily handle customer calls from anywhere in the world without using their own personal cell phone numbers.
Nextiva makes call handling a breeze. You can direct calls based on priority and skills, with easy transfers between agents. Plus, you can offer callback request options, letting customers choose when to receive a call for better convenience.
Pros of Nextiva:
Cons of Nextiva:
Pricing: The Business Communication plans start from $23.95/user per month for a team of 1-4 people. Besides phone support features, these plans include team communication tools like video conferencing. Prices can get lower as your team grows.
If you just want to use the phone service to support your customers, then you can contact the Nextiva team to get a quote on their Contact Center plans.
You can also use our Nextiva coupon to get 21% off of your first purchase.
Why we chose Nextiva: It’s a great Zendesk alternative if phone support is important to your business. Its comprehensive call center features let you assist customers easily over the phone.
You can learn more about the service in our full Nextiva review.
Do you want to manage customer support and customer relationship management (CRM) on the same platform? If you use Zendesk and want a simpler solution, then consider HubSpot. It’s known for its CRM and offers a customer support solution called HubSpot Service Hub.
HubSpot combines support and CRM in one platform, so you don’t need separate tools. To access both, you can get the Customer Platform plan, which includes Service Hub, Sales Hub, Content Hub, Operations Hub, and Commerce Hub.
Service Hub offers more than just ticketing. It has features like conversational bots to answer simple queries, email health reporting to track the effectiveness of your email outreach and a mobile app for managing customer interactions on the go.
Pros of HubSpot:
Cons of HubSpot:
Pricing: A free plan is available for businesses with up to 5 agents. Paid Customer Platform plans start at $15/user per month.
Why we chose HubSpot: It’s a great all-in-one solution for businesses. It covers support, CRM, marketing, and more. If you like things simple and want all your customer communications in one place, HubSpot is a solid choice instead of Zendesk.
For more information, check out our full HubSpot review.
HelpDesk is an excellent Zendesk alternative if you are looking for a powerful ticketing software solution.
Like Zendesk, HelpDesk lets you create multiple custom forms for different purposes, such as technical support requests or sales inquiries. There’s no limit to the number of forms you can create, giving you the flexibility to tailor the intake process to your specific needs.
HelpDesk also simplifies the process of managing complex issues. If a customer submits multiple tickets related to the same problem, then you can easily merge them into a single thread for a clearer overview.
Additionally, HelpDesk offers a shared ticket view feature similar to Zendesk’s ticket-sharing functionality. This lets multiple team members collaborate on the same ticket simultaneously, allowing them to resolve a complicated issue together.
Pros of HelpDesk:
Cons of HelpDesk:
Pricing: The Team plan costs $29/agent per month and includes unlimited contact forms, multiple mailboxes, unlimited workflows to automate tasks, and 5 email templates to respond to customer inquiries. A 14-day free trial is available.
Why we chose HelpDesk: This help desk platform can be a great option if you want a Zendesk alternative with a robust ticketing system. The single plan’s key features are enough for most small businesses, so long as you don’t create more than 5 email templates.
LiveChat is a handy tool made by the same folks who created HelpDesk. We’ve used it for many of our eCommerce projects to answer pre-sales questions.
Getting started with LiveChat is super simple. When we did it, all we had to do was just sign up, add the LiveChat plugin to the WordPress website, and log in via the plugin page. The chat widget would then pop up on the site, ready to connect with customers.
But LiveChat isn’t just a basic chat tool. It’s also packed with cool features like real-time chat monitoring, automatic prompts to collect visitor emails when no agents are around, and routing chats to the right experts for tricky questions.
Pros of LiveChat:
Cons of LiveChat:
Pricing: Starts from $20/agent per month. With the Starter plan, you can monitor up to 100 visitors and get access to your chat history from the past 60 days. A 14-day free trial is available, and you can use our LiveChat coupon to get 30% off your first purchase.
Why we chose LiveChat: We use LiveChat frequently on our websites, and we think it’s a top choice for businesses looking for an easy-to-use live chat solution.
Just remember, LiveChat focuses solely on live chat. If you also need a ticketing system and a knowledge base, then you will have to pay for HelpDesk, too.
You can learn more about the software in our LiveChat review.
Managing customer support for a small business can be tough, especially if you can’t afford a big team. If that’s the case, ChatBot can be a great Zendesk alternative.
ChatBot is a cloud-based AI assistant for your website. It can handle customer questions in real time like live chat, but you don’t need a human agent to run it. Even if you already have a support team, ChatBot can take care of basic questions to free up your team’s time for more complex issues.
