In the bustling realm of eCommerce, where customer satisfaction reigns supreme, the quest for the perfect customer service solution has reached a pivotal juncture. Gorgias, a prominent player known for its help desk software tailored for Shopify, has garnered its fair share of attention. Boasting a rating that hovers between 4.0 to 4.4 stars on Shopify, G2, and Trustpilot, Gorgias has undoubtedly made its mark. However, a shift is underway in the market with more sellers switching from Gorgias to alternative solutions, including ourselves.
Our independent analysis delves into the heart of this, uncovering the reasons a growing number of eCommerce merchants are making a decisive switch away from Gorgias. Join us as we unveil the top 7 motivations driving sellers to seek alternatives to Gorgias in 2023. Hopefully we’ll help you identify the most important things to watch out for when choosing your next eCommerce help desk.
“Gorgias is a huge disappointment. I never write bad reviews, btw but all of our emails to anyone in the company are go unanswered and the executive team isn’t reachable on linkedin or any other way.” (Source: Shopify)
Gorgias is a customer service software solution for eCommerce merchants, however as they’ve scaled, they appear to have struggled with scaling their own customer support offering. Many of the reasons former customers state they are leaving relate to poor customer service, including slow responses (“consistently 24-48 hours”, “for email support it takes 72 hours to receive an acknowledgement”) and lack of out of hours support. Gorgias currently only provides support for 12 hours per day.
Many other eCommerce customer support solutions provide 24/7 customer support by chat, phone, and email. eCommerce shoppers increasingly expect rapid support 24/7, and so it is reasonable to expect your own support solution to match that level of service.
“Continually disconnects from Adobe/Magento leaving macros sending bad info to customers because it’s not connecting customer orders.” (Source: G2)
Gorgias works optimally when you are selling on Shopify. In fact, Gorgias raised $30m recently, including investment from Shopify to further improve the integration with the Shopify platform. However, in spite of that investment Gorgias is not the most popular customer service help desk app in the Shopify app store, with several others rating higher and achieving more reviews. It is definitely worth looking at alternative Shopify help desk apps if you only sell on that platform.
Most merchants today are selling across multiple sales channels such as Amazon, Walmart, eBay and more. This is where Gorgias comes a little unstuck. It is not possible to directly connect Gorgias to all the sales and messaging channels that you support. This means that your customer team will continue to toggle between different apps, which is massively inefficient.
“We do feel for how big Gorgias is; it should have more personalized and customizable options. Such as Hyperlinks and more customizable reporting.” (Source: G2)
Gorgias customers report that the software comes with limited customization options for personalization and customization of how you can interact with customers. Specifically, options for ticket forms, chat appearance and reporting are not as comprehensive as other helpdesk solutions. Sellers who are looking to impress customers and scale efficiently need greater flexibility to tailor their software solutions to their unique business requirements.
Personalization is critical to success in scaling customer support. When assessing a help desk solution search for key features that enable you to quickly respond to a customer based on their individual purchase history, order details and their query. Systems that leverage artificial intelligence to streamline the personalization process for your team can offer a huge advantage.
“Their automations leave a lot to be desired and no, you can’t put in a proper work around. We were using xxx to run chat bots whereby we offer a new customer promo. There’s no suitable workaround for this. If you run one of their ‘campaigns’ you can’t run it outside of business hours.” (Source: Shopify)
Gorgias is built on the back of small Shopify business owners and this is presumably why automation has not been a priority for them. In fact, automations are only available as an add-on outside of their core pricing. This includes what many alternative helpdesks offer as standard automations such as autoresponders and self-service options. At the time of writing, Gorgias has not deployed a comprehensive AI feature set.
As eCommerce support managers know, automations are essential to maintaining cost efficiencies and enabling the business to scale, in particular at peak times of the year, such as Black Friday Cyber Monday and the holiday season in general. At a minimum, you should expect that rule-based and AI-powered automations are a core component of any seller-focused help desk solution you choose today.
“There are far too many options for rules and channels even for the presets, it sets off confusion for teams who’ve never interacted with a CRM tool before. It’s hard to tell what needs to be set up. The setup was so detailed it caused some confusion.” (Source: G2)
A number of users of Gorgias complain about the difficulty in getting the product stood up and the complex training required to ensure teams are able to effectively use the system. This is compounded by the apparent lack of availability of support staff during the critical onboarding phase. These types of problems are common with help desk applications.
When looking for an ecommerce customer support solution, simplicity is everything. Features such as a smart inbox, which intelligently filter and prioritize customer conversations will make the training lift for your team lighter. AI-powered message classifications, conversation summaries and response composers can really make life easier for your team from day one. Check also with your new provider that they offer comprehensive onboarding support.
“There are far too many options for rules and channels even for the presets, it sets off confusion for teams who’ve never interacted with a CRM tool before. It’s hard to tell what needs to be set up. The setup was so detailed it caused some confusion.” (Source: G2)
A number of users of Gorgias complain about the difficulty in getting the product stood up and the complex training required to ensure teams are able to effectively use the system. This is compounded by the apparent lack of availability of support staff during the critical onboarding phase. These types of problems are common with help desk applications.
When looking for an ecommerce customer support solution, simplicity is everything. Features such as a smart inbox, which intelligently filter and prioritize customer conversations will make the training lift for your team lighter. AI-powered message classifications, conversation summaries and response composers can really make life easier for your team from day one. Check also with your new provider that they offer comprehensive onboarding support.
“I took Gorgias just for a trial and guess what? At the end of the trial I got a bill to pay per month of 540$!!!!!!! This is such a scammy approach as I only tested the platform for a week before probably going to their first plan of 10$!” (Source: Shopify)
Gorgias offers only ticket-based pricing, with headline prices ranging from $10 to $900 per month. There is no free plan available. There are quite a number of additional costs, but the most critical one is the cost of automations. On the most popular plan which costs $360 /month for 2,000 tickets, the cost of automating one third of those customer interactions is an additional $900, bringing the total cost to $1,260 per month for 2,000 tickets including some automation.
Some people prefer ticket-based pricing while others prefer user-based pricing. We understand that here at eDesk, which is why we are the only help desk solution in the market that provides the flexibility of both ticket and user based plans at your convenience. Furthermore, the equivalent eDesk plans come fully loaded with AI and automation at no extra cost. For example on the Shopify Entrepreneur plan, eDesk customers pay $199 /month for 2,000 tickets with unlimited automations.
If you’re thinking of switching from Gorgias to eDesk in 2023? Here’s why savvy eCommerce merchants are making the move:
You can trial and connect eDesk without disturbing any of your current processes. Start with a free unrestricted trial and then retain eDesk free for life or upgrade to one of our paid plans that suits your needs and your pocket. Our onboarding team are on call to assist your migration.
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