Freshdesk Contact Center ( Formerly Freshcaller) is a call center software for startups and small teams. Fresh Contact Center aims to enable businesses / teams set-up and run a call center without spending a lot of time and money. It is suited for phone teams of size 1- 30. Users can create custom greeting texts based on specific call scenarios. The nested Interactive Voice Response (IVR) system allows the user to provide a detailed set of options to callers. The call queues…
$0
per agent/per month
Skype for Business, now part of Microsoft Teams
Score 7.5 out of 10
N/A
Skype for Business was an online messaging and conferencing tool, now superseded by Microsoft Teams.
One scenario where Freshdesk Contact Center is well suited is when we have a lot of parents calling in with requests about student transcripts, and or grades, we can better interact with each caller and not have a lot of people on hold waiting for a long time. One scenario where Freshdesk might not be well suited is when callers get the chatbot more often than talking to an actual person.
Skype is useful for collaborations across distances, including work from home, as well as a more convenient way to communicate with a large group of people. Skype is also useful to communicate with specific parties quickly, rather than relying on cellular service in areas where not as available. Skype is less useful if the team does not use computers , tablets, smartphones, etc in daily workflow as it would rarely be used.
Instant messaging to anyone who we know only by name/email. Even if they're offline, they get the message in missed convos and a notification automatically goes to them via Outlook mail. All conversations are saved and accessible via Outlook.
Video and voice calls are a norm in the WFH scenario, and an average employee has around 4-5 calls a day. Skype gives notifications for upcoming meetings, allows easy scheduling via outlook calendar, and its audio/video quality [is] reasonably good compared to the amount of data it consumes.
Status availabilities - in the WFH scenario, you could be off for lunch, out of office, busy, sharing screens - and might not want to be disturbed. Skype allows you to do that, and in case you're off, ensures that you know that you have missed messages.
Screen sharing - we have to share screens at least once or twice a day with a coworker when working on some issues/features, and Skype easily lets us do that. One of the best things about Skype is that the screen can be shared without being on a video/voice call - which is of immense advantage because oftentimes, you could prefer sharing the screen, while it [is] too noisy to talk.
Cost - the system was felt to be way overpriced for the feature-set it provided. For the cost of 10 support agents, I could engage with a full-blown VoIP UCaaS provider to support 20-30 users.
The system was dependent on the Amazon Web Services system, which was prone to outages, and as it was outsourced by Freshworks to Amazon, resolution time did not have clear SLAs.
Non-US support - any issues encountered with the system would go through international channels which decreased resolution time depending on when the development team was available.
Call reliability was questionable - sometimes agents would have ringing devices that would have no one on the other end - other times calls would be dropped without explanation.
Probably the biggest area is the video element as it has historically struggled in this area.
The need to be forced to federate with another organisation by providing yours and enabling the other organisation settings is a bit tedious but once done, allows for simple collaboration between third-parties.
Functionality wise, as it's an older product and being superseded by MS Teams, it feels as if it's run its course but was very good for what it does/did at the time.
The software is simple to install and configure. It is rather simple to explain for correct use. It is possible to profile users for the different functions offered. It is integrated quite completely with Outlook and with Active Directory security. It performs all communication functions well with one or more interlocutors and the possibility of granting control of your computer is convenient.
It's a really simple and affordable software solution if you're looking to upgrade your system or processes to a softphone. The service has been fantastic for both our outbound sales team and our inbound customer service team. As a manager, I'm really grateful I found FreshCaller early on in the process of evaluating companies to go to for a softphone.
Very easy to use. Even though Microsoft Teams has a lot of features and integrations, as a user I feel completely comfortable on finding what I need, getting information about the app extensions and using them. It's a very comprehensive tool, intuitive design and does not make me feel tired to be using it. I am glad with the current experience.
Freshcaller support is great. They will respond very quickly once I submit a ticket. On occasion, they are unable to answer a question and require a deep dive on some research for random questions but that's completely understandable. Overall, great service, great quality, and very accommodating. This is one of the better support groups, in my opinion.
I have only had to reach out to the Support team at Skype for Business once with an issue, and I was pleasantly surprised and encouraged by the quickness and thoroughness of their response. The wait time was short and my question was dealt with politely and clearly, so I would say the support team has it together.
Skpe for business is utilized company wide in regards to my company. Everyone not only uses it, but uses it often. It is an effective way of communicating. It also integrates very nicely with outlook and all conversation history is pushed to a folder within the outlook system. We also have it so that if someone misses a message, they are sent an email reminder saying that there is a message that went unread.
After multiple checks and constant research we found Freshdesk is one of the leading product service providers and the best at it too. We used to have PSTIN hard phones which caused a lot of drops and customer discontent. After Freshdesk, it has been a cakewalk. Really happy with it.
For the below reason I will always choose this app over its competitors: Better audio and video quality, Little to no disconnections or freezing when on a call/video conference Integrates well with mailbox/ calendar/ one drive, and SharePoint is easy to use
We almost lost our biggest client because of the poor performance early on in our implementation...the online meetings were poor quality for audio and bandwidth refreshing
Many of the employees in our company disliked the quality so much, they started to sign up for free Cisco WebEx accounts to use instead
The majority of employees in our company lost trust in our CTO because of his decision to switch from Cisco WebEx to Skype for Business
