As an online store owner, you have so many help desk options to choose from. And, if you don’t choose wisely, your service operations can spiral out of control. Instead, you need to be certain that your software empowers your customer support strategy in a way that enhances your team’s efficiency, your customers’ satisfaction, and ultimately your eCommerce conversion rate. Here’s why Gorgias is the best Zendesk alternative. 

Access Shopify or Magento Data from Your Dashboard 

Shopify, Shopify Plus, and Magento are the three leading eCommerce platforms. Chances are, you’re already working inside one of them. But, does your help desk software integrate easily with the relevant data being pushed through your online store. It probably is not. 

In most helpdesk platforms, including Zendesk and Zendesk Sunshine, you can’t see your eCommerce data from within the platform. And, many times, this information can enhance customer relationships by showing that your agents know what actions the shopper has been taking on your online store. 

By leveraging technology that includes this crucial data in a single dashboard, you instantly improve your support knowledge base. So this is a feature you can’t afford to ignore. 

When you respond to customers, you need to look up two things in Shopify:

• The customer profile: the total amount spent, the billing address, etc.
• The last orders: its amount, delivery status, etc.

Both Zendesk and Gorgias display this in a sidebar:

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The main difference on our side is that you can completely customize this sidebar. You can drag & drop all data points available in Shopify, like the discounted amount of an order, and display it your sidebar.

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You can also display information from other tools in the sidebar, like the last payments of this user on Stripe, or the delivery logs from Shipstation.

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Perform Shopify Actions Inside Gorgias 

Magento is an advanced system based on a series of applications and custom commands. But, Shopify is so user-friendly that nearly anyone can use it. 

Straightforward manual actions can be taken quickly. But, usually not from your customer service platform. Well, here’s your solution. 

Information access isn’t the only perk that you can leverage from your Gorgias dashboard. In fact, eCommerce data is only the tip of the iceberg. With this Zendesk alternative, you can actually complete Shopify actions from within your dashboard. 

The other big difference with Zendesk is the fact that you can take actions on your orders in Shopify without leaving the ticket. You can use all the actions available in the Shopify API, like editing an order, giving a credit, etc.

For instance, let’s imagine you want to refund an order. In this case, you can create a refund macro which will contain both a canned response to the customer and the refund action on Shopify. When you insert this macro, you can choose how much you want to refund, and customize the text. That's it. No need to take additional actions.

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If you’d like to see our Shopify integration in action, create your account on Gorgias!

Here are some of the actions your support agents can take: 

• Cancel an order 
• Issue a refund
• Duplicate an order
• Edit an address

What’s great about this is that your service staff won’t have to waste time moving back and forth between multiple tabs to help your customers with their requests. The Zendesk suite can’t do this. With Gorgias, you’ll save time, spending, and create more efficient processes. It’s a no-brainer.  

Leverage a Zendesk Alternative with Prices Based on Ticket Volume, Not Number of User Accounts 

The bottom line is that Zendesk pricing is not incentivized to make you efficient. In fact, their pricing is based on how many user accounts are utilized on the account. So, if you’re running 300 tickets with 20 user accounts, you will pay for the number of agents working, not the number of support requests handled by your team. The structure isn’t fully optimized.    

So, it’s smarter to leverage a system that allows you to pay per problem resolved; this is precisely what Gorgias empowers you to do. Our structure is designed for your profitability. Gorgias pricing tiers are set up in a simpler way, to make sure you get what you pay for, no matter how many agents are on your team. It just makes sense.

All tiers include the following: 

• A free trial
• Monthly or annual payments
• Two months free use for annual payments
• Unlimited users
• Low-cost, pay-as-you-go add-ons for 100 extra support tickets

In addition, you can adjust your plan at any time. The main benefit is that you don’t have to worry about the cost of onboarding new agents when you want to reduce the load on your support team. 

