Zendesk vs Freshdesk: Which Is Better In 2024

Picture this – you open your email, and it’s flooded with hundreds of customer queries. Each query seems urgent, and the customer wants either a quick reply or an immediate resolution. They also expect after-hours support from your agents.

Some are tech-related, while others are general queries from your prospects that can eventually lead to a closed deal.

How are you going to handle this?

Did you know that 82% of customers want a prompt response to their queries, especially if they are about sales or marketing? The sooner you address their issues or send a reply, the higher the chances they will convert or become your loyal customers.

That’s where help desk solutions, like Zendesk and Freshdesk, come into play. These two are the fastest-growing SaaS products in the CRM (Customer Relationship Management) space. Choosing between these industry leaders can be tricky, though.

With both offering so many advanced customer support service tools and a fully integrated ticketing system, picking the one that fits your business needs and budget can be a little overwhelming.

To help you make an informed decision, we have curated this Zendesk vs Freshdesk comparison guide with the highlights of each platform. Let’s get started.

Freshdesk, a cloud-based customer support service solution, is one of Zendesk’s major competitors and an ideal choice for small- to large-scale businesses looking to streamline their workflow.

It has a user-friendly interface with a neat dashboard for your ticketing system. The developers designed it with non-IT professionals in mind, so it’s easy to set up. Besides, it will take only a few minutes for your employees and customers to get familiar with its interface and navigation options.

The system enables seamless communication across several channels, including email, live chat, phone, and social media.

You can use its reporting and analytics tools to collect information about your customers’ engagement on your platform, their satisfaction score, and their overall experience with your company.

What sets it apart from other CRM solutions is its affordability. Freshdesk has a free forever plan that allows up to 10 customer service agents to use its basic features for free.

What else?

The gamification system offers excellent motivation to your employees and makes workflow more interesting for your agents. It consists of leaderboards, achievements, badges, a point system, and rewards.

Your agents can earn reward points for every resolved ticket, customer review, and quick response. They can also earn badges for achieving certain milestones, like receiving positive customer feedback constantly or resolving a specific number of tickets.

Zendesk is a customer service solution designed specifically for IT companies and large-scale enterprises that handle thousands of customer queries and complaints regularly.

It’s known for its robust ticketing system, workflow automation, multiple integrations, reports and analytics, and Zendesk Sell. The platform connects seamlessly with all major communication channels and allows your customers to contact you through social media, live chat, phone, Slack, etc.

Zendesk is a customizable solution. You can change the look and feel of your dashboard, reports, and ticketing system to ensure it matches your brand style.

With Zendesk, you can track your employee’s performance, response time, resolution rate, and other key metrics that help your leaders make informed decisions. Simply put, it enhances your workflow, allowing your team to offer an unparalleled customer support service.

Freshdesk and Zendesk offer nearly the same range of services and have similar objectives – to help businesses streamline and improve their customer support service. However, the two differ in terms of pricing and the features offered.

Let’s dive deep into the comparison.

Zendesk :-

Zendesk’s Suite Team plan starts at $55 per agent per month, and it goes up to $115/agent/month for its Professional plan. Here’s what you can expect from each plan:

• Suite Team: At $55/month/agent, you get ticketing system, chatbots, live chat support, 1000+ app integration options, and help center.
• Suite Growth: It costs $89/agent/month and includes all the features of the Suite Team plan, plus SLA, multilingual support, a self-service portal, ticket forms, and light agents.
• Suite Professional: Zendesk’s most popular plan, Suite Professional, costs $115/month/agent and offers all the features of Suite Growth, in addition to Sunshine Conversations, live analytics, skill-based automated ticket routing, and side conversations.

Zendesk also has custom plans for large-scale enterprises with advanced requirements. You need to contact their support representative for a quotation.

Suite Enterprise plan has all the features mentioned above, plus a custom agent role, sandbox, dynamic workspaces, and several AI-powered tools.

Zendesk offers a 14-day free trial. During this trial, you can choose the plan that works best for you and test the tool’s interface and ticketing module for free before signing up for a suitable plan.

Freshdesk :-

Freshdesk offers a free plan and premium ones starting at $15 per agent and going up to $79 for large-scale companies. Let’s check out the features you get with each plan:

• Free: Freshdesk’s free plan allows you to use its basic features without incurring any fee. The plan supports 10 agents and offers analytics and reporting, ticketing, knowledge base, team collaboration, 24/7 support, and multiple communication channels.
• Growth: Growth offers everything included in the free plan and some extra features for growing businesses, like collision detection, automation, email server, SSL, comprehensive help desk support, etc.
• Pro: At $49/agent/month, the Pro plan supports 5000 collaborators, custom reports, customer segmentation, community forums, custom metrics, report sharing, and a multilingual knowledge base.
• Enterprise: Enterprise-level organizations can sign up for Freshdesk’s Enterprise plan for just $79/month/agent. This plan includes advanced features such as a Sandbox, multiple products, an audit log, skill-based automated ticket routing, and IP range restriction.

The company offers a 21-day free trial to help you make an informed decision.

Which is Better?

Freshdesk is a clear winner when it comes to pricing plans. Zendesk does offer a massive range of features, but its pricing is not suitable for small startups with a strict budget. Besides, the price increases significantly as you add more agents or your business scales.

Freshdesk’s free plan is ideal for companies that want to try CRM solutions for free. Even its paid plans are budget-friendly.

