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About Kayako

Kayako - Live Chat Software made personal and simple to unify customer service across chat, social, email and phone.

Learn more about Kayako

Pros:

You have a history log of all your tickets and communications on them. The app is cool for its price.

Cons:

The user interface looks just plain bad. Chat and knowledge base tools are also mediocre.

Kayako ratings

Average score

Ease of Use
3.9
Customer Service
3.9
Features
3.9
Value for Money
3.8

Likelihood to recommend

7.0/10

Kayako has an overall rating of 4.0 out 5 stars based on 172 user reviews on Capterra.

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Filter reviews (172)

Mark
Mark
Account Manager in US
Verified LinkedIn User
Internet, 51–200 Employees
Used the Software for: 1+ year
Reviewer Source

Powerful System, Steep Learning Curve

5.0 6 years ago

Comments: Kayako is where we manage all of our client tickets. It is great for my daily work routine and allows me to stay on top of many tasks at the same time. I have been working with it for 1.5 years and it works great for me now, but the first few months took a long time to get used to. Things are not where you would think they would be. The system is VERY customizable, however, and if you have a person that can put in the work to set the system up, it can be bent to fit your specific company needs.

Pros:

Kayako automates a lot of the communication and tracking processes for us. Since my company has put the time into setting up Kayako to meet our companies needs, I am able to focus mostly on client communication and not administrative tasks.

Cons:

The system is very particular about what you can and can't do. Things that seem like they would be obviously included do not exist (seeing all open tickets from an organization, for example), and must be either set up manually or gotten to in a roundabout way. Kayako also requires a steep learning curve and is not an intuitive system.

Jon
Jon
Vice President of Information Technology in US
Verified LinkedIn User
Plastics, 201–500 Employees
Used the Software for: 2+ years
Reviewer Source

Kayako worked for us

4.0 6 years ago

Comments: We installed the On-Prem version of Kayako and for the most part were happy with its functionality and management of our help tickets.

Pros:

Kayako allowed us to manage our Help Desk while keeping costs down but still providing enough functionality to streamline our support and communication to the users.

Cons:

There wasn't any integration withour Scrum and Agile software tools (and it didn't have the functionality on its own) so it made it double work to move a Trouble Ticket to a Task

Barbara
Senior Project Manager in US
Higher Education, 501–1,000 Employees
Used the Software for: 2+ years
Reviewer Source

Kayako - It filled a need, but was replaced

3.0 2 years ago

Comments: Kayako served it's purpose for several years and did a good job overall.

Pros:

Kayako handles general ticketing and routing reasonably well. It also provides a good self-service portal for end-users.

Cons:

The complexities of building usable reports made the reporting part of the system unusable. Although the system was overall a decent system, we found that the costs and lack of support from the company were the biggest reasons we stopped working with Kayako.

Brandon
Brandon
Co-Owner/Founder in US
Verified LinkedIn User
Used the Software for: 2+ years
Reviewer Source

We have used kayako for years now. It's very valuable to our day-to-day operations.

5.0 6 years ago

Comments: Very easy to use. Helps us track hundreds of email tickets daily.

Pros:

It's been easy to use, and makes it easy to stay on top of many different customer issues. Whenever we have had a question Kayako support is able to fix the issue quickly in real time.

Cons:

I really don't have a negative comment to say about the software. It's invaluable to our operation. Kayako customer support is alway able to assist quickly in real time.

Rodrigo
Rodrigo
Senior Technical Support Engineer in US
Verified LinkedIn User
Computer Software
Used the Software for: 2+ years
Reviewer Source

Support system missing a CRM

5.0 6 years ago

Comments: We had Zendesk before but Kayako is a really serious support ticket system
I wish the price were better

Pros:

Easy to use, depending on your license is very customizable. Once the ticket is created adding notes, screenshots and files is really simple and fast

Cons:

API or link to CRM directly is really needed External add on works but with serious limitations. Old kayako had a voip system to do phone calls

Alex
Alex
Director and Mentor in Spain
Verified LinkedIn User
Professional Training & Coaching, 11–50 Employees
Used the Software for: 2+ years
Reviewer Source
Source: GetApp

Just in english

1.0 8 years ago

Comments: If you want to use Kayako in another language, although they claim that you can "deliver a tailored customer experience on a worldwide scale with localization", it's not true. You can not translate a lot of things, and some of them are the core of the customer experience. So, in English, it's a good software (one the best maybe), but impossible to use in other languages.

