The 3 best Freshdesk alternatives for customer management

As a lender, you’re constantly walking a tightrope. On one side, you have the human element – building trust and relationships with your borrowers, and managing issues raised in a timely manner.

On the other hand, you have to make sure your loans are repaid on time and protect your bottom line.

Customer support experiences impact your customers’ buying decisions, and in lending, that decision is about trusting you with their financial future. It’s a delicate balance, and powerful customer management tools are your safety net.

Studies show that 90% of customers now expect a consistent experience across all channels, and companies focusing on CX increase their revenue by 80%. Studies also show that businesses with a strong CRM strategy retain an average of 89% of their customers, a stat that holds immense weight in the competitive lending industry.

The good news is, there are options. Freshdesk might be a popular CRM choice, but it’s not the only player in town. In this article, we’ll explore top 3 Freshdesk alternatives that are specifically designed to make things run smoothly and help your loan business thrive.

Why look for Freshdesk alternatives?

Freshdesk is one of the top 15 helpdesk tools for customer support management. It is praised for its very simple to use support platform, with golden features including a permanently free plan that’s handy for small scale lenders with one product and 10 agents, a knowledge base of documentation on how your product works, and a support ticket system that’s easy to build by labeling and categorizing.

Freshdesk also allows you to hand off repetitive tasks to AI so your agents have lighter workloads and are more likely to be available to aid customers needing human-based assistance.

But, people are looking for Freshdesk alternatives because when they need to upgrade their free plans, it is a pricey investment. Freshdesk’s Pro plan costs more than twice as much per user per month at $59 per agent monthly than the Growth plan at $18 per agent monthly.

As such, it is not recommended for businesses with a single product, because you must upgrade to at least the Growth tier to support up to five products.

Customers have also complained about its poor customer service which is quite ironic when selling a customer support software. Users have confessed to feeling intimidated by the long list of detailed features which makes their experience complicated and end up not using half the features they paid for.

These have motivated users to seek Freshdesk alternatives, so without further ado, let’s dive in.

Zendesk

Zendesk was founded in 2007 by Mikkel Svane, Alexander Aghassipour, and Morten Primdahl in Copenhagen, Denmark.

The company initially aimed to provide a better way for companies to manage customer support by creating a cloud-based help desk software.

The founders recognized the need for a more efficient and user-friendly solution for customer support teams, which was often handled through email and phone calls.

This user-friendly system made it easier for businesses to track issues, resolve problems, and ultimately, delight their customers. Designed to be scalable, Zendesk could be used by companies of any size, from small startups to established enterprises.

Over time, Zendesk went beyond just a help desk. They added features like ticketing systems, knowledge bases, and even analytics to give businesses a clearer picture of their customer interactions. Today, Zendesk remains a leader in the customer service platform market.

Key features

• Ticketing system: Zendesk provides a robust ticketing system to log, prioritize, and manage customer inquiries across multiple channels.
• Multi-channel support: Agents can handle tickets from various sources like email, chat, social media, etc. in one place.
• Multilingual support: Zendesk supports over 40 languages, allowing localization of the help center content.
• Multi-brand: Zendesk can support up to 300 different brands, products, and service tiers.
• Self-service knowledge base: Customers can find answers to common questions through a searchable knowledge base of articles and guides.
• Automation and workflows: Zendesk offers automation features to streamline support operations, create smart workflows, and route tickets efficiently.
• Integrations: Over 1,200 pre-built integrations allow connecting Zendesk to common business systems to unify customer data.
• Analytics and reporting: Detailed reporting and analytics are available, especially with the Zendesk Explore add-on.

Advantages

Consistent customer service through a centralized ticketing system: Zendesk keeps all your customer conversations in one place, no matter how they contact you (email, phone, chat, etc.). This one system makes sure nothing gets lost and helps agents find information quickly to solve customer problems faster. Zendesk also lets agents search past conversations to find solutions even quicker, leading to a more consistent service experience for everyone.

Makes teamwork easier with excellent internal help desk management:: Zendesk gives your customer service team a central place to work together on solving customer issues. Agents can easily share notes, assign tasks to each other, and track progress within the ticketing system, so no issue falls through cracks.

Personalized customer experiences using customer context and data: It remembers your customers’ past conversations and information. This lets agents greet customers by name, talk about past issues, and find solutions that fit their specific needs. This makes your customers feel more valued.

Boosts team productivity for large teams: Zendesk also offers a range of built-in collaboration tools specifically designed for large customer service teams. Features like internal ticketing, workload management, and agent performance dashboards streamline workflows, improve communication, and empower agents to resolve issues faster.

Zendesk grows with your business: Because Zendesk runs online (in the cloud), you don’t need to buy expensive computer equipment or hire extra IT staff to maintain it. This lets your customer service operation grow easily as your business gets bigger. You can handle more customer inquiries without having to spend extra money on infrastructure. Zendesk’s cloud-based system is also very reliable, so your customer service team will always be available to help your customers, even during peak times.

Pricing

Zendesk offers several pricing tiers for varying business needs:

• Basic plans: Support Team at £20 per agent/month, Support Professional at £59 per agent/month, and Support Enterprise at £115 per agent/month
• Suite plans: Suit Growth at £59 per agent/month, Suite Team at £99 per agent/month, Suite Professional at £115 per agent/month. Suite enterprise plans are available for large organizations with complex requirements (pricing not listed)

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Zoho Desk

Zoho Desk was built and launched in Tenkasi, India, by Zoho Corporation. The corporation was founded in 1996 by Sridhar Vembu and Tony Thomas. Initially known as AdventNet, the company focused on network management software before expanding into business software and eventually renaming itself Zoho Corporation in 2009.

