Freshdesk

I started as a free user and found it extremely versatile. My first hiccup was that, as a free user, when the advanced features that were included expired, they disabled my account. Instead of scaling it back it just went offline without warning. Once that was fixed we found an excellent way to continue with the free account until they implemented a "spam" update that invalidated all tickets sent to any email address except our main address. Again, this was done without warning and we were offline for 3 days. We have subscribed but it was done more out of necessity rather than being able to upgrade for full features.

Avantages

I like the fact that it has a dedicated APP for mobile use, that I can use Email to respond to tickets, great search functionality as well

Inconvénients

Interface could use an update to be more compact and show more information in a single screen. right now a ticket takes up pretty much every part of the display. Also, IOS app is slow on startup and refreshing

Personally, this was the best platform that ever happened to our team. We reviewed some pay-for feature models, as well as the free bug tracker in Spiceworks (which had a ton of adware), and Freshdesk was the simplest to use and track our bugs even with the non-ability to drill down further with the tier we were using for our staff. The only other thing I would mention, is that it is not HIPAA compliant, so you want to make sure anything users are posting in there is not anything related to proprietary software. Otherwise it worked like a charm for our team, and our users seemed to like it. You do need to make sure that your teams using it have their emails alerting them, otherwise a ticket can just sit there. I found that I was reminding folks to check the freshdesk--from an IT standpoint, we were in there every day fielding tickets and this really helped us to schedule out our day/week and prioritize.

Avantages

I set up and administered Freshdesk for a 200+ non-profit agency. There were three departments tracking bugs through it, and we were able to deploy it and announce its use with ease. It was easy to explain to our staff who didn't want to take time to learn something overly complex. As a non-profit, it was important to find a solution that could assist us day-to-day without breaking the bank. We were able to use the first-level with support for our use. The Freshdesk support was highly responsive and helpful if we had questions. Using this platform cut down on time spent fielding immediate requests that were not a high priority. It allowed us to really prioritize, track and automate repeat issues, and cut down on 'putting out little fires everywhere mentality.'

Inconvénients

The automation was helpful, but I think it could have used a bit more complexity. We were able to implement an automated routing for email subjects and user emails so that certain requests or bugs/issues would go to a specific department. We used the platform in Communications, IT, and Facilities for all requests. We didn't have a bug or issue tracker prior to this platform. The Frequently Asked Questions portion of the portal really didn't end up being used, although we did use it when we first started the platform. Higher ups really liked the ability to see numbers in what we were fielding, but there was not enough drill-down in the pay/point we were using--that may have been available within higher paid levels. The automation has a lot of options for sending alerts when a new ticket is created. It can become cumbersome and send A LOT of emails. I'm not sure if there is a better way to automate/cut that down w/o losing that function. Also, the 'archive' user feature was a bit weird. We had a lot of employees that would leave and come back, and if you archived the user, it was a bit of an odd way to get them back into the platform, it's doable, just awkward.

Avantages

The platform is relatively user friendly and has a sufficient number of features to work well.

Inconvénients

Service is highly unreliable, and if something significant happens - don't expect Freshdesk to be available to help you. It can take 2-4 days to get a hold of someone EVEN IF YOU ARE FUNCTIONALLY SHUT DOWN.

Here was our experience: We had been using Freshdesk for 3-4 years and were relative experts on our plan. We arranged to make a change to our Freshdesk plan to switch to a multi-product platform. We upgraded to a plan costing 7x our current cost per user and requested to speak with a Success Manager to plan to the changes. It took persistence and some time to get on the phone with someone. The person we got has had relatively low product knowledge, but escalated to a very competent product engineer fairly promptly. We confirmed our plan and attempted to implement independently after business hours. We were forced to initiate a backout plan when errors and unpredictable behaviour blocked our completion. Our backout plan partially failed and customers were impacted for 3 days before we were able to get anyone to help us. We heard a myriad of responses via email as to why a phone call was not possible from, "I am not working today" to "I will give you a call next week at your convenience" and "I will have XX get a hold of you to help" - but no call, no chat, no email Q&A -- radio silence. We got the message loud and clear 'you are not that important'.

Be warned - if something go wrong, the documentation is very modest and don't necessarily expect help.

While Freshdesk has a great UI, and is a feature-rich service, the truth behind the advertising leaves much to be desired. While their software is good, the pricing model isn't, and their marketing is intentional bait-and-switch. The features listed on each pricing tier are expanded upon here: freshdesk.com/features. Once you buy, and ask what's up, the support will tell you to upgrade for that feature, and link you to a page that isn't linked to from anywhere on their site: freshdesk.com/helpdesk-features, as justification.

As an example, $15/agent/month includes, "SLA Management," which is described from their features page as including every SLA feature, including basic things like SLA email notifications, reminders, escalation policies. You know, what anyone would think of as "SLA Management." However, none of those features are actually included in that price plan. To even get email notifications of SLA violations, or have your SLA respect office hours, you'll have to pay $50/agent/month. Worse, there is no way to discover this until after you've paid and spent time getting everything set up.

Avantages

Wonderful tracking and organization of emails and support issues, with a nice and clean UI, and simple tools to automate many support tasks.

Inconvénients

Features listed as included in lower tiers on their pricing page, are not actually included until much higher tiers. See: https://freshdesk.com/helpdesk-features for the real breakdown. Freshdesk has no links to that page, and you'll only get it if you ask about a missing feature in their support portal.

Wonderful, I really like their 24hrs support system

Avantages

With 5 years in business, we started seeing change in our revenues and employee behaviour in the last 2,5 years of using FRESHDESK.

We stopped for sometime thinking maybe we could continue without these tools and a huge gap opened up thus we had to go back to the tried & tested.

Inconvénients

Ease of business
Friendly Interface
Work Anywhere (App or Web)