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    Overview
    ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price

    Freshdesk

    Score8.5 out of 10
    N/AFreshdesk (a product of Freshworks Inc.) is a customer service solution with enterprise capability. Freshdesk unifies channels, conversations, AI capabilities, customer insights, and advanced ticketing into the Freshdesk Command Center so agents are ready to resolve. With Freddy, People-first AI, customer service teams can take AI agents live in minutes to fully resolve complex and simple queries, get response and resolution assistance from AI copilot, and stay ahead with AI insights.…

    $18

    per month per user

    HCL Notes

    Score3.5 out of 10
    N/ANotes from HCL (formerly from IBM, acquired by HCL in late 2018) is a collaboration platform based on the Lotus platform.N/A
    Pricing
    FreshdeskHCL Notes
    Editions & Modules
    Growth
    $18
    per month per agent
    Pro
    $59
    per month per agent
    Enterprise
    $95
    per month per agent
    No answers on this topic
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    FreshdeskHCL Notes
    Free Trial
    YesNo
    Free/Freemium Version
    YesNo
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    YesNo
    Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
    Additional Details——
    More Pricing Information
    Community Pulse
    FreshdeskHCL Notes
    Considered Both Products
    Freshworks Inc
    No answer on this topic
    HCLSoftware
    No answer on this topic
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    93%
    Would buy again
    213 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    Delivers good value for the price
    98%
    Delivers good value for the price
    207 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    Happy with the feature set
    93%
    Happy with the feature set
    213 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    95%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    147 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    Implementation went as expected
    94%
    Implementation went as expected
    174 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    Features
    FreshdeskHCL Notes
    Incident and problem management
    Comparison of Incident and problem management features of Freshdesk and HCL Notes
    Feature
    Freshdesk
    8.6
    210 Ratings
    5% above category average
    HCL Notes
    -
    Ratings
    Organize and prioritize service tickets9.3206 Ratings00 Ratings
    Expert directory7.9140 Ratings00 Ratings
    Subscription-based notifications7.812 Ratings00 Ratings
    ITSM collaboration and documentation8.115 Ratings00 Ratings
    Ticket creation and submission9.0207 Ratings00 Ratings
    Ticket response9.1207 Ratings00 Ratings
    Self Help Community
    Comparison of Self Help Community features of Freshdesk and HCL Notes
    Feature
    Freshdesk
    8.0
    185 Ratings
    0% below category average
    HCL Notes
    -
    Ratings
    External knowledge base8.0169 Ratings00 Ratings
    Internal knowledge base8.0173 Ratings00 Ratings
    Multi-Channel Help
    Comparison of Multi-Channel Help features of Freshdesk and HCL Notes
    Feature
    Freshdesk
    8.3
    197 Ratings
    3% above category average
    HCL Notes
    -
    Ratings
    Customer portal8.3169 Ratings00 Ratings
    IVR8.563 Ratings00 Ratings
    Social integration8.2105 Ratings00 Ratings
    Email support8.6197 Ratings00 Ratings
    Help Desk CRM integration7.7126 Ratings00 Ratings
    Project Management
    Comparison of Project Management features of Freshdesk and HCL Notes
    Feature
    Freshdesk
    -
    Ratings
    HCL Notes
    6.9
    10 Ratings
    11% below category average
    Task Management00 Ratings7.09 Ratings
    Gantt Charts00 Ratings6.03 Ratings
    Scheduling00 Ratings8.09 Ratings
    Workflow Automation00 Ratings5.06 Ratings
    Mobile Access00 Ratings8.010 Ratings
    Search00 Ratings6.09 Ratings
    Visual planning tools00 Ratings8.03 Ratings
    Communication
    Comparison of Communication features of Freshdesk and HCL Notes
    Feature
    Freshdesk
    -
    Ratings
    HCL Notes
    9.2
    10 Ratings
    14% above category average
    Chat00 Ratings6.010 Ratings
    Notifications00 Ratings9.010 Ratings
    Discussions00 Ratings9.57 Ratings
    Surveys00 Ratings9.14 Ratings
    Internal knowledgebase00 Ratings10.06 Ratings
    Integrates with GoToMeeting00 Ratings10.03 Ratings
    Integrates with Gmail and Google Hangouts00 Ratings10.02 Ratings
    Integrates with Outlook00 Ratings10.05 Ratings