Before launching your ChatBot, you can train it using various resources like FAQs, website content, articles, or even your existing knowledge base. ChatBot can also learn from unanswered questions to improve its response accuracy over time.
We use ChatBot in our SaaS businesses to handle questions before a sale and pass on the tough queries to our live support team.
Pros of ChatBot:
Cons of ChatBot:
Pricing: Starts at $52 per month billed annually, which includes up to 1,000 monthly chats. They also offer a 14-day free trial.
Why we chose ChatBot: For small businesses, ChatBot is a budget-friendly way to handle customer questions without hiring any staff. Plus, it integrates with LiveChat and HelpDesk, so you can build a full support system that covers all your bases.
To learn more, you can read our comprehensive ChatBot review.
Zendesk offers a powerful suite of customer support tools. But for small business owners, it can feel overwhelming. If that sounds like you, then Help Scout might be a perfect fit.
Help Scout is a popular customer support software known for its user-friendly interface. While it’s slightly more expensive than Groove at $20/user per month, Help Scout provides all the essential functionality you need to manage customer conversations effectively.
Another key advantage we discovered is that their Business Hours feature is available in all plans, unlike Zendesk where it’s restricted to higher tiers. This feature lets you activate auto-replies based on your operating hours.
Pros of Help Scout:
Cons of Help Scout:
Pricing: Starts from $20/user per month with a 15-day free trial. The lowest plan has a cap of 25 users. You will need to upgrade to the $40/user per month plan for unlimited users.
Why we chose Help Scout: This customer service platform prioritizes its core functionality and user-friendliness over having a lot of features. Because of that, Help Scout is a great Zendesk alternative for small businesses and startups.
Starting a new business can be expensive, and every penny counts. If you are looking for a cost-effective way to manage customer support, Freshdesk is a great option to consider.
We found Freshdesk’s free plan to have a surprising amount of functionality for small businesses just getting started. It allows you to manage customer inquiries from email and social media with a team of up to 10 agents.
You can also create rules to automatically route tickets to the most qualified team member. As a result, your customers receive the best possible care.
Freshdesk also provides valuable insights into your support performance with built-in ticket trend reports. This allows you to stay on top of your workload and identify areas for improvement.
Pros of Freshdesk:
Cons of Freshdesk:
Pricing: Free plan available. Paid plans start from $15/agent per month. Upgrading unlocks additional features like SLA management, which helps ensure your team consistently meets your company’s service level agreements.
Why we chose Freshdesk: If you run a new business, Freshdesk’s free plan can be a lifesaver. You can focus on growth while offering your customer support without breaking the bank.
The best Zendesk alternative for small businesses is Groove. It offers omnichannel support, covering chat, email, knowledge base, social media, and more all at a fraction of Zendesk’s cost.
For people using WordPress, Heroic Inbox is also worth considering. It lets you manage tickets and your knowledge base directly from WordPress, saving you from switching between platforms too often.
Alternatively, if your business relies on phone support, then Nextiva is your best choice.
Let’s answer some commonly asked questions about Zendesk alternatives:
Despite its extensive features, Zendesk is too pricey for some small businesses, as its plans start from $55/user per month. Its UI is also more difficult to use compared to other platforms, and the support is not the most responsive.
For this reason, we recommend using Groove, Heroic Inbox, or Nextiva as alternatives.
No. Zendesk’s plans are all paid, though they have a 14-day free trial.
If you’re looking for a free Zendesk alternative, then we recommend Freshdesk or HubSpot as both offer powerful free plans.
The first thing you must do is understand your team’s requirements. This will help you avoid going over budget and find the best business tool that suits your exact needs.
We also recommend taking a look at trusted review sites like WPBeginner Solution Center and testing the software yourself to see how easy it is to use.
We hope this article helped you discover the best Zendesk alternatives for your small business. You may also want to check out our list of the best HubSpot alternatives and our ultimate guide to growing your business online without a lot of money.
If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.
Disclaimer: We also looked at other Zendesk competitors, such as Gorgias, HappyFox, Kustomer, Salesforce Service Cloud, and Zoho Desk. However, they didn’t meet our criteria for the best options for small businesses.
The post 9 Best Zendesk Alternatives for Small Businesses first appeared on WPBeginner.
A trend toward consolidation in WordPress has been going on for at least a decade now, but it's not only limited to WordPress. All aspects of the web industry have been affected by it. In this post, we'll introduce you to five mergers and acquisitions from recent history.