Freshdesk Review 2023: Are the Features Worth the Pricing?

If you have been looking for the ideal software solution to help with customer support and self service functionalities, then perhaps Freshdesk is the app for you. However, if you’re looking for sales and CRM tool then Freshworks help desk may be the way to go 

In this Freshdesk review, we will be tackling some big questions!

Is Freshdesk the very best in help desk solutions? Are the Freshdesk tools and features worth the cost of this platform? Who might benefit from the Freshdesk system most, is it startups, small businesses, or enterprises? Keep reading to find out!

Freshdesk review 2023: Is Freshdesk any good?

Here’s how we’ll do things in this Freshdesk review. First, we’ll give a very quick overview of whether Freshdesk is any good. The answer, yes, Freshdesk is quite good. As part of the Freshworks products, Freshdesk enjoys a solid reputation as being good, if not, great.

As a CRM helpdesk, Freshdesk is well worth checking out and quite competitive in pricing to similar helpdesk CRMs. Then, you’ll see a table that lays out clearly all the Freshdesk plans and pricing, and we’ll also compare the Freshdesk free plan to the paid versions. Afterward, we’ll go into more detail about what Freshdesk is and what the Freshdesk tools are used for. Then, we’ll review pros and cons and the Freshdesk customer support reviews.

To conclude, we’ll be wrapping things up and giving our final definitive Freshdesk rating.

Freshdesk pricing plans 

First of all, how much does Freshdesk cost? Let’s first review Freshdesk prices:

How much does Freshdesk cost for nonprofits?

Unfortunately, when you peruse the Freshdesk.com pricing, you will find that there is no special Freshdesk price for nonprofits or charitable organizations. However, this is still a great customer support help desk solution for nonprofits despite the Freshdesk costs, and smaller organizations can take advantage of the free plan.

Are there any Freshdesk coupon codes or promo discount vouchers?

We did the research, and it seems there are no Freshdesk promotions, coupon codes or discount vouchers at this time. You might be lucky enough to find a third party site that offers promotional discount vouchers or coupon codes, but it is always advisable to check with Freshworks and Freshdesk to see if they are legitimate and still valid.

Freshdesk free vs paid: what’s the difference?

There is a free version of Freshdesk Support Desk. The free plan gets you email and social media ticketing, a ticket dispatch feature, a knowledge base tool, and great ticket trend reporting as well as solid out-of-the-box analytics. You can also get a set of team collaboration and communication tools. The Freshdesk free plan has 24x7 email customer support.

Some of the key features that are lacking in the free version are the advanced automation and workflow tools, collision detection, SLA management, and time tracking. You also get most of the good customization only with the paid plans. The basic paid plan comes with 25x5 phone customer support.

Moving up to the more premium packages, here is where you can get Freddy, the AI chatbot, custom roles and custom dashboards, customer segmentation and personalized journeys, SLA reminders and escalations, and a multilingual knowledge base. You can also always add on additional bot sessions and a field service module.

There is no free version of Freshdesk Omnichannel plans.

Freshdesk overview: what is Freshdesk & what is Freshdesk used for?

So, after all that introductory stuff, let’s ask the big question: What is Fresdesk.com?

Freshdesk is part of Freshworks which is a suite of cloud-based business software solutions. Freshdesk is the customer support, omnichannel communication, help desk and self service product from Freshworks. It can be a fully-stacked customer service solution, or you can simply get a support desk or contact center set of tools and features.

The Freshdesk modules can be divided into several parts. Firstly, there is a thorough ticketing system. This lets users open up support issues called tickets, and offer support reps a variety of tools to quickly and accurately help users get solutions to their problem.

Next, there are many support team collaboration and communication features. These include tools like shared ticket ownership, agent collision detection, team huddles to work together and swap tips, linked tickets and parent-child ticketing which nestles small issues in bigger ones.

Freshdesk puts a lot of weight behind omnichannel support. You can offer customer service via email, telephone, chat, and over social media sites. You can also put a support widget right on your website, which is ideal for e-commerce businesses.

Support teams can leverage Freshdesk artificial intelligence features for more productive and streamlined work. Automations and workflows can handle ticket dispatch, intelligent ticket routing and assignment, time triggered-automations, event-triggered automations and automated email routing.

