HubSpot Vs. Zendesk 2023: Best Small Business Software Suite?

Great pipeline management can be the key to scaling your business.

Thankfully, HubSpot offers fully customizable pipeline management to streamline your sales process and empower your sales teams to succeed!

Here are some things we loved about HubSpot’s pipeline management:

• Customization: You can customize your pipeline stages, deal properties, and more to fit the unique needs of your business.
• Filtering: Easily filter deals by stage, owner, amount, name, and more to stay organized and focused on what matters most.
• Visualize Your Sales Funnel: With HubSpot’s drag-and-drop pipeline view, you can easily see where your deals are at any given time.

Here’s a look at the dashboard customization process (during our six-month testing period). 

We could fully tailor our CRM to fit our team’s unique needs, making HubSpot perfect for niche SMBs.

Once everything was customized, we input some of our affiliate marketing deals at Small Business Bonfire. 

Here’s how it looked once we had everything put in.

We especially loved the drag-and-drop functionality, which allowed our team to easily move deals through the pipeline (in real time). 

Our takeaway: Great pipeline management is essential in scaling, and HubSpot’s got the goods! Based on our testing, they’ve got some of the best pipeline management in the biz.

As your business grows, getting your entire team on the same page for meetings can cause major headaches. 

With HubSpot’s intuitive meeting scheduling feature, you can quickly and easily schedule meetings with team members or clients (eliminating all the back-and-forth emails).

We started testing this feature (over six months) by scheduling some typical meetings at Small Business Bonfire. 

Here’s an example of a quick touch-base meeting we could set up and send out (in less than 5 minutes).

We liked how we could easily send a link to the scheduling page so each person could add their preferred time slot (with just a click). 

Once everyone had responded, we could set the meeting time and automatically send out a calendar invite to all participants.

Our two cents: HubSpot makes the tedious task of scheduling meetings a breeze with this powerful feature.

It may not seem like much, but you’ll thank us later when you’re not drowning in a sea of email chains trying to schedule a meeting.

Managing your customer support tickets while your business grows can be a juggling act. 

That’s where HubSpot comes in to save the day. 

HubSpot makes it easy to accomplish the following:

• Create automated customer support ticketing workflows: You can set up automatic responses to common inquiries so your team can focus on more pressing matters.
• Track and manage tickets in one place: With HubSpot’s ticket dashboard, you can view, sort, filter, and prioritize tickets all in one place.
• Easily assign tickets to the right person: With a simple click, you can assign tickets to specific team members based on skillset or availability.
• Monitor customer satisfaction: You can track how your customers are being helped and make adjustments to improve their overall satisfaction. 

Plus, HubSpot offers multichannel support (through HubSpot Service Hub), which converts messages into tickets from the following sources:

• Live chat
• Chatbots
• Email
• Phone
• SMS

Check out our tickets dashboard, which was easy to navigate using the drag-and-drop interface. 

Overall, resolving customer issues quickly and efficiently is key to scaling.

HubSpot Service Hub gives you the customer service software needed to empower your customer service teams and take your customer interactions to the next level. 

Gaining effective customer insights is a vital part of any business strategy, and HubSpot’s customer feedback surveys make it easy to collect valuable data. 

Here are some features we loved about HubSpot’s surveys: 

• Customizable questions: With HubSpot’s survey builder, you can create custom questions and choose from various response types.
• Easily shareable: You can quickly share your survey via email, chat, or social media.
• In-depth reporting: Track and analyze responses to gain valuable customer insights.

We created and sent out tons of surveys during our six-month testing period. 

These survey types included the following:

• Customer support
• Customer satisfaction
• Customer loyalty
• Custom survey

Here’s how the interface looked to give you some context.

The nitty gritty: HubSpot’s feedback surveys are a great tool for gathering valuable customer information and making data-driven business decisions. 

If you want to take your customer service operations to the next level, our money is on HubSpot.

In today’s digital landscape, connecting with your customers in real time is essential. 

If customers can’t get the help they need immediately, they might look elsewhere. 

With its great live chat capabilities, HubSpot Service Hub can help you ensure that doesn’t happen.

With HubSpot Service Hub, we could easily create and customize live chat to add to our website (within less than 10 minutes). 

Here’s a sneak peek at the customization process during our testing. 

