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Siebel CRM vs Zendesk comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 19, 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

Siebel CRM
Ranking in CRM
9th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.1
Number of Reviews
20
Ranking in other categories
Local Government CRM (3rd)
Zendesk
Ranking in CRM
24th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
61
Ranking in other categories
CRM Customer Engagement Centers (7th), Help Desk Software (11th), IT Service Management (ITSM) (11th), Sales Force Automation (11th), Reporting (19th), Knowledge Management Software (4th), Community Platforms (3rd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the CRM category, the mindshare of Siebel CRM is 5.2%, down from 6.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Zendesk is 1.5%, up from 1.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
CRM
 

Featured Reviews

ShirazShah - PeerSpot reviewer
Integration capabilities facilitate efficient data management and enhance customer service, but the analytics requires improvement
The analytics capabilities in Siebel CRM have presented numerous challenges. Due to these challenges, we had to integrate Microsoft Power BI. The CRM analytics was not sufficient for our needs, given that we have four million customers and a thousand products. We are currently focusing on the upgrade and discussing with Oracle. If there have been improvements in the analytics side over the past few years, we are open to evaluating them. Currently, all analytics are being done on Power BI. The data is exported to our data lake, and Power BI is being used for all reporting and analytics. Even our customer 360, which is the core of any CRM, has Power BI widgets built-in through iframe because we could not accomplish this through Siebel CRM. The analytics component has been the main pain point for our organization, particularly due to processing time and performance with our large customer base.
JohanSkibdahl - PeerSpot reviewer
Automating customer support with advanced AI capabilities and seamless communication
Zendesk has been invaluable in automating communications such as email and phone calls. It allows us to handle more support cases with fewer people due to its advanced artificial intelligence capabilities. This intelligent tool can manage complex queries before users even realize they are interacting with a non-human. Additionally, we have integrated Zendesk with Datto and Klaviyo, enhancing our workflows.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Siebel CRM has enhanced customer engagement for our organization, particularly through its robust data model and flexible features. One specific scenario where Siebel CRM excelled was in addressing complex client requirements. For instance, we successfully implemented a module for email responses, a feature that was not readily available or as robust as other CRM tools. Additionally, Siebel's open UI module allowed us to customize the user interface for one of our clients completely. This customization proved to be a major selling point for our company."
"Siebel CRM is the number one CRM product in the world."
"The flexibility is very good."
"It is easier to communicate with local companies within a large organization using Siebel CRM."
"One valuable feature is that certain views can be adjusted as per our requirements, which adds a level of customization that is appreciated."
"The tool's complaint management feature is very good. We used a CRM before, which lacked the integrations, so complaints had to be handled manually. With Siebel CRM, we have better integrations and can resolve complaints with a few clicks. When you're in the service industry, tasks matter a lot, especially when you have to access multiple systems to address issues. Being a bank, we currently have around 17 operational systems. It's not feasible to expect users to access them individually to make the necessary changes."
"Siebel is easy to configure and comes with various pre-built industry verticals, so it doesn't require much effort. If you want to roll out Siebel in telecom or manufacturing, they have the verticals."
"It is quite robust and flexible. You can develop almost anything you want. You go into the tools, and you can do anything you want."
"The most valuable features of Zendesk Support are collaboration, reports, and a self-service portal. The customer and team can see all the information needed from the portal."
"I found the user experience with vendors on Zendesk to be straightforward, especially when it comes to understanding and searching for specific tickets. The search and navigation tools are easy to use, and I haven't encountered any issues with delays or communication gaps in ticket resolutions."
"The feature to move over my customer experience team tickets for different specialists is very valuable for my team."
"The most valuable feature is the trackability of incoming requests. The system keeps a comprehensive history of work requests, making it a useful tool for our internal processes."
"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."
"It is a scalable solution."
"The product offers very good management. It has a great ability to assign tickets based on content."
"It's very convenient to use."
 

