Freshdesk

What is Freshdesk

Freshdesk is a cloud-based customer service software that helps businesses of all sizes manage and resolve customer inquiries. It is a flagship product of Freshworks Inc., a company founded in 2010 by Girish Mathrubootham and Shan Krishnasamy, with its headquarters in San Mateo, California. The core purpose of Freshdesk is to provide a unified platform where support agents can handle customer conversations from various channels like email, phone, chat, and social media. Its main functionality revolves around a powerful ticketing system, enhanced with automation and AI capabilities, to help teams work more efficiently and deliver better customer experiences.

Freshdesk Features

Freshdesk offers a wide range of features designed to manage customer support operations effectively.

• Ticketing System: Converts all customer requests from any channel into tickets that can be tracked, prioritized, and assigned to agents. This ensures no query is lost.
• Omnichannel Support: Unifies conversations from email, phone, live chat, social media (like Facebook and Twitter), and messaging apps into a single agent dashboard.
• Freddy AI: An artificial intelligence engine that provides AI-powered chatbots to resolve common issues, suggests solutions to human agents, and automates ticket categorization and routing.
• Automation: Allows you to create workflows to automate repetitive tasks, such as routing tickets to the right agent or team, sending canned responses, and closing tickets after resolution.
• Self-Service Portal: Enables businesses to build a comprehensive knowledge base and community forums. This allows customers to find answers to their questions on their own, reducing ticket volume.
• Reporting and Analytics: Provides detailed reports and dashboards to track team performance, monitor key metrics like response times and resolution rates, and measure customer satisfaction (CSAT).
• Collaboration Tools: Features like private notes, ticket sharing, and agent collision detection help support teams work together to solve complex customer issues faster.
• Marketplace and Integrations: Offers a large app marketplace with hundreds of integrations for popular business tools, allowing you to connect your support desk with your existing software stack.

Freshdesk Pricing Plans

Freshdesk provides several pricing tiers to suit different business needs, from small startups to large enterprises.

• Free Plan: A basic plan designed for small teams and startups just getting started with a professional support system. It includes fundamental features like email ticketing and a knowledge base for a limited number of agents.
• Growth Plan: Aimed at growing businesses that need more automation and reporting capabilities. This plan typically adds features like custom ticket views, collision detection, and marketplace apps.
• Pro Plan: Built for high-performance support teams. It includes advanced features such as custom roles, round-robin routing, and CSAT surveys to manage larger volumes and more complex workflows.
• Enterprise Plan: The most comprehensive plan for large organizations that require advanced control and support. It offers features like AI-powered bots, skill-based routing, and a sandbox environment for testing.

Freshdesk Free Plan

Freshdesk offers a Free plan that is available forever for up to 10 agents. This plan is a great starting point for small businesses. It includes core functionalities such as integrated email and social ticketing, a knowledge base for self-service, ticket trend reports, and a data center location choice. While it provides essential tools, it has limitations on the number of agents and lacks the advanced automation, AI features, and customization options found in the paid plans. Freshdesk also offers a 21-day free trial for all its paid plans, allowing users to test the premium features before committing.

How to use Freshdesk

Getting started with Freshdesk is a straightforward process.

1. Sign Up: Create an account on the Freshdesk website. You can start with the free plan or a free trial of a paid plan.
2. Configure Support Channels: Connect your support email addresses, social media accounts, and set up the chat widget for your website. This will ensure all incoming queries are converted into tickets.
3. Add Your Team: Invite your support agents to the platform and assign them roles and permissions.
4. Set Up Automations: Create rules to automate ticket assignment, prioritization, and notifications. For example, you can set a rule to automatically assign all billing-related questions to the finance team.
5. Customize Your Help Center: Build your knowledge base with frequently asked questions (FAQs) and helpful articles. Customize the look and feel to match your brand.
6. Start Managing Tickets: Once set up, your team can begin responding to, managing, and resolving customer tickets from the unified agent dashboard.