    File Sharing & Management
    Comparison of File Sharing & Management features of Freshdesk and HCL Notes
    Feature
    Freshdesk
    -
    Ratings
    HCL Notes
    7.6
    9 Ratings
    6% below category average
    Versioning00 Ratings9.04 Ratings
    Video files00 Ratings6.05 Ratings
    Audio files00 Ratings6.05 Ratings
    Document collaboration00 Ratings8.08 Ratings
    Access control00 Ratings6.08 Ratings
    Advanced security features00 Ratings8.08 Ratings
    Integrates with Google Drive00 Ratings10.02 Ratings
    Device sync00 Ratings8.05 Ratings
    Best Alternatives
    FreshdeskHCL Notes
    Small Businesses
    Help Scout
    Score9.3 out of 10
    Flock
    Score9.5 out of 10
    Medium-sized Companies
    LiveAgent
    Score8.8 out of 10
    Troop Messenger
    Score9.8 out of 10
    Enterprises
    Front
    Score9.2 out of 10
    Cisco Business Edition 7000 (discontinued)
    Score9 out of 10
    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    FreshdeskHCL Notes
    Likelihood to Recommend
    8.6
    (277 ratings)
    7.0
    (16 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    8.5
    (25 ratings)
    1.7
    (5 ratings)
    Usability
    9.0
    (42 ratings)
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    Availability
    7.5
    (6 ratings)
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    Performance
    7.6
    (6 ratings)
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    Support Rating
    8.4
    (41 ratings)
    9.0
    (2 ratings)
    In-Person Training
    8.2
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Online Training
    7.0
    (3 ratings)
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    Implementation Rating
    7.7
    (207 ratings)
    9.0
    (1 ratings)
    Configurability
    6.5
    (7 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Contract Terms and Pricing Model
    8.5
    (5 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Ease of integration
    7.9
    (6 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Product Scalability
    6.8
    (6 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Professional Services
    8.7
    (2 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Vendor post-sale
    7.6
    (5 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Vendor pre-sale
    7.7
    (5 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    FreshdeskHCL Notes
    Likelihood to Recommend
    Freshworks Inc
    I believe Freshdesk is well-suited for companies that manage multiple accounts, such as those in the Business Process Outsourcing industry. It has all the necessary capabilities, such as ticket management that uses omnichannel to receive ticket requests from service requests (managed internally) in the system, emails, etc. There are also several workflow automations that can be built within the platform/system. What is lacking is the API documentation, which limits the possibilities for further automations. Overall, it is a highly recommended tool for managing employee productivity and timeliness.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    HCLSoftware
    I often work with teams from other country and regions, hence HCL Notes is a very useful platform for internal company management operations. It standardized organisational work standards in most of the offices worldwide. HCL Notes also enables chat with other team around the world that I find very helpful when initiating conversation or just want to have a quick update rather than sending emails and waiting for replies. However, HCL Notes is not very efficient in web browsing and user still need to use other internet service providers.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Pros
    Freshworks Inc
    • No prior experience with similar platforms is required to use Freshdesk. I found its interface to be quite intuitive, at least for the end user.
    • It's easy to connect with other platforms, so you can sync and manage data from other platforms because the integrations work correctly.
    • Freshdesk's technical support is quite responsive, with short and effective response times. They have easily handled my questions and issues.
    • It has tools for customizing automated chats, answering frequently asked questions before transferring to an agent. Its configuration is extensive and highly customizable.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    HCLSoftware
    • It has a really strong and robust database that's extremely scalable and holds up well to thousands of users and many different environments.
