Zendesk Sell (formerly known as Base): Is it the right CRM for you?

Zendesk Sell (formerly Base) is a CRM and sales automation platform with pipeline, productivity and customer experience tools.

Zendesk Sell was once celebrated as an “easy-to-use” CRM, but after Zendesk acquired Base in 2018, the vision was to merge Zendesk Sell and Zendesk Support into one customer management tool. Unfortunately, that vision hasn’t panned out, and the tools are still fully separate today.

Connecting the two platforms requires administrators to install “apps” on each product to ensure sales and support have visibility into each other’s communications. Any misconfigured permissions can cause either team to miss out on critical information about an account. One G2 user said,

“The integration with the Support platform didn't allow a salesperson to do anything in Support without logging out of Sell and going into Support. As with all Zendesk tools they are labor-intensive to set up.”

If you’re already using Zendesk Support, it isn’t necessary to also use Zendesk Sell. Other CRM systems, like Copper, also integrate with Zendesk Support — allowing your sales team to handle everything within the CRM while maintaining visibility into support tickets.

Here’s why we think Copper CRM is the right choice for you vs. Zendesk Sell:

(1) Say goodbye to manual data and file entry

Copper handles the manual, repetitive busywork that prevents teams from concentrating on the important work of building long-lasting business relationships.

It begins with your contacts. Copper suggests recent contacts to add to your CRM based on who you’ve been communicating with — so you don’t lose track of important people. Next, you’re prompted to create a Company that brings the key stakeholders at an organization together in a single record. Finally, Copper walks you through creating Opportunities to house your current deals.

Best of all, Copper pulls in important details to those newly created records automatically — like previous email communication, social media accounts, phone numbers and email addresses — so you can avoid manually entering all that data.

Copper takes things a step further by pulling in relevant files from your previous communications with contacts and attaching them to your related records. This way, you can see exactly what document was sent, to whom — no more worrying about your colleagues remembering to upload files to the shared server.

While Zendesk Sell also suggests contacts and provides contact enrichment, it requires you to use “enrichment credits,” which are capped for growth, professional and enterprise plans.

In addition, all files must be attached manually to Zendesk records. If you use Zendesk Sell, your team will need to remember to upload important files like proposals, presentations or agreements by hand — otherwise critical documents could easily slip through the cracks and be lost forever (yikes!).

(2) Get the full CRM experience, inside Gmail

We designed Copper specifically for Google Workspace (previously G Suite) users, and it’s the only CRM that’s on the Recommended for Google Workspace app list. No more hours-long training sessions to learn a new tool; Copper functions exactly like the Google apps you already use daily.

This native Google Workspace integration translates to: all your CRM data is automatically synced with your Google Contacts, Gmail, Calendar, Google Sheets, Drive and more. With no effort from you, Copper attaches emails and calendar events to your CRM contact records, creating in-depth profiles for all your organization’s relationships.

Plus, the Copper Chrome extension puts CRM right inside the tools you’re already using: Gmail and Google Calendar. No more tab-switching to track email conversations, add leads, or manage tasks.

All team members can easily access event details, participants and materials inside Google Calendar without disrupting their workflow.

Sure, Zendesk Sell is able to pull in your emails, contacts and calendar events — but they don’t offer a Chrome extension. The expectation is that you’ll work directly in Zendesk Sell to use their productivity and email features. With Copper, you can access all that functionality — including email templates and merge fields — right from your Google apps, so you can manage pipelines and leads from exactly where you prefer to work.

(3) Stay focused on your success

As a user-friendly CRM, Copper is intuitive and easily customizable, meaning you won't need a costly consultant or IT help to start using it. When you need assistance, our Copper customer support team is easily accessible over chat from both the Copper web and mobile apps. In addition, we provide complimentary onboarding for users on Copper accounts that meet our minimum seat requirements.

A more complicated system like Zendesk Sell might not be as simple and intuitive to set up, and it might take your admin team a while to configure. This can present difficulties for small businesses with smaller budgets. While Zendesk Sell offers premier support, technical account managers and professional services, they all come at an additional cost.

If your organization needs to move quickly and has limited time for implementing new tools or training users, a CRM like Copper that works effortlessly with the tools you already use will save your team a lot of stress.

“I have spent weeks of my life searching for a CRM that is the best fit for my business and I can confidently say this is it. Also, their support is amazing! If you really want to voice your opinion on the future development of this software, they absolutely make that happen!” - G2 Review

If you're ready to start growing your team with a CRM that will scale with your business, we’d love for you to test out Copper.

Try Copper free for 14 days, no credit card needed.