Freshdesk is a cloud-based customer relationship management software, or CRM, that was designed to help businesses manage customer interactions and support operations. With a user-friendly interface and intuitive features, Freshdesk has made it simple for businesses of all sizes to streamline their customer service and support processes while ensuring a seamless customer experience.
It’s one of several Freshworks.com products, but this review will explore key features and functionalities of Freshdesk to help determine if it is the right option for your business.
What is Freshdesk?
Freshdesk is a cloud-based customer relationship management (CRM) software ideal for companies of all sizes, from small businesses to enterprise-level organizations, and is especially popular with customer service teams who need a powerful and intuitive tool to manage their support operations.
Freshdesk’s core features include ticketing management, which allows customer service agents to quickly create and track support tickets, assign them to team members, and manage the entire support workflow from start to finish. The platform also includes a range of automation tools, such as AI-powered chatbots and predictive analytics, that help businesses automate their support operations and provide faster and more efficient support to their customers.
In addition to its support features, Freshdesk also offers a range of business development, collaboration, and communication tools, such as team chat, knowledge base management, and community forums, that help businesses build stronger relationships with their customers and improve customer satisfaction rates.
One of the key benefits of Freshdesk is its ease of use and intuitive interface, which makes it easy for businesses to get up and running quickly and start managing their support operations with minimal training or technical expertise. This software as a service (SaaS) platform is also highly customizable, with a range of integrations and APIs that allow businesses to tailor the platform to their specific needs and workflows.
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Who is Freshdesk best for?
Freshdesk is designed to serve businesses of varying sizes, though the majority of their customers are in the small to medium-sized business range. The company has over 50,000+ customers across industry, location, and size.
Businesses that choose Freshdesk are those that need a customer-facing and customer-centric resolution system, rather than something like an internal help desk. Any startup or company that needs an all-in-one customer service platform, basic ticket management features, and an affordable tool could benefit from Freshdesk.
If you are in need of advanced analytics, social media and SMS support, or e-commerce support, Freshdesk may not be the top choice for your business.
Freshdesk pros
- User-friendly design
- Intuitive and easy-to-use software
- There is a free plan available
- Mobile application is available for both Android and iOS devices
- Many integrations are available through the Freshdesk marketplace
- Easy to integrate with other Freshworks products
- Advanced workflow automation
- Feature-heavy customer service platform
Freshdesk cons
- No SMS or Instagram integration available
- Limited automation that can be hard to configure
- Dashboard has limited metrics and only available at certain plans
- Upgraded features can be expensive to access
Freshdesk features
Full ticketing solution
Freshdesk offers all of the necessary functions to manage a ticketing system, including the ability to prioritize, manage, and assign trackable tickets across a team. Navigating through tickets in the system is easy, allowing for search on a variety of fields and even custom categories.
Tickets can be split between teams and users, and tickets can be linked to allow for better tracking. Large tickets can even be broken into smaller child tickets to help resolve the issues more efficiently.
There is both a customer-facing component, including chatbots and communication, as well as an internal tool within Freshdesk for full ticking management solutions.
Automation
Freshdesk can be used to automate a variety of processes, like assigning tickets to agents and groups based on keywords and setting up repeated actions. It can even be used to send out quick and consistent responses when a question is frequently asked, and prevent tickets from being reopened when a customer responds to say thank you.
Integrations
Any tool on the Freshworks Marketplace can be integrated with Freshdesk to make the tool more valuable and easy to use across the organization. Freshsale for customer service, Freshrelease for project management, and PagerDuty for escalations and incidents are all available.
Freshdesk pricing
There are four pricing tiers for Freshdesk, named Blossom, Garden, Estate, and Forest. There is also a plan called Sprout, which is free for unlimited agents and offers only the most basic capabilities. The tiers break down as follows.
Sprout: Free
Spout is the free plan offered by Freshdesk. This plan includes managing tickets submitted via phone, email, or social media, as well as basic automation. Users on this plan can also access an internal and public knowledge base. Customers with location-sensitive requirements will be able to choose where their Freshdesk instance is hosted.
Blossom: $15/user/month
Blossom costs $15 USD per agent, per month. This level of service adds tools called collision detection and traffic cop, which prevents multiple agents from responding to the same ticket and agents from responding without updated information. There is also advanced automation and workflow, custom ticket views, SLA management, and integrations available at this level.
Garden: $35/user/month
Garden costs $35 USD per agent, per month. Along with everything in lower tiers, these customers will have access to time tracking, ticket templates, customer satisfaction surveys, canned forms, and escalation emails for SLA violations. There is also access to a suite of “customer 360 tools,” which let you see which knowledge based articles a customer has viewed and any other information captured about them.
Estate: $49/user/month
Estate is $49 USD per agent, per month and is the best plan for customizations. Surveys, ticket assignments, SLA policies, and other items can be customized. This level also includes Freddy, the Freshdesk AI engine that integrates customer touchpoints like voice chat and phone-based systems.
Forest: $99/user/month
Forest is the highest tier, coming in at $99 USD per month per agent. Additional features at this level include HIPAA compliance and IP whitelisting.
Freshdesk customer support
Freshdesk offers support by email, phone, and live chat, though it is not 24/7 coverage. Customers report timely and helpful communications – which is no surprise given that the tool facilitates these same teams.
There is also an extensive online help desk and library available for customers in the Freshdesk contact center.
FAQs
What exactly does Freshdesk do?
Freshdesk is a CRM that allows companies to easily manage customer support tasks, including ticket management and automation, and customer-facing support. Freshdesk allows for automation of processes and a variety of other capabilities that help these departments to run smoothly.
Freshdesk is one tool offered by the SaaS company Freshworks Inc. They also own other products like Freshservice, Freshsales, Freshchat, and Freshcaller. The company was started by Girish Mathrubootham and Shan Krishnasamy and is headquartered in San Mateo, CA.
What are the benefits of Freshdesk?
Freshdesk offers a complete suite of ticketing management tools, making it simple to manage these operations through a single business software. With options for things like automation, collaboration, and integrations with popular software like Microsoft, Freshdesk can help companies grow and scale their support center easily.
Does Freshdesk have a mobile app?
Yes, there are mobile apps available for Freshdesk end-users with either Android or iOS devices.
How is Freshdesk different from other CRM programs?
Freshdesk offers easy onboarding for agents and customers, with a depth of features that are not always available with other providers. The tool is designed to be comprehensive, allowing real-time support without a lot of implementation or training time.