We were able to easily customize the following:

• Name 
• Logo
• Color scheme
• Custom messages

Once everything was customized to our liking, HubSpot gave us the code to embed directly onto our site. 

From there, we were in business (no coding knowledge needed).

We ended up seeing an increase in website conversions and happier customers who could get their questions answered instantaneously. 

In addition to a suite of CRM features, HubSpot offers a fully-fledged content management system (CMS) with its CMS Hub. 

With HubSpot, you can easily create and manage the following:

• Web pages
• Landing pages
• Blogs

Plus, they offer fantastic themes and templates (shown below) to help beginners (and experts alike) create powerful content.

We created a web page within less than 10 minutes using HubSpot’s fantastic drag-and-drop editor (screenshot below). 

The cherry on top of this feature was the powerful SEO capabilities that enabled us to easily optimize our content for search engines. 

At the end of the day, HubSpot is a powerful CRM and CMS combined into one powerhouse of a platform. CMS Hub offers many of these features for free (so there’s no barrier to entry to check them out). 

Great email marketing is key to staying top-of-mind for your customers and prospects. 

HubSpot makes it easy with its email marketing tools (included with HubSpot Marketing Hub).

Here’s a quick look at some of the features we loved:

• Customizable templates: Choose from various beautifully designed email templates or create your own.
• Personalization options: Personalize your emails with dynamic content, custom fields, and more.
• Smart sending options: Send emails at the optimal time for each recipient based on their previous engagement habits.
• In-depth analytics: Track open rates, click-through rates, and more to gain valuable insights into your email campaigns. 

We played around with different templates and personalization options (shown below) to create an email for our newsletter, the Bonfire Field Guide. 

From there, we were taken to an awesome editor (pictured below), where we could fully customize our email. 

We were able to easily add and edit the following:

• Images
• Video
• Social links
• Products
• Text
• Buttons

Once we had our email designed, we could schedule it for future sending (or send it immediately through HubSpot). 

The best part? We saw a noticeable increase in open and click-through rates thanks to the personalized emails we sent with HubSpot’s tools. 

If you’re serious about scaling your business, you’ll need to automate. 

This can seem intimidating at first, especially if you’re just starting out. 

Luckily, HubSpot makes it easy to get started (with no coding knowledge needed).

The CRM software provides helpful pre-made automation templates (shown below), allowing you to start automating tedious tasks immediately. 

The pre-made templates are great, but let’s say you have something more specific in mind. HubSpot delivers in this regard, too, with its custom automation creation.

There’s a bit more of a learning curve here, but HubSpot makes it surprisingly easy to create complex automations (in a matter of minutes). 

Don’t just take my word for it, though; check out an automation sequence I created in less than 5 minutes (to automatically capitalize the first letter of the first and last name of each contact). 

The whole process was made simple with HubSpot’s automation builder. 

It allowed my team and I to visualize our automation sequences and set up the following:

• Triggers
• Actions
• Conditions

Essentially, if you’re not automating your business, you’re leaving money on the table. Let HubSpot help you out by making a complicated process much easier. 

Managing your pipelines is critical to scaling your sales process and ensuring your team stays on track. 

Zendesk Sell offers powerful pipeline management capabilities to help you do just that. 

My team and I tested this feature (over six months) by adding and tracking some of our affiliate marketing deals.

Let’s walk you through how it went down. 

First, we clicked “add deal,” which was clearly displayed. Here’s a new deal card to give you a better idea. 

Within each deal card, we could easily add and edit the following info:

• Name
• Contact
• Value
• Source
• Tags
• Stage
• Win likelihood
• Close date

With that much info, you’d think the user interface (UI) would be super cluttered, but it was actually very clean and intuitive (even for beginners). 

We especially loved the pipeline dashboard, where we could switch between the following views:

• Board
• Table
• Stage

Here’s an example of the “stage” view, where we could easily see the progress of each deal throughout the pipeline. 

Our final thoughts: If you’re looking to easily manage multiple pipelines, Zendesk certainly delivers the goods. 

It’s powerful while remaining beginner-friendly (a rare combo in the CRM world). 

Zendesk excels when it comes to lead prospecting.

Let’s break down why. 

Zendesk offers a powerful prospecting tool called Reach. 

This tool is a game-changer for sales teams, as it helps you find and connect with leads (in a matter of minutes).