Pros and Cons of Freshdesk

Pros:

• User-Friendly Interface: The platform is known for its clean and intuitive design, making it easy for agents to learn and use.
• Strong Feature Set: Offers a comprehensive set of features, including omnichannel support and robust automation, even in its lower-priced plans.
• Powerful AI Capabilities: Freddy AI helps automate resolutions for common queries and assists human agents, improving overall efficiency.
• Extensive Integrations: The Freshworks Marketplace has a large selection of apps, making it easy to connect with other business tools.

Cons:

• Pricing Can Escalate: While it offers a free plan, the cost can increase significantly as you move to higher tiers with more agents and features.
• Learning Curve for Advanced Features: Some of the more advanced customization and automation features can be complex to set up initially.
• Reporting Limitations on Lower Plans: The most detailed and customizable reports are reserved for the higher-tier Pro and Enterprise plans.

Freshdesk integrations

Freshdesk integrates with a wide variety of third-party applications to create a connected business ecosystem. You can find these integrations in the Freshworks Marketplace.

• Salesforce: Sync customer data between Freshdesk and Salesforce. View ticket information directly within Salesforce and vice versa for a complete customer view.
• Slack: Receive notifications for new tickets, update tickets, and add notes directly from your Slack channels, improving team collaboration.
• Jira: Link Freshdesk tickets with Jira issues to streamline communication between support and engineering teams.
• Shopify: View customer order details from Shopify directly within the Freshdesk ticket view, providing agents with context to resolve issues faster.
• Microsoft Teams: Collaborate on tickets and get notifications within Microsoft Teams to keep your support and wider teams aligned.
• Google Analytics: Track the performance of your knowledge base and understand what content your customers are searching for.

Freshdesk Alternatives

• Zendesk: A major competitor that offers a powerful and highly scalable platform. Zendesk is often favored by large enterprises for its extensive features and customization, but can be more complex and expensive than Freshdesk.
• Zoho Desk: A strong alternative, especially for businesses already using the Zoho ecosystem of products. It offers competitive pricing and a context-aware interface that pulls information from other Zoho apps.
• Help Scout: Focuses on a simpler, more personal approach to customer service. It is designed to feel like a shared email inbox and is a great choice for teams that prioritize a human touch over extensive automation.
• Intercom: A conversational relationship platform that excels at live chat and proactive customer engagement. It is a good alternative for businesses focused on sales and marketing through support channels.

Freshdesk API

Yes, Freshdesk provides a comprehensive REST API that allows developers to build custom integrations and extend the platform's functionality. The API enables you to perform actions such as creating, reading, updating, and deleting tickets, contacts, and companies.

To use the API, you need an API key, which can be found in your Freshdesk account. Log in as an administrator, click on your profile icon in the top right corner, and go to 'Profile Settings'. Your API key will be displayed on the right side. You can copy it from there.

Here is an example API call using cURL to create a new ticket:

curl -v -u YOUR_API_KEY:X -H "Content-Type: application/json" -d '{ "description": "Details about the issue...", "subject": "Support Needed", "email": "customer@example.com", "priority": 1, "status": 2 }' 'https://yourdomain.freshdesk.com/api/v2/tickets'

Replace YOUR_API_KEY with your actual key and yourdomain with your Freshdesk account domain.

Freshdesk Affiliate program

Freshworks, the parent company of Freshdesk, runs the Freshworks Partner Program, which includes opportunities for affiliates. Through this program, partners can earn commissions by referring new customers to Freshdesk and other Freshworks products.

The commission rate is typically a percentage of the revenue from the customer's first year subscription, often around 15% to 20%. Payments are usually made after a certain holding period to account for refunds.

To join, you need to apply through the Freshworks Partner Program page on their official website. The application will be reviewed, and if approved, you will get access to a partner portal with marketing materials, tracking links, and a dashboard to monitor your referrals and earnings.