Freshdesk vs. Salesforce Service Cloud

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Freshdesk
Score 8.6 out of 10
N/A
Freshdesk is a cloud-based customer service software that helps businesses of all sizes to deliver customer support. Freshdesk converts requests coming in via email, web, phone, chat, and social into tickets, and unifies ticket resolution across channels. Additionally, Freshdesk lets the user automate workflows, provide self-service, manage SLAs, and measure metrics, to stay on top of customer support. Freshdesk also offers out-of-the-box features like an AI-powered support chatbot,…
$0
Up to 2 agents
Salesforce Service Cloud
Score 8.4 out of 10
N/A
Service Cloud is a customer service platform that helps businesses manage and resolve customer inquiries and issues. It provides tools for case management, knowledge base, omni-channel support, automation, and analytics, enabling companies to deliver exceptional customer service experiences.
$25
per month
Pricing
FreshdeskSalesforce Service Cloud
Editions & Modules
Free
$0
Up to 2 agents
Growth
$15
per month (billed annually) per agent
Pro
$49
per month (billed annually) per agent
Enterprise
$79
per month (billed annually) per agent
Starter Suite
$25
per month
Pro Suite
$100
per month per user
Enterprise
$165
per month per user
Unlimited
$330
per month per user
Agentforce 1
$550
per month per user
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
FreshdeskSalesforce Service Cloud
Free Trial
YesYes
Free/Freemium Version
YesYes
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
FreshdeskSalesforce Service Cloud
Considered Both Products
Freshdesk
Chose Freshdesk
We wanted to move our entire support on a single channel and manage all the support via a single channel so this is where omni channel helped us.

Additionally, knowledge bases and the AI agents are also on the same platforms, so these things help us to improve the quality of …
Chose Freshdesk
I use Freshdesk over other similar products I've tested because the price difference and ease of use for the end user seem to me to be the most suitable for achieving a better return on investment within my company. I also found the various AI-powered automation tools to be …
Chose Freshdesk
Freshdesk is way beyond these tool. The solution and technology provided is more more step ahead with the shared product.
Chose Freshdesk
We felt that Freshdesk offered better value in terms of pricing and offered a matching feature set. It was also highly recommended by a member of a team that had used Freshdesk in their previous organisation. Lastly the fact that it could integrate into Hubspot (that we use as …
Chose Freshdesk
We use all Freshdesk, Freshchat, and other Freshworks tools—they’re all great. Freshchat is awesome for real-time support, while Freshdesk handles tickets, automation, and multi-channel queries really well. Using them together gives us a complete, seamless customer service …
Chose Freshdesk
its better in terms of pricing for sure as others are completely to high costly.
Chose Freshdesk
Freshdesk was the easiest to set up and was the most straightforward product of all the products we evaluated. It had a better user interface for agents, and provided a great solution to meet our needs at a lower cost than the other products that we evaluated. Freshdesk offers …
Chose Freshdesk
Ultimately we ended up switching from Freshdesk to Zendesk, and then from zendesk to devrev. We're still trying to find the right fit for us - Freshdesk covers the same options as Zendesk, if you use the whole suite it's probably a good option.
Chose Freshdesk
Freshworks desk is very easy to use and understand.
The biggest strengths if Freshdesk as it's usability, Affordability and the vast number of features it provides for its clients.
Chose Freshdesk
Freshdesk lacks some of the functionality of costlier IT tool suites but makes up for it in value. Yes, that means you may have to use two tools to do the job of one complete suite, but for the price and the functionality, Freshdesk does what it does at the best value point.
Chose Freshdesk
Freshdesk has the edge, because of the easy user interface, data download, implementation options, One access for chats, calls, WhatsApp Business and emails. Segregation of tickets as per the respective department. Dashboard availability for each department, checking the …
Chose Freshdesk
As saied before, Freshdesk is very simple to use. It is very agile to our needs and uses, based on the requests are made from our employees only. So, everything they demand, is a well know task or activity in our duties. Zammad does it very well, but needs an on premises …
Chose Freshdesk
Superior in every aspect—it is that simple! It offers a more flexible product, smoother UI, and, importantly, a more patient and supportive account team.