We tested Reach by searching for potential leads with their fantastic filter options. 

Here’s an example of our search results.

With Reach, we were essentially able to click each company, and it gave us the contact info of just about every lead we could ever want.

The only real catch here is that each set of leads costs “prospecting tokens” (which replenish each month). 

With Zendesk’s most expensive plan, you can get up to 300 tickets a month. That’s some serious lead prospecting. 

In fact, I’d venture to say Zendesk offers the most powerful lead prospecting in the business. 

The only downside is that the more you use it, the more it costs. 

As you grow your business, managing your day-to-day activities can become a challenge (especially if you have a large team). 

Zendesk’s task management feature streamlines this process by allowing you to easily accomplish the following:

• Assign tasks to team members 
• Set deadlines & reminders 
• Track progress & completion 
• View & edit all your tasks on your mobile device

We input some of our typical onboarding tasks at Small Business Bonfire to put Zendesk through its paces. 

Here’s a snapshot of our tasks dashboard (to give you a better idea).

While this may not seem like the most exciting feature, it can really help keep your team organized and on track. 

The bottom line: If you’re looking to scale, you’ll need a robust task management system. Zendesk offers some of the most efficient and easy-to-use task management on the market!

Zendesk’s integration with PandaDoc eliminates the hassle of sending, tracking, and closing contracts with clients. 

The feature allows for electronic signing and real-time tracking, dramatically speeding up the process of closing deals. 

Here’s a breakdown of how our team tested this feature:

• Real-time tracking: We were able to monitor when clients received, viewed, and signed the contract, which kept us in the loop throughout the entire deal-closing process.
• Physical and digital signature capability: The e-signature feature in Zendesk’s PandaDoc integration made it possible for us to close deals faster, regardless of the client’s location.
• Ease of use: The user-friendly interface made it easy to upload and send contracts to clients directly from the dashboard.
• Increased efficiency: We found that the efficiency and speed of the integration significantly increased our deal-closing success rate.

Here’s a sneak peek into the integration process. 

After setting up the PandaDoc add-on, you can seamlessly create, send, and track documents without leaving Zendesk. 

This means you can monitor your contracts’ status and follow up with clients effectively, thereby closing more deals. 

Our verdict: Zendesk’s PandaDoc integration is perfect for SMBs looking to close deals swiftly and efficiently!

If you’re looking for a customer support solution that’s going to ramp up your customer interactions across the board, look no further than Zendesk Service (part of the overall Zendesk suite of tools).

The powerful CRM platform provides an exceptional ticketing system and a way to manage multiple conversations simultaneously through multichannel support. 

Essentially, Zendesk tracks and converts customer conversations into tickets automatically from the following channels:

• Live chat
• Email
• SMS
• Social media 

Let’s look at an example of this in action. 

Here’s a conversation we tested with our Bonfire Bot to see how quickly the chat would become a ticket. 

The chat was recorded and sent to our unsolved tickets within seconds of starting the conversation. 

Here’s how it looked on our color-coded dashboard. 

This feature allowed us to manage customer inquiries and concerns from various channels in one centralized location. 

The bottom line: If you’re looking to deliver authentic service and handle customer inquiries without missing a beat, our money is on Zendesk. 

Chatbots are a must-have for businesses looking to streamline customer service and improve response time. 

With Zendesk’s AI-powered chatbots, you can easily set up custom greetings and automated responses that provide quick solutions for common customer concerns. 

Here are a few ways we tested the capabilities of Zendesk’s chatbot:

• Customized greeting: We set up a personalized greeting on our Bonfire Bot to welcome customers and provide further information about our services.
• Automated responses: We created preset responses for common questions like billing inquiries or FAQs. This feature significantly reduced the time it took to respond to customer inquiries.
• Quick solutions: By integrating with Zendesk’s knowledge base, the chatbot was able to provide users with immediate answers to their questions, improving response time and customer satisfaction.

This is what our chatbot looked like in action. 

As you can see, it provided quick responses and even offered additional resources for customers to learn more about our services. 

Our one complaint about this feature is that Zendesk lacks real customization options for chatbots. 

For example, we were unable to customize the coloring or add our company logo.

However, if you’re looking for a powerful way to streamline your customer service and provide quick solutions, Zendesk’s AI-powered chatbots are a no-brainer.