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Espressive Barista vs Zoho Desk 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
33rd
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
9
Ranking in other categories
AI-Powered Chatbots (8th), AI-Agents for HR (3rd)
Zoho Desk
Ranking in Help Desk Software
9th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
21
Ranking in other categories
CRM Customer Engagement Centers (7th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the Help Desk Software category, the mindshare of Espressive Barista is 0.8%, up from 0.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Zoho Desk is 2.2%, down from 2.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Help Desk Software Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Zoho Desk2.2%
Espressive Barista0.8%
Other97.0%
Help Desk Software
 

Featured Reviews

Jim Lobao - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Manager for End User Support Services at Five9
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.
JJ
Advisor at a tech services company with 11-50 employees
Efficient integration enhances customer insights and communication
The integration between Zoho CRM, Zoho Desk, and Zoho Projects is very good. One of the key features of Zoho CRM is the ability to record telephone calls using AI. The AI tool, Tele Zia, translates calls into bullet points, providing insights such as when to send emails or contact the customer based on previous conversations.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The most valuable feature is its scalability."
"Its ability to recognize phrases has gotten smarter over time."
"The bot is pretty easy to update and keep up to date. Espressive itself is pretty easy to work with."
"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."
"The solution is available to support us instantly as required."
"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."
"Good at capturing online inquiries has portal functionality, and is very good at managing inbound customer inquiries."
"The deployment process is swift, typically taking just one day, and includes customization and automation setup."
"The most valuable feature of generating the ticket through the web form and for the e-mailers. So, if you are facing any issues, by the ticket, you can generate the issue in Google Test."
"The tool's UI is very user-friendly. The solution's workflow is flexible and we can create our workflows. We can assign and create groups with the tool. We are also able to control the privileges with the tool."
"The initial setup is easy."
"The most valuable features of Zoho Desk are the user interface, pricing, and how they customize the solution for us."
"The product has a lot of features."
"Zoho Desk is very flexible, just like the other applications of Zoho."
 

Cons

"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."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"The knowledge management could definitely be improved."
"The reports provided by the solution are not customizable."
"There is room for improvement in customer service and support. It could be more knowledgeable."
"Could have slightly better integration between additional functionalities in the Zoho desk."
"There is room for improvement with the pricing."
"The solution urgently needs improvement in the display's night mode. When we use the system for a long time, it's very stressful for our eyes. I also need to see improvements that can help to find the assets under a previous owner."
"There is room for improvement in terms of integration."
"I would want Zoho Desk to integrate Zoho CRM, Zoho SalesIQ , and Zoho Campaigns."
"The main concern is the pricing of Zoho Desk, as I consider it to be on the expensive side."
"They could enhance the product’s features to customize the automated email responses."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"User-based licensing has been working well for us, and we believe we are deriving significant value from it."
"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."
"It is expensive. It's not a cheap thing."
"The solution is affordable."
"For what it does, it's quite cheap."
"Zoho Desk is a cost-effective solution."
"Price-wise, Zoho Desk is about 35 USD a month per user."
"Zoho Desk's cost is pretty much okay."
"Regarding pricing, it's 35 USD per user a year and 45 USD per user a month. Under the price, I have access to all Zoho products since it all falls under Zoho One's package."
"The pricing is better than Zendesk. Zendesk charges in USD per user per month, whereas Zoho let us pay in Naira (Nigerian currency)."
"The product costs $10 to $25 per user per month."
"Zoho Desk's pricing is more flexible."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
26%
Retailer
10%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Healthcare Company
6%
Manufacturing Company
14%
Computer Software Company
12%
Government
8%
Performing Arts
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business3
Large Enterprise6
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business19
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise1
 

Questions from the Community

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What do you like most about Zoho Desk?
The most valuable features of Zoho Desk are archiving queries and analytics.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Zoho Desk?
The pricing in Brazil is complicated due to the high exchange rate, with one dollar equaling six reais. Altasnet has a favorable pricing from Zoho as an early account in Brazil, but current website...
What needs improvement with Zoho Desk?
Zoho Desk could be improved by making it multi-tenant, as it is currently not suitable for service providers with multiple customers. Additionally, Zoho Desk's potential would be fully realized wit...
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Intel, Sears, Daimler, Essilor, Aon Hewitt, Shop Your Way, CoffeeRocket
Find out what your peers are saying about Espressive Barista vs. Zoho Desk and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.
881,082 professionals have used our research since 2012.