Freshdesk is a SaaS based customer support software designed to provide businesses of all sizes with the tools they need to wow customers - robust multichannel capability, integrated game mechanics to supercharge agent productivity, smart automations, self service portals, community forums and more.
A full-fledged cloud based customer support solution, and built with an emphasis on usability, Freshdesk offers everything a business needs to deliver exceptional support. Unlike competing products with steep pricing tiers and hidden strings, Freshdesk is priced affordably, and is free forever for the first three agents.
Freshdesk offers four pricing plans: Sprout is ideal for small businesses, and is free forever for unlimited number of agents. Businesses that want to go proactive with customer support can avail the Blossom plan for $19/agent. For $35/agent, the Garden plan is targeted at businesses that are growing and diverging into multiple products. The Estate plan ($49/agent) is for larger enterprises that care about providing their customers a personalised support experience. We also recently added a more comprehensive Forest plan ($89/agent).
Pros
We have been using this software for more than 2.5 years now in our company to assist our consultants, vendors and clients.
Freshdesk is a cloud based helpdesk system, which allows its users to resolve all day-to-day queries by generating tickets. This ticketing system works well internally and externally. Being a part of the HR Team, we receive approximately 20-30 tickets per day from our employees/Clients and other companies for assistance regarding pay, employment verification, employment letters, leaves etc. The employees send their queries to a common HR Group ID and then we allocate it to the concerned person within the team.
The Fresh desk support is implemented by the technical department of our company as well where the internal employees raise tickets in case of any technical issues.
The interface is easy to use and simple. It also provides guidelines and prompts for a new user, making it extremely easy to learn and start without much assistance. It provides the option to add a note to every ticket before closing it making it easier to know for the entire team that a ticket is closed. It also keeps a clear and manageable history of all the recently closed tickets. It also provides a feature to export a complete summary of the tickets group wise with categories and subjects, date of receipt and closure.
Freshdesk has an in-built contact directory for all internal employees making it easier to allocate copy or forward the tickets.
Cons
As per our existing needs, I do not see any cons. I am sure it offers more flexibility at higher prices but so far, it works well for us.
Overall, FD is a helpful tool for a support staff that deals with a large client base. However, just like any other product, it does have some things that need to be worked on.
Pros
It's easy to categorize and keep track of your work, especially with the new FreshDesk Mint version. The new FreshDesk Mint also shows a contact's recent tickets, so I can quickly see their recent history.
I really love the scenario automations and keyboard shortcuts. Overall, FD mint feels smoother than the old FD.
I wish they had:
-more options for scenario customization
-more options for keyboard shortcuts/customization
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They have a decent customer support team that responds relatively quick(within 24 hours).
Cons
Some features from the old FreshDesk didn't transfer to the new FreshDesk mint.
-Text in <PRE> tags wrapped perfectly to the next line(s) on the old FD, but it gets jumbled into one line on the new FD mint. I have to literally copy the whole string and create a comment so I can read my client's request.
-I was able to edit the ticket's requester email address to ANY mail address on the old FD. This is not possible on the FD mint unless you have admin privileges to edit your company's contact database. So, if you don't have admin privileges to edit your company's contact database, you'd only have access to update the ticket request email address to ONLY contacts in your company's contact database. I had to literally convert to the old FD every time to just update the email address, and then go back to FD mint to process the rest of the ticket.
-CTRL+Shift shortcut didn't enter a space on the old FD, but it does on the new FD Mint. I have to account for this now whenever working in FD Mint.
-Better statistics and analysis would be nice. The most useless statistic/achievement they offer is the 'Speed racer' statistic. I believe it's fair to help contacts in the order they come(first come, first serve). So, I work on 'older' tickets and I get punished for not responding to the 'newest' ticket available. Why should you serve the client that just walked in the door instead of the person who has been waiting for hours?
Freshdesk helped BootUp LLC to get on top of their user help desk support problems, and this NYC-based MSP is now poised to grow its client base by hiring more technical staff and expanding its support offerings. Our collective experience with Freshdesk has been extremely positive, and we recommend it wholeheartedly!
