Likelihood to Recommend If you are a smaller organization you are probably ok to use [Freshworks CRM (formerly Freshsales)] vs
Salesforce - you will save money and still get some great features. I would not recommend for a very large enterprise. It is also challenging to have the support come from another region although they do try to be very responsive.
Read full review I would say the greatest strength of Kustomer is its flexibility. In the hands of a skilled admin, it can be adapted to tons and tons of different use cases. I've been able to make custom displays for different groups of agents, produce complex cross sections of users, draw interesting data relationships combining marketing contacts and customer-initiated contacts. For example, there's really no other data source in our company which could tell you which users received a specific promo code and checked out with it, received their delivery within 14 days and then can related that to the number of times they contacted us about using our product. At the intersection of communication, marketing, data, and relationship-management, Kustomer shines at the center. I would say it falls short when you are trying to coordinate multiple "side conversations" with multiple sources to resolve an issue. This is a tough task for any type of platform, but if you're maintaining 3 different email chains with a 3PL partner, the customer, and a separate internal conversation, it would be confusing anyway!
Read full review Pros It helps you automate your onboarding process for new leads. It has lots of integrations with other apps, so you can interact with other things like calendars and calls. It's pretty easy to set sequences so the platform automatically follows up with people for you. This is not only helpful for your sales pipeline, but also for client communication when working on a project that requires their input. Read full review All customer data (past orders, communication with customer service, rewards account data) is in one place. This helps agents avoid confusion and reduces the number of tabs they need to open. The Knowledge Base (or K Base) is very helpful. Any time we roll out a new policy or have a limited-time promotion, we can add all the relevant information and worksheets there for the convenience of the agents. That way they can stay in a chat while looking up the answer to a question. We can seamlessly move from chat into email if the customer leaves or the queue times are too long. All the interactions will stay on the customer profile page, so they are kept up to date. Read full review Cons Persistent and pervasive down time Lack of scalable integrations with data source (e.g., their Segment integration is barely functional and they won't improve it) Slow and unhelpful customer service Account management doesn't understand our business or what we're trying to accomplish Email campaign feature is barely functional and only allows you to have 10 campaigns, even with the most expensive plan Lead and contact records have gone missing and FreshSales is unable to recover data Read full review Small chat window--maybe the ability to chat in real-time with the person who received your ticket would help. Different teams could have differently colored notes. The notification bell could be a bit bigger. It's hard to keep track sometimes, when a lot of notes pile on. Read full review Likelihood to Renew I believe at this time, Kustomer is doing a good job. I really love its functionality at the moment.
Read full review Usability I would give Freshworks CRM's overall usability a 7 out of 10. Although the software has improved since we first obtained it, it still could use improvements to make functionality more intuitive and easier for the average user. It is not that challenging but there is definitely a learning curve
Read full review There is a learning curve, but it is more than worth it, especially to have a dedicated resource pointed at Kustomer and any other software it interacts with. The basic implementation is useful, and powerful - certainly a MASSIVE upgrade over taking care of your customers in an email inbox or shuffling between multiple windows and applications! It is also set up really well to grow and reconfigure with your business. I'm a big fan.
Read full review Reliability and Availability I gave it a 10 rating because it is very helpful and the availability is there when needed. I have never had issues with application errors or unplanned outages so far.
Read full review Performance Kustomer Performances need improvement. The pages do load very slowly but that might be because of the information they carry. If Kustomer integrates with other software or systems it does slow the performance. They need to find a solution to this.
Read full review Support Rating When you initially log in to Freshworks, you get snippets to guide you on how to set up. You have a chat option on every page so you can reach out to the support agent and get your issues resolved in real time. The agents are fast, responsive, and experienced in handling even a person who introduced CRM to the world...
Read full review I did not reach out to Kustomer support when we had an issue. Still, whenever we provide feedback to our manager regarding what can improve based on our experience using Kustomer, our manager always comments that Kustomer support always replies with some positive feedback based on our suggestions.
Read full review In-Person Training Because they are very hands-on in training us and very approachable
Read full review Online Training The best training I did was online. Videos teach as well as explain how everything works and what Kustomer's functions are.
Read full review Implementation Rating Nothing really because it is easy to use. After an hour of using it, we're already getting the hang of it.
Read full review Alternatives Considered Close.io has less features, costs more, and equally has an inside sales team focus, rather than being just as suitable for both inside and outside sales. Having said this,
Close.io has
important features and smart automations, a cleaner interface (easier for non-techs to use), and has very strong integrations using Zapier, plus SMS-based support. Where Freshsales won for us is that it ended up being nearly half the cost of
Close.io , as well as included telephony support for our local country (Australia), whereas
Close.io comes with USA/Canada numbers and requires the top pricing tier to include calls to other countries. We needed a telephony system that worked well for making and receiving from Australia. Freshsales won for us because their pricing is at a good point, had the telephony requirements we needed, and all the features that we required were good enough, or we found a workaround.
Read full review Apps like Intercom,
Zendesk , and Gorgios all treat customer inquiries as tickets, just tracking that one issue or interaction with a customer. Kustomer treats each customer as an individual, which allows us to provide top-notch customer service. Customers love that we're able to be more conversational and informal, while still solving their issues quickly. It also helps us build relationships with customers and increases repeat orders.
Read full review Scalability Because customer is flexible and scalable
Read full review Return on Investment It is too soon to make a determination on ROI, but I do think it will help me be more efficient. The reporting functions help me stay on track of sales opportunities. The task reminders help me accelerate how quickly deals come together. Read full review We’re getting so much positive feedback — which is not something you traditionally associate with a customer care team — because we’re making it effortless for customers to deliver both positive and negative feedback, and we can now resolve the bad feedback really really quickly. Primarily from our increased efficiency with Kustomer, we’ve seen a significant reduction of $3 to $4 for every cost per contact. Read full review ScreenShots