Additionally, Freshdesk is also useful as a self service solution. You can set up chatbots powered by AI that automatically suggest solutions, and you can set up FAQs and knowledge bases which will be analyzed based on how popular or useful articles are.

Finally, like any good SaaS, whether for sales, marketing, support or CRM, Freshdesk has powerful analytics and reporting. This includes customizable dashboards with preferred metrics and KPIs, curated and scheduled reports, and customer satisfaction ratings.

All of these great functionalities and more are available with Freshdesk. Let us look at some of the specific tools and features that we think are incredibly beneficial and useful to any business or operation that needs to offer support and help desk options to their customers.

Freshdesk features list 

The main features of Freshdesk are:

• Email ticketing

• Omnichannel support

• Ticket merging

• Ticket activity histories

• Custom ticket fields

• Support time tracking

• Canned responses

• Ticket communication

• Customer segmentation

• Simple automations

• Advanced workflows

• SLA management

• Self service

• Agent productivity

• Custom roles

• Analytics and reporting

• Mobile app

• Field service management add-on

• Integrations
   

1. Email ticketing

Freshdesk supplies you with an email account that can serve as a shared team inbox. This is ideal for managing tickets. Users can send customer support issues to a general support team email and your team can collaborate on resolving the issue or make sure that the ticket goes to the best rep for the job. 

You can also get automatic email notifications when new tickets are received, as well as send outbound emails from this shared inbox account.
 

2. Omnichannel support

To ensure a top level of customer satisfaction, any help desk software and customer support ticket assignment system should offer its users support channels that are multichannel or omnichannel. 

This must include email support, phone support, live chat customer service, social ticketing via social media messaging sites including Facebook and Twitter, website support that includes self service like a knowledge base, and finally SMS support via WhatsApp. 
 

3. Ticket merging

Freshdesk is great for identifying multiple tickets that should be merged into a single issue for a single rep or team to help resolve. This functionality is useful for when users try to reach out multiple times or via different channels with the same customer queries which could create more than one ticket for the same problem. Ticket merging can also help with support agent collision detection. 
 

4. Ticket activity histories

Just like how many CRM systems give you full engagement histories for every contact in your network. With the Freshdesk customer service ticketing system, you can access full activity histories for every ticket. These activity histories can be displayed as a quick snapshot but you can also delve deeper into the details.
 

5. Custom ticket fields

You can set up several fields to help organize your tickets. Chief among these are ticket priority fields that help streamline response times, which you can also choose whether or not to share with the customer. 

There are also many ticket status fields, with the standard ones being: open, pending, resolved, closed, though you can add custom statuses as well. Ticketing fields can also be set up to direct ticket routing to the best department or rep. For extra ease of use, you can also use ticket templates.
 

6. Support time tracking

Freshdesk help desk software has the tools to monitor and track the amount of time you spend on each support ticket or customer support issue. This data can get automatically fed into timesheets and can be used to update help desk invoicing. 

Time logging is also useful for analytics and custom reports. This is not part of the free plan, but one of the more advanced features.
 

7. Canned responses

You can leverage automation for using canned responses which are a great way to streamline self service ticket management. It frees up time for your customer service team members by taking care of easy issues or support triage. 

You can create and save a repository of canned responses, as well as set up personalized responses for your users. Another way of describing the canned response is the chatbot.
 

8. Ticket communication

Your customer support agents can communicate with one another directly inside a ticket. This is great for sharing notes and information about the customer or specific problem. These notes that can be affixed to tickets are able to be either public or private. You can also add tags alongside notes to tickets for more information sharing.
 

9. Customer segmentation

Personalization and customization are great ways to offer better customer support and a smooth customer experience. With Freshdesk, you can create groups of customers based on certain categorizations. 

Some examples of categories are customer demographics, what industry they work in, what kind of subscription plan they are on, or where they are located. Then, based on these categories, you can set up personalized support journeys.
 

10. Simple automations

Freshdesk offers something called one-touch scenarios. These are very simple and rudimentary workflow automations for standard tasks and activities. For example, approving a refund, which the agent can do with one click that will set off a series of tasks to complete the refund. Creating new one-touch scenarios is user friendly and requires no coding knowledge.
 