Pros:

Chat + Ticket system integrated

Cons:

Not localized (just English)

Arkadip
Arkadip
Software Trainee in India
Verified LinkedIn User
Computer Software, 11–50 Employees
Used the Software for: 6-12 months
Reviewer Source

Great Facts of Kayako

5.0 2 years ago

Comments: The overall comprehensive experience is excellent with Kayako

Pros:

The Database management and queue management is the thing I lile best about this software.

Cons:

The data security will need an improvemnt here.

Daniel
Daniel
Head Of Innovation in Australia
Verified LinkedIn User
, 51–200 Employees
Used the Software for: 2+ years
Reviewer Source

We've used Kayako for years and it's been great!

5.0 7 years ago

Comments: Great product. Great Support.

Pros:

Simple, Easy to Use, Customisable and Good Support. We've used this software for over 6 years now and it's never let us down.

Cons:

Some areas could use updating but they're not broken, just need some improvement :) Also the recent pricing increase was expected but of course paying more for something is always a dislike :)

Domenico
Domenico
Software Engineer in Italy
Verified LinkedIn User
Used the Software for: 6-12 months
Reviewer Source

Flexible and focused, built around fresh concepts and technologies.

4.0 6 years ago

Comments: We set up our help-desk website and our support ticket system in no time.
Multiple channels support (email and in-app chat in our use case) and case merging feature helped us keeping our support backlog clean and readable.

Pros:

I love it's UX design that feels modern and easy to use. The conversation metaphore is very powerful and automation macros system is really neat.

Cons:

Software internationalization and available translations are poor. Even if my team contributed full UI translation for language 'it' on transifex most of the UI is not translated yet. More than a year has passed since then. If you need to support multi-language for your users, check that required languages have full support.

Stephanie
Stephanie
Account Manager in Canada
Verified LinkedIn User
, 11–50 Employees
Used the Software for: 2+ years
Reviewer Source

It's a mediocre software that isn't very user friendly.

3.0 6 years ago

Pros:

It has an app. It's kind of customizable.

Cons:

The migration to the new version was horrible. There was little communication and I had to keep following up. I don't think they realizing that by migrating us, I had to give my customers a heads up on the migration as well. I'm still using the old version and being less usable every single day.

Verified Reviewer
Verified LinkedIn User
Consumer Goods, 201–500 Employees
Used the Software for: 2+ years
Reviewer Source

Kayako - Feedback

4.0 2 years ago

Pros:

Easy to identify what we need to use to support customer

Cons:

Kayako most of the time is laggy and affects overall performance of our agents

Verified Reviewer
Verified LinkedIn User
Computer Software, 11–50 Employees
Used the Software for: 2+ years
Reviewer Source

Good choice although there are some problems.

4.0 6 years ago

Comments: There are so many helpdesk systems, Kayako has been our selected one, but we are still looking for better choice.

Pros:

1- Beautiful user interface. 2- It Supports all activities in a helpdesk process. 3-14 days free trial 4-Good localization, so you can add your own translations to (just) on-premise version

Cons:

1- When you are Kayako admin and at the same time one of the staffs (Agent), you have to switch so many times between Admin / Staff panel to do your tasks. sometimes it makes me confused because knowing which setting is in admin panel and which one is in staff(Agent) panel sometimes is difficult. 2-I can say that Kayako is designed for too many clients for a limited number of services. If you have too many services each of them assigned to a client, Using Kayako would be difficult (But Possible). for example, you have to set permissions for widgets separately. 3-Kayako is not suitable for small teams. it requires a lot of time and effort for setting up. 4-Kayako integration and API's are limited. We couldn't integrate Kayako with our Self-Built project management and timesheet system. 5- Localization in cloud version doesn't work very well. We couldn't use Arabic in cloud version

Verified Reviewer
Verified LinkedIn User
Information Technology & Services, 11–50 Employees
Used the Software for: 2+ years
Reviewer Source

Longtime User

5.0 6 years ago

Comments: Excellent support system, Kayako assists us with providing great online help desk support via ticket logs and live chat to our clients.