    • It has a really good enterprise-grade framework for development custom database applications
    • All of the custom database applications along with the email all have a nice uniform look and feel so their easy-to-use.
    • I really like how it's developed and supported on every client OS (Windows, OSX, Linux)! The competitors definitely do NOT offer this (M$).
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Cons
    Freshworks Inc
    • Freshdesk is buggy, full stop. I don't know how many support tickets I submitted related to user login.
    • There can be a language barrier with support and sales.
    • There were a couple of hours-long outages that significantly impacted my company's customer experience.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    HCLSoftware
    • Notes' backwards compatibility sometimes gets in the way. Menus are cluttered with extraneous, outdated options and features that modern users will never use, and Preferences are often difficult to navigate for those coming from Gmail or Outlook. We have greatly simplified this via Policies, but users still find it daunting to go through all the options that are available.
    • The IBM Notes client for Windows & Mac is essentially the Eclipse Java development platform...so it is HUGE. Performance initially was very slow but IBM has done a good job of speeding things up. As IBM moves more toward cloud-delivered applications, this will not be as much of a problem.
    • Notes and Domino can be complex to manage for administrators who are more accustomed to ActiveDirectory, Group Policy, etc. Editing a notes.ini file to add a feature, or working with XML files by hand to create a SmartUpgrade kit can be daunting to those coming from more modern administrative roles.
    • Some users claim to "hate" Notes mail. While I have heard this less and less over the past 10 years, we have had 3rd party software offer plugins to Outlook and it's rare to see any for Notes.
    • The client update process should be automated more. I would like to see the Notes client update quietly and quickly more like an Adobe software update. If an update fails it should automatically try again without prompting the user over and over.
    • Notes multiple language spell checking is a downloaded add-on Java-based resource that has to be deployed in a convoluted way that is difficult for users to grasp. Therefore any foreign language spell check updates must be done individually per Notes client by IT, which is unfortunate. I would prefer to see that be a "live download" update option for users to get directly from IBM (don't make me download it and put it on my network).
    Read full review
    Likelihood to Renew
    Freshworks Inc
    New support agents can learn the system quickly, minimizing training time and maximizing productivity from day one. Agents are more willing to use a system that is simple, reducing resistance to change and ensuring all interactions are logged (a common problem with complex systems). The platform is known for being easy to set up and customize, allowing teams (especially smaller ones) to get started with minimal technical expertise.The platform makes it easy to set and monitor Service Level Agreements (SLAs), ensuring customers get timely responses and helping managers enforce performance standards.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    HCLSoftware
    I've been in IT business and as a Programmer/Developer for 20+ years with too many programming languages experiences/back ground (C/C++/Visual Basic/Basic Program/Unix/COBOL/Java). Also with 18+ years with Lotus Notes/IBM Domino, I am still and always think Lotus Notes is the best RAD platform available!. When the time where resource is very limited and the expectation is very high and the turn around is too short, IBM Domino/Notes is the platform to use and it's the only choice available.
    Read full review
    Usability
    Freshworks Inc
    Freshdesk is extremely easy to use as implemented it on our own with average technical skills. A lot of the options are straightforward and Freshdesk provides easy-to-understand explanations for some of the more complex-sounding ones. We recently onboarded new specialists and they were able to learn Freshdesk with minimal training.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    HCLSoftware
    Easy to use for the user, most of the apps we developed, there is not much need for user training. Most of the times, we just do a demo to the users group and they can pick up from there.
