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: July 2025).

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Siebel CRM vs. Zendesk

July 2025

Helped 860,825 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

"Due to the many features that are built in from a CRM perspective, it is the best product we have."

"The flexibility is very good."

"The best thing about the tool is its data model. The underlying data model refers to how the data is stored in databases. We can also experience the ease of developing anything with the tool. We can customize any functionality as per any business challenge."

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

"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 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."

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

"Siebel CRM has a strong database model, workflow and integration tools."

More Siebel CRM pros

"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."

"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 is very easy to connect back and forth between the requester and the person fulfilling the ticket."

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

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

"The initial setup is simple and straightforward."

"What is cool about Zendesk Guide is how it works together with others Zendesk products. Especially with support and with the analytics. Put those together for a small or medium-sized company and it's a really powerful tool."

More Zendesk pros

Cons

"It is difficult to set up."

"The solution itself is very heavy."

"Oracle needs to improve its support. The major drawback I've observed with Siebel CRM is that Oracle hasn't taken appropriate steps to improve it since 2019. We noticed a steep downfall because Oracle was slow to roll out upgrades like Open UI. By the time these upgrades were available, the market had shifted to cloud solutions, which competitors were already providing much earlier."

"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."

"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 tool took a lot of time to deploy."

"The backend performance of Siebel could be improved as it is often slow. In addition, the Open UI is not that responsive."

"The documentation needs to be improved."

More Siebel CRM cons

"You couldn't give administrative access to new hires."

"The dashboard could be better."

"Zendesk's stability on inbound calls could be improved as compared to Talkdesk."

"There is always a network issue with Zendesk. But we don’t know whether it is managed. The network issue is that when I call, it does not let us."

"Sometimes if there was a way to just flag the actual issue out of those email chains - that would be really helpful."

"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 itself wasn't easy to set up."

"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

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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

14%

Financial Services Firm

13%

Government

12%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Computer Software Company

23%

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?

Siebel CRM is a flexible system that can be customized for specific business needs. There are many models which you first select and then modify. Many features can be added as needed. It is a huge ...

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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Compared 16% of the time

Oracle CX Sales vs Siebel CRM

Compared 10% of the time

Salesforce Sales Cloud vs Siebel CRM

Compared 8% of the time

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BMC Helix ITSM vs Zendesk

Compared 6% of the time

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Product Reports

Download Siebel CRM product report

Siebel CRM

June 2025

Download Zendesk product report

June 2025

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