What is Freshdesk?

Freshdesk is a SaaS (Software-as-a-Service) helpdesk software. As of 2021, more than 40,000 companies are using Freshdesk. Top brands include Panasonic, HP, Pearson, Decalton, American Express, Henkel and more. To find out why so many companies trust Freshdesk, we did a study and this article summarizes our findings.

Freshdesk has all the sophisticated features  such as AI-powered support chatbot, predictive support capabilities, workflow automation, performance measurement and field service management, that empowers companies to provide stellar customer support. Yet unlike its competitors, Freshdesk is priced affordably to serve companies of all sizes–from one man operation to large multinational enterprises.

What makes Freshdesk unique?

If you google helpdesk software, you will find hundreds of helpdesk software. To understand what makes Freshdesk a market leader, we spend a few weeks studying the list of most popular software and here’s what we discover:

Reason 1 – Omnichannel (Single Platform for Email, Chat, Phone and Social)

When you sign up for Freshdesk, with just a click, it is linked to Freshchat which is the live chat that you can embed in your website. When a site visitor send a message via live chat, you will receive it on Freshchat and also as a ticket in Freshdesk.

You can integrate your Facebook page to your Freshdesk and Freshchat account. Once integrated, when your customer send you message on Facebook Messenger, it will appear as a message in Freshchat and as a ticket in Freshdesk.

You can either choose to import all Facebook visitor posts or only those posts containing certain keywords and convert them into individual tickets. You can also assign these tickets to a specific agent group, such as your social media team. Learn more about social media customer service here.

 Freshdesk has integration with even WhatsApp and Twitter.

When you create a Freshdesk account, you’re provided with an email address that looks like this: support@yourcompany.freshdesk.com. If you already have a customer support email such as support@yourcompany.com, you can forward your customer support emails to the given Freshdesk email and all your customer support emails whether received from your website Contact Us form or sent directly to you will be consolidated in your Freshdesk ticketing system.

This omnichannel helpdesk feature is perhaps the most important feature when selecting a Helpdesk software. The best news is that Freshdesk provides a FREE plan (Sprout) that allows even free users to have access to this very important Helpdesk feature.

Reason 2 – AI-Powered Automation

Customer support center is a cost centre in a conpany but it is a very important function in the company because it reduces churn, increases referral and increases repeat purchases. If you are a business owner, you would want to minimise your manpower without affecting service level. The solution to achieving this is automation.

Freshdesk automation is AI-Powered. Learn more from this video. It does the following:

a. tickets can be automatically prioritized and assigned to the right teams;

b. scan through all your tickets periodically, e.g. every one hour, to check if there’s a need for an update or an alert;

c. it bring customer responses to an agent’s attention right away and keep customers updated on the progress of their issue;

d. provide a fully customisable help widget that you can embed on your website. The widget can detect whether your customers are frustrated and “rage-clicking”. It allows you to proactively reach out to your customers and offer help;

e. provide a knowledge base where you can create your documentation/articles. This can be integrated into the help widget so that your customers can self help and find their solutions even before they ask a question;

f. link to Freshchat which has Freddy AI that can guide customers through troubleshooting steps and achieve quicker resolution.

Reason 3- Big Data

Freshdesk’s Analytics lets you customize and build your reports in the way you want them — with absolutely no coding and minimal effort. Create reports on the fly without having to depend on a data analyst or external business intelligence (BI) tools.

Learn more about all the capabilities of Freshdesk custom reports here.

Here are some sample screenshots of Freshdesk reporting dashboard.

CONCLUSION

Freshdesk is well equipped with sophisticated helpdesk features that empower businesses to provide stellar customer support to their customers. In comparison to similar competitors, Freshdesk is priced affordably making the service suitable for small businesses, even for one-man operation to large multinational enterprizes.