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Have you thought about your customer service?
Every time you purchase any product, you discover a piece of paper attached! The instruction manual.
It provides the basic settings and guidelines on how to use the product. There are intro about different parts of the product and their functionalities. And of course what to do and what not to do with the product!
Move your radar from manual to digital now. Almost all big and small companies include how to guide in their websites. They include documentation, FAQ, knowledgebase, training about their products or service. They have also set live chat, email support, phone call support and dedicated helpdesk to solve customers’ problems instantly.
Why do they invest a lot here?Â
Is it only to increase sales or to drive more revenue? The answer is a Big NO.
The real motive is all about customer satisfaction. To them customers matter.Â
Can you relate your business and customer service like them? If not, Your business will not stay for long term.
Ready to level up your customer service, Jump straight here
Want to know more about it, continue reading.
What is Customer Service actually?
In a sentence, It is an offering from your company to customers during their entire customer journey. You actively listen , record and and offer solutions to customers about your products or services over various channels. In this process, customers feel valued and become a loyal advocate also.
Reaping the benefits of customer service
Is it ok to manage customer service manually or build a system?
It depends on your size of business.Â
If you have a very small customer base,like 1-10, it is easy to provide customer service manually. You have the freedom to save some pennies at this stage.
But when the numbers go up and you are dealing with varieties of customers, it could be a nightmare to handle all those queries manually. Imagine, all the day you hang up with your phones and emails and answer customers! No more focus on core business and missing the link to drive more revenue.
Surely, not an ideal scenery for your growing business!
Better, you build up an automated process to follow up customers and deliver a 5-Star customer experience on the go. Here comes the customer service software to remove all pains and anxieties.
 But wait, have you figured out your pains while providing customer support?
Before explaining the customer service software, let’s discuss some general pains you feel as a business owner.
What are the pains business owners face while facing customer support?
How Customer Service Software Can Help Deliver a 5-Star Customer Experience And Save Money?
Customer service software is designed to address the needs and desires of your customers in a timely and efficient manner. It allows your support team to respond promptly to inquiries, resolving issues with unparalleled speed.
No longer will your customers have to wait on hold or endure never-ending email threads. Instead, you can offer them immediate assistance and ensure their concerns are addressed with personalized interaction.
It helps you build long-term customer relationships by providing a comprehensive view of each individual’s interaction history and preferences. Therefore, you can tailor your responses, anticipate their needs, and deliver a personalized experience that leaves a lasting impression.
Now, take a look at some cost-saving benefits! You can significantly reduce the need for manual processes, paperwork, and labor-intensive tasks leveraging customer service software.Â
Leave those endless paperwork and mountains of spreadsheets, and embrace automated workflows and real-time reporting. Save you precious time, minimize the risk of human error and ensure consistent and accurate data management.
In addition, It provides valuable insights into your team’s performance, customer satisfaction levels, and areas for improvement. You can make informed decisions, optimize your processes, and deliver an even better customer experience.
Which Customer Service Software should you go for?
A million dollar question indeed!
There are countless customer service software available in the market. Some are fit for big organizations and some are fit for small ones. Some are helpful for live chats , some are for messaging and some are great for data management. There is no one size fits all software.Â
Some fabulous names in this field are HubSpot, Freshdesk , Nextiva, Salesforce, Zendesk, Intercom, Zohodesk and many more.Â
In this article, we would like to introduce you with Freshdesk.
Why does it grab our attention among the crowd?
Because- we have found Freshdesk easy to begin with, simple to use, compact with all necessary options and built in for business growth.
So, what about the others? Aren’t they good enough?
Definitely NOT. But we want to keep our discussion short and focused on one.
OK, Let’s check out what tempted us to talk about Freshdesk.
Core functions Freshdesk does
Ticket Management
Team collaboration
Multiple channel communication
Task automation
Self service option
Overall service analysis
Customized action
Data security
Integrations & Apps
Take a look at the overview of Freshdesk.
How businesses can deliver a 5-Star customer service through Freshdesk?
Create and manage tickets
↦ Any customer query can be converted to tickets. You can then assign tickets to any specific agent or team according to importance.
↦ Set rules for when every ticket needs to be solved and automatically update customers about deadlines.
↦ Freshdesk’s AI ticketing bot, Freddy AI,helps your agents to suggest most close solution articles about the tickets. As a result agents can go for a faster solution.Â
↦ In any case, if field service is required, you can assign the problem to field workers based on location. Collecting feedback from field workers is also integrated with the Freshdesk ticketing system.
Team collaboration
↦ Your support agents can integrate any stakeholder or any internal team(HR, Sales etc) to solve complex customer issues.
↦ Under a parent ticket, create child tickets and assign those to respective teams. The parent ticket will only be resolved when each child ticket is being solved.