Pros
Freshdesk enables your clients to create their own help desk request tickets, track their ticket's progress, add notes & comments along the way, and decide when to mark each ticket as Done. Once you know what the solutions to their most common problems are, you can post self-service procedures for the easy ones that they can handle themselves - thus freeing you from unnecessary remote support or onsite support events. Use the built in ticket timers, and you have a way to capture the data for your Time & Billing system. And you can build your user community with a built-in user forum and links to your social media accounts. Help desk managers can spot check the Dashboard and see at a glance how many & which tickets are unresolved, overdue, due today, unassigned, or on hold pending various 3 party issues. All of these features are designed to help you get on top of your service delivery and get the metrics you need to maintain quality service while adding clients & technicians.
Pair Freshdesk with Teamviewer Corporate and you have a powerful Help Desk with one click remote support connectivity to any PC at any client location anywhere. Now you can deliver quality support with fewer truck rolls!
Cons
My only real problem had to do with Notification Alert Sounds. I wanted a way to use different new ticket alert sounds depending upon with the client, priority or assigned to me status so that I could walk away from my workstation and do other work in the computer lab but get a loud sound alert for critical new help desk tickets. A prompt response from the Freshdesk support team let me know that none of the major browsers support custom notification sounds in their API's, so there is no way to implement this at this time. (Hey Google Chrome & Microsoft IE teams: how about custom notification sounds in the next update release? Very useful for advanced users!)
Overall, my gripes are relatively minor, and for the most part have usable workarounds. FreshDesk has proven an invaluable tool for our small team, and I would recommend it to anyone looking for a solid ticketing system. In fact, I already have!
Pros
The interface clear and navigable, making it simple to switch from our old ticketing system. It's easy to work together on a single ticket, especially with the ability to create Private Notes visible only to agents. Email templates help speed things up, and time-based rules ensure that tickets don't sit idle too often. Also handy are the apps that allow you to expand some of the functionality or customize features.
While the ticketing features are handy, I've recently started delving into the "Solutions", aka knowledgebase. It's easy to format, and gives you some flexibility with HTML. I think we'll be able to leverage it for some very useful tutorials. In the meantime, we have a single page with a picture from The IT Crowd captioned "Have you tried turning it off and on again?"
Finally, I'd like to give kudos to FreshDesk support. They are very responsive, usually replying within a couple of hours. I don't think we've had a single ticket stay open (waiting for reply) for more than a day. As an example, another organization we support had difficulty getting outgoing email working. FreshDesk's DKIM service wasn't functioning properly, making it impossible for them to send mail from the tool. They identified the issue quickly, and were able to address the underlying technical issues in a satisfactory timeframe. Overall we haven't had many problems, but where we've had them, they got fixed or explained to our satisfaction.
Cons
Unfortunately, some of the explanations from support have been "That's available in a higher price bracket." We're on the "Blossom" level, the first paid tier, and some features that we'd find useful are only available in higher tiers that are cost-prohibitive for our two-person team. It'd be nice to have an a la carte menu to be able to add a few features for a few dollars, rather than nearly doubling our cost. Still, those features are "nice to have", not necessary, and we are functioning quite well despite their absence. I can definitely see how larger teams would benefit from them though, so I don't begrudge the tiers' mere existence.
There are a couple of weird things about the Solutions builder. I wish it was more of a "what you see is what you get" tool, though you do have the ability to preview your drafts before publishing the page. For example, I wanted include some footnotes, using superscript numbers in the text for indexing. This wasn't in the available formatting options, so I used the [much-appreciated] HTML editor. The problem is, the numbers continue to appear as plain text in the standard editor, and only appear as superscript in the preview (and of course the published page). This makes proofing cumbersome.
I have tried and worked with various competing helpdesk software's (both SaaS and Self Hosted), but Freshdesk is simply amazing and outstanding.
I was up and running in less than 2-3 minutes. Yes, you heard it right, less than 2-3 minutes.
