When starting a help center project, you might initially think that grabbing a theme from the Zendesk marketplace and using it would be a quick and easy solution. While these themes can seem like a quick solution, they may not always be the best option. Zendesk is a powerful platform for customer support, but when it comes to themes, you might want to think twice before purchasing from the Zendesk marketplace.
Overwhelming Choices
The marketplace is flooded with a plethora of themes that look strikingly similar, making it difficult to choose. This abundance can lead to choice paralysis, where you spend excessive time deliberating and still end up with a suboptimal solution.
Note: be aware that not all themes in the Marketplace are provided by official Zendesk partners.
Unprofessional Design
One of the major drawbacks of many themes available in the Zendesk marketplace is the lack of professional design input. Here's why this matters:
- Derivative Designs: Many themes are simply minor variations of the standard Copenhagen theme. Developers might make small changes to the homepage but leave the rest of the theme untouched. This results in a lack of originality and a uniform look that doesn’t stand out or align with your brand’s unique identity.
- Standard Fonts and Styles: Without professional design, these themes often use default fonts and styles. This can make your help center look generic and unappealing, failing to create a strong visual impact on your users.
- Spacing and Hierarchy Issues: Professional designers understand the importance of spacing and visual hierarchy in creating an intuitive user experience. Themes designed without this expertise often have poor spacing, inconsistent margins, and a lack of clear visual hierarchy, making it harder for users to navigate and find information.
- Inconsistent Design Elements: A lack of design consistency can make your help center look unprofessional. Elements such as buttons, links, and headings may not follow a consistent style, leading to a disjointed appearance that can confuse users and detract from the overall user experience.
- Usability Problems: Professional designers also focus on usability and accessibility, ensuring that the help center is easy to use for all users, including those with disabilities. Themes lacking this consideration can have usability issues, such as poor contrast, small text, and non-intuitive navigation, which can alienate a portion of your user base.
You will not be able to create branding or the desired layout, even if the theme has many settings
A help center that mirrors your brand significantly enhances customer experience, but pre-made themes often lack the unique touch that truly represents your brand. Customizing your theme ensures your help center reflects your company's identity, using your specific color palette, typography, imagery, and aesthetic, which boosts brand recognition and customer loyalty.
Pre-made themes, including those from the Zendesk marketplace, are designed to be universally applicable and often offer limited customization options. They don't account for the unique needs and goals of your business, which can hinder creating a help center that provides an intuitive and effective user experience.
Custom themes allow you to design a help center tailored to your specific needs, leading to higher customer satisfaction and better self-service success rates. You don’t need a theme with numerous settings or features; you need one with design, functionality, and customizations specifically tailored to your needs. By working with professionals to customize your help center, you gain full control over every element, ensuring it aligns perfectly with your brand’s visual identity and user experience goals.
Lack of Support
There are many cheap themes available in the Marketplace, which can be tempting for small businesses and startups due to their low cost. However, these themes often come with poor coding practices, leading to bugs and compatibility issues. This messy code can be difficult to understand, fix, or update, making it hard to resolve problems or add new features.
Additionally, because these themes are cheap, developers often find it unprofitable to support them in the long run. This means they may stop providing updates and support, leaving you to handle any issues on your own.
Slow-loading help center
Pre-made themes often come with a lot of unnecessary features that can slow down your help center’s performance. Slow load times and unresponsive designs can frustrate users, leading to a poor customer experience.
When you build and customize your own theme, you have control over what features are included, ensuring that your help center is optimized for speed and efficiency. This leads to a better user experience and potentially higher customer satisfaction.
Horror Stories: When Cheap Themes Go Wrong
- The Case of the Disappearing Content. A small business purchased a cheap theme that promised an easy setup. However, they soon found that their help center articles would randomly disappear. The theme’s support was non-existent, leaving them to scramble for a solution.
- The Broken Layout Nightmare. Another company found that their theme’s layout would break whenever they added new content. The theme’s developer had cut corners, and updates were infrequent and unhelpful.
- The Security Breach Fiasco. A startup faced a severe security breach because their theme had outdated and insecure code. The breach compromised customer data, leading to a loss of trust and significant financial damage.
What to Do Instead
While using themes from the Zendesk Marketplace, including the Copenhagen theme, might be a good starting point investing in a quality theme and working with reputable developers can provide a better, more secure, and more customizable solution for your help center.
- Use a theme only as a starting point and invest in a customization T: While it may cost more upfront, a custom theme tailored to your needs will save you time and headaches in the long run.
- Work with an official Zendesk partner with good reviews and reliable support to make you get the desired result and ensure your theme is regularly updated and maintained to avoid security risks and compatibility issues.
