If you are looking to invest in a good help desk software app for your business, but you’re not sure which solution is the best one, then you have come to the right place. Freshdesk is a very popular help desk solution. In fact, many experts claim its the best one on the market. However, you should always do some research before you decide to invest into such a serious element of your company as a help desk system. That’s why our B2B experts selected the most popular alternatives to Freshdesk, so you can easily compare various solutions and pick the most reliable one that will meet all needs of your business. You may also consult our comparison of top help desk software in 2015 for further details.
Overview of Freshdesk
Pricing: Free up to 3 agents, thereafter, from $15 per month
Here’s how part of Freshdesk UI looks like
Freshdesk is the winner of our Best Help Desk Software Award for 2015
After thoroughly examining all popular help desk solutions on the market our B2B experts can confirm that Freshdesk is indeed the best service of this type currently available. Freshdesk received the highest score of 9.8/10 in our evaluation which puts it at the first place of our top help desk software ranking. Its outstanding customer satisfaction rating of 98% further shows that actual clients of Freshdesk are very positive about their experience with the product. What is more, Freshdesk has been distinguished with our Best Help Desk Software Award for 2015 as well as the Expert’s Choice Award for 2015 both of which are given only to top B2B solutions on the market. Freshdesk also offers a very flexible pricing plan, with a freemium version of the tool available for up to 3 users and great free trials for all plans, which allow you to test out all the key features before purchasing. You can easily sign up for Freshdesk free trial here and try their service on your own.
Key Features of Freshdesk:
Automations – Ticket routing, scenario automations
Community Portal with Idea Management & Voting
Email to Ticket Conversion
Integrations: Freshbooks, Google Apps, Harvest, CapsuleCRM
Knowledge Base
Leaderboard & gamification
Multi-channel support, including Facebook & Twitter
Multi-language & multi-time zone support
Multiple Service Level Agreement policies
Multi-product/multi-brand Support
Satisfaction Surveys
Self Service Portal
Main Benefits of Freshdesk Include:
Email
You can use a single panel for all your agents with status updates of customer emails. Agents can collaborate and help each other, and ensure all emails are answered. It;s possible to use Freshdesk’s agent-collision detection tool to prevent two agents responding to the same email from a customer.
Ticketing
You can label tickets quickly and accurately and route them to the right agent for quick response and resolution. Freshdesk also lets you customize your fields and tickets with ticklers in a snap as per your business needs.
Automations
Freshdesk enables you to automate your customer support service from dispatching tickets to resolution, and make sure everything is categorized, assigned, and prioritized correctly.
Social
With Freshdesk you can monitor customer posts about your product in social media and resolve issues that can escalate, or use opportunities to promote your product. The app will also make your support more visible across Social channels.
If you’d like to learn more about Freshdesk and its features, integrations and pricing plans you can read our detailed review of Freshdesk. You can also try out their service on your own with the great free trial plan they offer. You can sign up for Freshdesk free trial here.
If you wish to look beyond Freshdesk, you can consider the following five alternatives:
1. Desk.com
Pricing: Starts at $3/month
An overview of Desk.com interface
One of the alternatives you can consider is Desk.com. It’s a solid help desk software that our experts evaluated with a score of 9.6/10 which puts it on the fourth place in our top help desk software ranking, a few spots after Freshdesk. You can gather more information about this tool from our detailed review of Desk.com if you like, or get a useful summary below.
Desk.com Benefits:
You can view and answer all customer inquiries in one spot. With the Universal Inbox, you need not switch tools and windows to access email, Facebook, Twitter, phone, chat, and discussion boards. It is easy to use and more powerful than your normal email.
You will never miss a case again as Desk.com gathers customer interactions from all channels such as phone, chat, email, and social networks in one place, making it easy for your agents to monitor and respond to queries. You can categorize the queries with Case Filters using custom fields or labels. This makes it easier for agents to track status and priority cases.
Help customers help themselves. You can customize your Support Center with the Desk.com editor, and choose your color and contact forms, or tweak the design with HTML and CSS to match your website. The Content Manager allows you to update and customize the Support Center for different brands. You can also add the built-in community discussions feature to your website.
Desk.com Drawbacks:
Users have pointed out a couple of drawbacks in Desk.com. It takes a long time to attach photos and other attachments. Plus, users are not able to see the original email when people forward emails.
2. Zendesk
Pricing: Starts at $1 per month, billed annually
Here’s how Zendesk looks in action
Another popular alternative is Zendesk. This software was evaluated by our experts with a score of 9.7/10 and it’s currently the second best app on our help desk software ranking, outperformed only by Freshdesk. You can find more information about this service in our detailed review of Zendesk or simply read our bried summary below.
Zendesk Benefits:
Zendesk allows you to organize you customer support process fast with easy deployment.
You can gather all your support channels – emails, chat, web, social media – in one place for easy tracking and response. Zendesk also allows you to use time-saving features like ticket views, triggers, and automation to streamline support conversations.
Great self-service support. The app will Empower your customers and reduce your workload by offering a 24/7 online self-service portal that has a knowledge base, community forums, and intuitive FAQ search.
Branding and customizations enable you to customize your help desk to your corporate brand and feel with user-friendly tools.
Zendesk Drawbacks:
Zendesk users have pointed out a few drawbacks in the tool: the product does have a fair amount of outages. It also is sometimes very slow to load. Defining reporting categories could also be made simpler.
