Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Freshdesk
Score 8.5 out of 10
N/A
Freshdesk is a cloud-based customer service software that helps businesses of all sizes to deliver customer support. Freshdesk converts requests coming in via email, web, phone, chat, and social into tickets, and unifies ticket resolution across channels. Additionally, Freshdesk lets the user automate workflows, provide self-service, manage SLAs, and measure metrics, to stay on top of customer support. Freshdesk also offers out-of-the-box features like an AI-powered support chatbot,…
$0
Up to 2 agents
Respond.io
Score 8.3 out of 10
N/A
Respond.io is a business messaging platform from the Hong Kong based company of the same name, that connects customers from any channel to every team. As consumers grow to demand personal communication on a wide variety of channels, businesses are looking to their software vendors and partners to innovate and deliver these customer experiences. Respond.io is designed to meet this challenge, simply.
$99
per month
Pricing
FreshdeskRespond.io
Editions & Modules
Free
$0
Up to 2 agents
Growth
$15
per month (billed annually) per agent
Pro
$49
per month (billed annually) per agent
Enterprise
$79
per month (billed annually) per agent
Team
$99
per month
Business
$299
per month
Enterprise
Custom
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
FreshdeskRespond.io
Free Trial
YesYes
Free/Freemium Version
YesNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
YesYes
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
FreshdeskRespond.io
Features
FreshdeskRespond.io
Incident and problem management
Comparison of Incident and problem management features of Product A and Product B
Freshdesk
8.6
187 Ratings
5% above category average
Respond.io
-
Ratings
Organize and prioritize service tickets9.2183 Ratings00 Ratings
Expert directory8.0123 Ratings00 Ratings
Subscription-based notifications8.43 Ratings00 Ratings
ITSM collaboration and documentation7.64 Ratings00 Ratings
Ticket creation and submission9.3183 Ratings00 Ratings
Ticket response9.1183 Ratings00 Ratings
Self Help Community
Comparison of Self Help Community features of Product A and Product B
Freshdesk
8.4
168 Ratings
5% above category average
Respond.io
-
Ratings
External knowledge base8.5152 Ratings00 Ratings
Internal knowledge base8.2157 Ratings00 Ratings
Multi-Channel Help
Comparison of Multi-Channel Help features of Product A and Product B
Freshdesk
8.7
177 Ratings
9% above category average
Respond.io
-
Ratings
Customer portal8.7151 Ratings00 Ratings
IVR8.755 Ratings00 Ratings
Social integration8.495 Ratings00 Ratings
Email support9.1176 Ratings00 Ratings
Help Desk CRM integration8.6112 Ratings00 Ratings
Best Alternatives
FreshdeskRespond.io
Small Businesses
Agiloft Service Desk (discontinued)
Agiloft Service Desk (discontinued)
Score 9.0 out of 10
EZ Texting
EZ Texting
Score 9.0 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Agiloft Service Desk (discontinued)
Agiloft Service Desk (discontinued)
Score 9.0 out of 10
Quadient Inspire
Quadient Inspire
Score 8.8 out of 10
Enterprises
SysAid
SysAid
Score 8.9 out of 10
Quadient Inspire
Quadient Inspire
Score 8.8 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
FreshdeskRespond.io
Likelihood to Recommend
8.7
(254 ratings)
10.0
(1 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
9.8
(22 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Usability
9.8
(42 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Availability
7.7
(6 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Performance
8.0
(6 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
9.7
(40 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
In-Person Training
10.0
(2 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Online Training
9.9
(3 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Implementation Rating
8.7
(184 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Configurability
6.6
(7 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Contract Terms and Pricing Model
6.6
(4 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Ease of integration
7.5
(5 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Product Scalability
5.8
(5 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Professional Services
6.4
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
6.9
(4 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
6.9
(4 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
FreshdeskRespond.io
Likelihood to Recommend
Freshworks Inc
I recommend Freshdesk for people who need to handle a large volume of inquiries through tickets and follow-ups. This platform provides tools that will improve problem-solving efficiency, ensuring customers are satisfied with the speed with which their issues are resolved. Overall, it will optimize customer service support operations and the resolution of their problems.
Read full review
Respond.io
If you're looking to implement the WhatsApp business api for your official number in your product Respond.io is the solution to go because the truth is that there is no easy way and most of the providers will assume that you have developers in order to create your own implementation and many of the other solutions our there are not even close to Respond.io and they are usually expensive. Also, most of the Customer Service software out there will offer you the typical channel but will skip Whatsapp while Respond.io does the opposite (check it out for the free tier if you're not convinced).
Read full review
Pros
Freshworks Inc
  • The price is great for small startups just large enough to need a support ticketing system.
  • This may seem minor, but many tools don't have this: the ability to link a contact to multiple companies/accounts.
