Freshsales Suite Review: Fuse Sales & Marketing With One CRM

Company Overview

Freshworks is a leading cloud-based software-as-a-service (SaaS) provider founded in 2010 in Chennai, India, with US headquarters in San Mateo, California. The company specializes in CRM solutions designed to cater to various industries and business sizes and offers services globally. Freshworks focuses on delivering user-friendly, scalable, and affordable CRM software to help businesses manage customer relationships effectively.

Freshworks’ CRM offerings include Freshsales for sales management, Freshmarketer for marketing automation, and FreshSales Suite, which integrates marketing and sales functionalities. Their Freshsales Suite software features extensive customization capabilities, advanced lead generation tools, comprehensive reporting options, and robust automation features. Freshworks prioritizes data security and compliance by being GDPR-compliant, implementing role-based permissions, using 256-bit encryption, performing regular data backups, and continuously monitoring to protect customer data. They offer a free trial for businesses to explore their CRM solutions before committing to a subscription.

In terms of reputation, Freshworks has earned recognition in the industry, including being listed as a “Visionary” in the Gartner Magic Quadrant for the CRM Customer Engagement Center. Despite not having Better Business Bureau (BBB) accreditation, Freshworks has an A+ rating, demonstrating their commitment to providing top-notch service and customer satisfaction. The company continues to grow and innovate, making significant acquisitions to enhance their product offerings and expand their market presence.

Features & Services

Customization capabilities

Freshsales Suite offers robust customization capabilities designed to tailor the CRM solution to meet unique business needs. With customizable contact lifecycle stages, you can define each stage based on your sales process, ensuring effective lead tracking and management. The CRM system also allows the creation of custom fields such as text, date pickers, checklists, and formula fields to collect and store essential customer data. This flexibility extends to custom sales activities, enabling tracking of interactions, meetings, calls, and more, ensuring every sales activity is logged and accessible.

The multi-currency and multi-language support in Freshsales Suite enhances the user experience by allowing businesses to manage transactions in local currencies and automate currency conversions while customizing the CRM software to operate in the preferred language. Custom modules further enhance the CRM system’s versatility, enabling the capture of additional information unique to specific business processes.

Productivity tools

To boost productivity, Freshsales Suite includes advanced features like task management, where users can create tasks, set reminders, and schedule appointments. The auto-assignment rules feature ensures leads are efficiently distributed across the sales team based on predefined lead-routing rules, optimizing territory management. Sales sequences and workflow automation streamline repetitive tasks, allowing team members to focus on closing deals and improving sales performance.

Communication features

The suite’s comprehensive communication features integrate email, phone, live chat, WhatsApp Business, Apple Business Chat, and SMS. This ensures that sales and marketing campaigns reach the right contacts at the right time. The CRM system’s email integration allows for managing email campaigns directly from the CRM, while the phone integration facilitates calls with a single click, complete with call logs and recordings. The live chat feature helps engage website visitors in real-time, turning interactions into potential leads.

Freddy AI

Freddy AI is a standout feature of Freshsales Suite, providing artificial intelligence capabilities that enhance lead generation and deal insights. The lead generation bot automates chat messages, collects visitor information, and provides relevant content. Freddy AI also scores contacts based on historical data, prioritizing interactions with the most promising leads. The AI’s deduplication feature ensures clean customer data by detecting and displaying duplicate contacts, while the out-of-office detection helps reschedule sales activities when a contact is unavailable.

Pipeline management

Freshsales Suite’s pipeline management capabilities are robust. They offer multiple sales pipelines to manage different teams and track their deals. The product catalog feature helps track products and services, automatically calculating deal values. Sales goals can be set based on revenue and closed deals, with sales forecasting providing accurate projections. The suite also highlights deals needing attention through the rotten deals feature.

Marketing automation

Marketing automation tools in Freshsales Suite include conversion rate optimization, web forms, marketing lists, segments, an email builder, and a marketing journey builder. These tools help businesses optimize websites, capture visitor information, build targeted marketing lists, and create responsive emails. The marketing journey builder automates customer journeys and email sequences, while the landing page builder facilitates the creation of attractive pages to convert traffic into leads.

Reporting and analytics

The reporting and analytics features are extensive, offering standard reports, attribution reports, conversion reports, win-loss analysis, and custom reports. These tools provide insights into sales performance, helping businesses identify growth sources, track conversion rates, and evaluate sales trends. Custom reports allow companies to track specific metrics and create reports that fit their requirements.

Other products

Freshworks offers additional CRM products, sold separately, to enhance various aspects of business operations, providing comprehensive solutions for sales, marketing, customer support, and customer engagement.

