Moving from Zendesk
Considering a switch from Zendesk to Crisp? Awesome! We're more than happy to help you with this guide that will let you understand the key steps for your migration.
As you know, Zendesk is known for it's ticketing software -- It's a whole platform that now does much more than ticketing.
Even though ticketing has been a good way to deal with customer support, it's not adapted to the world we're living in anymore. People are starving for real-time interactions, multichannel communications, and more than ever, real human relationship.
That's why in Crisp, you'll never find any mention of a ticket. Considered as a powerful zendesk alternative, Crisp leads helps companies to unlock word of mouth through the conversational revolution.
⚠️ Note: Most of the companies have been dealing with ticketing software the wrong way. They used to have a ticketing system that could be used as a project management software too. That is a mistake. These tools have to be different and that's what we promote at Crisp.
Zendesk treats all in-app conversations the same. Customers can start a conversation whether someone is available or not - and hear back in 1-2 minutes, 1-2 hours or 1-2 days. There's no real difference between a live chat and a conversation lasting for multiple days. Zendesk offers the ability to create a conversation every time a customer comes back.
At Crisp, we centralize every conversation into one unique thread. We think it's much easier for agents to look at previous conversations and search for the right information without the hassle to look for the right conversation.
As you know, Zendesk only offers a small part of it's own API. At Crisp, you can enjoy an exhaustive API that contains every route that we use to serve Crisp to our customers. Therefore, you'll be able to build powerful integrations and go even further thanks to our JS SDK for front-end interactions.
There are a few differences in terminology between Zendesk and Crisp. If you've been using Zendesk Suite that offers Live chat and multiple other channels, Crisp does the same, except for the phone calls.
However, these are some differences to be aware of:
Guide, Zendesk Help Center is called Helpdesk at Crisp.
Support, Zendesk ticketing system doesn't exist at Crisp as we believe ticketing system is outdated.
Talk, Zendesk phone call solution doesn't exist in Crisp yet, however it's something that is coming to the product. Note that we already offer voice message and audio and video chat, which Zendesk doesn't offer.
Explore, Zendesk analytics solution is called Analytics at Crisp.
Sales, Zendesk sales CRM is called Contacts at Crisp. Note that Crisp only handles the contact part, and does not have a section for deals or leads with a dedicated view for each stage of the sales cycle.
Finally, Crisp inbox allows you to centralize multiple email addresses. If you'd like to forward multiple email addresses to a single inbox, that's not a problem. Check how to setup a custom email domain or How to receive emails in Crisp for more information about that.
If you are using Zendesk APIs to send customer data and details to the sidebar, keep in mind that you can do very similar things with Crisp.
To log custom fields (such as role, subscription_price or any other custom data that you use for your business) to Crisp, you should use the JS SDK or our REST APIs.
If you want to merge data between unknown visitors and logged in visitors, feel free to check out this article: How to restore chat sessions with a token?.
We also have native mobile SDKs for iOS and Android.
At the moment, Zendesk offers multiple possibilities regarding the export of tickets or messages received through their ticketing software. At first, you have to know that data export has to be enabled on your account. To do so, you have to contact Zendesk customer support.
Once it's done, you can export data to a JSON, CSV or XML file, which is great! Note that Zendesk also offers REST API to get all your tickets and user details. You can check details about the exporting process throughout this article.
Crisp has built a script to help you import your conversations across from Zendesk, placing them directly into your Crisp inbox and attaching them to your contact's profile.
The state of your conversations after importing them into your Crisp inbox will be the Zendesk equivalent; if for example you have pending, open, or solved conversations, they will be displayed as pending, unresolved and resolved in your Crisp inbox, meaning you can pick up in Crisp, right where you finished in Zendesk! 🎉
You can find documentation about the script here.
⚠️ Note: When your users visit your website and start chatting via the Crisp chatbox, they won’t see their previous conversation history. But no worries, you will have access to their previous conversations from the Crisp inbox.
