Freshcaller: Is it the Best for Exceptional Customer Conversations
Whether you are a small, medium, or large-sized organization looking to streamline communication between your team and customers, Freshcaller will be a handy guide for you.
Freshcaller is the brainchild of Freshworks, an Indian cloud-based customer service company that started in 2010. Since its inception, Freshworks has worked in various aspects of customer service to assist organizations in connecting with customers.
Read our Freshcaller review further as we discuss its features, benefits, and pricing in detail. By the end, we will also talk about the best Freshcalller alternatives to look at.
Why Do You Need to Choose the Right Cloud PBX System?
Cloud PBX—Private Branch Exchange is a cloud-based system that facilitates communication between agents and customers without physical hardware. While video and chat communication is pivotal, the phone remains the top medium of communication to build relations.
Cloud PBX has an edge over the traditional PBX since it requires no physical devices and can be run via the internet. Instead, the host controls the system on a dedicated server, so you don’t have to spend time setting up the device.
There is more than one reason why businesses need to choose the cloud PBX system:
#1. Cost
One of the major advantages of deploying the cloud PBX over the traditional PBX is its cost of setting up. With zero deployment cost and a pay-as-you-go pricing model, the cloud PBX can bring costs down to 5x.
Further, you don’t need to set up multiple communication lines to call your customers. Also, it eliminates the need for hiring specialist engineers in case of mishaps. Calls made with cloud PBX are usually more affordable and provide better customer connectivity.
#2. Reliable and Secure
PBX hacking is not well-known, but it is the most common hacking fraud for telecoms. Hackers can easily intrude into the traditional PBX systems and steal valuable information. This can break down the entire VoIP system and bring a crackdown into the organization’s communication system.
Cloud PBX systems are more secure and have enhanced encryption, secured VPN connection, and device authentication.
Cloud PBX is monitored by a team of cybersecurity experts who monitor the system 24/7 under its resilient infrastructure. Further, most PBX organizations use systems compliant with ISO 27001 standards.
#3. Easy Setup and Maintenance
The traditional PBX systems are hard to maintain and require a full-time engineer to set up, install, and update the systems. Also, the hosted PBX does not take much time to install as it does not need on-site infrastructure.
All you would get is a user-friendly dashboard that can be used to manage and configure the cloud-based PBX systems. The dashboard can also be used for accessing incoming and outgoing calls.
#4. Flexible System
What’s more intriguing about the cloud-hosted PBX is its ability to scale up and down according to the preferences. The best part is you pay for the resources you use and can also use an additional feature for the extra cost.
While the traditional PBX requires you to add a dedicated server when scaling up, the cloud PBX systems do not require any setups. Everything is managed from the backend, and the request can be made anywhere with just a few taps.
Freshcaller: An Overview
Freshcaller, or (Freshdesk Contact Center) is a cloud-based contact center solution that fits businesses of all sizes.
It is designed to streamline the communication between the support team and agents through its intuitive dashboard and features such as call routing, IVR, call monitoring, and more.
Freshcaller runs on browsers as well as the mobile app. Currently, the company operates in around 90 countries with over 7000 customers. Businesses looking for an affordable and flexible business VOIP should consider getting Freshcaller.
Freshcaller Features
Let’s look at significant features of the Freshcaller VOIP system and how it can benefit organizations.
#1. Global Business Phone System
Freshcaller is known for its stellar global business phone system, which works across 90 countries and has a fairly intuitive dashboard. This cloud-based phone system offers various local, toll-free, or vanity numbers at a fairly reasonable price.
Freshcaller offers a plethora of features that organizations can use to boost productivity and reduce customer churn. The call masking feature displays the official number irrespective of which number you call from.
Furthermore, a call workflow system lets you streamline the calls and create automation while there is an influx of large customers.
Freshcaller also gives the ability to choose a phone carrier and plug it into their contact center solution. This helps businesses retain their phone number and save costs on additional phone carriers.
#2. Smooth Call Handling Process
For medium to large-sized call center setups, Freshcaller offers a smooth call-handling process. Users can set up the call workflow and decide how to welcome their customers.