Cons

"The problem with Siebel is that everything is customizable in it. It's probably over-engineered, which makes it difficult to use, and it makes it difficult for the users to get started with the system."
"Siebel CRM can improve as an ERP and for a few corporate business workloads."
"The tool took a lot of time to deploy."
"The UI could be improved by being fully cloud native as this is what our customers are looking for. It would also be great to see what updates are coming up for release and for updates to take place automatically without manual intervention."
"The documentation needs to be improved."
"The user interface, mobile application, and support could be improved."
"It is difficult to set up."
"Siebel is pricey compared to other CRM tools. That's the problem. Although it's a highly stable and functionally rich application, customers are not willing to pay that price for it. Customers can find CRM software that gives them similar functionality at a lower price. There are so many others on the market like Salesforce."
"There could be improvements in integration, which can be achieved with APIs or tools like Zapier."
"One of the drawbacks of Zendesk is that it doesn't provide a secure way for us to send data. So, we usually use a secure SharePoint folder link. We put that in the Zendesk ticket so that the requester has a secure way of getting to their data."
"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."
"Zendesk Guide's customization could be improved. I would like it to be easier and maybe open-sourced, so that if you have a developer in your company, you can do it yourself. Right now, that isn't allowed, so you need to have it done via the integrator. Another improvement—this is nit-picking—is that it could be less easy to make changes. Some things are so easy that they sometimes look a little amateur-ish. Most of the templates are built-in so they can be used directly, so they are very simple."
"As per me, there arent much significant issues or areas for improvement with Zendesk, as my usage of it is limited. I appreciate its ability to organize tickets effectively based on tags, allowing me to easily gather and analyze customer feedback and requests."
"If I write an article, and I have a team of 30 people, and they all have a Zendesk account, when I write an article, I send them an email. "Hey guys, I just wrote this article. It's one of the most popular topics this month on which we are not covered. Please check it and make sure that you include it in your resolutions". The issue is, once I send it to those 30 people, and they open it, the next morning, that article is the most popular article."
"The solution could integrate better with QR codes from some websites such as Facebook."
"Zendesk's stability on inbound calls could be improved as compared to Talkdesk."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I think the tool’s pricing is exaggerated. Once you do the price sizing as per your business needs, you would find that the price of other solutions like Zoho CRM, HubSpot CRM, Salesforce CRM, etc. would be always the same."
"Its licensing is yearly."
"This solution is expensive compared to other solutions in the market. This makes it difficult to convince our customers to use it. The customers who are already using Siebel have thought about moving to Velocity or Salesforce."
"The price of Siebel CRM depends on the usage of the business requirement. For large enterprises the price it's very good but if you are using it for medium scale enterprises, the price is very expensive."
"The product is expensive."
"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."
"We pay for the solution on a yearly basis and my understanding is that the cost is about $30,000. That's the cost for 24 to 25 agents."
"There are different plans that are offered. We are using the entry-level plan. The overall price of the solution should be reduced. The price is too high."
"You have to pay extra for better support. So it's not only the license that you pay for, but you have to pay extra for the support as well."
"The price is very competitive."
"From what I hear, Zendesk's pricing is a little expensive."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Government
11%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Computer Software Company
22%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Educational Organization
6%
Performing Arts
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Siebel Sales?
Siebel CRM has enhanced customer engagement for our organization, particularly through its robust data model and flexible features. One specific scenario where Siebel CRM excelled was in addressing...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Siebel Sales?
I do not have any information on pricing, setup cost, or licensing.
What needs improvement with Siebel Sales?
The analytics capabilities in Siebel CRM have presented numerous challenges. Due to these challenges, we had to integrate Microsoft Power BI. The CRM analytics was not sufficient for our needs, giv...
What do you like most about Zendesk Support?
I found the user experience with vendors on Zendesk to be straightforward, especially when it comes to understanding and searching for specific tickets. The search and navigation tools are easy to ...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Zendesk Support?
Zendesk's pricing is reasonable. It is not the cheapest solution nor the most expensive, but it provides value for money.
What needs improvement with Zendesk Support?
There could be improvements in integration, which can be achieved with APIs or tools like Zapier ( /products/zapier-reviews ). However, easier integration could enhance the usability. Multilingual ...
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

Siebel Sales
Zendesk Support, Zendesk Guide, Zendesk Sell
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Hover Automotive India Pvt. Ltd., Lawn Tennis Association, Tªrk Telekom, Bouygues Telecom, City of Atlanta, IGEPA IT-SERVICE GmbH, ec4u expert consulting AG, Salud Responde, Sascar, Banca Transilvania, UL, Ingersoll Rand, The Royal Dutch Touring Club ANWB
Mailchimp, Tesco, Vimeo, Instacart, Mediaocean, Slack, Uber
Find out what your peers are saying about Siebel CRM vs. Zendesk and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
865,384 professionals have used our research since 2012.