Pros
The best part I love about Freshdesk is the super fast - clean, simple, minimalistic and easy-to-use interface.
Next what impresses me is the instant help and tips across all the sections in the Admin, making it extremely easy for a layman to get started in less time and without any help and support.
Cons
Well, there is really nothing I don't like about Freshdesk other than a little improvement with spam handling and spammers. No doubt Freshdesk already takes care of it but slightly in a different manner.
I feel there should be an intelligent spam detection algorithm and mechanism which would send the spam tickets right into the Spam folder. Besides, creating and maintaining a common database of spammers would add even more charm to the software.
That way, an agent can further manually review the Spam tickets and deal with them accordingly.
Another slight issue is with the contact management. For any contacts that are deleted, Freshdesk marks tickets from those contacts as spam which I think is wrong. From time-to-time, the contact database increases with people contacting only once and then never turning back for years. Such contacts unnecessarily increase the burden of managing contacts and need to be deleted periodically.
Instead, Freshdesk should consider creating a special category wherein all the contacts that are marked as spam will be tagged into this category.
That way, an agent can get rid of unwanted contacts.
Freshdesk is priced per support agent per month, and has 5 different plans.
Sprout - €0 (unlimited free agents)
Blossom - €19/agent/month billed monthly or €15/agent/month billed yearly
Garden - €35/agent/month billed monthly or €29/agent/month billed yearly
Estate - €65/agent/month billed monthly or €49/agent/month billed yearly
Forest - €125/agent/month billed monthly or €109/agent/month billed yearly
Intuitive - Freshdesk is refreshingly easy to use, and takes very little time to get started with - if you need something it's right there where you need it.
Integrated game mechanics - Turn every ticket into a chance for agents to score points. Support managers can even set up quests for agents to complete specific tasks like filling up the knowledge base, etc.
Affordable pricing - Freshdesk is free forever for three agents. Four other affordable plans for you to choose from as you grow.
Configurable and customizable - A gallery of themes to choose from to make your customers feel at home, and the ability to automate workflows and manage escalations
Great support - If you ever have a problem, you can write to us, send us a tweet or just call us.
Freshdesk offers a host of tools for sorting and prioritizing help requests in a more efficient manner. The help desk software augments two-way communication between your customer services reps and their clients, providing a more user-friendly experience to both staff and customers. Freshdesk helps small to mid-sized companies build a fully-functional help and support desk through their highly customizable, cloud-based software.
This help desk and customer support application is adaptable, allowing a business to customize their Freshdesk sites with company logos and other elements specific to their business, as well as to define their business rules and processes. The software’s core functionality is centered around its ticketing system which sorts through customer help requests, distributing ticket numbers to each client and routing them to the correct agent, whilst assuring them that am agent will be with them promptly.
You can support your customers through multiple mediums using Freshdesk, inclusing phone, email, your website and social media such as Twitter and Facebook. Freskdesk also offers your customers a self-service portal through which they can find solutions to common issues, get access to articles and company documents, and view shared tips left by other users.
Freshdesk offers a way for businesses to organize, prioritize and sort client requests without expanding their work force. Though a smart ticketing system and the ability to set custom business rules, customer experiences can be tailored to match each client. Freshdesk also provides your clients with the ability to help themselves, by automatically creating a company knowledge-base based on archived emails, conversations and ticket resolutions. The knowledgebase can be designed to reflect your company´s branding.
Freshdesk offers a number of customization tools. Upon signing into Freshdesk, you will be given a unique URL to reflect your company name. Alternatively, you can set up Freshdesk to point to your preferred domain. The Freshdesk help desk solution also includes a customizable dashboard that gives users a summary of all tickets and recent activities. Freshdesk is multilingual offering customer support tools in 18 languages, including popular languages such as Spanish, French, Italian, German, Portugese and Polish. Multi-time zones are also supported.
Freshdesk provides an automated ticketing system which reads and sorts through all incoming tickets, assigning them to the most appropriate representative,.
