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Freshdesk vs. Lightning Tools Social Squared Discussion Board

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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

    Lightning Tools Social Squared Discussion Board

    Score9.1 out of 10
    Enterprise companies (1,001+ employees)
    Social Squared is a SharePoint Discussion Board App that can be deployed across SharePoint Online and Microsoft Teams. Social Squared improves productivity and efficiency by providing structured discussion forums for employee and student discussions. For Microsoft SharePoint Social Squared is a SharePoint discussion board application where users can post questions within relevant forums and receive answers to their questions from subject matter experts. The…

    $2,200

    per year per installation

    Pricing
    FreshdeskLightning Tools Social Squared Discussion Board
    Editions & Modules
    Growth
    $18
    per month per agent
    Pro
    $59
    per month per agent
    Enterprise
    $95
    per month per agent
    Social Squared Discussion Board
    From $2200
    per year per installation
    Social Squared Discussion Board Enterprise Edition
    POA
    per year per installation
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    FreshdeskLightning Tools Social Squared Discussion Board
    Free Trial
    YesYes
    Free/Freemium Version
    YesNo
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    YesYes
    Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
    Additional Details—Prices stated are minimum per installation for "stock" products. $2.20 per user/year on top of base price. Enterprise editions can be amended to suit business needs if deemed necessary, additional costs incurred and TBD. All packages include free technical support. Free upgrades available to latest versions of tool as they are released.
    More Pricing Information
    Community Pulse
    FreshdeskLightning Tools Social Squared Discussion Board
    Considered Both Products
    Freshworks Inc
    No answer on this topic
    Lightning Tools
    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
    FreshdeskLightning Tools Social Squared Discussion Board
    Incident and problem management
    Comparison of Incident and problem management features of Freshdesk and Lightning Tools Social Squared Discussion Board
    Feature
    Freshdesk
    8.6
    210 Ratings
    5% above category average
    Lightning Tools Social Squared Discussion Board
    -
    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 Lightning Tools Social Squared Discussion Board
    Feature
    Freshdesk
    8.0
    185 Ratings
    0% below category average
    Lightning Tools Social Squared Discussion Board
    -
    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 Lightning Tools Social Squared Discussion Board
    Feature
    Freshdesk
    8.3
    197 Ratings
    3% above category average
    Lightning Tools Social Squared Discussion Board
    -
    Ratings
    Customer portal8.2169 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 Lightning Tools Social Squared Discussion Board
    Feature
    Freshdesk
    -
    Ratings
    Lightning Tools Social Squared Discussion Board
    9.1
    1 Ratings
    17% above category average
    Mobile Access00 Ratings9.11 Ratings
    Search00 Ratings9.11 Ratings
    Communication
    Comparison of Communication features of Freshdesk and Lightning Tools Social Squared Discussion Board
    Feature
    Freshdesk
    -
    Ratings
    Lightning Tools Social Squared Discussion Board
    9.1
    1 Ratings
    14% above category average
    Chat00 Ratings9.11 Ratings
    Notifications00 Ratings9.11 Ratings
    Discussions00 Ratings9.11 Ratings
    Internal knowledgebase00 Ratings9.11 Ratings
    File Sharing & Management
    Comparison of File Sharing & Management features of Freshdesk and Lightning Tools Social Squared Discussion Board
    Feature
    Freshdesk
    -
    Ratings
    Lightning Tools Social Squared Discussion Board
    9.1
    1 Ratings
    13% above category average
    Versioning00 Ratings9.11 Ratings
    Video files00 Ratings9.11 Ratings
    Audio files00 Ratings9.11 Ratings
    Document collaboration00 Ratings9.11 Ratings
    Access control00 Ratings9.11 Ratings
    Best Alternatives
    FreshdeskLightning Tools Social Squared Discussion Board
    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
    FreshdeskLightning Tools Social Squared Discussion Board
    Likelihood to Recommend
    8.7
    (277 ratings)
    9.1
    (1 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    8.5
    (25 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Usability
    9.0
    (42 ratings)
    9.1
    (1 ratings)
    Availability
    7.5
    (6 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Performance
    7.6
    (6 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Support Rating
    8.4
    (41 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    In-Person Training
    8.2
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Online Training
    7.0
    (3 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Implementation Rating
    7.7
    (207 ratings)
    -
    (0 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
    8.8
    (2 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Vendor post-sale
    7.7
    (5 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Vendor pre-sale
    7.7
    (5 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    FreshdeskLightning Tools Social Squared Discussion Board
    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
    Lightning Tools
    Their customer service it top notch and always responsive. I struggled in the beginning a little bit because I'm not tech savvy and we had to add it to our SharePoint site but they helped me along the way and even had share screen meetings with me to assist!!
    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
    Lightning Tools
    • Organizing Data
    • Opens up discussion, whether publicly or anonymously
    • Easy to setup
    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
    Lightning Tools
    • I would love to be able to assign various people as administrators of different topics (this may be an option now but a couple years ago it wasn't)
    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
    Lightning Tools
    No answers on this topic
    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
    Lightning Tools
    Our employees really like the fact that they can find things easily with the search feature and add questions and comments as they see fit.
    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
    Lightning Tools
    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
    Lightning Tools
    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
    Lightning Tools
    No answers on this topic
    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
    Lightning Tools
    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
    Lightning Tools
    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
    Lightning Tools
    No answers on this topic
    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
    Lightning Tools
    No answers on this topic
    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
    Lightning Tools
    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
    Lightning Tools
    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
    Lightning Tools
    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
    Read full review
    Lightning Tools
    • We signed up for a 3 year contract and hope to do another 3yr contract when this one is up. :)
    Read full review
    ScreenShots