[See our Pricing Tiers]

Employ Elite Gorgias Features to Power Your eCommerce Customer Support Strategy

Many conversion-boosting Gorgias features are not available with Zendesk support systems. Learn more about the options you can leverage below. 

1. Merge All of Your Support Channels

The main benefit for some users, within the Gorgias platform, is that the platform provides the benefit of integrating all support channels in one place. From within the user dashboard, you can access eCommerce data, chat, email, social media, Stripe, and others. In this way, you won’t have to bounce back and forth between tabs to communicate and resolve issues. 

Gorgias allows seamless integration with over 30 popular eCommerce apps; here are some of the most common: 

• Shopify
• Shopify Plus
• Magento
• Recharge
• Gmail
• Facebook Comments
• Facebook Messenger
• Instagram
• Live Chat
• NetSuite

And, the list goes on. So, if you use other channels to provide customer support, chances are you can add them to your user dashboard with the click of a button. Your support agents instantly become more efficient when you leverage this option. 

2. Customize Your Branding

Branding is crucial for making an unforgettable impression and letting your shoppers learn what to expect from your  company. Many customer service software platforms only show their own branding on the front end. And, you can’t afford to let another brand take the limelight. 

Here are the benefits of customized branding: 

• Set yourself apart from your top competitors 
• Promote organization-wide recognition
• Symbolize your promise and responsibility to your shoppers 
• Give your support agents direction and motivation through symbolism
• Emphasize your company values

Our Zendesk alternative gives you the added perk of allowing you to customize your branding. The communications you send are yours. Display your brand colors, logo, and more so that the customer experience is uniform across all channels. 

3. Manage and Organize Your Documents

Document storage is key in operational customer service tasks. The ability to store important information within your support platform helps your staff keep your processes consolidated. And, agents and managers who are able to share and access everything they need in one place are likely to be more efficient and faster at their jobs. 

Gorgias will give you the ability to keep information in one easily-accessible location -- this means your operations are likely to improve. Decrease your average response times by giving your staff access to everything they need in a single dashboard. 

4. Integrate With Your Email Platform

Email is not dead. Even with the rise of social media and live chat, your email platform is still an effective communication channel for customer service operations. You need a customer service platform that allows you to easily integrate with your email  so your support agents can deliver the best customer experience possible.

Here’s what you can do with Gorgias:   

1. Set up email forwarding 
2. Integrate Gorgias with Gmail and G Suite
3. Integrate with Outlook and Office 365 
4. Improve your email deliverability using SPF and DKIM

If you use a more obscure email platform, forwarding messages might be your best option. Still, you can always access communications from your email addresses in your dashboard. Again, nearly every customer service task can be performed from one location. 

5. Leverage Live Chat

Did you know that live chat can enhance the customer experience and increase your average order value more than email or phone support? Without a chat box, you could be losing out on a ton of potential sales. And, the point of your entire business is to sell. So, you need a customer support system that includes this channel. 

Better yet, you should leverage a system that allows you to access your live chat communications from the same dashboard as the rest of your support channels. And, now you’ve found it. Gorgias integrates seamlessly with several live chat apps, and we’ve even got one of our own. 

6. Communicate via Social Media

Your customers don’t just expect your brand to communicate via email and from your website contact forms and chat boxes. Actually, if they mention you or reach out on social media, and don’t get a response, they’re going to be disappointed. And, you can’t expect your social media marketing team to understand what goes into an excellent customer service experience. So, open this channel to your support agents. 

Imagine how much more productive your team will be when they can see everything customers are saying to and about you on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram from the same dashboard where they’re sending emails. It’s a beautiful picture that many other brands have already started painting. You need to follow their lead. 

7. Track Customer Interactions

Your support agents need to see what customers are up to, not just hear what they have to say. Empower your team with access to a birds-eye view of shoppers’ interactions with your brand and let your customers know you’re interested in more than just the problem at hand. 

