I am an advisor to startups and small businesses. I have also spent many years in an HR capacity, for varying sized entities. This is an area I am deeply familiar with.
If choosing between Zenefits and Gusto, from a customer standpoint, I’d choose Gusto hands down, no question, every single time. Here’s why:
Recently, in my advisory capacity I did a deep analysis of Gusto, Zenefits and some others for one team I am working closely with so I could make a recommendation for them.
Gusto was formerly Zenpayroll. They recently rebranded because they wanted a name that encompassed their full set of offerings, which are not just payroll, but a full HR suite including benefits.
Zenefits is also a human resources service, that provides teams with a quick and affordable way to manage things such as payroll, benefits and compliance without having to hire an HR person to do it.
When I looked at these two companies, Gusto impressed me. The reviews from customers were good, they seemed to have little to no turnover and they have a fairly open listing of their service offerings. When I grilled them about my complex compliance issues I was going to be tossing (whomever I went with’s) way, they had good, solid answers.
On the other hand, Zenefits had terrible reviews (and not just from customers). Their site was designed in such a way to get you to sign up and try it out before getting any of your questions answered, which was annoying from a compliance standpoint.
I don’t care what a person guarantees – I don’t want to give sensitive information just to do a basic comparative analysis.
On the phone wasn’t much better – the person was pushy and wanted me to do a demo / trial of the service rather than answering my questions. The point was I didn’t want to bother with the service if my questions weren’t going to be answered in the positive.
Poor customer service turned me away from recommending Zenefits, and now its in the news that their culture woes went even deeper than a bored, pushy sales guy and terrible website copy.
A new executive team may be able to turn things around, but until they can stand up to some poking around under the hood, I foresee some serious trouble with that.
Originally Posted: https://www.quora.com/How-do-real-customers-buyers-feel-about-Gusto-vs-Zenefits
Originally Posted On: 2016-03-02