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    Overview
    ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price

    Freshchat

    Score7.7 out of 10
    N/AA solution to engage customers with smarter conversations on any channel, designed so support, marketing, sales, and even bots to have conversations at scale with customers.

    $0

    per month free for up to 10 agents

    Podium

    Score7 out of 10
    N/APodium, formerly Repdrive, is a ratings and review management platform from the company of the same name in Provo, Utah.N/A
    Pricing
    FreshchatPodium
    Editions & Modules
    Growth
    $19
    per month (billed annually) per agent
    Pro
    $49
    per month (billed annually) per agent
    Enterprise
    $79
    per month (billed annually) per agent
    No answers on this topic
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    FreshchatPodium
    Free Trial
    YesNo
    Free/Freemium Version
    YesNo
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    YesNo
    Entry-level Setup FeeOptionalNo setup fee
    Additional Details——
    More Pricing Information
    Community Pulse
    FreshchatPodium
    Considered Both Products
    Freshworks Inc
    No answer on this topic
    Podium
    No answer on this topic
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    95%
    Would buy again
    36 Answers
    58%
    Would buy again
    19 Answers
    Delivers good value for the price
    94%
    Delivers good value for the price
    33 Answers
    58%
    Delivers good value for the price
    15 Answers
    Happy with the feature set
    95%
    Happy with the feature set
    36 Answers
    64%
    Happy with the feature set
    21 Answers
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    96%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    24 Answers
    52%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    15 Answers
    Implementation went as expected
    95%
    Implementation went as expected
    35 Answers
    59%
    Implementation went as expected
    17 Answers
    Features
    FreshchatPodium
    Chat Analytics and Reports
    Comparison of Chat Analytics and Reports features of Freshchat and Podium
    Feature
    Freshchat
    7.4
    18 Ratings
    16% below category average
    Podium
    -
    Ratings
    Chat history and transcripts7.918 Ratings00 Ratings
    Chat reporting7.218 Ratings00 Ratings
    Chat and web analytics7.215 Ratings00 Ratings
    Best Alternatives
    FreshchatPodium
    Small Businesses
    Olark
    Score10 out of 10
    Affinity CRM
    Score9.2 out of 10
    Medium-sized Companies
    Zoho SalesIQ
    Score9.7 out of 10
    Hunter
    Score7.8 out of 10
    Enterprises
    Genesys DX (discontinued)
    Score10 out of 10
    No answers on this topic
    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    FreshchatPodium
    Likelihood to Recommend
    8.5
    (42 ratings)
    6.9
    (43 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    8.2
    (4 ratings)
    10.0
    (3 ratings)
    Usability
    8.2
    (18 ratings)
    7.0
    (5 ratings)
    Availability
    7.3
    (1 ratings)
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    Performance
    7.3
    (1 ratings)
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    Support Rating
    6.3
    (3 ratings)
    9.0
    (13 ratings)
    Implementation Rating
    7.3
    (2 ratings)
    10.0
    (2 ratings)
    Configurability
    4.5
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Contract Terms and Pricing Model
    4.5
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Ease of integration
    7.3
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Product Scalability
    4.5
    (1 ratings)
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    Professional Services
    4.5
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Vendor post-sale
    8.2
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Vendor pre-sale
    8.2
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    FreshchatPodium
    Likelihood to Recommend
    Freshworks Inc
    It is best suited for having 24-hour support, where customers can interact easily, even using their phones, to raise concerns or inquire about information. This makes it easier than going through the documents portal as a source of knowledge or sending emails for worries. However, it can be less appropriate for scenarios when you need more formal communication, like emails, and when proper documentation is necessary.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Podium
    Podium is well suited for several types of businesses. If you are an entrepreneur or small business owner, Podium would be a great way for you to ask that customers leave you a review online sharing their awesome experience. For medium to large businesses, Podium review invites can be automated through the company's customer management system, allowing the use of Podium to be simple and not timely, even with a large customer base. It may not be appropriate for a large company to manually send out individual review invites
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Pros
    Freshworks Inc
    • Real time customer support. During busy times all our available agents can jump on and handle large volume of customer interactions.
    • Automations and canned response features. With automation we can greet our customers the moment a chat gets assigned to an agent letting customers know they are being attended to similarly canned response helps us use templates for generic and commonly asked questions.
    • Dashboards and analytics. Freshchat's ability to build customized dashboards and analyze performance in a granular level helps us monitor workload and manage performance effectively.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Podium
    • Maintains conversations indefinitely, so we are able to go back to confirm details from conversations.
    • Provides the ability for our company to have a 'team' messaging platform where we can communicate with one another via single person to a single person, groups where we can add/subtract members of the group... this is invaluable to our organization.
    • Until today(!), we could 'share' or forward a message to one another; oddly, that feature disappeared just today, so I'm hoping it's a glitch!
    Read full review
    Cons
    Freshworks Inc
    • Freshchat is one of the best platforms, but still there are certain areas that require further improvement in order for the platform to become flawless.
    • I feel that the automated system in Freshchat is comparatively slow and due to this, it does not respond well according to all the requirements.
    • There are certain features in Freshchat which are not available for everyone and they can only be accessed by those who are paying the highest pricing tier.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Podium