↦ For any servicing, clearly describe service tasks to field technicians with customers address, phone no and problems so that they can have the full understanding of the issue.
Multiple channel communication
↦ Emails from customers are converted to tickets and those tickets are assigned automatically to right agents. After deadlines, customers get replies via email.Â
↦ Install Live chat to support customers on the fly.
↦ Record and track all phone calls and convert them to tickets.
↦ Integrate Facebook, Whatsapp to engage with customers and solve their queries.
Task automation
↦ Freshdesk automation scans through all tickets every one hour to check whether there is a necessity for an update or an alert.It reminds agents about pending tasksÂ
↦ Event and time based task automation is one of the tempting part from Freshdesk. After getting responses from support agents, Freshdesk automatically triggers actions based on time and event(You set your own rules).
↦ There is an audit log for every automation rule. Tracking every automated workflow is very simple from Freshdesk.
Self service option
↦ What if customers find the solution by themselves? Freshdesk Self service has so many helpful features to direct customers to solutions without waiting for agents!
↦ Freshdesk AI bot can provide best possible answer as per customer query from your knowledge base content.
↦ Setup knowledge base content on any where like on website, on mobile app or on chat.
↦ Customize your knowledge base page without any code with Freshdesk easily.
↦ Setup a forum on past discussions so that new customers can relate and find their issues at a glance.
Overall service analysis
↦ Customize any data or report as per your need.You can also get readymade set of data from Freshdesk library when needed.
↦ Monitor dashboard and widgets with most focused metrics.
↦ You can collect customer satisfaction ratings from Freshdesk easily.
Customized action
↦ You can easily assign roles and access to support agents
↦ You can classify your customers based on their needs and provide more focused support
↦ Freshdesk supports 42 language. So running a global support operation is not a nightmare for freshdesk like others.
Data security
↦ Freshdesk does not compromise with security. You get all accounts under Freshdesk with SSL certificate.
↦ It’s easy to set up single sign-on (SSO) for agents and users in Freshdesk.
↦ You can restrict, whitelist any IP or network through Freshdesk.
↦ Freshdesk is GDPR and HIPPA compliant.
Integrations & Apps
↦ You can connect Freshdesk with Whatsapp, Slack, Shopify, WordPress, Stripe and many others to collect data and run more smooth operation.
↦ Actually Freshdesk can connect with you more than 1000s of apps. Explore the Freshdesk marketplace and find your own tool and integrate with Freshdesk.
Ratings & Reviews
- Freshdesk has a rating of 4.4 out 5 according to G2Â and ranked 7th easiest to use in Social customer service software.
- Freshdesk has a rating of 4.5 out of 5 in Capterra and featured in 11 Capterra shortlists for 2023.
Watch the video testimonial from Kris Sundberg, VP of customer success of Restaurant365. They are able to reduce their response time using Freshdesk.
What about Freshdesk pricing?
Freshdesk offers 4 pricing tiers: Free, Growth, Pro & Enterprise.
Every plan has a free trial of 14 days. Let’s have a look at the plans in short.
Free plan
Plan includes
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Email & Social ticketing
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Knowledgebase for customers
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Team collaboration
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365 days Email support
-
Option to choose data center
Growth plan - Fit for small market & growing business
Plan includes- All Free plan features +
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Automated workflow
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SLA management
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Customized Email server
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Access to 1000+ apps
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Call support for 24x5
Pro plan - Best for established & medium sized business
Plan includes- All Growth plan features +
-
Segmentation of customers
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Add up to 5 different products & support from a single desk
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API access for 400 calls/minute
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FreshThemes gallery access
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Chat support for 24x5
Enterprise plan - Best for large companies & enterprise operation
Plan includes- All Pro plan features +
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Add unlimited products
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FREDDY AI bot assistance for automated customer service
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API access for 700 calls/minute
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Audit log & Sandbox access
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Restrict IP access to ensure security
Some negatives about Freshdesk
- AI assistance is only available in the enterprise plan. It should be available in any paid plan.
- Reporting is bit difficult to understand. It could be improved more.
Alternative to Freshdesk
In the beginning of the article, we have mentioned few names that are outstanding customer service software both for companies and for customers.
It is always recommended to explore best alternatives before purchasing any software.
If you want to compare Freshdesk and want to see how others are doing, we suggest you to visit HubSpot service hub. It is also one of the most popular customer service software available in the market.
Goodbye with some final words
 In today’s competitive market where excellent customer experience is a differentiator that sets successful businesses apart from others investing in reliable Customer Service Software solution should be a top priority for any company.
Using a customer service software helps businesses streamline operations, enhance productivity, improve the quality of interactions with customers all while saving time and resources(and of course saves money too!)
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Disclosure: Our team writes about stuff we think you’ll like. We aim to highlight the products and services you might find interesting, and if you buy them, we may get a small share of the revenue from the sale from our partner.