  • Agent collision detection is great for making sure agents don't duplicate each others' work!
Read full review
Respond.io
  • Easy integration with WhatsApp business api, you just need a verified number
  • The CRM for WhatsApp is easy to use very friendly and let you make follow-ups to your users
  • They finally implemented the broadcast option where you can schedule broadcast messages to a specific list of users.
Read full review
Cons
Freshworks Inc
  • Data Security.
  • SLA Policies where it is not customer / contract driven but agents / groups driven.
  • Audit Trail is not available in Pro version makes the tool adoption difficult from compliance perspective.
  • Chat Bot and Fresh Chat Services has greater potential to explode, but the pricing model tagged to chat bot sessions .are illogical as it limits the ability to use the fresh chat feature
  • Agent Logon Screen use earlier version of Captcha as it is annoying for the agents to login. Very frustrating experience.
Read full review
Respond.io
  • You have to be patient with Respond.io since many features are still in development I wish they can make features faster
  • In order to use WhatsApp business api you need a number that is provided by Twilio they also have implemented other number providers but it will be nice that they add more WhatsApp business number providers (since we have a US number instead of a Mexican number)
Read full review
Likelihood to Renew
Freshworks Inc
We are extremely happy with Freshdesk and can foresee using it for the next year. We might only consider using a different platform if our average daily ticket volume reaches four digits and its AI isn’t enough to handle our needs by then. While we haven’t tested this yet, we have read reviews that it’s AI capabilities are lacking
Read full review
Respond.io
No answers on this topic
Usability
Freshworks Inc
I gave it a rating of 9 out of 10 because they delivered on everything we asked them to do. Easy to setup, easy to deploy to end users, easy to customize, easy to enter tickets and so much more. Our experience with their support is top notch! After opening a ticket for support they call use back within 10 minutes every time!
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Respond.io
No answers on this topic
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.
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Respond.io
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.
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Respond.io
No answers on this topic
Support Rating
Freshworks Inc
The main thing about Freshdesk user service is that once a request has been made for information about a feature of the platform, the support team responds to tickets quickly, within a day of writing and submitting them, with information that is concise enough so that there is no need to ask for help on the same topic again.
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Respond.io
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.
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Respond.io
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.
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Respond.io
No answers on this topic
Implementation Rating
Freshworks Inc
Our team easily implemented Freshdesk, and as soon as we started, we were pros with it. In a matter of days, we had integrated signatures and canned responses. The biggest problem was the Help Center part, but after some time, that was also integrated. We did not know some features when we started, but that is normal.
Read full review
Respond.io
No answers on this topic
Alternatives Considered
Freshworks Inc
Freshdesk has a more modern and intuitive user interface, while Help Scout's interface is simpler and more minimalist.In case of features, Freshdesk offers a wider range of features, includes omnichannel support, AI powered automations, and advanced analytics. Help Scout is more focused on providing a simple and efficient ticketing system.
Read full review
Respond.io
When we were implementing WhatsApp business api number in Bussi. We had 2 options the first Zendesk smooch.io and the second one a Twilio WhatsApp number. In the beginning, it seemed that Zendesk smooch.io was the option to go but the conversation was quite slow also the integration was easy but you needed to manage this conversation from zendesk which we were not completely sure about since it's more like a ticketing platform. Fortunately, we were looking and testing solutions until we found Respond.io, and even if they didn't have at the time the broadcast feature they let us know that feature was already in development so we felt that they were building a solution we were looking for so we decided to give them a few months and in those few months they built this feature and is a more dynamic way to answer customers than tickets so we decided to go with them.
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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.
Read full review
Respond.io
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.
Read full review
Respond.io
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
Read full review
Respond.io
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
Read full review
Respond.io
  • Most options we saw before Respond.io needed a minimum number of messages, contracts, or costly integrations from the side of the vendor while Respond.io is actually helping you to integrate the product with no extra cost.
  • Our users choose the communication channel they want so before we were losing leads and money because we were not able to attend this channel.
  • It requires a $0 investment to implement or maintain from the side of the developer area so we use our technical resources to develop our main core product not a WhatsApp chat integration feature.
Read full review
ScreenShots

Respond.io Screenshots

Screenshot of the Inbox Module which connects messaging channels in 1 place. With a Native Mobile App to answer messages on the go.Screenshot of the Contact Module where all customer contacts are exist and segments can be created to target groups of contacts together.Screenshot of the Broadcast Module, which is used to schedule, test, preview send broadcast messages to customersScreenshot of the Workflow Module, to setup automations to streamline processes such as welcome & away messages, routing contacts to agents by shift, skill, and availabilityScreenshot of the Reporting Module, to find out how agents are performing in resolving issues and reaction time.