    • Account manager communications: I had been asking my Podium account manager for integration with our CRM tool for over 8 months before my account manager fell silent. After another 6 months, I proactively reached out only to find out that the integration had been in Beta for months and 8 other companies had already integrated. It was frustrating that my account manager did not remember a key request and make the Beta available to me the minute that it was open.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Likelihood to Renew
    Freshworks Inc
    Freshchat has met all our expectations and more. It has allowed our team to be more efficient with their time, field questions quickly, and escalate issues up the chain. We highly recommend freshchat as the perfect addition to anyone already using freshdesk or simply looking for a good solution for in app messaging.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Podium
    Again, Podium has been so wonderful in the year and a half we have been using it, we are able to integrate it with our CRM and use alot of the available features. The most helpful has been getting TONS of reviews on MULTIPLE sites through Podium!
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Usability
    Freshworks Inc
    I give it an 8 due to its usability. Yes, I had a few issues to begin with and needed some assistance from Freshchat agents, but considering this is something that is completely new to me, to set up what feels like a professional chat handling system complete with autobot within a day is really saying something I feel.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Podium
    While giving our clients the ability to leave a review was there, we had much worse results and got fewer reviews through the Podium portal than we did by sending our clients simple email requests, or simply having our service staff ask for a review while still on the clients' job sites.
    Read full review
    Reliability and Availability
    Freshworks Inc
    Freshchat has always been available when I needed to use it.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Podium
    We haven't had any outages or issues whenever we need it over the last few years of use
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Performance
    Freshworks Inc
    Freshchat always loads quickly and communication is quickly sent and received.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Podium
    It moves quickly and has no issues with delays. Performance is good as it is a web-based tool
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Support Rating
    Freshworks Inc
    The experience we had in past for lets say 4-5 months with the support team and our TAM was really helpful. The changes in the bot flow has helped our bot to ensure we connect with customer easily.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Podium
    I have to send an email to get information. They have a chat system but I end up having to go through my rep for account questions. It was a little frustrating to not have a direct phone number to call with questions. I would like to see a helpline added.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Implementation Rating
    Freshworks Inc
    I hope to show new users data because this can save a lot of time
    Read full review
    Podium
    We only had a hard time getting our technicians to remember to send the review invites.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Alternatives Considered
    Freshworks Inc
    Messaging across mediums - Freshchat integrates with majority of mainstream instant messaging apps. Like Facebook messenger, Telegram and WhatsApp . This makes it convenient for us to have a presence on the above-mentioned platforms and respond to messages from these platforms from a single Freshchat dashboard.its good app Freshdesk Messaging help me to contact the customer and contact the customer to inform my problem to solve it and is a good app and help full app and its easy to use uncomplicated and Freshdesk Helps me provide good quality to the customer and make customer feedback good for a company
    Read full review
    Podium
    We use Digital Air Strike at our two GM dealerships because it is one of a small list of reputation management companies authorized by GM as part of their SFE program. Digital Air Strike surveys our customers and invites them to write a review about our dealership. It is not as effective or flexible as Podium so we have been using Podium at those dealerships alongside Digital Air Strike. We also recently started a trial use of ReplyPro which is a service that monitors review sites and writes customized responses to positive reviews and suggested responses to negative reviews. I'd like to see Podium add this as part of their service so we can consolidate 3rd party vendors and manage every aspect of online reputation management from one place.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Contract Terms and Pricing Model
    Freshworks Inc
    Did not help with the purchase
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Podium
    No answers on this topic
    Scalability
    Freshworks Inc
    We only implemented the product in 1 way so I cant speak to this.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Podium
    Its easy to scale to different departments as needed. We initially began using it to solve one problem and as new features became available it was easy to scale this and include other departments who could benefit from its tools
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Professional Services
    Freshworks Inc
    Did not use
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Podium
    No answers on this topic
    Return on Investment
    Freshworks Inc
    • From the positive effect of working on it, it helps employees to speed up their thinking and writing.
    • One of the positive effects of our clients is that their problems are solved easily and quickly.
    • Each employee knows how many of his chats have been resolved.
    • There is no negative effect in general.
    Read full review
    Podium
    • I am glad there are card readers now, sales team members too often try to just send a request instead of taking payment onsite.
    • It's made capturing messaging leads much easier.
    • It's worth the cost but if it did a few more things it would be worth a lot more to us. Document signatures, surveying after jobs, even geotagging of photos/reviews for SEO
    Read full review
    ScreenShots

    Freshchat Screenshots

    Screenshot of Channel Freedom: The interface to engage customers on the channel of their choiceScreenshot of Unified Agent Workspace: Equips agents to deliver personalization at scaleScreenshot of Admin and Analytics: These drive informed decisions to help business scale