Pros:

I like how effective Kayako's support team is. They reply in a timely manner to help fix the issues at hand. I also enjoy how easy it is to use, and allows for employees to stay on top of logged faults, tasks and other items within the system while providing detailed updates to keep the customers in the loop. Kayako has been our main helpdesk software for the past 7 years.

Cons:

There is not too much I don't like about Kayako, I believe their live chat incorporation to websites could use some work. It would also be perfect if they can link it to CRM as we currently have to use these separately.

Mark
IT-Administrator in Germany
Used the Software for: 2+ years
Reviewer Source

The overall experience was ok. It gets the job done. But through the years we ran into some issues.

3.0 6 years ago

Pros:

It brings most, if not all functionality we need. The company still provides an on-premise version of the product. Support has reasonable reaction times, also they most only provide workarounds instead of solid fixes and solutions.

Cons:

Kayako feels out-dated all along. After two years of the 7.0 php release it still is not even fully compatible with any php 7.x release and up to today relies on the out-dated php 5.x versions. There are many other issues like the HTML-Mailparsing which have not been fixed completely in years now. Also we know Outlook 20xx do not create great HTML-mails still a lot of customers are using it and it is one the most spread applications in companies. But still the emails are not parsed correctly through Kayako. This should definitely have more priority. The forum is full of long threads and requests about this topic. Many people were upset, because resources were spent on creating a new webinterface instead of fixing basic functionality. Maybe customers should be involved in creating the roadmap for the product or at least help prioritizing issues.

Verified Reviewer
Verified LinkedIn User
, 11–50 Employees
Used the Software for: 2+ years
Reviewer Source

Effective tool for customer support

5.0 7 years ago

Pros:

Easy to use software, makes customer tracking, communication, and support more efficient. I use it mainly for the ticketing system to keep the company as well as the customers who log faults up to date on the status of their support ticket.

Cons:

As I have used many live chat software in my field, I am not too fond of the live chat ability of Kayako for websites. The implementation is not very user friendly.

Mike
Customer service rep. in US
Used the Software for: 2+ years
Reviewer Source

It's great, but we like to be as efficient as possible, which means tabbing through everything.

5.0 6 years ago

Comments: Easy access to the emails we want, especially from Amazon.

Pros:

The look and feel. the customization options and custom insights. Filtering and suspending messages options. Ability to send all the messages we want to our inbox and not the ones we don't want.

Cons:

Can't tab through and select "type, priority" etc. quickly without clicking (you could in the old Kayako). Can't forward or CC a message easily. Images and attachments not perfect. A little slow. I also can't figure out how to remove the "message sent from Kayako" signature. This should not be required since we pay for the product and it can be embarrassing when we're trying to send professional emails, so we opt out and use Outlook for those.

Verified Reviewer
Verified LinkedIn User
Computer Software, 11–50 Employees
Used the Software for: 1+ year
Reviewer Source

Zero new features in last 2 years. Deceptive billing. Avoid.

2.0 5 years ago

Comments: When we wanted to cancel and downgraded through their admin portal to smaller number number of users. They billed us for the OLD number of users (thousands of dollar) and then refused to reimburse us. Deceptive, bad business. DO NOT RECOMMEND.

Pros:

Software is basic, has basic helpdesk. The basic helpdesk worked for us for some time, chat worked for us for some time, but literally did not keep up.

Cons:

The software has not kept up with the rest of the market. Zero product innovation in the last 1-2 years.

Verified Reviewer
Verified LinkedIn User
Banking, 51–200 Employees
Used the Software for: 2+ years
Reviewer Source

Fairly robust software that will work for most organization

4.0 7 years ago

Comments: This has allowed us to track and monitor our incidents and support issues pretty easily and has streamlined some of our processes.

Pros:

This software is fairly simple to use and can handle quite a bit of data. There is a lot of customization that can be done which makes the software quite flexible. The audit log feature is very simple to use and provides all status entries and updates in one easy to access location.

Cons:

This can be unstable at time but the fixes are always quick and easy to accomplish. The automated routing is lacking and I with there were more options for ticket generations and closures. The classic interface can be hard to navigate.

Verified Reviewer
Verified LinkedIn User
Internet
Used the Software for: 2+ years
Reviewer Source

Great software for keep track of help desk inquiries

4.0 7 years ago

Pros:

Very easy to use and manage, great interface for help desk purposes that allows users to be assigned to various cases.