Chose Freshdesk
Compared to Crisp, Freshdesk offers much more organization and is just much more helpful when it comes to having more than one region/team. Not that Crisp is bad, but with Freshdesk, internal communication and collaboration are much easier, which was quite important for our …
Chose Freshdesk
Freshdesk has a more modern and intuitive user interface, while Help Scout's interface is simpler and more minimalist.In case of features, Freshdesk offers a wider range of features, includes omnichannel support, AI powered automations, and advanced analytics. Help Scout is …
Chose Freshdesk
My company originally selected Freshdesk due to price, but as we grew, we found it lacking compared to its more expensive counterparts. I briefly compared Zendesk to resolve our main issues with Freshdesk, but I'd spent so much time and effort customizing Freshdesk that we …
Chose Freshdesk
Freshdesk is aimed more for direct customer support tasks.
Chose Freshdesk
Track it was too complicated to maintain.
Chose Freshdesk
Good platform for organizing the tickets from different sources and making sure no single communication is missed in the cracks. Automations bring productivity. Customization is not easy unless you learn the SDKs/ APIs. but has a great deal to offer. Integrations with other …
Chose Freshdesk
We tried Freshchat, but since our app did not have advanced technology, we were not able to use it. However, the Freshdesk team supported us in exploring this option.
Chose Freshdesk
We have an omnichannel, so we use Freshdesk, Freshchat, and Freshcaller.
Salesforce Service Cloud
Chose Salesforce Service Cloud
I honestly prefer Zendesk to Salesforce Service Cloud. I find that Zendesk is easier to manage both on the support ticket side, as well as the knowledge center side. It looks and feels easier to use than Salesforce Service Cloud. Salesforce Service Cloud is fine, but it is …
Chose Salesforce Service Cloud
Zoho is not very real-time, it has limited integration capabilities, and the UI is not very satisfactory for any incoming customer. The performance is slow and impacts the overall customer journey. The data stored in the backend is slightly scattered and needs to be cleaned …
Chose Salesforce Service Cloud
Salesforce is a really great case management tool. Made things a lot easier for our team. Wanted something fairly simple that had a variety of capabilities we could customize.
Chose Salesforce Service Cloud
We used Salesforce for years, Left for Hubspot, and then came back to Salesforce (SF). As they say, don't fix it if it's not broken. Salesforce and customizing were better for us.
Chose Salesforce Service Cloud
Salesforce Service Cloud offers deep integration with our current and expanding CRM data, along with numerous pre-built features that didn't exist in Kayako when we used it. (We used to use an instance Kayako installed in a private cloud environment.) Salesforce Service Cloud …
Chose Salesforce Service Cloud
Because it has good ratings and it is easy to setup .it also has good word of mouth.
Chose Salesforce Service Cloud
Zendesk has it's own challenges in terms of Administrator difficulties and a completely different back-end than Salesforce Service Cloud. I would recommend Salesforce Service Cloud if you need a clean database of Companies and Contacts. Zendesk does not excel in overall CRM …
Chose Salesforce Service Cloud
Insightly, Buildium and Hootsuite
Chose Salesforce Service Cloud
Salesforce Service Cloud has more unique customization features that benefit the organization as a whole.
Chose Salesforce Service Cloud
I'm not at the level where I would be part of the decision making process for choosing a vendor or product for the organization. Every position I've held, I've come into a company that has already implemented or is in the process of implementing Salesforce. Honestly I would not …
Chose Salesforce Service Cloud
All of the software's are well established and good, but what gave the edge to us its easy integration capability with other systems, experience cloud integration and Einstein analytics which made us move forward Salesforce. Salesforce also have better service and industry …
Chose Salesforce Service Cloud
The major value proposition is that service cloud offers integrated services. That covers a multitude of lacking features. All of our agents preferred Freshdesk. Salesforce service cloud was lacking so many basic features compared to it that it was frustrating to switch. Simple …
Chose Salesforce Service Cloud
We have been using Salesforce Service Cloud for well over ten years.