By analyzing website interactions and support queries, you’ll also be ahead of the game as far as marketing and sales. In this way, you can use your service team to upsell and make recommendations that will improve your overall conversions and ROI. 

8. Manage Your Inventory

The ability to manage inventory is especially important for eCommerce support agents because a tremendous portion of the problems your customers face surround the products they have purchased or want to purchase. One of the fastest ways to let a consumer down is a lack of information about stock levels. 

In a nutshell, the backbone of your online business is your inventory. Did you know that a Zendesk alternative exists that allows you to manage your stock from inside the platform? It’s true -- and you’ve found it. 

All you need to do to manage inventory from within your customer service software dashboard is to integrate with one of our inventory management partner apps. And, many of your Shopify and Magento apps and add-ons are viewable from the back end of the Gorgias platform. So, even if they’re not our partner, your system may still be compatible. 

9. Utilize a Web App 

Rather than download bulky software to your server, take up all your space, and be forced to purchase additional hosting for your customer service operations, leverage a web app hosted in the cloud. Your monthly or annual pricing will include hosting, and you’ll have a system that can be accessed anytime, from anywhere. 

This is another feature that puts Gorgias in the running as a top Zendesk competitor. And -- don’t worry -- you can unsubscribe at any time, still your data can be downloaded before you cancel your subscription. So, you don’t have to worry about losing information on our secure server.  

See Who Has Worked With Us

Over 1,600 merchants are already using Gorgias to power their customer support strategy, and you could be next. Take a moment to get to know a handful of our satisfied users. 

Marine Layer 

Marine Layer wanted to replicate the excellent customer experience of their brick and mortar store online. They were using Desk.com and decided to make the switch. Now, they’re using six agents to respond to 6,000 or more support tickets each month.  

The brand has dramatically reduced their response and resolution time, which has led to a noticeable increase in customer loyalty. Their ice breaker campaigns help lead shoppers through the sales funnel on auto-pilot. And, integration with Shopify helps auto-fill tickets for a partially automated strategy. 

Ellana Cosmetics

Ellana Cosmetics needed to match the Facebook profiles of their existing followers with the customer data inside Shopify. Before migrating to our platform, they were using Zendesk. Today, their four support agents are replying to more than 600 tickets each day -- 18,000 per month. 

The brand has moved up a revenue tier using the Shopify integration option, giving them just the boost they needed, since 98% of their customer queries come through Shopify. Now, the brand doesn’t need to hunt down information and manually fill, which would be nearly impossible to do without a certain level of automation. 

Bokksu

Bokksu had a desire to create and work within a fully-integrated customer support platform so they could make their service strategy more efficient and improve their response times. Previously, they were using Zendesk as their help desk platform. At this time, their number of support agents varies, and they’ve seen 10X growth in the past two years. 

The brand has experienced exponential growth with Gorgias at the heart of their help desk operations, and they aren’t going back. They’ve integrated Yotpo and Loyalty Lion’s software into their dashboard for a fully-integrated rewards strategy for their subscription business. And, they love our pricing structure. 

MNML

MNML’s growing operations demanded a help desk solution that could handle their Facebook retargeting strategies and drive more sales. Earlier, they were using Zendesk as well. At present, their three support agents are successfully responding to more than 5,000 tickets every month. 

The brand now uses our social media integrations and has increased their revenue. Their strategy mainly involves sending automated messages on Facebook, but also checks posts and comments on the platform as well as Instagram. They are able to reopen dialogue, sending people back to their shopping carts to complete transactions. 

Roma Designer Jewelry

Roma Designer Jewelry was looking for a way to duplicate personalized and instant offline communications with their online shoppers. Prior to choosing us, they did not have a help desk software provider. Currently, three to six support agents handle support tickets for their 200-400 daily orders (20% of which have support issues). 

The brand has now taken the first steps on the journey to scale their business. They make it through their emails faster than ever before, and they’re on the road to true success in online sales. 

Start Your Free Trial of Gorgias Today!

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