• Freshsales: Their sales CRM offers a 360-degree view of customer data to enhance engagement. Key features include table and Kanban views, an activity timeline, and highlight cards for actionable insights. It also integrates with email, chat, phone, and SMS, supporting personalized communication and automation to boost sales productivity
• Freshmarketer: Their marketing CRM, Freshmarketer, is available. It drives revenue growth with AI-powered automation, enabling sales-ready lead generation, multichannel engagement, and personalized campaigns. Features include predictive segmentation, chatbots, and real-time customer journeys, helping businesses optimize marketing efforts and improve conversion rates
• Freshdesk: Freshdesk, their AI-powered help desk, enhances customer support with efficient ticketing, SLA management, and collaboration tools. It unifies support across email, phone, chat, and social media, automates repetitive tasks, and offers self-service options, making it easier to manage and resolve customer queries promptly
• Freshchat: As an AI-powered messaging software, it facilitates modern customer service across the web, mobile, WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, and more through chat support. It features chatbots, targeted messaging, and multilingual support, enhancing agent productivity and providing real-time customer engagement. Integrations and powerful analytics further optimize customer interactions and team performance

Plans & Pricing Options

Freshsales Suite presents a collection of plans designed to meet businesses' specific needs. This enables them to pick the ideal CRM solution to boost their sales processes and manage customer relationships more effectively.

The Free Plan caters to small businesses and accommodates up to three users, making it an excellent starting point for handling customer data efficiently. The basic features include Kanban views, email templates, social media campaign tools, an integrated phone, and live chat functionalities, enhancing productivity and fostering smooth customer interactions.

The Growth Plan is ideal for startups and SMBs seeking streamlined pipeline management and multichannel customer engagement. At $11 per user per month (or $9 with annual billing), it offers 500 marketing contacts. Features include Kanban views for managing contacts, accounts, and deals; customizable contact lifecycle stages; built-in chat; email, phone tools, and email templates; social media campaigns; and engagement via email, SMS, and WhatsApp. Additional features are landing pages, basic workflows, Slack integration, a product catalog, curated reports, custom fields, access to the Freshworks Marketplace, one CPQ license, and a mobile app.

The Pro Plan suits growing and mid-sized businesses needing advanced tools and AI assistance. Priced at $47 per user per month (or $39 annually), it includes 500 marketing contacts and all features in the Growth Plan. It adds Freddy AI for contact scoring, custom sales activities, auto-assignment rules, sales sequences, multiple sales pipelines, account hierarchies, contact segmentation, timezone-sensitive delivery, and reply tracking. Freddy AI enhances sales email optimization, rephrasing, and deal insights. Additional benefits include advanced workflows, BYOC, custom reports, webhooks, and offline event tracking.

The Enterprise Plan is designed for mid-sized to large businesses requiring high customization and governance features. At $71 per user per month (or $59 annually), it includes 500 marketing contacts and all Pro Plan features. Unique to this plan are field-level permissions, custom modules, Freddy AI forecasting insights, custom module workflows, transactional emails, a sandbox environment for testing, audit logs for compliance, and extensive governance tools for complex business operations.

Add-ons

Freshsales Suite also offers a variety of add-ons to supercharge your CRM and enhance your business capabilities:

• Freshbots: Freshsales offers the opportunity to engage with customers across channels by purchasing additional Freshbots session packs. For $100, you can get 1,000 Freshbots sessions, with chatbots available on all plans. All interactions between an end-user and a chatbot within 24 hours are counted as one bot session. The validity of the sessions purchased aligns with your payment cycle
• Marketing contacts: You can expand your marketing outreach by purchasing additional contact records. The more contacts you wish to purchase, the higher the price gets. For instance, 5,000 marketing contacts cost $100 per month, and this option is available on all paid plans
• Configure, price, quote (CPQ): This add-on generates branded documents like invoices, quotes, onboarding documents, and contracts for $19 per user per month. It is available on Growth, Pro, and Enterprise plans
• Conversion rate optimization: With this add-on, you can analyze your website visitors’ behavior and optimize your site for improved conversions. The more monthly unique visitors (MUV) you wish to purchase, the higher the price gets. For example, insights for up to 10,000 MUV cost $219 monthly, available on all paid plans

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Benefits & Drawbacks

Benefits

• Extensive customization options: Freshsales Suite offers a wide range of customization capabilities, allowing businesses to tailor the CRM solution to their needs. Customizable contact lifecycle stages, custom fields, and custom sales activities ensure that every aspect of the CRM can be adjusted to fit unique business processes
• Free trial: Freshsales Suite provides a 21-day free trial, allowing businesses to explore the features and functionalities before committing to a paid plan. This trial is an excellent starting point for small teams to handle customer data efficiently and assess the CRM’s suitability for their needs
• Mobile application: Their app ensures users can manage their sales and customer relationships. Features like call logs, voice notes, offline mode, quick links, and notifications enhance productivity and ensure critical tasks can be performed anywhere
• Robust AI capabilities: Freddy AI significantly enhances CRM capabilities by providing lead generation, contact scoring, deal insights, and smart suggestions. These AI-powered features help prioritize interactions, optimize sales emails, and improve productivity
• Extensive customer management and automation: The Freshsales Suite includes advanced features like task management, auto-assignment rules, sales sequences, and workflow automation. These tools streamline repetitive tasks, allowing the sales team to focus on closing deals and enhancing sales performance
• Streamlined sales process: With multiple sales pipelines, weighted pipelines, CPQ, activity goals, and a product catalog, Freshsales Suite ensures a streamlined and efficient sales process. These features help manage deals, forecast revenue, and track progress effectively