    Lightning Tools Social Squared Discussion Board Screenshots

    Screenshot of MODERN, RESPONSIVE SHAREPOINT DISCUSSION BOARD
Discussion Forums can be created for a variety of different reasons. This example is a Forum Group for the Microsoft 365 technologies such as Teams, Planner, and SharePoint. Forums are then created within the Forum Groups for more specific discussions. Under the SharePoint Forum Group, there is a Forum for SharePoint On-Premises and SharePoint Online. Anyone looking to ask a question regarding SharePoint 2019 for example would be able to post their question under SharePoint On-Premises rather than SharePoint Online. This also allows subject matter experts to focus more on the questions that they can respond to and provide value.Screenshot of SHAREPOINT DISCUSS BOARD – TOPICS VIEW
When navigating into a forum, the topics and discussions that are taking place are shown. Any new topics that not yet read will be highlighted. It also displays whether topics have been answered, their average ratings, how many views and posts are within the topic, and also provides the ability to subscribe to the forum to be notified of new posts within it.Screenshot of READING DISCUSSIONS AND PROVIDING FEEDBACK
Social Squared offers a threaded discussion view with the ability to provide feedback to other users.

Posts can be rated, voted upon, or liked by users in order to give feedback to the user creating or responding to a post. Additionally, replies can be marked as answered or marked as featured, which gives readers of forums assurance that the response they are reading is validated to be the correct answer.

Users also receive feedback through the earning of badges. The more users post or mark posts as answered, the more points are rewarded. This makes it easy to spot subject matter experts.Screenshot of SUGGESTED TAGS
Social Squared provides a rich text editor for creating and replying to topics. The Rich Text toolbar provides functionality such as inserting images, YouTube videos, Stream Videos, Formatted Code Inserts, as well as font formatting.

While typing, suggestions on how to tag a post appear. Selecting an existing tag will provide consistency in the tags used making it easier for other users to discover the post.Screenshot of SOCIAL SQUARED TAG CLOUD VIEW
The Social Squared Tag Cloud view makes it easy to navigate to posts within a specific category even if they span multiple forums. The more a tag appears in different posts, the more prominent it will be in the tag cloud. Users can navigate to posts with the tag in one click.Screenshot of DISCUSSION BOARD WITHIN MICROSOFT TEAMS TAB
Social Squared is a Discussion Board App for Microsoft Teams Tab’s and Microsoft Teams Personal Apps. Social Squared provides information workers the ability to post questions within relevant forums, and receive answers from their team. The Discussion Board layout for posts makes it easier to find answers to questions that may have already been asked before. Through features such as “Mark as Answered”, “Forum Moderation”, “Post Rating”, “Post Likes”, “Post Voting”, users will be assured that the answers they are reading are validated.