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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
8th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.3
Number of Reviews
18
Ranking in other categories
Local Government CRM (3rd)
Zendesk
Ranking in CRM
20th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
60
Ranking in other categories
CRM Customer Engagement Centers (7th), Help Desk Software (9th), IT Service Management (ITSM) (7th), Sales Force Automation (7th), Reporting (13th), Knowledge Management Software (3rd), Community Platforms (3rd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the CRM category, the mindshare of Siebel CRM is 6.6%, down from 7.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Zendesk is 1.4%, down from 1.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
CRM
 

Featured Reviews

KalpanaSingh - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
Ahmed Nassar - PeerSpot reviewer
Stable tool, making it reliable for handling tasks but difficult initial setup
It has a huge problem regarding the price. The price increases every year. Every year, they raise the price of the licenses, which makes a lot of limitations, and you have to pay more. So that's some conditions. Actually, most of the companies that use Zendesk need a customer experience or customer care department. However, Zendesk only works with chatbox or emailing services, but it can also use Genesys, VoIP, or voice sensors. Additionally, Zendesk needs the administration panels to be easier because it's a very complex panel. You need to search for a lot of things to do, like a small job. So you have to do a lot of setup regarding the integration, and it's a little bit challenging to integrate any software in the vendor.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Siebel CRM is used for distributing information between systems, trouble ticketing, and case management."
"Siebel CRM's most beneficial aspects are the workflows. It has complete holistic workflows for a customer management system."
"The solution's order management pack is quite fantastic."
"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."
"Siebel CRM has a strong database model, workflow and integration tools."
"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."
"Due to the many features that are built in from a CRM perspective, it is the best product we have."
"Siebel offers a high level of customization which has been valuable. The solution also offers the ability to model complex products."
"The stability has been very good."
"The feature to move over my customer experience team tickets for different specialists is very valuable for my team."
"It's a very stable tool, very powerful."
"The initial setup is simple and straightforward."
"Its agility and simplicity are the most valuable features. This tool is very user-friendly."
"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."
"Zendesk has been invaluable in automating communications such as email and phone calls."
"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."
 

Cons

"The tool took a lot of time to deploy."
"I want Oracle to improve the tool’s UI with a vanilla application. I would also like to see an insurance broking vertical in their future releases. There are thousands of brokers who look for an insurance broking solution."
"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 solution itself is very heavy."
"Siebel is not user-friendly."
"Currently, Siebel CRM is not helping the agent provide faster feedback to the customer."
"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."
"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."
"Report generation is still slightly tricky and not very customizable as per my inquiries."
"It needs to improve in terms of its flexibility, price, and installation."
"The dashboard could be better."
"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 itself wasn't easy to set up."
"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."
"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."
"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."
 

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."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"The price is very competitive."
"From what I hear, Zendesk's pricing is a little 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."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
15%
Government
15%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
23%
Educational Organization
12%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Manufacturing Company
7%
 

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 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 wa...
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?
I am not currently aware of the exact pricing, but since we are still using Zendesk, it appears to be at a reasonable price point.
What needs improvement with Zendesk Support?
Report generation is still slightly tricky and not very customizable as per my inquiries. It would be advantageous to have an AI layer that can analyze incoming requests and generate summaries, as ...
 

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: April 2025.
846,617 professionals have used our research since 2012.