Zendesk alternative · Help desk for service businesses
A help desk that knows the job.
Support email, tickets and a help center in the same app as your customers, jobs and invoices. Unlimited users on every plan, technicians included.
From a support email to a fixed furnace.
Watch a forwarded support email open a conversation, become a ticket on the job, and the customer hear back as it moves.
- 1A support email opens a conversation
- 2File a ticket on the repair job
- 3It moves through the team's steps
- 4Diane gets an email as it moves
What changes on Monday.
- 01
Before
With AloriA ticket points to the job, with the customer's quotes and invoices one click away
- 02
Before
With AloriOne customer record for support, quotes, jobs and invoices
- 03
Before
With AloriForward support@, save a few replies, and you are answering
What’s in your app.
Alori starts from ready-made modules, then shapes them to the way you work. Add or remove one any time by asking.
Conversations
Support email, chat, texts and calls, one thread per customer
Tasks
Tickets with steps, priorities and response times
Help center
Articles in English and French at your own address
AI bot
Nora answers support email or suggests an answer
Saved replies that do more than type.
Save the answers you send often. Type / in any reply box and pick one: the customer's name is filled in, and its tags and status apply on Send.
- Show quick answers above the box in website chats.
- Tag conversations and see the top subjects in Front desk.
- Close several conversations at once.
Response times that show who waits.
Each team sets a response time per priority. A customer's ticket past its time turns red and counts on the menu, and Front desk shows how long customers wait on chat and support email.
- Teams with their own steps, cycles and ticket prefix.
- Sub-tickets and links: blocks, related, duplicate.
- A short survey after you close a conversation.
Change it by asking.
Your app isn’t frozen on day one. Write what you need, the way you’d text it. Alori makes the change and shows you before anything goes live.
- Show me tickets past their response time
- File a ticket for Diane's noisy furnace on her last job
- Save a reply that confirms the visit time
- What do customers write to support about most?
The full guide
Everything above, in detail: how it works, what it replaces and what it does not.
Zendesk alternatives: a help desk that knows the job
Short answer: If you are comparing Zendesk alternatives, ask how big your support team is. Zendesk is a full help desk for support teams, with ticket routing, macros, triggers, a help center, a customer portal and a large app marketplace. Alori is the all-in-one app for service businesses: support email, tickets, a help center and a support bot sit in the same app as your customers, quotes, jobs and invoices.
Who Zendesk fits well
Zendesk is a strong fit when:
- A support team of many agents answers tickets all day, across email, chat, phone and social.
- You need detailed routing, triggers, automations and service level reports.
- Customers sign in to a portal to follow their requests, and your other tools connect through the marketplace.
For a dedicated support department, Zendesk is built for the work.
Why service owners look for alternatives
In a service business, a support email is usually about a job:
- The answer needs the job. "My furnace still makes noise after the repair" means finding the job, the technician and the invoice in other tools.
- Two lists of customers. The help desk has its own users, and the CRM has its own customers, kept apart.
- Built for agents, not the office. Views, triggers and macros take time to set up for a team of two or three.
- Another seat per person. The technician who did the job rarely gets access to the ticket.
Side by side
| Zendesk | Alori | |
|---|---|---|
| Main idea | A help desk for support teams | An all-in-one app for a service business |
| Support email | Yes | Yes, forward support@ and each email opens a conversation |
| Tickets | Yes, a strength | Yes, with steps per team, priorities and response times |
| Saved answers | Macros | Saved replies that also apply tags and a status on Send |
| AI answers | Yes | Nora, your support bot, answers support email and website chat, or hands off |
| Help center | Yes | Yes, in English and French |
| Customer portal | Yes | No; the customer gets an email as their ticket moves |
| Quotes, jobs, invoices | Through integrations | In the same app, a ticket can point to a job |
| Users | Per-agent plans | Unlimited users on every plan |
What Alori replaces, and what it does not
For a service business, Alori replaces the help desk and the tools around it:
- Support email. Copy your Support email address in Front desk and forward support@ to it. Each email opens a conversation with its From, To and Cc lines. Nora answers by email, suggests an answer for you, or leaves it to your team.
- Conversations. Every email, text, call and website chat with a customer in one thread. Tag a conversation, merge two, close several at once. A closed conversation comes back when the customer writes again.
- Tickets. File a ticket from a customer's conversation or a job's page. Each team has its own steps, cycles and response times per priority, and a customer's ticket past its time turns red. The customer gets an email as the ticket moves, and their replies land in their conversation.
- Saved replies. Save answers you send often. Type / in a reply box, pick one: names are filled in, and its tags and status apply on Send.
- Help center. Articles with pictures and videos, in sections, at your own address on the Business plan. Nora answers from them.
- Know how you are doing. Front desk shows how long customers wait for a person on chat and support email, and the top subjects of your conversations. A short survey after you close a conversation shows who is happy, and unhappy answers come back to you.
- The work behind the ticket: customers, quotes, jobs and invoices, plus texts and calls from your business number.
What it does not replace: a customer portal where people sign in to follow their requests, Zendesk's triggers and routing rules, its full service level reports and its marketplace of apps. If you run a support department with many agents, Zendesk is likely the better fit.
How to switch
- Describe your business. Alori builds the app with customers, Conversations and Front desk.
- Import from Zendesk. In Import data, click Import on Zendesk and connect it. Tickets, customers, companies, internal notes, attachments and your help center come over in one go. Pick which Alori teammate takes over each Zendesk agent.
- Keep both while you switch. Under Import again, pick how often Alori checks Zendesk for changes, from every 10 minutes to once a day. Pick Never once you have moved.
- Forward your support email to the address in Front desk, and set up your saved replies.
Start on the free plan, no card needed. See pricing.
Questions
Another question? Ask it when you start.
Yes for service businesses that want support email, tickets and a help center tied to customers, jobs and invoices. For large support teams that need a customer portal, advanced triggers and detailed service level reports, Zendesk fits better.
Tickets, each in the customer's thread with every reply in order, customers, companies, internal notes, attachments and public help center articles in English and French. Views, triggers and macros stay in Zendesk.
Yes. Undo import takes out what the import brought. What was already in Alori stays.
Service businesses such as plumbing, HVAC and cleaning companies.