Cons:

Could be easier in terms of archiving and searching for cases and would like to see more robust reporting features.

Alex
Alex
IT Support Tech in US
Telecommunications, 2–10 Employees
Used the Software for: 2+ years
Reviewer Source

We used Support Suite for tickewting emails and live chat

4.0 6 years ago

Pros:

At the time, this tool was the big guy in the industry. It was overall very easy to use, and the support chat function was a gamechanger for us.

Cons:

Pay to upgrade was the old way of doing things.

Allison
Marketing Executive in Venezuela
, 1,001–5,000 Employees
Used the Software for: 1+ year
Reviewer Source
Source: SoftwareAdvice

Kayako is an advance in potential customers.

5.0 7 years ago

Comments: I have been able to establish better attention with potential clients within my company, in this way, it has had a better control and thus obtain better finances. Potential customers have been satisfied when we use Kayako because we serve them at any time of the day.

Pros:

The best thing about Kayako is that it has many, many ways to communicate with a potential client, and this is very important and very influential because it allows a connection with more progress and makes the client get more attention.

Cons:

I think you should improve a couple of things, such as prices, and customer service, the design should leave it as it is since it gives a lot of comfort and is nice, but should fix the support by 80% so that a better customer service.

Eglė
The Manager of Reservations Department in Lithuania
Consumer Services, 11–50 Employees
Used the Software for: 2+ years
Reviewer Source

Colleagues don't like, especially after using other programs, search is too slow or not working.

3.0 6 years ago

Comments: All letters are answered.

Pros:

-The possibility to see who is watching the ticket at the same time - Notes - Knowledbase - fast Customer Service

Cons:

- Reports have mistakes - Customer Support assistance regarding one and the same report is different. Different answers. - Very very slow while making a search and trying to find the ticket. - the search is not working and no results even if it should be. - while replying - no possibility to see notes - automatically bring back to the unassigned - No "Back" possibility while reading different pages of ticket. - Always necessary to refresh before assign, because few people assign letters quite often.

Amit
Head- Product in India
Education Management, 2–10 Employees
Used the Software for: 6-12 months
Reviewer Source

Good software for Support Desk purpose

4.0 6 years ago

Comments: Overall experience is good. We got their support every team of their teams. On cost side they need to think through from customer perspective.

Pros:

Overall this software gives satisfaction in customer support and ticket handling. It is increasing new features day by day with new UI elements also. Its whitelabelling feature is also very good. Email parsing is also customisable which is also good one. The Knowledgebase and Troubleshooter feature also works well. Support agent can be equipped with Chat facility. Kayako have good support team which is available 24*7 which makes easy for us to implement and use this software

Cons:

- This software legs on HTML email parsing side which can be improved. - On pricing part, they are charging on higher side and they needs to be competitive.

Verified Reviewer
Verified LinkedIn User
Used the Software for: 1-5 months
Reviewer Source

Its quick, easy to understand and one of the most reliable application i have come across so far. :D

5.0 6 years ago

Comments: Its good

Pros:

It's really easy to understand and implement on any platform. There are a couple of features like Tagging a user(In case we need to highlight especially with critical cases) also the interface is really cool and clam its very simple to make a new user to understand the functions.

Cons:

The user has to enter his name and email address to start the chat. In case the user enters a wrong email address or misses a word while entering the email address, it becomes difficult to get back to him. (Incase we dont reply on time) What we can do is once the user starts chatting, he should get a confirmation email. In case the email is incorrect the user should be informed about the same.

Kamil
Owner in Portugal
Leisure, Travel & Tourism, 2–10 Employees
Used the Software for: 6-12 months
Reviewer Source

Another huge CRM with milions of option

3.0 6 years ago

Comments: One month of professional training with Kayako specialist and I'm sure it will be great! How have so many time for that?

Pros:

I'm not sure what version of Kayako I was using, but it wasn't good experience. General I liked only how the solve the problem with lead funnel and how them easly add to your data base.

Cons:

General for me it was old style CRM platform, huge with millions of options. Too many buttons, option, and not useful futures. General, I liked to check mostly of main options and the possibility of every software with I'm currently using, but this is was a type like, after 3 months still you use 10 buttons and you don't know nothing about rest.