| Functionality | 5 <p>Plain's positioning focuses on delivering exceptional functionality for B2B software teams. This includes excellent support for channels such as Slack, MS Teams, email etc. However, compared to other CS tools, Plain lacks some common functionality you might expect such as the ability to create help centres or configure chatbots.</p> | 9 <p>Zoho Desk offers very rich support functionality. It supports most channels, and the creation of help centres and community forums. It also has pretty advanced automation, AI and reporting functionality.</p><p>However, Zoho Desk doesn't support native SMS as a support channel, and has limited chat functionality compared to competitors.</p> |
| Ease of Use | 9 <p>As a result of it's focus on B2B software teams and opinionated product positioning, Plain has created a focused and intuitive product with a shallow learning curve. An average SMB employee would require less than 30 minutes and no guidance to master the product. It's onboarding process is simple, short and easy to understand. Additionally, it's web app is beautifully designed and intuitive to use.</p> | 2 <p>Zoho is bogged down by complex, unique terms like "guided conversations" and "static card block." Key workflows like replying to tickets take more clicks than average. Settings are scattered over the pages. There's an almost overwhelming amount of features (e.g. 13 tabs in total in a single open ticket view). So while powerful, Zoho's complexity can slow you down significantly.</p> |
| Look and feel | 9 <p>Plain stands out as one of the best designed products on the market. It's clear that the team have crafted the product with a lot of care. The web app is modern, slick and very fast to use. Animations and sound effects are used with taste to add a high level of polish to the user experience.</p><p>Additionally, the web app neatly labels core buttons with a corresponding keyboard shortcut enabling agents to rattle through support tickets faster than they might have done with just a mouse.</p> | 2 <p>Zoho Desk feels dated and cluttered, both internally and externally. Page load times are often slow. We haven't found a default Help Center theme that we'd feel confident sharing with customers</p> |
| Customisability | 7 <p>Though Plain has built an opinionated product, it's API-centric nature provides a number of options for customisability. For example, businesses are able to sync customer data right into Plain via their API by connecting their backend to the platform and configuring custom fields. This means that businesses don't have to worry about syncing customer data or integrations. However, it's worth noting that whilst this is great for modern B2B software teams, businesses looking for something a little less developer focused should look elsewhere.</p> | 8 <p>Zoho Desk offers extensive customization for both internal and external pages. Externally, you can fully customize the style and layout of your Help Centre (which supports over 50 languages), as well as the Live Chat widget, with the flexibility to incorporate custom code.</p><p>Internally, you have the ability to create custom data objects and personalize the layout and display of information in your agent workspace, which dynamically updates based on ticket content.</p> |
| Ease of Setup | 7 <p>Plain offers a simple self-serve free trial for their platform. We found the initial setup to be simple, taking <5 mins. Setting up your first channels are particularly easy too - given Plain's focus on Slack and similar channels these take only a few clicks to connect and configure. However, when it comes to longer term customization, there are endless options available to teams who wish to take advantage of Plain's very flexible API.</p> | 4 <p>Despite offering a self-serve free trial, we get the impression that Zoho is not optimised for a smooth self-serve onboarding process. Initial setup was confusing and clunky, taking over 15 minutes. Connecting your first channels is an obscure process. For example, there is no one-click email connection process and instead you'll need to set up email forward manually. Additionally, Zoho's unintuitive UX means deeper customization is also a frustrating process that can take several days.</p> |
| Customer Support | 5 <p>Plain's support team can be contacted via email or in app form. We find their agents to be fairly responsive (response times <12 hours), knowledgeable and helpful. When tested, they are often able to troubleshoot issues within one response.</p> | 6 <p>While Zoho offers 24/7 support live chat in-app, the response can be inconsistent in terms of helpfulness. The help centre is of relatively low quality, with many articles receiving mixed feedback from users.</p> |
| Integratability | 7 <p>Plain offers a handful of built in integrations with popular CRMs (such as Salesforce and Hubspot) as well as project management tools (such as Linear). However, it does lack the breadth of pre-built integrations that some of its competitors offer. That being said, its best in class API offers additional extensibility, though this is best suited to developer centric software teams.</p> | 8 <p>Zoho Desk offers hundreds of pre-built integrations with common third-party tools that SMBs use, including CRMs, email marketing tools, and project management systems. It also has an extensive marketplace for additional integrations and an API for custom integrations.</p> |
| Ease of Migration | 3 <p>Plain does not currently offer any self serve data export functionality, however, they do offer this on-demand to customers on their highest pricing tier.</p> | 6 <p>Zoho Desk allows for self-serve export of key data, however, to export email threads, you'll need to request it by emailing support.</p> |
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