11. Advanced workflows

There are plenty more options with Freshdesk for automations and workflows, all of which are simple to set up and modify and run. There are automations which run whenever a new ticket is created. You can set up time-triggered workflows that are activated after set durations, or there are also special event-triggered automations. 
 

12. SLA management

SLA stands for service level agreement, and this refers to the agreed amount of time a customer can expect their issue to be resolved by the support desk. These are advanced tools with Freshdesk, meaning they are not in the free version. There are business rules service management tools, SLA reminders, and most importantly, escalation emails for when SLA deadlines are coming up. 
 

13. Self-service

Giving your users many options to help themselves is crucial for bringing great customer service to your team, but you must make sure the self service modules have ease of use built into their design. Freshdesk is ideal for this, with tools like Freddy, the AI-powered chatbot, and a help widget you can put on your website or mobile app. 

There are article templates you can use with a knowledge base and FAQ that feeds into metrics about which articles are most commonly viewed, and even a workflow builder to act as a moderator in your user forums. What’s more, the knowledge base, FAQs, satisfaction surveys and ticket forms can be all multilingual.
 

14. Agent productivity

There are many ways to keep your team motivated and productive, and Freshdesk is a great tool for these purposes.

There is agent collision detection, a ticketing traffic cop which prevents a rep from responding to a ticket if there has been new incoming communication from the user, occasional agents which can be called upon for extra help, session replays which give the agents a quick summary of recent activity, and other gamification features which encourage healthy competition among your reps.
 

15. Custom roles

Not all agents are created equally. You have rookies, experts and managers, and sometimes, you need to assign different roles or permission levels for each rep. 

You can choose roles like account administrator that has total control, regular administrator that’s able to configure features but cannot touch things like billing information, supervisors that can be both agents and managers and run reports, and regular agents as well. You can also set up your roles and permissions based on experience and expertise. 
 

16. Analytics and reporting

Freshdesk can offer you a variety of ways to gauge customer satisfaction and to measure the success of your customer service department. You can set up satisfaction surveys, curated reporting tools, access dashboards with real-time data about tickets, staff, groups or support ticket trends, as well as set up automatically scheduled reporting. 
 

17. Mobile app

All Freshworks products like Freshdesk have dedicated mobile apps for both iOS and Android. Some of the best features on the mobile version include things like giving you an instant overview over all your customer service help desk activity, detailed views of each open ticket, as well as ticket prioritization features. You can also do ticket routing to the best reps, run your one-click automation scenarios, and do ticket time tracking and logging.
 

18. Field service management add-on

When it comes to native Freshworks add-ons, there is a great field service management add-on for Freshdesk. It handles field team management, appointment booking, time tracking and even a customer signature module.
 

19. Integrations

Integrations for Freshdesk are plenty, beginning with great interoperability with other Freshworks products like Freshsales, Freshmarketer, and even Freshservice. 

Even though most reviews compare Freshdesk vs Freshervice as two completely different tools (which they are) and recommend people to choose one or another, you can also integrate both tools so your IT support and customer support can cooperate more easily.

Using the more elaborate Freshworks Marketplace gets you integrations for Google products like Gmail, Calendar, and Contacts. Finally, there is an open API for further customization. Other native Freshworks integrations include apps like WhatsApp, Slack, Shopify, Salesforce, Microsoft Teams, and MailChimp.

Freshdesk pros and cons

Here are the advantages and disadvantages of Freshdesk:
 

Freshdesk software advantages

To begin with some Freshdesk benefits, the first thing to say is that Freshdesk scores major points for its ease of use. This is one very user friendly app, and you can learn the ins and outs of its tools quite quickly.

The next pro of Freshdesk is that there is a free plan. This is an ideal simple set of tools for startups and small businesses. What’s more, it is a snap to upgrade once the free version gets a bit too limited, and from there on, the pricing is not too bad either.

Freshdesk offers many advantages if you are running an e-commerce small business. E-commerce customers mostly want their customer support to be through the website, or via chat, email, or even social media messaging. You can even easily set up a customer support portal, or run SLA management that allows you to configure your business hours for more precise estimations.
 

Freshdesk software disadvantages

When considering the Freshdesk drawbacks, one is often compelled to make comparisons to other apps like Zendesk, Zoho Desk or Sprout Social. The truth is, Freshdesk holds its own against these other brands; it all depends on what you are used to.