Chose Salesforce Service Cloud
Salesforce service cloud is more configurable than Zendesk and Freshdesk. It has its own inbuilt AI chatbot also which further improves service agent efficiency. Salesforce is more integration agnostic and has pre-built connectors with multiple 3rd party systems. However, in …
Chose Salesforce Service Cloud
We were after a robust and very scalable solution, which could be rapidly implemented. Salesforce Service Cloud not only fitted the bill, but it was much easier to source skills and find on-line learning to help achieve our goals. Although the other technologies could have …
Chose Salesforce Service Cloud
Salesforce allows a lot more visibility and allows us to build better reporting. It is initially trickier to set up and learn, however, comprehensive training and processes have lead to increased customer satisfaction and retention.
Chose Salesforce Service Cloud
This solution provided our organization a flexible platform. The other solutions were rigid or required complex integrations.
Chose Salesforce Service Cloud
Salesforce is lightyears behind Zendesk. You have to be trained as a Salesforce admin to do anything, while Zendesk takes minutes to set up and is actually customer friendly. There are not native telephony options within Salesforce and the tools you use to integrate are …
Chose Salesforce Service Cloud
We previously used a home grown, proprietary system for our needs. This started to get costly and clunky as our database grew. We ended up going with Salesforce because they are purely cloud based. They also have a large footprint and very robust solution so they help us …
Chose Salesforce Service Cloud
Well, I worked with SAP in the past when I was in other companies. It was way more complex and not user-friendly. You had to take a lot of steps in order to accomplish simple tasks and not everyone could work at the same time in the same program. I would 100% recommend …
Chose Salesforce Service Cloud
Zendesk changed their agreements making us unable to continue with them due to our agreements with our customers. SalesForce allowed us to maintain our customer agreements.
Chose Salesforce Service Cloud
I used other products in another company as a database and can say that Salesforce Service Cloud is much more user friendly for customer service needs and makes work faster to process than the named program before. Integration between departments is more clear and simple to …
Features
FreshdeskSalesforce Service Cloud
Incident and problem management
Comparison of Incident and problem management features of Product A and Product B
Freshdesk
8.6
Ratings
7% above category average
Salesforce Service Cloud
8.8
Ratings
9% above category average
Organize and prioritize service tickets9.20 Ratings9.40 Ratings
Expert directory8.00 Ratings8.50 Ratings
Subscription-based notifications8.40 Ratings8.60 Ratings
ITSM collaboration and documentation7.60 Ratings8.20 Ratings
Ticket creation and submission9.00 Ratings9.30 Ratings
Ticket response9.30 Ratings9.10 Ratings
Self Help Community
Comparison of Self Help Community features of Product A and Product B
Freshdesk
8.0
Ratings
2% above category average
Salesforce Service Cloud
8.7
Ratings
11% above category average
External knowledge base8.10 Ratings8.40 Ratings
Internal knowledge base8.00 Ratings8.90 Ratings
Multi-Channel Help
Comparison of Multi-Channel Help features of Product A and Product B
Freshdesk
8.3
Ratings
7% above category average
Salesforce Service Cloud
8.7
Ratings
11% above category average
Customer portal7.60 Ratings8.00 Ratings
IVR8.20 Ratings8.80 Ratings
Social integration8.40 Ratings8.90 Ratings
Email support9.40 Ratings9.20 Ratings
Help Desk CRM integration7.80 Ratings8.80 Ratings
Best Alternatives
FreshdeskSalesforce Service Cloud
Small Businesses
Agiloft Service Desk (discontinued)
Agiloft Service Desk (discontinued)
Score 9.0 out of 10
Agiloft Service Desk (discontinued)
Agiloft Service Desk (discontinued)
Score 9.0 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Agiloft Service Desk (discontinued)
Agiloft Service Desk (discontinued)
Score 9.0 out of 10
Agiloft Service Desk (discontinued)
Agiloft Service Desk (discontinued)
Score 9.0 out of 10
Enterprises
SysAid
SysAid
Score 9.1 out of 10
SysAid
SysAid
Score 9.1 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
FreshdeskSalesforce Service Cloud
Likelihood to Recommend
8.7
(0 ratings)
8.3
(0 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
7.9
(0 ratings)
6.2
(0 ratings)
Usability
8.0
(0 ratings)
8.0
(0 ratings)
Availability
4.6
(0 ratings)
9.5
(0 ratings)
Performance
5.5
(0 ratings)
8.6
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
7.6
(0 ratings)
7.0
(0 ratings)
In-Person Training
8.2
(0 ratings)
10.0
(0 ratings)
Online Training
8.1
(0 ratings)
9.0
(0 ratings)
Implementation Rating
8.6
(0 ratings)
7.0
(0 ratings)
Configurability
5.4
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Ease of integration
7.6
(0 ratings)
5.0
(0 ratings)
Product Scalability
5.5
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
6.8
(0 ratings)
8.0
(0 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
6.9
(0 ratings)
8.0
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
FreshdeskSalesforce Service Cloud
Likelihood to Recommend
Freshdesk is really good for start-up companies that want to update their current system or buy a new one. It is the best option possible when it comes to having a structure, following up, and making a better strategy because you can always see what your team is doing, and you have some great reports to help you.
