Zendesk Guide is the backbone of so many parts of Zendesk. Whilst it used to be a simple knowledge base for customers to browse, it’s now the library of knowledge that powers Answer Bots, macro suggestions, self-service flows and more.

Despite its increased importance away from its core help center format, the easy to access, customer facing Guide itself is still an essential part of any customer service solution. With that in mind, it’s vital that your Guide looks the part. Just as we recently discussed the importance of customizing your Answer Bot to be on-brand, the same principles apply to your Guide.

You don’t want to be one of those companies that has a low effort, uncustomized help center that reeks of not really caring about your customers’ experience.

There are pretty much two options when it comes to getting a really neat looking Guide. Both involve using a custom theme. A theme is a package of files that you can install in one click which will transform the appearance and layout of your Guide.

Themes can either be purchased off-the-shelf, typically through Zendesk’s Marketplace, or they can be created from scratch, typically by your in-house web design team.

In this series, we’ll look at the pros and cons of each, putting you in pole position to get the Guide theme that you need and on the terms that work best for you and your company. Let’s kick things off with purchasing a theme that’s ready to go out of the box.

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Purchasing a Guide Theme from Zendesk’s Marketplace

Pros:

Affordability

Sourcing your theme from the Zendesk Marketplace (or indeed directly from a seller) will nearly always be considerably cheaper, overall, than having a designer create one from scratch. Off-the-shelf themes typically cost between $50 and $200 and are ready to plug and play. A designer’s rate for a single hour alone could easily sit in that ballpark, and a theme would likely take several hours, at a minimum, to build. The only possible caveat is if your in-house team of designers have capacity, are already being paid a salary regardless, and thus that option may be easier than expending more cash (that otherwise wouldn’t be spent) on a marketplace theme.

Speed

Marketplace themes are ready to go and can be downloaded, installed and customized with your brand colors and logo within an hour. This is significantly quicker than the time it takes to design, code and test a theme from scratch.

Reliability of quality

It’s highly likely that any theme you can purchase online has already been utilised by dozens, if not hundreds or thousands of other businesses, unless it’s brand new of course. This gives the developers time to listen to customer feedback and fix any bugs that have caused issues. This is not the case for new themes that your designers build, which will need much more rigorous testing.

Updates

Most theme developers offer ongoing updates for their products, meaning that you’re unlikely to be caught out by changes to Zendesk’s Guide which might cause an old theme to malfunction.

Cons

Hard to customize

Whilst almost all purchasable Zendesk Guide themes offer a decent amount of customisation (brand colors, logo, etc), many will not offer the full extent of customization that some Zendesk administrators will be looking for. Furthermore, some themes do allow further customization, but only after getting you to shell out more (see below).

Hidden costs

Imagine this, you’ve found a theme you like, received approval for the $100 expense to purchase it, only to find out one week later that the changes you really want to make will require fully unlocking the theme, which can often cost $100 more! This can happen with off-the-shelf themes, so be sure to check your requirements, and their restrictions, before you take the plunge.

Risk of looking generic

Even though you’ll undoubtedly customize your Marketplace theme with your brand’s colors and logo, there’s a real chance that your users might either spy it as a theme they recognise from other businesses, or simply not be wowed by it, if it’s too generic looking. With this in mind, see if you can find a theme that not only works for your business’s needs but is also a bit different from what your competitors are using.

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Summary

In summary, off-the-shelf Guide themes are a great bet for when your design requirements aren’t too restrictive, time and money are of the essence and you want something that’s reliable and will work straight out of the box. There’s a reason purchasing a theme from the Marketplace is by far the most common way to get a Guide looking shiny and on-brand. 

That said, having an in-house team design your theme from scratch also has big advantages, such as being far more flexible and customizable. Stay tuned for our article on.

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