    Read full review
    Reliability and Availability
    Freshworks Inc
    I have encountered a lot of errors in the Freshdesk, however, they tend to resolve it on priority or at least they will share the timeline by when this can be resolved. Most of the time the issue has been from the other partner's end. They take time to resolve their vendor issues and they don't have any timelines in case of developed app errors.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    HCLSoftware
    No answers on this topic
    Performance
    Freshworks Inc
    The reports take a lot of time to download if the time period is large. Also, the tickets take their sweet time to open and load. It is not fast as Zendesk. Only 30 tickets are visible in a single go and there isn't any option to select all. If we need to change the pages and dashboards it takes a lot of time to open.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    HCLSoftware
    No answers on this topic
    Support Rating
    Freshworks Inc
    Because I never worked with a company that responds so quickly to their customer! They are always fast at responding and very open to new ideas and quickly turning them around to include them in future releases. They walk us through when we need assistance and are very good at communicating. Overall top notch support
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    HCLSoftware
    I've been using the production for a very long time and very happy with it. Also, all the online resources and forums for notes is very friendly and easy/quick for getting help. I found out that compared to Microsoft or Oracle or any other platforms, IBM Notes online forum is the best I have seen.
    Read full review
    In-Person Training
    Freshworks Inc
    In-person training is provided to all the agents and it is very easy to learn the basics of the Freshdesk interface. Solving tickets via dashboards, replying to the guest queries in bulk via Freshdesk. The training which is a bit hard is creating the logic according to the ticket flow and intergeration.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    HCLSoftware
    No answers on this topic
    Online Training
    Freshworks Inc
    This tool is no doubt easy to learn but in-person training is a lot better than online training. It takes time to grasp things in the online training, however, in pandemic we have done all the training online. Apart from a bit more time we haven't faced any issues with online training.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    HCLSoftware
    No answers on this topic
    Implementation Rating
    Freshworks Inc
    Was a fairly quick implementation for us. However, we are only doing email integration and not some of the more complex integrations that are possible. One clarification on an earlier question. I selected that Freshdesk doesn't have a given feature, but this is not true. I selected this because there wasn't a selection for I don't use the feature. This is a weakness in the survey.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    HCLSoftware
    Implementation is easy and smooth if the requirement is well gathered/documented. Notes is a RAD platform, all projects in Notes is simple in the implementation step.
    Read full review
    Alternatives Considered
    Freshworks Inc
    Compared to Crisp, Freshdesk offers much more organization and is just much more helpful when it comes to having more than one region/team. Not that Crisp is bad, but with Freshdesk, internal communication and collaboration are much easier, which was quite important for our team to grow.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    HCLSoftware
    Outlook has been considered for years as a replacement platform. Pricing and support staff made it prohibitive. Our long-time use of Microsoft Office productivity suite naturally led us to consider the adoption of Office365. A recent investigation told us that Azure Cloud services propel an O365 solution to the forefront. Early adopters in international divisions have paved the way for Azure and O365.
    Incentivized
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    Contract Terms and Pricing Model
    Freshworks Inc
    I was not very involved with the purchase/contract (my company purchased Fresjdesk before I was brought on), but I will say that pricing per agent made it difficult to grow our support team. Additionally, we were kind of disappointed after our upgrade because it didn't solve our pain points as much as we expected.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    HCLSoftware
    No answers on this topic
    Scalability
    Freshworks Inc
    My company had Freshdesk agents from support and success. It's generally difficult to customize permissions for different agent "roles." We were a fully distributed company, so "multiple sites" doesn't apply to us. We found Freshdesk features lacking as we grew our customer base, and adding agents wasn't easy because price steeply increases with number of agents.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    HCLSoftware
    No answers on this topic
    Professional Services
    Freshworks Inc
    - good customer support
    - personal contact
    - usage limited to basic product features, individually designed solutions seem unlikely
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    HCLSoftware
    No answers on this topic
    Return on Investment
    Freshworks Inc
    • Increased response times - Client Success maintains at 98% SLA for resolution
    • Categorization of feedback and issues - custom ticket fields make it easier for us to review why clients contact us on a high level
    • Standardization of internal procedures via templates, canned responses and automations
    Incentivized
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    HCLSoftware
    • Over the years, we have lost countless hours of productivity from the thousands of crashes we have experienced.
    • One benefit of IBM Notes is that it is very simple to train a new user on. Many people prefer and are familiar with Google tools, but those that use IBM Notes have very little trouble acclimating themselves.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
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