This effectively manages large call queues where the users either get basic IVR or can punch the key to navigate to the system.
Let’s look at the key features of the call-handling process in Freshcaller:
Calls to Voicemail
Businesses can choose to route their calls to voicemail in case the calls are missed or if the customer calls outside the business hours. In Freshdesk, you can ask your customers to leave a clear message and customize the voicemail greetings.
It also uses different greetings for different teams so that customers feel heard by a particular department.
For longer voicemail messages, Freshdesk lets you transcribe the voice messages into text. This way, you won’t have difficulty listening and understanding each message.
Set Up Business Hours
Freshdesk routes call based on the business hours of teams and their time zones. You can filter out the inbound and outbound calls to identify patterns and change the routing based on these patterns.
Freshdesk also lets you add the designated business hours so that the team does not get penalized during the break hours.
Call Segmentation with IVR
When you use the automated phone system (IVR) to direct a call to the right team, you’re not just sorting incoming calls. It also ensures that the person calling gets their question answered as quickly as possible.
With the call segmentation feature, you can optimize your calls and analyze them for future purposes.
Receive Calls on SIP devices
Freshcaller directs all your calls to the SIP devices so you don’t miss out on important calls. Set up your SIP device through the dashboard to transfer calls, notes, and voicemails.
#3. Call Analytics and Reporting
One of the most standout features of Freshcaller is its call analytics and reporting. As the volume of callers increases, it becomes hard to analyze metrics like incoming calls, waiting calls, and transferred calls.
Freshcaller has intelligent and real-time reporting and analytics features that let you analyze the health of the entire contact center.
The live dashboard gives you access to the following:
- Average wait times
- Average handle times
- Average time to answer
- Longest wait time
- Total calls, incoming and outgoing
Freshcaller call monitoring reporting can be displayed as a bar graph covering crucial aspects like call outcomes sorted by month or week. You can choose the Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) and get various reports directly to your work email address after a fixed interval.
Let’s look at the Freshcaller reports available in the dashboard:
- Call Summary Report: This report gives detailed metrics on incoming and outgoing calls. You can also compare the answered versus missed or abandoned calls.
- Agent Summary Report: This report is helpful for analyzing the performance of the agents. It gives the complete report of calls along with the average wait time and speed of answer.
- Call volume analysis report: This report is a trend analyzer and records the flow of calls on an hourly, monthly, or yearly basis.
#4. Call Center Enhancing Tools
Most call centers focus on answering 80% of the calls they receive in under 20 seconds. However, the focus should be improving this by over 90%, reducing the time to 15 seconds.
To stand out from others in your competitive industry, Freshcaller has scads of call center tools to boost the performance of your business call service center. This allows your team to manage the calls in an organized way and collaborate with the internal teams.
Have a look at these call center enhancing tools:
Custom Caller IDs
Be it inbound or outbound calls, the caller ID gives information about the caller, including the name, email address, company, and past interactions with your company.
Freshdesk’s outbound caller ID uses call masking to display your business phone number, irrespective of the number your agents are calling from.
Agents can also use personalized greetings to welcome the customers or continue from where they left off.
Conference Calls
This feature facilitates collaboration between different teams to speed up the process and boost customer satisfaction rates. Businesses can collaborate seamlessly through conference calls with multiple stakeholders, internal teams, and customers to resolve their queries quickly.
After Call Work
Your job is half done even after completing the call. Freshcaller has an ‘after call work’ feature that includes logging notes about the call, emailing the prospects, and adding comments on the pipeline so that it is not left off for later.
Warm Transfer
Whether you have new agents or supervisors attending the call for an existing or ongoing lead, the warm feature reduces time spent asking for repetitive customer information. Thus, the customers can stick to the calls without worrying about the transfers.
#5. Freshcaller Integrations
Integrating with too many or a few third-party tools seems irrelevant to me. It is always advisable to choose a platform that works in tandem with the required set of tools, or it may complicate the use.
Freshcaller integrates seamlessly with three types of core tools: agent productivity, CRM & marketing, and eCommerce.