Drawbacks

• Limited marketing contacts: The number of marketing contacts included in each plan is limited to 500, with additional contacts available at an extra cost. This limitation can be restrictive for businesses with extensive marketing needs
• Limited file storage: The file storage capacity is limited, which may require businesses to purchase additional storage or manage their data storage needs carefully
• Lack of integrations in free plan: The free plan does not include many integrations, which can limit the functionality for small teams. Businesses may need to upgrade to a paid plan to access essential integrations
• Customer support available on weekdays: Customer support is available 24x5, meaning that assistance is not provided on weekends. This limitation can be challenging for businesses that operate or need support during the weekend

Customer Reviews & Testimonials

Although Freshworks is not Better Business Bureau (BBB) accredited, they have an A+ rating, demonstrating a strong commitment to resolving customer complaints. While there are no specific customer review pages for Freshworks Suite, Freshsales, and Freshmarketer, standalone products within the Freshworks ecosystem have garnered positive reviews. It is important to note that Freshsales Suite shares the same features as Freshsales, with additional marketing functionalities. 

On G2, Freshsales has a 4.5 out of 5, and Freshmarketer has a 4.2 out of 5. On Capterra, Freshsales has a 4.5 out of 5, and Freshmarketer has a 4.4 out of 5. These ratings reflect strong user satisfaction.

Positive feedback

Users praise Freshsales's robust, intuitive platform, which combines extensive features with deep functionality. Small businesses appreciate them as an all-in-one CRM solution. The platform is noted for its ease of use, quick setup, and effective free trial. Customer support is consistently described as helpful and prompt.

Freshsales balances powerful tools without unnecessary clutter, making it easy to learn and implement. The CRM’s customization, detailed reporting, and integration with tools like Freshdesk are also highlighted. Overall, Freshsales is valued for being user-friendly, cost-effective, and highly customizable.

Similarly, Freshmarketer is appreciated for being a smart, efficient, and budget-friendly marketing CRM. Users find the interface user-friendly and praise the robust automation and excellent customer support. Customizable workflows, strong reporting features, and valuable analytics make it a comprehensive tool for businesses of all sizes. Key features like customer scoring, multi-currency support, and seamless integrations help businesses optimize marketing campaigns. Users also value the easy setup of landing pages, A/B testing, heatmaps, and session replays.

Critical feedback

Customers have faced significant challenges when canceling their Freshworks subscriptions, often experiencing repeated billing despite multiple cancellation requests. Users report spending extensive time on the phone and sending numerous emails without resolving their issues. Some have even filed formal complaints due to continued charges after cancellation confirmations. This difficulty in canceling services and obtaining refunds has led to frustration and dissatisfaction among users.

As for Freshsales, customers reported limitations in custom field controls and a lack of on-screen help. The pricing model is seen as inflexible, and the dashboards/data displays are not user-friendly. Users also mention challenges with integrating Freshsales and exporting data. Furthermore, the absence of a power dialer, inconsistent support quality, and repetitive manual configurations are concerns. Integration and customization between Freshdesk and Freshsales are also problematic areas among customers.

Users find Freshmarketer’s pricing higher, though startup offers are available. Moreover, the free plan’s limited contacts option and lack of integration support with certain third-party applications are drawbacks, and the contact section is seen as lacking in segmentation capabilities. Additionally, customers found that the initial setup of tests can be challenging, requiring significant self-learning. Users also stated that while the user interface is functional, it is not intuitive for new users, often necessitating support from the Freshworks team.

Customer Support & Service

Freshworks Suite offers multiple support options to ensure users receive timely and effective assistance. You can contact their customer support team by phone at +1 (855) 747-6767, email at [email protected], submit a ticket on their website, or engage with them through live chat.

Additionally, Freshworks provides a comprehensive help center, a community page to connect with other users, and the option to request a demo from their website for a personalized overview of the platform and their features.

Final Assessment

Freshworks, founded in 2010 in Chennai, India, and headquartered in San Mateo, California, is a global leader in cloud-based software-as-a-service (SaaS). Their commitment to providing intuitive, scalable, and affordable CRM solutions helps businesses build and manage strong customer relationships effectively.

While this review focuses on Freshsales Suite, Freshworks offers various CRM products to enhance business operations. Freshsales Suite combines robust sales and marketing capabilities into a powerful tool, making them ideal for businesses looking to streamline processes and boost productivity. Their key features include extensive customization, cutting-edge lead generation tools, thorough reporting, and potent automation, all of which rely on Freddy AI for improved insights and efficiency.

With support from industry recognition and top ratings on websites like G2 and Capterra, Freshworks keeps innovating and expanding their product offerings. All in all, Freshsales Suite stands out as a robust and versatile solution for businesses seeking a unified CRM platform.

We aim to help you find the right CRM solution for all your business needs. If Freshsales Suite doesn't meet your specific requirements, explore our reviews of other top providers and use our comparison tool to see how they measure against each other. For more insights and knowledge into the CRM industry, visit our blog page.

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