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Espressive Barista vs Salesforce Service Cloud comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 1, 2024

Review summaries and opinions

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

Categories and Ranking

Espressive Barista
Ranking in Help Desk Software
15th
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
9
Ranking in other categories
IT Service Management (ITSM) (14th), AI-Powered Chatbots (3rd)
Salesforce Service Cloud
Ranking in Help Desk Software
5th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
53
Ranking in other categories
CRM Customer Engagement Centers (2nd), Knowledge Management Software (2nd), IT Alerting and Incident Management (6th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the Help Desk Software category, the mindshare of Espressive Barista is 0.4%, up from 0.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Salesforce Service Cloud is 2.2%, up from 1.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Help Desk Software
 

Featured Reviews

Jim Lobao - PeerSpot reviewer
Has helped enhance our support ability, reduced our resolution time, and reduced our service desk costs
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 intervention. However, Barista does help us identify and address some of these areas, allowing my team to step in and create intents and responses to questions. When a user asks a question that Barista doesn't immediately understand, we can recognize the pattern, capture it, and link it to a common intent. This is highly beneficial for acquiring such data, but it's a reactive approach and still requires curation. Natural language processing still has some way to go. One of our challenges is that our internal employees haven't yet adopted a natural way of interacting with Barista. Getting people to be concise and to the point, rather than being verbose as if they were interacting with a human, has been an ongoing challenge. While they may feel comfortable being conversational in Slack, expecting a human-like response, Barista is a different entity. Barista isn't interested in their recent vacation; it just wants to know they're locked out of their account. So, some users may assume Barista understands their intent when they say, "I'm back from vacation and locked out of my account." Barista, however, may interpret this as a request for the holiday schedule. Therefore, we're gradually educating our users to adapt their communication style for better success with Barista. Conversely, we desire Barista to adapt its behavior based on the interaction, the language used, and the way people communicate. I wholeheartedly desire an AI that can continuously learn and adapt to our organization's evolving needs. This is the most challenging aspect, as it involves understanding our organization's terminology, procedures, and toolsets. We've made significant progress in this area. However, from an NLP standpoint, we still face challenges with our nearly 3,000 Slack channel users, each with their unique communication styles. People ask questions in various ways, and sometimes there are misunderstandings. They want to interact with us naturally. However, we still struggle with natural language processing. People don't always realize that the bot is a virtual agent designed to be concise and efficient. Sometimes, less is more. It's been a difficult transition for people to grasp that they're conversing with a virtual agent, not a human. They still expect human-like interactions, such as discussing their weekend or holidays or simply pasting screenshots of errors. However, the bot can't interpret screenshots. If they provide the error code and some context about the application, the bot can better understand the issue. So, the key challenge is bridging the gap between human expectations and the bot's capabilities in terms of natural interaction.
ChanchalSaxena - PeerSpot reviewer
High scalability with good plugins and excellent customer visibility
The solution should improve: 1. Reports & dashboard - The product should be capable of delivering complex reports as per company requirements without the need for a Tableau license. 2. Einstein has limited capabilities, and it suggests the analysis by predefined algorithms - but in a practical scenario, businesses need to ask real-time questions, and AI products should be capable of delivering the exact answers. Generic answers may not be effective.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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"
"I like Expressive Barista's integration with Microsoft Teams."
"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 most valuable feature is its scalability."
"When it comes to neutral language processing and conversational AI, it's very good, very solid... We all have different ways of speaking or writing in English and the application does a very solid job of recognizing what's being asked regardless of how it's being asked."
"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."
"The bot is pretty easy to update and keep up to date. Espressive itself is pretty easy to work with."
"The solution is available to support us instantly as required."
"Salesforce Service Cloud improved our organization with its mobile capabilities."
"The plug-ins that work with other standard systems have made the product industry-ready."
"There is an out-of-the-box feature for reporting and analytics"
"The complexity of the solution is very less."
"The strength lies in its ability to work cohesively with other systems, creating a centralized hub that enhances efficiency and collaboration across various functionalities within our organization."
"It integrates with all our platforms, providing a comprehensive view of the customer."
"The solution is a great product. It's hosted on a platform that offers various features, such as email, social media, phone calls, and chatbots. You can connect with customers through any of these channels."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is the traceability of actions."
 