Zendesk :-

Zendesk’s customizable self-service portal consists of a comprehensive knowledge base, help guides, FAQs, and community forums that enable your customers to get quick answers to their basic queries without having to contact the support team.

They have a searchable knowledge base, allowing your customers to type in their queries and find relevant content.

Zendesk’s community forum is another great tool in its self-service segment. Customers can raise their concerns, talk to other Zendesk users, or discuss their issues with the IT professionals within these forums.

Moreover, its reporting and analytics include the metrics from your self-service portal. You can track user activity, engagement, number of views, and customer feedback to craft your knowledge base to suit your client’s requirements.

Freshdesk :-

Freshdesk also offers a user-friendly self-service portal that enables businesses to create articles, help guides, FAQs, and a knowledge base for their customers.

It offers multilingual support, which makes it easier for your audience based in international countries to get quick help in their native language.

There’s also a feedback system. Your customers can leave reviews for the articles and knowledge base. This shows whether they got any useful content from your self-service section and where you can improve.

Like Zendesk, Freshdesk also has a community forum where your customers can interact with each other.

Which is Better?

Zendesk and Freshdesk have a self-service segment, which enables your customers to get answers to their questions and resolve their simple issues without contacting support.

Both offer community forums and AI-powered search engines. However, Zendesk’s advanced AI capabilities make it slightly better in this space.

Zendesk :-

Zendesk is known for its advanced customization options. You can change the layout and theme of your ticketing system, knowledge base, and the entire dashboard based on your brand style.

This CRM solution is recommended for businesses that require advanced customization and integration options. You can also use its API integrations to build your own customized features and layouts.

The only downside to its customization capabilities is the supported plan types. Zendesk’s full customization features are available for users who have signed up for premium plans.

Freshdesk :-

Freshdesk offers complete customization capabilities for your help desk center. From automation to your employees’ workflow and the ticketing dashboard, the solution allows you to design your workspace to fit your needs and brand style.

You can change the branding as well. The header, footer, and other design elements of Freshdesk are customizable. That said, Freshdesk also doesn’t offer all customization options in its free plan.

Which is Better?

For developers and IT professionals who need advanced customization capabilities, Zendesk is the best choice. Freshdesk has a user-friendly interface and simple customization options, making it an excellent choice for startups and small-scale businesses.

Zendesk :-

Zendesk’s key feature in automation is triggers. You can set triggers for certain actions, like when a user raises a query, when a ticket is resolved, or when its status is updated. As soon as the trigger criteria are met, an action will be initiated.

For instance, when a user raises a query through a support channel, it is automatically converted into a ticket and assigned to a qualified agent based on its complexity.

Automation in Zendesk also applies to ticket escalation. When a ticket remains unresolved for a specific duration, it will be escalated to a supervisor or an IT professional for a quick fix.

Freshdesk :-

Freshdesk’s dispatcher system supports automation in ticket creation, updating, assigning, and other such tasks for the smooth management of customer queries.

Like Zendesk, Freshdesk also supports automatic ticket escalation and sending automated reminders to customers about their ticket status. This ensures that each ticket is resolved within a specific timeframe and the customer is kept up-to-date with its status.

Which is Better?

Both support an advanced automation system that allows users to create, update, assign, and escalate tickets based on their predefined conditions. Zendesk offers a greater level of flexibility in terms of automation creation.

Its Macros and Triggers make tasks much easier for your employees. Likewise, Freshdesk’s Dispatcher, Supervisor, and Observer functionalities make automation easier.

Both are excellent choices when it comes to automation, so the choice is up to the user. You can check the interface and automation options to determine the most suitable platform for your business.

Zendesk :-

Zendesk has comprehensive reporting and analytics tools that cover many crucial metrics and offer custom reports.

You can use its built-in report feature or create custom reports. The insights cover key metrics like ticket resolution rate, customer satisfaction score, ticket response time, and so on. You can use charts and tablets to create reports that match your requirements.

Zendesk also makes sharing these reports easier. As mentioned above, you can customize the reports however you like. The reports on historical data and AI-powered predictive analysis for future trends provide valuable insights into your business’ performance and scope.

You can also generate insights into your customer behavior, agent performance, and other crucial metrics that help you make data-driven decisions.

Freshdesk :-

Freshdesk has a simple yet comprehensive reporting tool that supports customization and offers detailed insights into your business’ performance.

Featuring stellar visualization capabilities and bright colors, Freshdesk reports are easy to understand and explore. Even non-tech users find Freshdesk reporting and analytics dashboards straightforward.

The best part is that Freshdesk’s reporting tools are available for its free plan users. That means you can explore the report dashboard for free, although more comprehensive reports and AI-powered analytics require a premium-level subscription.

Which is Better?

Freshdesk clearly wins in this category. Not only does it offer detailed reports, but these are available for all users, including those with a free plan. Zendesk offers comprehensive reporting, but you need to customize the section to ensure it aligns with your brand style.

Zendesk’s reporting is not available for free. You need to sign up for a paid plan, the lowest of which costs $19/month. Although it offers the same reporting tools as Freshdesk and covers the same range of metrics, users find Zendesk customization requirements a little tricky.

Freshdesk and Zendesk are the two leading CRM platforms packed with a host of customer support features. They both have the same goal – to enhance your customer service and provide them with a seamless experience.

However, the strengths and weaknesses of each platform vary, and so does the pricing. It’s important to compare the functionalities of each and pick the one that aligns with your requirements.