Espressive Barista vs Kayako comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary
 

Categories and Ranking

Espressive Barista
Ranking in Help Desk Software
12th
Average Rating
8.8
Number of Reviews
9
Ranking in other categories
IT Service Management (ITSM) (9th), AI-Powered Chatbots (2nd)
Kayako
Ranking in Help Desk Software
42nd
Average Rating
8.0
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
Shared Inbox (10th)
 

Featured Reviews

reviewer2208246 - PeerSpot reviewer
Jun 12, 2023
Self-help means our employees get answers to their questions without having to wait
The conversational AI is good. We're working to improve it and make sure that our interactions are linked appropriately and not too cumbersome for our employees and staff. We are driving it down to, "What do you need? What do you want?" so that it's one, two, or three questions, intuitive and user-friendly. We have the ability to alter phrases, create new phrases, enhance phrases, or change paths. From the dashboard, we are able to get a lot of information we need about what people are asking, where they are dropping off from conversations, and where they do not get the information they need. That has been helpful to us in understanding how we can improve our most common questions. Using the control center to extend the language model or design interactive conversations is the bread and butter of the solution. Our success is based on our ability to create those interactions and make sure they're specific to our users so these things don't have to go to our service desk and are fulfilled automatically. Either the user gets their responses through the appropriate knowledge articles, a ticket is created for them, or ideally, we route their questions through automation.
DM
Feb 18, 2022
Flexible, straightforward implementation, and helpful support
We are in the process of switching from Kayako to ManageEngine Desktop Central. We went through a full review of our service desk processing and one of the solutions we purchased was a ManageEngine Desktop Central. When we were looking at the integrations into the Kayako system and how it works, we found that ManageEngine Desktop Central did very similar things. It had better layers of classification, other templating, and additional features that we did not have with Kayako. Our service manager made the decision to switch at that time. My advice to others wanting to implement Kayako would be for them to plan out their service processes first, prior to trying to implement them in the tool. We made the mistake of jumping in too soon back 10 years ago. I started using it in a way that we could have tooled it in a different way to make it better. We could have had more implementation process information to make sure we received what we wanted to out of the solution. I rate Kayako an eight out of ten.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"With respect to its natural language processing capabilities, it recognizes things that you wouldn't think it would recognize. Even in cases where it doesn't, it's pretty easy to go in and make the adjustments that are needed."
"The solution is available to support us instantly as required."
"The bot is pretty easy to update and keep up to date. Espressive itself is pretty easy to work with."
"Its ability to recognize phrases has gotten smarter over time."
"Our developers have used the Barista Control Center to extend the platform by adding content, and they've found it fairly easy to do and manage"
"The most valuable feature is its scalability."
"We have the ability to alter phrases, create new phrases, or enhance phrases, or change paths. From the dashboard, we are able to get a lot of information we need about what people are asking, where they are dropping off from conversations, and where they do not get the information they need."
"I like Expressive Barista's integration with Microsoft Teams."
"The most valuable feature of Kayako is its flexibility. We can do anything we want with it, which is nice."
 

Cons

"The reports provided by the solution are not customizable."
"The knowledge management could definitely be improved."
"I would like to see improvement to the out-of-the-box verbiage, with the questions going to the right place."
"Espressive Barista's natural language processing and conventional AI still have room for improvement."
"My only comment would be if they wanted to use this as an IT service management tool, maybe they could think about Barista making tickets and having change management and problem management capabilities."
"Expressive Barista could improve by adding native integration with WhatsApp, one of the top communication channels in South Africa. When we're trying to sell Barista to customers, we have to tell them that the solution doesn't have out-of-the-box support for WhatsApp. We can develop it, but then we need to have a conversation about how much that will cost."
"I would like to see the continued expansion of all of the automation capabilities."
"What would make things easier is more detail, out of the box, about what is helping out of the box. We're struggling a little bit to get that data. We want more information about what Barista has brought in that the employees are using, out of the box. We want more visibility into the things that we ourselves haven't done the interaction for."
"Some of the reporting in Kayako could be improved. It only has two levels of classification and if there were additional levels added for reporting purposes it would be awesome for our environment."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"User-based licensing has been working well for us, and we believe we are deriving significant value from it."
"It is expensive. It's not a cheap thing."
"The price for the licensing is fair."
"The solution is affordable."
"The pricing isn't overly burdensome. It's going to be interesting to see how new models come in with new capabilities but, as it is, as a base system, it's pretty good."
"Kayako is a highly affordable solution."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
55%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Healthcare Company
5%
Financial Services Firm
4%
No data available
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Espressive?
The most valuable feature is its scalability.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Espressive?
Espressive has been very accommodating in trying to meet our needs and adapt to our current situation. User-based licensing has been working well for us, and we believe we are deriving significant ...
What needs improvement with Espressive?
Espressive Barista's natural language processing and conventional AI still have room for improvement. We haven't yet found anything that resembles true AI that can learn autonomously without human ...
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Sample Customers

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Toshiba Canada, Disney, Avast, Namecheap, Texas Tech University
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