Cons

"The knowledge management could definitely be improved."
"I would like to see the continued expansion of all of the automation capabilities."
"The reports provided by the solution are not customizable."
"Espressive Barista's natural language processing and conventional AI still have room for improvement."
"Although they've done some work on their metrics dashboard, there is some fine-tuning to do for people that just want to go in there at a glance and see their metrics."
"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."
"I would like to see improvement to the out-of-the-box verbiage, with the questions going to the right place."
"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."
"We're seeing a lot of automation and AI enhancements for improvements. This helps answer simple questions without manual intervention, saving time. We can improve by automating more of our solution-building process. Salesforce Service Cloud is a SaaS (Software as a Service) solution. It's constantly evolving, and we're always looking for ways to improve our use. The cloud services we use include CRM (Salesforce), financial (NetSuite), and people (Workday). These services are becoming more automated, with a lot happening in the AI space. We do a lot of modeling ourselves to find answers to questions, and our product team has introduced some AI enhancements."
"The product's high price is an area of concern where improvements are required."
"Since customization can increase the cost from an implementation standpoint, we focus on showcasing Service Cloud's built-in features and possibilities."
"The integrations with other solutions can be improved."
"One minor drawback is that its implementation requires some preparation. It's not something you can implement instantly; it takes time. The only issue I've encountered is that you need to ensure the implementation is done properly, which can be time-consuming. So, it requires some time and attention."
"The pricing of Salesforce Service Cloud is expensive compared to other solutions like our current SAP CRM, which is much cheaper."
"I would like to add some bot features."
"It is kind of a struggle to get a report that shows something you want it to show."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution is affordable."
"It is expensive. It's not a cheap thing."
"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."
"The price for the licensing is fair."
"User-based licensing has been working well for us, and we believe we are deriving significant value from it."
"The price is too expensive."
"I believe that in our country, Colombia, we utilize this platform for the Latin American region. In terms of expenses, it's somewhat higher compared to other products. I would rate it as expensive and nine out of ten."
"The price of the solution depends on how many users need access to it"
"The product is expensive. There is a need to make yearly payments towards the licensing costs attached to the product."
"Salesforce Service Cloud is a highly expensive solution"
"Salesforce is not a cheap product. It can be expensive."
"The solution is priced at 50 dollars a month per user."
"The licensing is flexible. Companies pay for what they use. However, a company with very small needs might find it difficult to justify the cost. Overall, it's in the medium price range."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
52%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Healthcare Company
5%
Retailer
4%
Financial Services Firm
19%
Computer Software Company
13%
Educational Organization
11%
Manufacturing Company
10%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

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 ...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Salesforce Service Cloud?
The approximate licensing costs for Salesforce Service Cloud are around three hundred dollars a year per user.
What needs improvement with Salesforce Service Cloud?
The pricing of Salesforce Service Cloud is expensive compared to other solutions like our current SAP CRM ( /products/sap-crm-reviews ), which is much cheaper.
What is your primary use case for Salesforce Service Cloud?
I used Salesforce Service Cloud ( /products/salesforce-service-cloud-reviews ) for our sales agents to track visits, gather feedback from customers, and capture orders.
 

Also Known As

No data available
Service Cloud
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Stanley Black & Decker, Coca-Cola, Activision, Wells Fargo, Spotify, Aldo, Philips, The Red Cross, Blue Shield of California, Sprouts Farmers Market, Direct Energy Solar, Inspirato, Kiva
Find out what your peers are saying about Espressive Barista vs. Salesforce Service Cloud and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
850,028 professionals have used our research since 2012.