BMC Helix ITSM vs. Zendesk Suite

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
BMC Helix ITSM
Score 8.9 out of 10
N/A
BMC Helix ITSM replaces Remedy. It is a broad suite of ITSM, tools with strong integrations to other BMC tools and in-built ITAM. The product is used mainly by global brands and is offered in on-premise and SaaS configurations.N/A
Zendesk Suite
Score 8.7 out of 10
N/A
Zendesk is a customer support solution with built-in ticketing, conversational messaging, and live chat, designed to help businesses of all sizes and industries deliver personalized service at scale. Zendesk's AI agents are trained in CX to help Service teams resolve customer issues faster and more accurately while still providing a human-centered experience. Zendesk ultimately aims to help businesses improve time to value, reduce effort per ticket, and keep costs low.
$69
per month per agent
Pricing
BMC Helix ITSMZendesk Suite
Editions & Modules
BMC Helix ITSM
Contact Sales
Suite Team
$69
per month per agent
Suite Growth
$115
per month per agent
Suite Professional
$149
per month per agent
Suite Enterprise
Contact Sales
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
BMC Helix ITSMZendesk Suite
Free Trial
NoYes
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoYes
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeOptional
Additional Details20% discount available with annual pricing.
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
BMC Helix ITSMZendesk Suite
Considered Both Products
BMC Helix ITSM
Chose BMC Helix ITSM
Another business unit is using Salesforce for their IT management, and we were looking at switching over. However due to BMC Helix ITSM (Remedy)'s great support for ITIL implementation and the requirement for on-premise, we decided to stick with BMC Helix ITSM (Remedy).
Zendesk Suite
Chose Zendesk Suite
Zendesk is much cleaner, simpler, and the support staff is faster to respond with actual solutions than the larger solutions. It is also a lot cheaper, both in license cost and in cost to implement. There are also a number of additional support channels (which I am not …
Features
BMC Helix ITSMZendesk Suite
Incident and problem management
Comparison of Incident and problem management features of Product A and Product B
BMC Helix ITSM
8.6
103 Ratings
5% above category average
Zendesk Suite
8.8
172 Ratings
7% above category average
Organize and prioritize service tickets9.1101 Ratings9.3171 Ratings
Expert directory8.771 Ratings8.2118 Ratings
Service restoration8.783 Ratings00 Ratings
Self-service tools8.790 Ratings00 Ratings
Subscription-based notifications8.372 Ratings8.7119 Ratings
ITSM collaboration and documentation8.487 Ratings8.2122 Ratings
ITSM reports and dashboards8.590 Ratings00 Ratings
Ticket creation and submission00 Ratings9.4172 Ratings
Ticket response00 Ratings9.3171 Ratings
ITSM asset management
Comparison of ITSM asset management features of Product A and Product B
BMC Helix ITSM
8.4
89 Ratings
2% above category average
Zendesk Suite
-
Ratings
Configuration mangement8.785 Ratings00 Ratings
Asset management dashboard8.581 Ratings00 Ratings
Policy and contract enforcement8.065 Ratings00 Ratings
Change management
Comparison of Change management features of Product A and Product B
BMC Helix ITSM
8.7
92 Ratings
2% above category average
Zendesk Suite
-
Ratings
Change requests repository8.991 Ratings00 Ratings
Change calendar8.586 Ratings00 Ratings
Service-level management8.787 Ratings00 Ratings
Self Help Community
Comparison of Self Help Community features of Product A and Product B
BMC Helix ITSM
-
Ratings
Zendesk Suite
8.4
156 Ratings
5% above category average
External knowledge base00 Ratings8.3150 Ratings
Internal knowledge base00 Ratings8.5143 Ratings
Multi-Channel Help
Comparison of Multi-Channel Help features of Product A and Product B
BMC Helix ITSM
-
Ratings
Zendesk Suite
8.8
168 Ratings
10% above category average
Customer portal00 Ratings9.1138 Ratings
IVR00 Ratings8.570 Ratings
Social integration00 Ratings8.4112 Ratings
Email support00 Ratings9.3165 Ratings
Help Desk CRM integration00 Ratings9.0128 Ratings
Best Alternatives
BMC Helix ITSMZendesk Suite
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Score 9.0 out of 10
Agiloft Service Desk (discontinued)
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Score 9.0 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Agiloft Service Desk (discontinued)
Agiloft Service Desk (discontinued)
Score 9.0 out of 10
Agiloft Service Desk (discontinued)
Agiloft Service Desk (discontinued)
Score 9.0 out of 10
Enterprises
ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus
ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus
Score 9.1 out of 10
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Score 8.9 out of 10
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User Ratings
BMC Helix ITSMZendesk Suite
Likelihood to Recommend
9.0
(110 ratings)
9.0
(209 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
8.5
(9 ratings)
10.0
(43 ratings)
Usability
8.7
(61 ratings)
8.8
(82 ratings)
Availability
-
(0 ratings)
9.1
(14 ratings)
Performance
-
(0 ratings)
9.1
(11 ratings)
Support Rating
3.0
(10 ratings)
5.6
(31 ratings)
In-Person Training
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(1 ratings)
Online Training
6.0
(1 ratings)
6.4
(10 ratings)
Implementation Rating
6.6
(2 ratings)
9.1
(19 ratings)
Configurability
5.0
(1 ratings)
9.1
(4 ratings)
Contract Terms and Pricing Model
-
(0 ratings)
9.1
(1 ratings)
Ease of integration
-
(0 ratings)
9.1
(1 ratings)
Product Scalability
8.0
(1 ratings)
9.1
(1 ratings)
Professional Services
-
(0 ratings)
9.1
(1 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
7.0
(1 ratings)
9.1
(1 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
8.0
(1 ratings)
9.1
(1 ratings)
User Testimonials
BMC Helix ITSMZendesk Suite
Likelihood to Recommend
BMC Helix
There are many ITSM platforms available - but only a very select few are true enterprise leaders. BMC Helix is one. When it comes to managing thousands of incidents daily, BMC Helix helps cut through the noise with incident correlation and predictive problem management.
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Zendesk
Being a customer support agent, I found it very good when it comes to send an email or call or chat- with the user. I can do all that from the one single platform which is so easy and time saving for you. It does not take much time to use this, We can chat- with the user and at the same time we can send an email to them as well.
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Pros
BMC Helix
