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One of our use cases of Zendesk Guide is to create a knowledge base. We also use it to host our videos and PDFs for customers. With Zendesk Guide, we have the Multibrand solution that we are leveraging, and we are creating multiple health centers, customized for each of our clients. 

We are working with the SaaS version of this solution. 

One of the benefits we have seen from Zendesk is that it's very easy to use. Once you have figured out the basic modalities, it's very easy to use and very easy to segregate your content between different headings. The navigation is very robust, which enables us to really see the entire health center. At the same time, it can let you go in a granular manner to a piece. It lets me break down my articles into multiple, small chunks of information. Recently, they introduced something called article reuse—I can write the article in one location, and then put it in different locations in the same health center, but only have to maintain that one article in terms of actually updating it. The content reuse feature is a very smart thing to have. 

One of the most valuable features is that Zendesk gives you a lot of configurability, and a lot of leeway in terms of customizing the look and theme. Zendesk offers you the facility to design your own landing page, as well as the look and feel of the entire knowledge base. At the same time, they offer themes that you can simply purchase and implement. Either way, it can really be turned into the right look and feel of the knowledge base required by our company, which is very important—if you have a bland-looking page, most of the time, people will lose interest. Zendesk also allows you to test the customizations before you publish it. It gives you a sandbox location where you can test everything new that you're trying to create and publish, which is very interesting. 

Another valuable feature is the security, which is very robust. The JWT and the SSO give us peace of mind, knowing that our content is secure and that nobody else can access it. They have tie-ups with various video platforms, so we can host our videos there, and then we can just add the code here once. Then, when the video changes, we don't have to update the code—it happens seamlessly. 

I could go on and on. Another valuable feature is that we can customize user access for content. In Zendesk Guide, we have various levels of approval which the content can go through before it is released. We can actually set the release date for particular content in the future, so that we don't have to keep track of it, and it automatically gets released then. Also, the labeling feature enables us to conduct very smart searches. 

Zendesk Guide could be improved by allowing us to put our assets in one location. What happens now for each article, for example, is we have to upload the images for that article to that location, so the image reuse is still not something that they have perfected. If they could allow us to update all the images in one location, and then pull the image from there, it would be easier when working on Multibrand projects. There are no Multibrand updates available—we have to update each brand manually. For my company, I have come up with an API tool which allows me to push the content to multiple brands together, but if you don't have something like that, you have to manually do it. 

They're still evolving, and though I feel like there is a lot that they can improve on, I am seeing ongoing improvement. Another improvement they could make is in regard to article editing. When you edit an article, the facilities provided aren't customizable. They could make it customizable and let the user choose their own font for headings and the paragraph, the number of headings they want, and just let us do a little bit more. When you add an image, even the resizing of the image is manual—they could provide an image resizing tool, to let us pick the size of the image, and make the process easier. 

As for additional features, I have noticed that Zendesk is concentrating more on the suite: messaging services, chatbot, etc. However, what they don't seem to realize is that most of their customers are using Zendesk for the knowledge base. They need to make the features within the knowledge base a little more robust. We are also looking for some enhancements. For example, I wanted a PDF download facility, but I just had to code it internally because Zendesk has an app, but you need to buy it and plug it in. 

I have been working with Zendesk Guide for almost three years. 

The stability and performance have been perfect. We have not had a single day of downtime, to date. 

As far as I've seen, this product doesn't require any maintenance. They are pretty smart about deploying new products, letting people know that it's all in there, and since it's a SaaS product, we don't have to handle manual updates. 

This solution is pretty easy to scale. You can put a lot of data in there—it doesn't seem to affect it at all. However, in terms of Multibrand, you have to make the updates manually. There is no feature to push to update to all the health centers. 

We are a six-people team, and we all work with Zendesk Guide. As far as usage, we have over 1,000 customers who are accessing Zendesk Guide, and we have more than 12 health centers that we have deployed. 

I have been in contact with Zendesk support. They have different levels with different levels of support. We are an Enterprise level, the highest that they have, so we have something called 24/7 online chat support. If we have a question, we are connected with a live agent, and they help us resolve our issue. The support is okay—I haven't had any issues. 

Before using Zendesk Guide, I was working with Confluence for almost a full year. Confluence makes it much easier for me to import a Word document and convert it into an article, whereas Zendesk doesn't allow you to do that very easily. It will ask you to upload it to Google Drive, and then from there you can import it. This isn't something most companies will allow, since Google Drive is not a very secure site to upload your confidential data. Downloading a PDF was also much easier in Confluence—I could just go there, click, select "PDF", and the entire case would get exported as a PDF. With Zendesk, in order to convert any section, article, or category into a PDF, you will either have to buy their app or do your own in-house coding. 

The setup process was pretty straightforward, and they have a very smart way of doing it. They have something called a brand, so we just go there, key our credentials, generate the certificate, merge it, and then we take that code and put it in our software, and it goes live. So the merging of Zendesk's health center is a pretty simple process. As the documentation writer, I was involved in the process, and we had our IT team handle the connection. In total, the process took about 24 hours. 

Zendesk's licensing is not cheap. For Enterprise, we are paying $200 per agent. It's a per-month cost, so it's pretty steep. There are some services you need to pay extra for. For example, with Zendesk Guide, we had to buy the most expensive offering in order to get Multibrand and everything. We also had to pay a lot of money for themes. 

Compared to this, Confluence doesn't work out very cheap either, but then Confluence is a game of numbers—if you have a lot of people in your company and you're planning to buy it for everybody, then even the documentation team can leverage that. 

To those considering implementing this solution, I would say Zendesk Guide could be suitable for your company if you're planning to leverage all its features: the ticketing, talking to customers, using the chatbot, etc. It makes more sense when you are using it as a comprehensive sellout product. If you are only using it for the knowledge base, it may not be the best product. 

I rate Zendesk Guide an eight out of ten. If I were rating it only as a knowledge base, I would rate it a seven and a half out of ten. 

Our internal team primarily used Slack for communication with each other. If two or three people were working on the same modules then they were able to share code and work together.

The feature that I have found most valuable is communication between team members.

Customization is something that Slack is lacking. Otherwise, however, the user interface is very good.

We have been using slack for the past one and a half years.

Recalled that there were some bugs about a year ago. However, I don't recall the details or what they did to rectify the problem.

I have not personally been in contact with technical support. When we experienced the bugs about a year ago, my team may have been in contact with them. Ultimately, the problem was resolved.

We primarily use Slack and Microsoft Teams. We know of Confluence but do not use it much.

Slack is a better product than Teams. Teams is more like a chat window, rather than a development window. We were also having issues with Teams, initially, with the user interface when we were trying to create groups. We found that it was not that easy, or perhaps not convenient.

My company has been acquired so we are going to align our systems with our parent company. At this point, I am not sure if we will continue with Slack or instead move to another solution. I have suggested that we continue using the same tools, but at this point, I am not sure.

In my opinion, this is a good product and I recommend it. Slack is much better than Microsoft Teams.

I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.