Freshdesk uses a common policy called SLA (service level agreement), with pre-defined parameters for service workflows. You can use a standard SLA policy for all of your customers, or you can also create custom SLAs for priority customers with specific needs and requirements. Through the Ticket tab you can set all your ticketing rules and workflows for your ticket system.
In order to keep the lines of communication between your team and your clients in need of help open, Freshdesk allows you to transform your company email into support tickets. These emails are set up as automatic response to requests emails, letting your clients know that their request has been received and queued, and that an agent will contact them promptly. You can also define behavioral rules for requests so that certain tickets are routed to the most appropriate support personnel.
Freshdesk gives you the option to use your own branded email address when sending request responses, rather than the one that Freshdesk automatically assigns you when you first sign in. To help ensure that your help desk emails are not treated as spam, Freshdesk recommends that you create an SPF record of your emails in your DNS zone file if you are using your own domain.
Freshdesk’s FreshThemes feature enables companies to offer a consistent visual experience across their company and helpdesk webpages. This can be done through pre-defined themes or you can customize themes through the use of Javascript and CSS code.
Freshdesk’s Self Service Portal provides your clients and agents with a singular place to find all the information they need to get answers to the most frequently asked questions with a knowledge-base of technical and training advice. The Self Service Portal in Freshdesk serves as a space that holds all your important company documents, such as fact sheets, company handbooks, and brochures, as well as self-help tips and articles. You can create a knowledge-base for either public consumption or exclusively for staff, or both.
Through the use of forums, Freshdesk continues to encourage conversation and feedback between your help desk team and your clients. The Forum section provides several tools to keep these lines of communication open. Tools included within the forum section include Announcements, Report a Problem, Tips and Tricks and Feature Requests. You can use these tools to post important updates and make announcements, as well as to receive feedback from your colleagues and clients. Within each of these tools you have the ability to create a topic, you can input information to each topic and save it within the portal for further discussion.
Freshdesk helps users to automate tasks and save on ticket resolution time through integration with multiple platforms. This includes email integration, a feature which allows agents to manage, update, reply to and assign tickets directly from their email accounts as requests come in. You can configure the settings in Freshdesk so that all emails sent to your account are logged as tickets, they can then be categorized, prioritized and assigned to the correct agent. You can also set up automated email actions such as sending acknowledgement emails or notifications.
Another emailing features of Freshdesk includes “Email to Knowledge base”. This feature automatically converts email threads or ticket replies into articles in the knowledge base article. These emails are saved as drafts which can be edited before sending them to the knowledge base for publication.
Other channels supported by Freshdesk include social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter. You can be notified of all customer activity associated with your brand on either channel and reply directly to these in real time. You can also use Freshchat, Freshdesk’s live-chat solution and Freshfone, the software’s integrated voice telephony system to provide further support channels to your clients, as well as to track tickets from multiple sources.
The Freshbooks software offers a number of reporting features for measuring time and productivity. These features include an integrated time tracking tool which allows your agents to measure the time they spend on various support tasks. This tool can use this information to automatically generate time-sheets, even differentiating between billable and non-billable time spent.
Agents can assign themselves to tasks and then start the task timer to measure the time spent on each task. Admin supervisors can also assign agents to specific tasks, subtracting and adding total time spent on overall ticket resolution. Freshdesk data can be automatically fed to other third-party applications, including Freshbooks or Harvest, and compiled to generate client invoices and payments.
Freshdesk’s At-a-Glance Reports feature allows you to get a quick overview of the activity of you entire helpdesk, as well as individual customers, agents and teams. Freshdesk also provides reports that let you identify your top performing agents and teams, as well as your based clients. You can use this tool to compare agents and customers using key metrics to see how they perform against each other.
The Freshdesk help desk solution includes an agent collision prevention feature. If another agent opens up a ticket you are working on, you will be alerted through a flashing icon next to your open ticket. If another agent is already writing back to a customer, a pen icon lights up on the screen to inform you of this. If you have a ticket open and an update occurs, then the refresh icon will light up. If you click on this you will get access to all the latest information associated with that ticket.
