Siebel CRM vs Zendesk comparison

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Siebel CRM

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 19, 2024

Siebel CRM and Zendesk are competitors in the CRM space. Zendesk often leads due to its modern features and cost-value perception, while Siebel CRM has strong support and pricing feedback.

Features: Siebel CRM is renowned for its customization capabilities and enterprise system integration, ideal for large deployments. It offers workflows and a comprehensive data model, which enhances customer engagement through detailed customization. Zendesk provides a user-friendly interface with a flexible ticketing system, analytics, and seamless integration with other apps, like JIRA, enhancing its customer support tools.

Room for Improvement: Siebel CRM could improve its user interface flexibility and offer a clearer setup process for smaller businesses. Its high resource demand could also be a barrier for some users. Zendesk could enhance its reporting functions for deeper insights and provide more robust offline options for geographically dispersed teams. Its customization options could also be expanded further to suit larger enterprises.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Siebel CRM's deployment is complex, requiring substantial resources but benefits from robust enterprise support. Meanwhile, Zendesk offers a streamlined setup with an intuitive interface, promoting faster onboarding and efficient customer service.

Pricing and ROI: Siebel CRM entails a significant initial cost, offering high ROI for large enterprises due to its integration potential. Zendesk's flexible pricing is appealing for quicker ROI, providing immediate customer service benefits, making it cost-effective for varied business sizes.

To learn more, read our detailed Siebel CRM vs. Zendesk Report (Updated: June 2025).

Siebel CRM vs. Zendesk

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Helped 860,168 peers since 2012

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

7.8

Reviews Sentiment

6.3

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Local Government CRM (3rd)

Zendesk

Ranking in CRM

21st

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

6.8

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

CRM Customer Engagement Centers (7th), Help Desk Software (9th), IT Service Management (ITSM) (9th), Sales Force Automation (9th), Reporting (16th), Knowledge Management Software (4th), Community Platforms (3rd)

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the CRM category, the mindshare of Siebel CRM is 5.6%, down from 6.7% 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

KalpanaSingh

Senior Manager at Credit Suisse

Customizable and flexible but user experience needs enhancement

Siebel is not user-friendly. There are so many tabs and different features that until it's explained to someone, they will not understand it. A user-friendly tool is supposed to be designed in a way where the user can log in and intuitively understand how to use it. People who use it regularly are still confused, and it requires a lot of clicks and is very difficult to navigate. Sometimes it takes a lot of time to reflect the correct information—even when it's updated, you have to refresh it again and again to see the right data.

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JohanSkibdahl

CEO at Etcetera Networks

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 ( /products/klaviyo-reviews ), enhancing our workflows.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The flexibility is very good."

"Siebel offers a high level of customization which has been valuable. The solution also offers the ability to model complex products."

"Siebel CRM is the number one CRM product in the world."

"Siebel CRM is used for distributing information between systems, trouble ticketing, and case management."

"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."

"Siebel CRM's most beneficial aspects are the workflows. It has complete holistic workflows for a customer management system."

"One valuable feature is that certain views can be adjusted as per our requirements, which adds a level of customization that is appreciated."

"The solution is scalable."

More Siebel CRM pros

"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."

"The product offers very good management. It has a great ability to assign tickets based on content."

"The feature to move over my customer experience team tickets for different specialists is very valuable for my team."

"The initial setup is simple and straightforward."

"It has good management, the ability to sign tickets based on content, the multi-channel support, the self service portal, the integration with Salesforce, the setup process, and the product features as we are currently using them."

"It's a very stable tool, very powerful."

"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."

"It's very convenient to use."

More Zendesk pros

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."

"The user interface could be more intuitive and modern. The Oracle Siebel documentation contains many links, and finding specific information takes time."

"However, there are areas that this product has not evolved at par with global industry trends, including the UX/UI and cloud capabilities."

"Siebel CRM should improve its UI. Because it's all about the customer experience and how the customer experiences it, the internal customer is more important for CRM than the people handling the company. So, you get frustrated if you don't have a very good user interface and user experience."

"Currently, Siebel CRM is not helping the agent provide faster feedback to the customer."

"Siebel CRM can improve as an ERP and for a few corporate business workloads."

"The tool took a lot of time to deploy."

"The documentation needs to be improved."

More Siebel CRM cons

"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."

"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."

"The solution could integrate better with QR codes from some websites such as Facebook."

"The data you get when logged in to Zendesk Support differs from the data you get when you programmatically query Zendesk Support through its API because of a sync time delay."

"Report generation is still slightly tricky and not very customizable as per my inquiries."

"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 dashboard could be better."

"It wasn't easy to set up so we're only using a third of all of the features,"

More Zendesk cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."

"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."

"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."

"The product is expensive."

"Its licensing is yearly."

"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."

"The price is very competitive."

"From what I hear, Zendesk's pricing is a little 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."

"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."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

15%

Financial Services Firm

13%

Government

12%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Computer Software Company

24%

Financial Services Firm

Educational Organization

Manufacturing Company

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?

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 ...

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Product Reports

Siebel CRM

Download Siebel CRM product report

Download Zendesk product report

Also Known As

Siebel Sales

Zendesk Support, Zendesk Guide, Zendesk Sell

Overview

Siebel CRM is a comprehensive customer relationship management solution that helps businesses streamline their sales, marketing, and service processes. With its robust features and user-friendly interface, Siebel CRM enables organizations to effectively manage customer interactions and enhance customer satisfaction. The solution offers a wide range of modules, including sales force automation, marketing automation, and customer service management, allowing businesses to automate and optimize their customer-facing activities.

Siebel CRM also provides advanced analytics and reporting capabilities, enabling businesses to gain valuable insights into their customer data and make informed decisions. With its flexible deployment options, including on-premises and cloud-based solutions, Siebel CRM can be tailored to meet the unique needs of any organization.

Oracle

Zendesk Support is intuitive, and it's built with support agents in mind. Everything they need lives in a single, dynamic help desk interface so it's easy to be productive and manage customer interactions.

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

Siebel CRM vs. Zendesk