Freshdesk for team efficiency!
Updated January 16, 2020

Freshdesk for team efficiency!

Jennifer Hess | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User

Software Version

Free

Overall Satisfaction with Freshdesk

We use Freshdesk to aggregate support requests from clients. I've added several key members of my team as Agents, so tickets can be assigned directly to them and they can communicate directly with the client for resolution. Freshdesk streamlines team communication and allows for expedient resolution of client issues. Agents can tag each other in notes and easily hand-off or collaborate as needed. It also allows clients to feel confident that a member of the team will be monitoring the support inbox, whether I'm directly involved or not. Adding my team to Freshdesk provides me the flexibility to run my business without being overwhelmed by it, so I can do things like travel or manage other projects without being derailed by daily requests. My team includes a WordPress support technician, a developer, myself (business owner/designer/developer) and typically a project manager who can field/assign requests to specific team members as needed. However, I have it set so that Agents can see all tickets that come through, so they can pick them up as they see fit, without relying on designated assignments.

Pros

  • The new interface is very clean and easy to navigate.
  • Awesome knowledgebase, free training and responsive support (even with a free plan) allow my team to spin up on the system without hours of internal training sessions.
  • Easily integrates with custom domains for seamless client experience.
  • Tagging and reassigning is easy.
  • Mobile apps work well and allow for easy use across multiple platforms (particularly useful when working remotely).
  • Lots of great features within the free plan.
  • The free plan allows for a fair amount of branding/customization of client portal.

Cons

  • The login solution drives me nuts. As an Agent, I have to login at a separate domain than my branded portal, which is confusing for new team members and adds several steps to the login process. This is particularly cumbersome when trying to use 3rd party integrations that require Freshdesk login (like Shift App for Gmail).
  • Integration with Asana is clunky and doesn't allow for easy use when there are a lot of clients/projects in Asana, so we end up just manually adding tickets as tasks in Asana.
  • A style refresh to the client-side portal would be great. It's a bit clunky and even with customizations, the default solution feels a bit dated.
  • Allows me to rely on my subcontractors for day-to-day requests, improving overall efficiency for both myself and my team.
  • The inexpensive plan keeps us within budget, with Agents we can easily enable/disable as seats are needed/used.
  • Provides a sense of security for clients knowing that responses will be prompt and monitored by a team.
  • Ease-of-use minimizes the need for individual training and shortens onboarding time.
I had previously used HelpScout for a brief period of time, but they increased their pricing so we switched to Freshdesk. At the time, HelpScout had a better interface, but with the recent updates to Freshdesk, I'm really liking the interface and have no desire to switch to another solution.
Copper (formerly ProsperWorks), Hubstaff, Asana, Everhour
Not available
I don't use the public publishing features of Freshdesk, though we have considered creating a knowledgebase/FAQ section for clients that would be publicly accessible. I have some very limited experience with the KB solutions from working with another client's portal, and it seemed sufficient. There were some basic organizational structures that would be useful when creating an FAQ section and several robust options should you want to delineate internal KB items from external ones.
We primarily use the Group & Agent assignment functionalities, which works well for our team. Agents are placed into Groups so that when relevant tickets come through, we're all pinged and can pick it up as needed. This allows for efficiency and ensures issues are handled promptly. The conditional logic for ticket assignment is really helpful, though could use a few more include/exclude rules, and more field options to search by. The attachment functionality can be a bit cumbersome, as drag-and-drop doesn't seem to be an option until you've already added something to the email, and attachments from clients can often get missed as they're listed as text links at the bottom and are not always easily visible in lengthy tickets.
We don't use social platforms for support requests. Conditional rules allow for filtering of unnecessary emails, though we haven't had much issue in that department. Tickets only have a few minute delay between sending & receipt within Freshdesk, likely due to the routing through a Gmail support@ email address first.
The dashboard isn't really used by my team. I'm almost always open to the Tickets list page. I think the reports are pretty good, but since clients often like to reply with "Thanks" or take a long time to confirm/reply, the close rate is never right, since they frequently get reopened (despite having been resolved/closed already). I don't review the reports, as I'm typically pretty well apprised of the ticket statuses, and they don't really offer any useful info for me. Perhaps if they were more visually interesting, or if the reporting table didn't require horizontal scrolling.

We don't really use any of the other dynamic features, as we only receive a few tickets a week on average, so they can just be managed individually. I would like to see improved integration with Asana, as we're currently adding tasks manually since the available integration isn't really usable given the large quantity of clients & tasks and lack of search feature/settings in the integration.
Freshdesk is great for support ticketing, FAQs, and items that can be easily reviewed, addressed and resolved. It's not ideal for lengthier conversations or long-term projects, as it could get difficult to track multiple conversations or use the SLA notification features since long-term projects will typically have different duration parameters. Though the ability to merge tickets & edit subject lines in Freshdesk is helpful (I wish Gmail would let me merge conversations!).

Additionally, I have another client who attempted to use Freshdesk as both a support portal and CRM solution, which didn't work well. It's ideal if all communication runs through Freshdesk, so it can be tracked and monitored. If leads are coming into Freshdesk, and then managed offline, there's a tendency to have a lot of open/unresolved 'tickets' because users don't want to bounce back and forth. However, I believe Freshworks offers a CRM solution, so that would likely be the best way to go for CRM needs (though I've not used it).

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