Zendesk

One of the top two or three global customer service platforms by customer count, with strong penetration across SMB and mid-market segments and growing enterprise presence

Zendesk is a leading customer experience (CX) and service platform founded in 2007 and headquartered in San Francisco, California. The company provides a comprehensive suite of tools including ticketing systems, live chat, AI-powered bots, help center software, and customer analytics — enabling businesses to manage support interactions across email, chat, voice, social media, and messaging channels from a single unified workspace. For marketing and customer engagement teams, Zendesk plays a significant role in the post-sale customer journey. Its platform integrates with CRM systems, marketing automation tools, and data platforms, allowing brands to deliver personalized, contextual support experiences that reinforce marketing messaging and drive customer retention. Zendesk Sunshine, its open CRM platform, allows marketers and developers to build custom customer engagement applications on top of its data infrastructure. Zendesk was taken private in 2022 by a consortium of private equity firms led by Permira and Hellman & Friedman for approximately $10.2 billion, following years as a publicly traded company. With over 100,000 customers globally ranging from SMBs to large enterprises, Zendesk competes with Salesforce Service Cloud, Freshdesk, ServiceNow, and Intercom. Its scale, extensive integration ecosystem, and AI investments make it one of the most widely adopted customer service platforms in the market.