The “Ticket Watchers” feature alerts you to tickets that are of specific interest to you. For example, this might be a ticket that was assigned to you at an earlier stage, or one that addresses your area of support. You can set up email notifications associated to ticket topics and specific ticket activity. With this information, your sales teams can prepare valuable metrics for use during their next call with a client.
One of the newer features that Freshdesk added last year includes Freshdesk Arcade, providing the ability to gamify your help desk activities. By using the Freshdesk Arcade feature you can incentivize your staff to meet targets and send staff on certain “quests” to earn points. The tool will reward teams and agents based on a point system that determines the quality of their service performance, based on speed and customer satisfaction.
For example, teams or agents that solve customer issues in a more timely manner get certain badges, virtual trophies and a number of points that send them climbing up the leader board, an appropriate reward system can then be determined by the company.
Freshdesk offers a growing number of native and 3rd party integrations. Native integrations include Facebook and Twitter; Saleforce, Highrise, Zoho CRM, Sugar CRM and Capsule; Freshbooks and Harvest; Atlassian from Jira; Google Analytics, Google Calendar, Gmail Gardets, Google Hangouts and Google Drive; HelpOnClick and Snap Enagae; MailChimp, Campaign Monitor and Constant Contact; Olark, Survey Monkey, Dropbox, Zapier and Shopify, among others.
Third party integrations include Magento, Talkdesk, Kipfolio, Pipeliner, OneSky, Userlike, Woo Themes, Timecamp, and Fromcrafts.
Freshdesk also offers a service called Freshplugs so companies can create custom integrations.
Freshdesk also has a help-desk plugin for its mobile app called MobiHelp that comes in the form of both an Android app and an iOS app. The app functions on all mobile devices including iPhones, Androids, iPads and Blackberries.
Freshdesk offers 5 different pricing plans. The most basic plan is the Sprout plan which is offered for free and can be used for up to 3 agents, it includes email support, phone support and a knowledge base. Additional agents on the Sprout plan costs €12 per month.
The Blossom plan costs €14 per agent per month and includes social support, community forums and game mechanics. The Garden plan costs €20 per agent per month and include live chat, multiple products and multiple locations. The Estate plan costs €32 per agent per month and includes enterprise reports, portal customization and custom agent roles. The Forest plan costs €56 per agent per month and includes IP whitelisting and custom email servers.
A free trial is available for 30 days on the Estate plan for an unlimited number of agents.
Below are some frequently asked questions for Freshdesk.
Freshdesk offers the following pricing plans:
Starting from: €19.00/month
Pricing model: Free, Subscription
Free Trial: Available
Freshdesk is priced per support agent per month, and has 5 different plans.
Sprout - €0 (unlimited free agents)
Blossom - €19/agent/month billed monthly or €15/agent/month billed yearly
Garden - €35/agent/month billed monthly or €29/agent/month billed yearly
Estate - €65/agent/month billed monthly or €49/agent/month billed yearly
Forest - €125/agent/month billed monthly or €109/agent/month billed yearly
Freshdesk offers the following features:
Freshdesk has the following typical customers:
Freelancers, Large Enterprises, Mid Size Business, Non Profit, Public Administrations, Small Business
Freshdesk supports the following languages:
Arabic, Chinese (Simplified), Chinese (Traditional), Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Swedish
Freshdesk has the following pricing plans:
Free, Subscription
Freshdesk supports the following devices:
Android, iPhone, iPad
Freshdesk integrates with the following applications:
Bitium, Constant Contact, HelpOnClick Live Chat Software, Instapage, Nimble, Olark live chat, Pipeliner CRM, SeamlessGov, WorkflowMax, Zapier
Freshdesk offers the following support options:
FAQs, Forum, Knowledge Base, Online Support, Phone Support, Video Tutorials
Overall experience has been amazing so far as it is able to cater our day to day needs. Great platform to provide internal/external support.