Freshdesk vs Zoho Desk: what to choose

Year after year, customer service becomes increasingly complex, driving a constant rise in demand for high-quality customer support software.

There are many tools available on the market, but the dominant players are Freshdesk by Freshworks and Zoho Desk, a product of Zoho Corporation. Both of these tools operate in a similar price segment and offer comparable functionality. We will compare the features, functionality, and pricing of these products to help you determine which software is ideal for your specific business processes.

Zoho was founded in 1996, and since then, the company has released a wide range of software products to meet the needs of modern business.

Zoho Desk is an omnichannel customer service solution that enables companies to easily manage customer support operations. Managers can assign, configure, and monitor support team notifications, track customer satisfaction, and build a loyal customer base.

To get the most out of this customer service tool, it can be seamlessly integrated with other business applications your team uses and expanded with custom capabilities via API.

To compare the tools, it is necessary to identify some common features between them. How user-friendly is their interface? What is their pricing policy? What reporting or automation features are provided?

To answer these and other questions, criteria were defined by which these products will be evaluated:

1. User Type

2. Interface

3. Functionality

4. Support Service

5. Pricing

Among Freshdesk's clients are several major brands (Bridgestone, Hamleys, 7-Eleven), but it is also attractive to small and medium-sized business clients. The forever free plan makes Freshdesk a good option for freelancers or small startups.

Freshdesk is easy to use and allows users to get started quickly. There is also the ability to integrate Freshdesk with popular business tools such as Jira, MailChimp, SurveyMonkey, DropBox, Shopify, and others.

Freshdesk: 

Freshdesk offers a simple yet effective ticket management system that can help your customer support team respond online.

Thanks to the collision detection feature, an agent can see who else is currently viewing or responding to a customer ticket. This is a great feature that prevents sending multiple responses to the same customer. You can also merge similar tickets together to increase efficiency.

Freshdesk allows you to set service level agreements (SLAs) so employees clearly understand their deadlines. Staff members can receive reminders or notifications when tickets remain unanswered, and inquiries can also be automatically reassigned to another manager.

Like other customer service products, Freshdesk allows you to assist customers online via live chat. You can send proactive chat messages to customers so they know an agent is online and ready to help.

In addition to live chat, Freshdesk also helps improve messaging across social media channels. Thanks to integrations with WhatsApp, Apple Business Chat, and Facebook, you can track all social media messages in one place and respond faster.

You can also set up chatbots to assist customers with basic inquiries and route conversations to team members with the appropriate expertise.

In addition to standard functionality, Zoho Desk offers the ability to embed a chat window directly into your help center. If customers cannot find what they are looking for, they can quickly connect with a chat agent.

If resolving a chat inquiry requires more time or specialized expertise, Zoho allows you to convert the chat into a trackable support ticket.

When comparing Zoho Desk and Freshdesk, there is another key distinction: when all chat agents are busy, Zoho lets you set a wait time limit, after which the chat is automatically converted into a ticket—ensuring that no conversation is missed.

To boost brand recognition, you can also create distinct chat widgets for different brands.

Freshdesk: 

Freshdesk allows you to create a multilingual knowledge base that supports around 42 languages, simplifying the management of a global customer base. Employees can review each other's support content, publish videos, images, or attached files in the help center, and encourage self-service.

Freshdesk helps save team time through bulk actions—for example, you can apply necessary changes to multiple categories, articles, or folders at once.

You can publish SEO-optimized content, track article performance, and collect feedback directly within the publication.

Unlike Freshdesk, Zoho Desk lets you fully customize the knowledge base with tailored support content for each brand.

You can even map a newly created knowledge base to a custom domain, making it a true extension of your brand. You can choose to provide public access to your support content or, for security purposes, restrict information access only to registered users with active accounts.

You can also allow your audience to submit tickets directly from the knowledge base if they cannot find the relevant information.

Freshdesk: 

Freshdesk offers AI-powered automation through Freddy AI. 

The tool allows you to optimize workflows, automate manual and repetitive tasks, prioritize tickets, assign them to the most suitable team members, learn from past inquiries, and automatically suggest fields or tags for new tickets.

AI-driven chatbots can be programmed to provide instant, precise responses to questions asked by prospective or existing customers.

Zoho Desk: 

Zoho Desk helps configure and automate ticket routing processes and assignment rules so that the right requests reach the appropriate agent or department. This saves managers time and effort, allowing them to focus on critical tasks.

Zoho Desk also leverages Zia AI technology, which can converse with customers, share knowledge base articles, automatically highlight tickets, and configure automated replies for frequently asked questions.

Additionally, you can share automated updates with customers to keep them informed about the progress of their support tickets.

Freshdesk: 

Freshdesk provides a dedicated email address and a support contact number.

Freshdesk users can access a knowledge base featuring interactive videos on topics such as creating knowledge base articles, setting up a multilingual knowledge base, using canned responses, and more.

New Freshdesk users can enroll their customer service agents in the Freshworks Academy to sharpen skills and earn certifications. On the Freshworks community forum, users can ask questions, share tips, or connect with other peers.

Zoho Desk provides 24/5 support (24 hours a day, 5 days a week), which can present a challenge for teams operating 24/7. To get Premium or Enterprise support (24/7 coverage), an extra fee of 20% to 25% of the license cost is required. Additionally, a dedicated technical account manager is available only with the Enterprise plan.

Beyond direct support, Zoho features a free help center covering essential topics—including documentation, integrations, and webinars—as well as the latest product and feature updates.

If you cannot find the right answers, you can email the dedicated support team directly. Users can also engage with Zoho across social media platforms like Twitter, YouTube, Meta, and LinkedIn.

Zoho Desk matches Freshdesk feature for feature. It is ideal to use when integrated with other Zoho applications, such as Zoho CRM, Forms, SalesIQ, and others.

Furthermore, for large enterprises, Zoho Desk's Enterprise plan costs nearly half as much while delivering a powerful tool to provide high-quality customer service for a large customer base.