  • The Service Asset and Configuration Management capabilities of Helix ITSM are awesome. It can be used as a central repository for all SACM information and seamlessly integrated with Helix Discovery.
  • It has the most certified ITIL process modules of any ITSM system. These modules work seamlessly with each other and give you the power to manage any situation effectively.
  • As an Administrator of Helix ITSM you have many tools at your disposal to create customizations, workflows. BMC makes it easy to manage the system, leaving time to develop customizations and workflows.
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Zendesk
  • UI/UX; mature macros and automations, slick and well thought out UI.
  • Reporting, reporting, reporting. With user, org, and ticket level tags, we can track every aspect of our ticket flow.
  • Extensibility; the app marketplace is a great resource for expanding functionality from the baseline offering.
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Cons
BMC Helix
  • Customization can be lengthy due to the numerous features included in the software.
  • New staff members require some sort of hands-on training to get to know all the use capabilities.
  • The analytics can be improved to include forecasts and trend analysis.
  • Expensive compared to competitors.
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Zendesk
  • Is there a way for AEs and CSMs to be informed in a weekly summary of all their accounts and any tickets? Example: Disney submitted a ticket on XYZ. Google has an urgent issue on X still unresolved.
  • Is there a way for CSMs or AEs to have a Dashboard that's specific to their accounts instead of seeing all the tickets in the queue that are not relevant to them?
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Likelihood to Renew
BMC Helix
It provides the tool we need and is able to be customised to meet new requirements. Cost to change in training and integrations would be considerable.
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Zendesk
Zendesk is an amazing tool for communicating with your customers easily. The communication tickets from sellers to us or from us to sellers are stored, and there are statuses used to make communication easy. We have internal conversations between departments, linked with useful software such as Zingtree, Talkdesk, and Webs.
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Usability
BMC Helix
At least Remedy is all contained in a single platform, so the interface is consistent. Also, the most heavily performed functions are generally usable. However, to use some of the more advanced modules can be a bit more cumbersome (such as Change Management and CMDB (Not Including ADDM)). So, overall BMC Remedy ITSM is better than some applications like CA SDM or HP SM, but not quite on par with ServiceNow.
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Zendesk
Pros: The agent interface is sleek, contemporary, and relatively easy to learn compared to many other enterprise tools. For common tasks, admins are given point-and-click options- adding fields, modifying workflows, constructing macros. The knowledge base (Guide) editor is easy to use for non-developers. Drawbacks: Once you move past the initial things - complex automations, reporting/analytics in Explore, and/or customizations integrating the API, it requires much more advanced training to use successfully. Navigating between the different modules (Support, Explore, Chat, Guide) can feel very disconnected; often you are reminded that it really is a "suite" of products brought together -not really one unified platform. If you're using multiple brands managing simultaneous support tickets, or heavily customizing workflows to meet your brand, you may run into a bit of struggle with usability. So: it's a lot more user friendly than the palaces (Salesforce Service Cloud, ServiceNow), but is not used as quickly or with as much streamlined flow as a product made for a small shop. So if you are looking for a great balance, this is a good option if you are a net new organization or an organization on their way to scaling from 15 - 50 employee. Expect some elbow grease from the admin team once learning, adapting, and working efficiently once you move past the basics with your support tickets and initial customizations.
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Reliability and Availability
BMC Helix
for now we are satisfied. first two months 😉
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Zendesk
In the past year, I'd say I have only noticed maybe two hours total of downtime in my own usage. Very minimal.
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Performance
BMC Helix
could be faster. db is slower from introducing postgresql
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Zendesk
There has been minor performance degradation on a very few days out of the two years I have been using the product.
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Support Rating
BMC Helix
Their tech support is top notch. They respond and get back to us, even on lower level incidents and issues, very quickly. It is rare that we deal with a support technician who does not know what they are doing.
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Zendesk
We rarely need to contact their support team, but when we do they are responsive. However there have been notable times when communication between myself and the support rep was challenging despite me providing clear explanation of the issue, screenshots, and a thorough explanation of the goal we hope to achieve. It took several back and forth attempt, on a few occasions, to get resolution on an otherwise simple request
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Online Training
BMC Helix
the trainers dont have so much practical experiences. its mostly follow up and reading existing documentation withou own input. of course experiences people are on shore or have no free time. sad truth
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Zendesk
Zendesk has tons of available material for training - videos, webinars, articles, etc. The only reason this is not a 10 is because it can be hard to figure out how to navigate to these things and find what you are looking for.
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Implementation Rating
BMC Helix
Satisfied because I didn't have to do it!
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Zendesk
I was very satisfied. They have a free trial for 30 days and I recommend you do that and use it. It is very easy to get started with the basics and the build on over time.