3. TeamSupport
Pricing: Starts at $30/month
A brief look at TeamSupport interface
You may also consider TeamSupport as your altenrative solution. Our experts have given TeamSupport a score of 9.2/10 which puts it on no. 5 spot in our help desk software ranking. While being a solid service TeamSupport is not as reliable as our leaders Fresdesk and Zendesk. You can get more information about this tool from our detailed review of TeamSupport or read on to get a general overview of its capabilities.
TeamSupport Benefits:
The app offers full visibility to your team members with collaborative tools to help them work together to resolve customer issues. It also allows you to work in groups and discuss in real time about specific tickets, while keeping sales and product developers in the loop about critical customer concerns
With TeamSupport y ou can use the Complete Customer Database to view all customer engagements, not just individual tickets. It’s also possible to view who else is engaging specific customers upon contact, and the products involved, so you can proactively manage customer support
TeamSupport Drawbacks
The app lacks a website widget which can make it easier for customers to submit information to TeamSupport. The vendor could also improve its customer service, plus there is currently no method to conduct a side conversation within TeamSupport with internal subscribers.
4. Veeva CRM
Pricing: Contact the vendor for a quote
A brief look at the UI of Veeva
Veeva CRM is a powerful tool for customer management with built-in help desk management capabilities. After a careful evaluation our experts have given Veeva CRM a score of 8.9/10 which is good enough to place it among our 10 best help desk software services, but not enough to rival the category leader Freshdesk. You can find out more about Veeva and its features from our detailed review of Veeva CRM.
Veeva CRM Benefits:
The tool will simplify content management and allow you to easily create and distribute content across channels. Veeva has an easy-to-learn environment based on actionable insights, intuitive dashboards, smart reports, and consumer web experience to help you to make smart business decisions.
You can scale up or down according to your needs with easy implementation of the right configurations, data sharing rules, and security settings online and offline. Veeva also makes it possible to test and preview content across channels before distribution.
5. Salesforce Sales Cloud
Pricing: Starts at $25/month
Our last competitor of Freshdesk is Salesforce Sales Cloud. It’s a very good service that our experts evaluated with a score of 9.6/10 which makes it the no. 3 app in our ranking of top help desk solutions. While certainly impressinve, the service is not as reliable as Freshdesk or Zendesk. You can learn more about the features, pricing and integrations available for this tool from our detailed review of Salesforce.
Salesforce Sales Cloud Benefits:
It allows you to close more deals. You can use the app’s Opportunity Management feature to get insights. It also allows you to use Contact Management to get a complete view of customer profile including activity history, discussions, communications, and social mentions. There also the Sales Collaboration module to track deals and look for competitive information.
You can get more leads. Salesforece allows you to track clicks, create campaigns, and automate the whole process to generate quality leads and reduce the sales cycle. The Partner Management, Sales Data, Marketing Automation, and Lead Management apps help to you to create a systematic pipeline from lead to conversion.
Salesforce Sales Cloud Drawbacks:
Users have pointed out that Salesforce Sales Cloud can do with improvements to the following features: reporting, emailing, inventory management, and mobile interaction. It’s also primarily a sales management solution, so it’s not ideal for comapnies who want a help desk only service.
Help Desk Features You Should Be Looking For
A top quality help desk software can act as your support center helping in managing queries and other important support processes. The software should be easy to learn and use, so that your agents can boost their productivity and focus on assisting customers more ably. Common features of a good help desk system include:
It should offer an efficient ticket module to help customers who are not comfortable using phone or email for their issues.
A well-stocked knowledge base stocked with helpful articles and tips which can enable customers solve issues on their own. Your agents can also use it for reference.
You should be able to prioritize queries and route them to the correct departments and agents.
Flexible problem resolution, tracking, and reporting tools.
It should provide a web-based interface that can be accessed from anywhere, anytime.
The app should seamlessly integrate with your existing infrastructure without the need for reorganization.
The app should be scalable so that you can continue using it to meet your growing needs and customer demands.
The vendor should provide quality customer and technical support round the clock to help you overcome bugs or other issues quickly without much downtime.
Why You Should Get A Help Desk Software?
The software efficiently handles pre-and post-sale matters both online and offline.
Web-based app smoothens the communications with customers and helps in providing efficient customer service.
You can get rid of your phone call management service and use your agents more effectively.
Helps you offer 24/7 technical and customer support as well as self-help options.
You would be able to automate processes like marketing trends, movement of goods, stock records, database maintenance etc. You can use the software’s analytics features to create business plans.
The system boosts employee efficiency by offering technical and physical data whenever agents need it.
The software helps to detect and manage problems, and streamlines processes.
The help desk app efficiently manages the audit trail and frees up manpower for more important tasks.
An efficient help desk system detects system glitches, helps in overall improvement of management efficacy, and boosts business growth.
Bottom Line
After a careful analysis of all the most popular help desk solutions on the market our experts concluded that Freshdesk is currently the best possible choice for a company that seeks a reliable and efficient help desk service. With a score of 9.8/10, a position as leader in our help desk category and being the winner of our Best Help Desk Software Award for 2015 Freshdesk is clearly the most sensible option to invest in. It also provides a great freemium and free trial plan that will let you test the key features of Freshdesk at no cost. You can easily sign up for Freshdesk free trial here.
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