Crisp has made importing knowledge base from Zendesk really easy. What you need to give us is the URL, so we can access your knowledge base. That's it. Simply follow the required steps to automate knowledge base import:
Reach out to Crisp Knowledge
Click on "Actions" at the top right of the screen
Select "Import articles"
Set the url of your existing knowledge base
Let Crisp do the job 🎉
Check out more details here.
Crisp has made importing contacts from Zendesk really easy. As explained before, you have multiple ways to export data, and import it. With a simple database extraction from your contact tabs in Zendesk, you obtain a CSV file. With this file, you simply import in Crisp Contacts.. Simply follow the steps that are listed below:
Reach out to Crisp CRM (also known as Contacts)
Click on "Actions" at the top right of the screen
Select "Import contact profiles"
Configure your import and map your CSV file
Let Crisp do the job 🎉
Another way to do it would be to use our API and build a script that would import your data from your existing backend to Crisp.
As of November 28, 2023 the Zendesk Official addon is being discontinued. On the 15th of April 2024, online merchants will no longer be able use the ecommerce module for customer service powered by Zendesk.
If you're using Prestashop and are being impacted by the discontinuation of the Zendesk Addon for Prestashop, here is what you should do:
Uninstall the Zendesk official module (as explained here: https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4409155972378-Managing-your-installed-apps
Go to https://addons.prestashop.com/
Use the search engine to browse through "customer service" module
Select Crisp and follow the steps to connect your Prestashop online store with Crisp addon for Prestashop.
Import your knowledge base following this guide: https://help.crisp.chat/en/article/how-to-import-my-helpdesk-from-a-previous-provider-rpa7tv/
Move all your Zendesk Tickets to your Crisp Workspace using this simple script: https://github.com/crisp-im/crisp-import-conversations
Things you should know 📚
Ticketing is an old fashioned way of dealing with customer support
As you know, Zendesk is known for it's ticketing software -- It's a whole platform that now does much more than ticketing.
Even though ticketing has been a good way to deal with customer support, it's not adapted to the world we're living in anymore. People are starving for real-time interactions, multichannel communications, and more than ever, real human relationship.
That's why in Crisp, you'll never find any mention of a ticket. Considered as a powerful zendesk alternative, Crisp leads helps companies to unlock word of mouth through the conversational revolution.
⚠️ Note: Most of the companies have been dealing with ticketing software the wrong way. They used to have a ticketing system that could be used as a project management software too. That is a mistake. These tools have to be different and that's what we promote at Crisp.
We have a different approach to customer support
Zendesk treats all in-app conversations the same. Customers can start a conversation whether someone is available or not - and hear back in 1-2 minutes, 1-2 hours or 1-2 days. There's no real difference between a live chat and a conversation lasting for multiple days. Zendesk offers the ability to create a conversation every time a customer comes back.
At Crisp, we centralize every conversation into one unique thread. We think it's much easier for agents to look at previous conversations and search for the right information without the hassle to look for the right conversation.
Crisp has an open platform policy
As you know, Zendesk only offers a small part of it's own API. At Crisp, you can enjoy an exhaustive API that contains every route that we use to serve Crisp to our customers. Therefore, you'll be able to build powerful integrations and go even further thanks to our JS SDK for front-end interactions.
Understand the features 🧐
There are a few differences in terminology between Zendesk and Crisp. If you've been using Zendesk Suite that offers Live chat and multiple other channels, Crisp does the same, except for the phone calls.
However, these are some differences to be aware of:
Guide, Zendesk Help Center is called Helpdesk at Crisp.
Support, Zendesk ticketing system doesn't exist at Crisp as we believe ticketing system is outdated.
Talk, Zendesk phone call solution doesn't exist in Crisp yet, however it's something that is coming to the product. Note that we already offer voice message and audio and video chat, which Zendesk doesn't offer.
