Mava and Zendesk provide solutions to very different needs despite both being customer service platforms. Zendesk is a more comprehensive software that provides customers with support across a greater range of channels, whereas Mava focuses on AI-enabled community support.

Both Mava and Zendesk have a huge range of benefits and are used by companies across the world, but knowing which one to invest time and money into is important, as their use cases are very different.

We’re breaking down each platform and highlighting where each excels so that you can choose the right one for your needs.

Mava, an AI-driven tool designed for modern communities

Mava is designed to help communities on chat-based platforms such as Discord and Slack. It helps businesses by freeing up human moderators to focus on more complex in-platform issues while the AI answers the more common, but no less time-consuming, repetitive support queries.

Mava can be seamlessly integrated into whichever community environment you’re using, which means members can get answers to their questions more quickly, without having to leave Telegram or whatever platform they prefer.

As the platform gets used, it accrues data about:

• Response times
• Ticket volumes
• The most common queries

The insights from this data make it easier for brands to proactively enhance their customer service offering.

The best part about Mava is the setup. Quick, easy, and requiring minimal technical knowledge, community managers of all levels can quickly integrate this platform into their community environment.

Zendesk helps legacy businesses manage queries

While Mava focuses on community platforms, Zendesk is a more comprehensive support platform that helps enterprise businesses with a large customer base to manage customer communications across:

• Email
• Live chats
• Social media
• Phones

The software is geared towards handling a large volume of structured support tickets that can come in from any channel.

The platforms offer a host of features, including:

• Advanced ticket routing
• Query reporting
• Integration with traditional CRMs such as HubSpot

It will let users see a customer query that was handled over the phone alongside one that was emailed in so that they can respond uniformly without needing the customer to adjust their behaviour.

Zendesk is built for more traditional customer service workflows rather than the more modern, informal community-based engagement that has become more prominent in recent years.

There would need to be significant, costly customisation to mould a typical Zendesk set-up into something which can handle community-centred platforms.

How do the key features of both compare?

Counting the cost: How Mava and Zendesk stack up

While features are important, ultimately, the cost of these platforms is a huge determining factor when deciding which one is best.

To keep things simple, Mava offers a transparent pricing structure which scales up and down in affordability depending on the size of your community. There is even a free starter account that costs $0. This ensures that businesses of all sizes can give their community the support they need, whether they are 10 or 10,000 strong.

Zendesk uses a tiered pricing model that becomes very expensive even for smaller teams, as costs are compounded per user, per month. There are also currently six add-on packages, which further complicate matters and increase the price when scaled up for an entire team.

Small to medium-sized businesses may well benefit, and prefer, Mava’s simple, more predictable pricing structure. On the other hand, larger enterprise businesses with dedicated support teams may need that increased range of features.

It’s decision time…

So, with platforms described and features detailed, which one is right for you?

Choose Mava if:

• You’re a small to medium-sized business whose primary support channels are community platforms.
• You need fast set-up and in-platform support that's tailored to modern community engagement.
• The thought of letting AI handle the routine queries so your team can provide richer insights elsewhere is appealing.

Choose Zendesk if:

• You require a traditional, multi-channel ticketing system that has extensive features built for enterprise businesses.
• The priority in your business is managing large-scale, formal customer support processes across traditional communication channels.

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