The only thing technically complex was single sign-on and integration to Salesforce.com required some tweaks – otherwise setting up system was very easy
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Alternatives Considered
BMC Helix
I did not select Remedy myself, so I am coming in from someone who is apart of the story, from somewhere in the midway. That being said: Remedy has begun a journey of understanding the problems associated with the implementation of ITIL, and indeed ITIL itself (it is a top-down process for management of an IT department). there are many alternatives out there. One, in particular, I am keen to investigate: Redmine. But in doing so, It will be evaluated via my experience with Remedy.
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Zendesk
The customisable reporting every time. Our leadership reply on me to run my team and want to know what customers are telling us so they can elevate our products. We have extensive custom reports that tie up all aspects of our product and customer journeys. I've not found another product that allows me as much freedom as Zendesk Suite explore does, so far.
Read full review
Contract Terms and Pricing Model
BMC Helix
unclear. lot of for less
Read full review
Zendesk
No answers on this topic
Scalability
BMC Helix
Again, always room for improvement, but a very stable product none-the-less.
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Zendesk
WHY we will use Zendesk in HR and PD internally
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Return on Investment
BMC Helix
  • The ROI was fine initially as we got what we paid for and it served its purpose
  • Over time, we got behind on releases due to limitations with customizations we made to the application. The product then became out of support and completely out of date, and we had to replace
  • Overall ROI was minimal and once the product was out of date we found more value in other tools
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Zendesk
  • Integrating other AI solutions for an organization with high volumes can cost about USD5000 monthly. With Zendesk AI and by building onto the same with AI powered apps built for Zendesk Suite we save a projected USD4000 monthly.
  • Robust Zendesk APIs have enabled us to integrate our internal system with a customized app saving us hundreds of hours every quarter spent loading customer profiles that are not loaded instantly from the app.
  • Plug and play apps like Round robin save us weeks of sprint delay timelines as they do not require additional coding or developer support to install and start using.
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ScreenShots

BMC Helix ITSM Screenshots

Screenshot of BMC Helix Multi-Cloud Broker. This is where users can deliver a secure service experience across multi-cloud environments.Screenshot of Knowledge Management, available with intelligent recommendations to help bring the right information to end-users and agents to quickly and accurately resolve issues.Screenshot of the incident and problem management interface, used to create and resolve incidents faster with intelligent, context-aware, and proactive incident matching.

Zendesk Suite Screenshots

Screenshot of the Zendesk Agent WorkspaceScreenshot of Omnichannel MessagingScreenshot of Zendesk TicketingScreenshot of Bots powered by Zendesk AIScreenshot of Tone shift with Zendesk AIScreenshot of Zendesk ticketing side conversations