Explore, Zendesk analytics solution is called Analytics at Crisp.
Sales, Zendesk sales CRM is called Contacts at Crisp. Note that Crisp only handles the contact part, and does not have a section for deals or leads with a dedicated view for each stage of the sales cycle.
Finally, Crisp inbox allows you to centralize multiple email addresses. If you'd like to forward multiple email addresses to a single inbox, that's not a problem. Check how to setup a custom email domain or How to receive emails in Crisp for more information about that.
Zendesk Suite ▶️ Crisp
If you are using Zendesk APIs to send customer data and details to the sidebar, keep in mind that you can do very similar things with Crisp.
To log custom fields (such as role, subscription_price or any other custom data that you use for your business) to Crisp, you should use the JS SDK or our REST APIs.
If you want to merge data between unknown visitors and logged in visitors, feel free to check out this article: How to restore chat sessions with a token?.
We also have native mobile SDKs for iOS and Android.
Moving away from ticketing to messaging
At the moment, Zendesk offers multiple possibilities regarding the export of tickets or messages received through their ticketing software. At first, you have to know that data export has to be enabled on your account. To do so, you have to contact Zendesk customer support.
Once it's done, you can export data to a JSON, CSV or XML file, which is great! Note that Zendesk also offers REST API to get all your tickets and user details. You can check details about the exporting process throughout this article.
Crisp has built a script to help you import your conversations across from Zendesk, placing them directly into your Crisp inbox and attaching them to your contact's profile.
The state of your conversations after importing them into your Crisp inbox will be the Zendesk equivalent; if for example you have pending, open, or solved conversations, they will be displayed as pending, unresolved and resolved in your Crisp inbox, meaning you can pick up in Crisp, right where you finished in Zendesk! 🎉
You can find documentation about the script here.
⚠️ Note: When your users visit your website and start chatting via the Crisp chatbox, they won’t see their previous conversation history. But no worries, you will have access to their previous conversations from the Crisp inbox.
Moving away from Guide to Crisp Helpdesk
Crisp has made importing knowledge base from Zendesk really easy. What you need to give us is the URL, so we can access your knowledge base. That's it. Simply follow the required steps to automate knowledge base import:
Reach out to Crisp Knowledge
Click on "Actions" at the top right of the screen
Select "Import articles"
Set the url of your existing knowledge base
Let Crisp do the job 🎉
Check out more details here.
Moving away from Sales to Crisp Contacts
Crisp has made importing contacts from Zendesk really easy. As explained before, you have multiple ways to export data, and import it. With a simple database extraction from your contact tabs in Zendesk, you obtain a CSV file. With this file, you simply import in Crisp Contacts.. Simply follow the steps that are listed below:
Reach out to Crisp CRM (also known as Contacts)
Click on "Actions" at the top right of the screen
Select "Import contact profiles"
Configure your import and map your CSV file
Let Crisp do the job 🎉
Another way to do it would be to use our API and build a script that would import your data from your existing backend to Crisp.
Migrate from Zendesk addon for Prestashop to Crisp
As of November 28, 2023 the Zendesk Official addon is being discontinued. On the 15th of April 2024, online merchants will no longer be able use the ecommerce module for customer service powered by Zendesk.
If you're using Prestashop and are being impacted by the discontinuation of the Zendesk Addon for Prestashop, here is what you should do:
Uninstall the Zendesk official module (as explained here: https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4409155972378-Managing-your-installed-apps
Go to https://addons.prestashop.com/
Use the search engine to browse through "customer service" module
Select Crisp and follow the steps to connect your Prestashop online store with Crisp addon for Prestashop.
Import your knowledge base following this guide: https://help.crisp.chat/en/article/how-to-import-my-helpdesk-from-a-previous-provider-rpa7tv/
Move all your Zendesk Tickets to your Crisp Workspace using this simple script: https://github.com/crisp-im/crisp-import-conversations
Updated on: 03/04/2024
Thank you!