Key features

• Omnichannel support: Agents can handle tickets from various channels like email, chat, social media, phone, and more in one place.
• Instant messaging: The helpdesk also integrates with popular instant messaging channels for customer support.
• Multi-brand help center: It enables creating distinct self-service portals for each brand’s customers.
• Multi-department organization: It can be organized to reflect a company’s structure with multiple departments.
• AI-powered features: It’s AI assistant Zia uses both voice and text messaging, can share relevant knowledge base articles with customers, auto-tag tickets, analyze sentiment, provide agent assists, and more.
• Automation: This highly rated customer support tool also allows automating repetitive processes and activities to save time and effort.
• Reporting and analytics: There are reports, dashboards, time tracking, and mobile apps for managers to monitor team performance.
• Customization: It allows extensive customization for layouts, templates, branding, domain mapping, and creating custom modules.

Advantages

Get up and running faster: Zoho boasts an implementation process that can be complete up to 50% faster compared to other solutions. This means you can start providing excellent customer service quicker, without the hassle of complex setup procedures.

Intuitive interface for everyone: It prioritizes user experience with a simple and intuitive interface. This allows your team to learn the system quickly and start delivering outstanding customer service from day one, minimizing the learning curve for new agents.

No hidden costs, just value: With Zoho, you get what you pay for. They offer a transparent pricing structure with the full product included for the price you see, eliminating any surprise fees or hidden charges. So, you can budget effectively for your customer service needs.

Your customer data stays private: Zoho prioritizes customer privacy. They own the entire tech stack, removing concerns about third-party access or data sharing. Plus, Zoho avoids “adjunct surveillance,” meaning they don’t track or collect customer data beyond what’s necessary for the platform to function.

Pricing

There are several pricing tiers available:

• Standard: $18/user/month
• Professional: $30/user/month
• Enterprise: $45/user/month
• Express: $9/user/month for individuals and small teams of 5 looking to start automating their customer service.
• Free plan is available for minimal support needs

There’s also a 15-day free trial on any paid plan. Discounts are available for annual commitments and nonprofits/educational institutions.

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BoldDesk

BoldDesk was created by Syncfusion, a company that has been helping developers build enterprise software for over 22 years. Over the past two decades, Syncfusion has gained extensive experience in providing customer support and managing complex support operations globally.

To handle their own growing support needs, Syncfusion developed an in-house ticketing system called Direct-Trac.

Syncfusion’s customers began asking them to provide the same kind of powerful, customizable, and scalable help desk software that Syncfusion was using internally. Syncfusion first deployed BoldDesk internally in May 2021 to handle their own IT support and publicly launched it as a commercial product in April 2022.

Key features

• Ticketing system: BoldDesk provides a robust ticketing system to manage customer inquiries and support requests. It includes features like ticket conversion, routing, assignment, escalation, tagging, and closure.
• Workflow automation: BoldDesk allows automating repetitive customer service tasks like SLA alerts, email-to-ticket conversion, ticket routing, and canned responses to improve agent productivity.
• Self service knowledge base: BoldDesk offers a centralized knowledge base where agents and customers can access self-help resources to quickly resolve issues.
• Collaboration: BoldDesk enables seamless collaboration between support agents through features like internal notes, ticket sharing, and real-time updates.
• Reporting and analytics: BoldDesk provides detailed reporting and analytics to help managers monitor team performance, identify areas for improvement, and make data-driven decisions.
• AI capabilities: BoldDesk’s AI assistant can suggest relevant knowledge base articles, provide grammar checks, and even generate draft responses to help agents work more efficiently.
• Multiple integration abilities: BoldDesk integrates with popular tools like Jira, Microsoft Teams, Salesforce, and more to streamline workflows.

Advantages

Effortless user experience: BoldDesk boasts an intuitive interface that’s easy for everyone on your team to learn and use.

Cost-conscious pricing: Instead of per-agent fees, BoldDesk’s pricing plans allow more than 1 agent on each plan, keeping your budget in check.

Easy migration: Switching to BoldDesk is hassle-free. They’ll migrate your data from your current system at no additional cost.

Adaptable to your needs: BoldDesk offers exceptional multi-branding and customization options, allowing you to tailor the customer experience to your unique brand.

Next-gen AI assistant: It can summarize tickets and knowledge base articles, translate text for multilingual support, and even assist in creating SEO-optimized content.

Powerful automation engine: Free your agents’ time and boost productivity with BoldDesk’s robust automation features that handle repetitive tasks efficiently.

Integrated mobile help desk app: BoldDesk offers an up-to-date intuitive mobile customer service app that allows users to work from any location.

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Pricing

BoldDesk offers two pricing styles:

Agent based plans

• Scale: $25 for 3 agents/month
• Growth: $50 for 3 agents/month
• Enterprise: $75 for 3 agents/month

Unlimited agent plans

• Essential: $799 per month
• Pro: $1499 per month
• Business: Custom pricing

BoldDesk also provides a free trial and expert migration services to help customers transition from other help desk platforms.

Whichever one you choose, we can integrate it with Lendsqr

All these customer management help desk tools are very intuitive and powerful options guaranteed to help you retain your customers and keep them happy. Match your loan business needs, size, and resources with the product that best complements your growth.

And the beauty? No matter your choice, Lendsqr loan management software integrates seamlessly with them all. So you can focus on helping your customers and let Lendsqr take care of the tech side of things. Simply send a message to [email protected] and we’ll set it up for you in no time.