Another Freshdesk con relates to some of its workflows and automations. Firstly, you must sign up for one of the premium paid packages to get the best of these tools. Automation is incredibly efficient for taking over rote work from your brilliant human being agents.

And, if you’re looking for a software that is both a sales and CRM platform, then Freshdesk is not the right choice for you. You should better check out our Freshsales review.

A final disadvantage for Freshdesk users is related to Freddy. Freddy is a fantastic tool but you need the most expensive package to use it. Freddy includes most AI tools like the chatbot, auto-triage, social signals, canned response suggestions and a thank you detector. Freddy is not a disadvantage in itself, just its limited availability to startups and small businesses on a budget have some people complaining. 

Freshdesk complaints & praise (from real Freshdesk customer reviews)

Now, it is time to look at some of the reviews of Freshdesk that we can find online. These Freshdesk reviews are a combination of regular user reviews, software critics, tech magazine writers, and other aggregate review websites.

Beginning with Freshdesk positive reviews online, many people agree with this reviewer that the user friendliness is really worth praising. Most online praise for Freshdesk often mentions how great the knowledge base features are for offering good self service to users. Finally, positive Freshdesk reviews are pretty keen on the ability to incorporate social media messaging as part of one’s omnichannel help desk.

Now, it’s time to turn our attention over to negative Freshdesk reviews. Online reviews of Freshdesk that are less favorable have mentioned things like wishing there were more CRM tools inside Freshdesk, meaning they are upset that CRM features are siloed into other Freshworks products. 

Other negative online reviews of Freshdesk have complained that some of the functionalities can be a bit buggy, chief among those are the summary apps, the session replays, the out-of-office scheduler and the approval workflows.

Finally, we should mention a little something about Allway Freshdesk. Allway.freshdesk.com is something you might have come across in searching for Freshdesk reviews online. You must be away, Allway.Freshdesk is a scam. 

Do not go for this. Watch out. Tell your mates and coworkers. This is the type of scam where you open a support ticket but it is not with Freshdesk, contrary to what you may be led to believe. You know this is a scam because they do not provide customers with ticket numbers or tracking numbers.
 

Review of Freshdesk support

Let us school you a bit in the wide world of Freshdesk customer support. First off, as mentioned, in the free plan, there is email support all day all week for everyone. Beginning with the paid plans, you get phone support that is 24 hours a day, five days a week.

Next, on the Freshdesk website, you are provided a wealth of articles and tutorials to help you better understand the tools. This includes a video library and a Freshworks community where you can ask other users for tips. 

Another option is to enroll in Freshworks Academy for suped-up agent training, thereby cutting down on the amount of time you will eventually need to learn how to use this customer service system. Of course, there is also a knowledge base and FAQ section for further self service.

Is Freshdesk worth it? Our conclusion

Now, we have come back full circle to ask, and answer, once again, is Freshdesk worth it? The truth is, this is not so much a question for us to dictate the answer to you, dear reader. You really ought to decide for yourself. The point of this article is to inform you as to what Freshdesk is, and how its tools and features can help you in providing the best customer support to your users and customers.

However, we won’t leave you with your palm open begging for answers. It should be clear by now that this particular reviewer does indeed think Freshdesk is a very good piece of SaaS for customer support and help desk purposes. Is it the best? Is it the cheapest? Is it the easiest to use? That is a matter of personal taste, for the most part.

Indeed, there are many good Freshdesk alternatives, like Zoho Desk and Zendesk, to name a few. A quick internet search and you can find all sorts of useful guides and reviews to compare Freshdesk vs Zendesk or other customer support systems.

Of course, it needs to be added one more time for emphasis that if you are using Freshdesk, and if for any reason you feel that it is limited or lacking a specific tool or feature, you can always do an integration with another business SaaS. Or, if you have good developers on your team, you can use the Freshdesk API to build additional tools on top of the standard Freshdesk platform.

So, that is about all for now. Hope you are all freshened up in learning about customer support software in general, and Freshdesk in particular. 
 

Our final Freshdesk rating

So, what’s the final and official Freshdesk rating? We say it is a solid 4 out of 5, and that’s with avoiding any fractions or decimals. Sounds good? We hope so.