Let’s look at the list of tools that Freshcaller integrates with:
- Freshdesk core
- Zoho Freshservice
- InfusionSoft
- Nimble CRM
- Copper CRM
- Whipnote
- Agile CRM
- HubSpot
- Salesforce
- Bulk Delete Recordings
- Magento
- Shopify
- WooCommerce and more.
Check the list of integrations by Freshcaller here.
Freshcaller Pricing Plans
The pricing plans of Freshcaller make it an even better PBX tool for solopreneurs, small to medium, and larger organizations.
To make it a better deal, Freshcaller gives a 14-day free trial to test out all the features of the PBX system. Once your free trial is over, you have the option to choose any one out of four pricing plans.
The table below gives a better understanding of the features that it offers.
| Features | Free | Growth | Pro | Enterprise |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Price | $0/mo | $15/agent/mo | $39/agent/mo | $69/agent/mo |
| Calling minutes | 0 | 2,000 | 3,000 | 5,000 |
| International Calling | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ |
| Call Monitoring | ❌ | ❌ | ✅ | ✅ |
| Third-party Integrations | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| Unlimited Domestic Calling | Metered | Metered | ✅ | ✅ |
Free Plan
The free plan is not viable for the long term. However, you can use it for a limited usage. You will still need to pay for the local/toll-free number you want to buy, and there are no free minutes either. That said, it is better to upgrade to the next tier plan, which gives you the free and premium plan features.
Growth Plan
This plan gives you a local, toll-free number with over 2,000 incoming minutes. Its features include number porting, call and wait queues, voicemail, call recording, and pre-built reports.
Pro
Pro is touted as one of the best-selling plans. It has almost every feature you need in a dedicated call center setup. It includes extensive features such as call barging and monitoring to record it in real-time. Additional features include call recording opt-out, BYOC, and routing automation.
Enterprise
The enterprise plan comes with a Freddy AI (intelligent bot) and a speech-enabled IVR solution that gives you deeper insights about the caller. It records and analyzes metrics like abandoned calls and provides service level monitoring to the agents.
Freshcaller Alternatives
No tool is perfect, and chances are you might want to look for an alternative option. In the next section, I have shared the best Freshcaller alternatives that you should consider.
#1. Salesforce Contact Center
Salesforce is a stalwart in the PBX industry that allows agents to connect with customers and track their engagements.
It integrates phone services into the Service Cloud, connecting customers to the right agents promptly. The contact center connects agents with comprehensive customer context for faster assistance with instant access to customer data and powerful tools.
This can be beneficial in reducing handle times with real-time transcription and AI-driven recommendations from Einstein.
#2. Zoom
Zoom has an omnichannel contact management center that makes collaboration easier, unifying into one place.
It is available in over 40 countries and expanding further. Like Freshcaller, Zoom helps you expand coverage with a bring-your-own-carrier option.
Icing on the cake, Zoom Phone supports both incoming and outgoing calls through the public switched telephone network, providing a comprehensive solution for your communication needs.
#3. Dialpad
Dialpad is a top-notch alternative to Freshdesk as it comes with proprietary artificial intelligence.
It gives access to real-time transcription that effectively tracks the keywords on call. Dialpad’s contact center is seamlessly integrated into a broader communications platform, unifying VoIP calls, instant messaging, SMS/MMS, and video conferencing.
It offers features like call queues, unifying VOIP calls, instant messaging, and callback.
Author’s Note
This brings us to the question- Is Freshcaller worth the money?
I would say the Freshcaller contact center solution is a good investment if you are looking for a comprehensive solution to manage the customer and support agents effectively. Operating in over 70 countries, the platform uses local, toll-free, or vanity numbers from any location, making it desirable for businesses.
What I liked most about Freshcaller is its brand recognition features, including caller IDs, call-masking, number porting, and BYOC. Not to forget, the user-friendly mobile app keeps you connected with the customers throughout.
Last but not least, Freddy AI contributes further towards better tracking the call metrics and improving engagement time.
Head over to the Freshcaller and start with your 14-day trial to test out all its features.
Next, check out the best cloud PBX solution for small to medium businesses.