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This cloud is a good option for attracting large numbers of customers for mid-scale and large-scale organizations. However, it’s not suitable for small companies or startups due to its high cost. For use cases where real-time input from customers is taken and then processed on the cloud to give them output, this platform is a must.
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Pros
  • Follow up on all conversations that enter and are easy to use by the employee and save responses ready for use.
  • Find out the average rate of the number of conversations that occur in the company and conduct the analysis.
  • There is a feature it allows one to take a permit in the name of the employee who responds to the conversation and to know the problem faced by the customer and the solution.
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  • Super fast set-up of the service from design through to production.
  • Robust method of release management from sandbox, to test, to production.
  • User access controls can be fine grain, which is great for GDPR requirements, limiting access to only necessary data.
  • Simple api integrations with other third party systems
  • Broad range of features and functionality
  • Einstein search features provides faster information mining for our agents as they help to resolve customer requests.
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Cons
  • Data Security.
  • SLA Policies where it is not customer / contract driven but agents / groups driven.
  • Audit Trail is not available in Pro version makes the tool adoption difficult from compliance perspective.
  • Chat Bot and Fresh Chat Services has greater potential to explode, but the pricing model tagged to chat bot sessions .are illogical as it limits the ability to use the fresh chat feature
  • Agent Logon Screen use earlier version of Captcha as it is annoying for the agents to login. Very frustrating experience.
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  • A free trial would be extremely valuable to customers who are not able to commit to a full plan.
  • The pricing of this program is not priced competitively with other similar services.
  • Can be quite time consuming to maintain.
  • Not user friendly if you aren’t tech savvy/familiar with software.
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Likelihood to Renew
My company that used Freshdesk was acquired by another company that uses Salesforce, so our only reason to keep Freshdesk would be records, but migrating the tickets, notes, and company details from Freshdesk to Salesforce was straightforward enough. Had the acquisition not occurred, we would have renewed Freshdesk because the cost of switching would've been too great in terms of price, time, and sunk cost (our Freshdesk customizations would not port over well).
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Professional edition works best for a small company with lower call volumes and is very useful but as you grow exponetially I think it has limited ability to do all the things we want to - SLA management, defect, release management to name a few. Reports and dashboards being available in real time.
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Usability
I gave it a rating of 9 out of 10 because they delivered on everything we asked them to do. Easy to setup, easy to deploy to end users, easy to customize, easy to enter tickets and so much more. Our experience with their support is top notch! After opening a ticket for support they call use back within 10 minutes every time!
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I love that the Salesforce Service cloud provides all of the functionality that I need when implementing business processes for our customer support representatives. It even has enough functions and features that allow us to customize and expand upon our current processes, giving us the ability to go above and beyond what we've thought we could ever do. Using cases coupled with Salesforce's automation tools help ease the workload and keeps our data integrity intact.
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Reliability and Availability
I have encountered a lot of errors in the Freshdesk, however, they tend to resolve it on priority or at least they will share the timeline by when this can be resolved. Most of the time the issue has been from the other partner's end. They take time to resolve their vendor issues and they don't have any timelines in case of developed app errors.
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Salesforce's Trust Center clearly communicates occasional issues to anyone who subscribes, down to an organization's cloud instance. Bundled sandboxes ease updates, and seasonal upgrades are seamless, scheduled well in advance with plenty of information about what's coming. Support agents have noticed intermittent Omni-Channel disconnects due to internet connections, and these are clearly notified.
