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Espressive Barista vs SCSM comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 3, 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
16th
Ranking in IT Service Management (ITSM)
15th
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
9
Ranking in other categories
AI-Powered Chatbots (4th)
SCSM
Ranking in Help Desk Software
11th
Ranking in IT Service Management (ITSM)
10th
Average Rating
7.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
26
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2025, in the IT Service Management (ITSM) category, the mindshare of Espressive Barista is 0.4%, up from 0.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SCSM is 1.5%, down from 2.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
IT Service Management (ITSM)
 

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.
PraveenSharma3 - PeerSpot reviewer
Enhanced remote functionality complements intricate admin management
We are using it as co-management, working from SCCM and some from Intune. However, there are dissimilarities between SCCM and Intune, so we use SCCM for specific tasks or policies Currently, with the system, we have some remote tool functionality which is not available with Intune. We are also…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"I like Expressive Barista's integration with Microsoft Teams."
"The most valuable feature is its scalability."
"Its ability to recognize phrases has gotten smarter over time."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"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 solution is quite easy to integrate with other Microsoft products."
"Many more features than other comparable products."
"The reporting is very good."
"SCCM provides remote tool functionality, which is not in Intune."
"It is a simple solution that is easy to configure."
"SCSM helps us keep organized by tracking all user demands and change requests. However, the reporting is not sufficient to provide a clear view of ongoing projects. It helps with daily operations and change request management."
"I've used SCSM a lot, and its features are valuable."
"The solution's setup process is relatively straightforward due to the familiar deployment steps similar to other Microsoft solutions."
 

Cons

"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."
"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."
"Espressive Barista's natural language processing and conventional AI still have room for improvement."
"I would like to see the continued expansion of all of the automation capabilities."
"I would like to see improvement to the out-of-the-box verbiage, with the questions going to the right place."
"The reports provided by the solution are not customizable."
"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."
"The knowledge management could definitely be improved."
"The major issues with SCSM include its severe slowness, especially on the client side, and the lack of comprehensive reporting tools."
"The product needs to improve its integration with other tools. It also needs to have a better UI and a simple dashboard."
"It would be better if they had a portal for administrators. It would help me use it from anywhere and connect to any device from anywhere. I can administer the solution without a VPN."
"The price of this solution is high and it needs to be cheaper."
"My company had planned a few months ago to apply SCSM over the cloud in order to provide updates, like regular updates, but it had to be put through a few tools from Microsoft on the cloud, which was not easy."
"We have had some issues with the SCSM on-premise deployment version in the imaging aspects."
"The configuration could be easier."
"The solution could be more simple. For example, it takes a lot of work to create reports. It runs on Microsoft SQL queries. Creating custom reports on ManageEngine takes less work from the administrator."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution is affordable."
"The price for the licensing is fair."
"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."
"It is expensive. It's not a cheap thing."
"User-based licensing has been working well for us, and we believe we are deriving significant value from it."
"I would rate the pricing as two out of five."
"The pricing is reasonable."
"Licensing can be complex and confusing."
"It comes free with the enterprise agreement that we have, but the expense really is in having to buy another product to sit on top of it to make it work properly. You wind up having to buy additional support and additional product with their own support and maintenance costs on top of that."
"It is a lower price vs. other things on the market."
"The price of the solution could be better. My organization has an enterprise annual license with Microsoft which provides us support."
"The license for SCSM is cheap."
"It is an expensive solution."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
49%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Healthcare Company
5%
Retailer
5%
Government
26%
Computer Software Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
8%
 

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 do you like most about SCSM?
The solution offers good productivity at a low price point.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for SCSM?
We acquired SCSM for free with our Microsoft Endpoint Manager purchase, and we only paid for the integration process.
What needs improvement with SCSM?
From an admin point of view, Intune has more features and is easier to manage compared to SCCM. SCCM is a little complex for the admin point of view. Although some engineers at Microsoft are good, ...
 

Also Known As

No data available
System Center Service Manager
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Fibabanka, UMC Health System
Find out what your peers are saying about Espressive Barista vs. SCSM and other solutions. Updated: May 2025.
857,162 professionals have used our research since 2012.