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Performance
The reports take a lot of time to download if the time period is large. Also, the tickets take their sweet time to open and load. It is not fast as Zendesk. Only 30 tickets are visible in a single go and there isn't any option to select all. If we need to change the pages and dashboards it takes a lot of time to open.
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Load times can be slow, but this is also based on how much customization you have done. We added a lot of custom fields which could cause additional slowness in loading. This was never anything that affected our overall efficiency. I did not notice that Service Cloud slowed down any of the systems we had it integrated with
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Support Rating
The main thing about Freshdesk user service is that once a request has been made for information about a feature of the platform, the support team responds to tickets quickly, within a day of writing and submitting them, with information that is concise enough so that there is no need to ask for help on the same topic again.
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Salesforce offers support, although it generally gets routed to overseas support teams first, and once they are unable to help, it gets escalated up the chain to higher tiers. Frequently, the answer back from support is that there is no native solution, and we either have to turn to the AppExchange for some solution provided by another developer, or custom build our own solution.
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In-Person Training
Support Team's knowledge and understood the company's requirement, and always shared the insight of the usage of the tool to it s full potential, moreover the team checks periodically to check if we using the tool right and if we are facing any kind of challenges. Also they would update us on new features that can make the work easy.
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Our in-person training was provided by our implementation partner and it was quite good. This was in part because we were already working with them and so it naturally leant itself to a good training relationship. And because they were building our customizations and configuring things, they could then provide training on those things naturally.
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Online Training
Video tutorials, questions answers round before and after testing and Fresh desk team would always share best practices on the needs. Furthermore would periodically check if we are able to work smoothly. Would send alerts to known any issues, send recommendation on new features. Freshdesk team always available when we need certain advise.
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Trailheads are great but it was often unclear what actually applied to our organization. This made it difficult to get a whole lot out of it. Part of it is that because the basic Salesforce features didn't quite work for us, we had to add customizations, which then nullified a lot of the training.
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Implementation Rating
Most important, Freshdesk is a user- friendly platform which directly supports interfaces and navigates user to start. Helps to provide multiple and complex documentation and troubleshooting. It provides build templates for different workflows and processes also refuces effort and time to implement and perform corporate tasks and complete the execution.
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I would go through an implementation very differently knowing what I know now. It was difficult coming from systems we liked in post-sales service and having to adapt to the clunky and underwhelming feature set in Salesforce. I would trim back our expectations
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Alternatives Considered
I use Freshdesk over other similar products I've tested because the price difference and ease of use for the end user seem to me to be the most suitable for achieving a better return on investment within my company. I also found the various AI-powered automation tools to be more optimal and automated, without having to go through long learning curves.
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I honestly prefer Zendesk to Salesforce Service Cloud. I find that Zendesk is easier to manage both on the support ticket side, as well as the knowledge center side. It looks and feels easier to use than Salesforce Service Cloud. Salesforce Service Cloud is fine, but it is expensive as well.
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Scalability
My company had Freshdesk agents from support and success. It's generally difficult to customize permissions for different agent "roles." We were a fully distributed company, so "multiple sites" doesn't apply to us. We found Freshdesk features lacking as we grew our customer base, and adding agents wasn't easy because price steeply increases with number of agents.
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The product has scaled up with our company growth just fine. No issues here other than slowness in clicking around and running reports
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Return on Investment
  • Increased response times - Client Success maintains at 98% SLA for resolution
  • Categorization of feedback and issues - custom ticket fields make it easier for us to review why clients contact us on a high level
  • Standardization of internal procedures via templates, canned responses and automations
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  • We have cut our service team in half over the past 5 years due to the efficiency of the tool
  • The amount of direct inquiries to our technical team is less than 10% compared to the number support tickets that get entered in the system for them to work in a more organized manner
  • Responses are 100% more timely because tickets can be responded to by any individual in the queue or on the team, as opposed to direct emails to just one person
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ScreenShots

Salesforce Service Cloud Screenshots

Screenshot of Workflows and OrchestrationScreenshot of Service CatalogScreenshot of Contact Center