Cherwell Service Management vs Freshdesk comparison

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93% willing to recommend
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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Cherwell Service Management and Freshdesk based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out what your peers are saying about ServiceNow, Atlassian, BMC and others in Help Desk Software.
To learn more, read our detailed Help Desk Software Report (Updated: April 2024).
768,740 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Featured Review
Quotes From Members
We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use.
Here are some excerpts of what they said:
Pros
"The dashboard and the reporting functionality are the solution's most valuable features.""The dashboard is very useful to get a quick overview of current tasks.""The most valuable features are problem management and change management.""Clear processes with transparent responsibilities led to more efficiencies within the teams.""All our activities are carried out in the one place.""Its integration features, orchestration features, and discovery tools are the most valuable. It is also pretty stable, and it can be as scalable as you want."

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"Freshdesk has allowed us to measure and track the response and resolution time of tickets which has been reduced from seven to eight hours down to 30 minutes to one hour.""The most valuable features of Freshdesk are the automation of tickets to assign them to different agents, and the managing of documents is easy.""Its simplicity is most valuable. It is easy and simple, and it requires negligible training effort. I don't spend all my time goofing around trying to find stuff in the ticketing system.""There is the option to create different roles for specific users. We make use of groups for each customer service team which has been very effective. We are able to apply different sets of rules for each group which determines how they interact with customers and escalate issues.""The ticketing system is smooth, but since we use a free version, we do not have many facilities available.""I like that it's very user-friendly. The way they designed this application, any layperson can just do some drag and drop actions and use it. It's not that difficult. It's also easy to implement. The most important thing is, you don't need to go to this application to create a ticket. You just send out an email, and the ticket is created automatically. I have never seen a feature like this before.""We have made use of the training academy and the technical support team from Freshdesk. Both have been very good resources.""The feature that I have found most valuable is the way that it connects to various folders especially because we use it as a CRM tool. We can connect it with our phones and our chat, and also with the API and have it as an email service. Freshdesk just makes our life easier."

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Cons
"The stability, specifically in the on-premises deployment model, could be improved.""Areas for improvement would be the service catalog and customer catalog, which is not very user-friendly. The shopping cart experience is also terrible - you submit and go straight to the cart, you can't continue shopping or see your overall cost.""Access is only available if we're on VPN.""Application service mapping, GRC, SecOps, and things like that need improvement."

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"The reporting, analysis modules and insights capabilities for this solution could be improved.""It should enhance its service and its reporting capabilities.""Sometimes our requirements are not matched with Freshdesk's free version as most of the advanced features are not available to us.""While it's good for a small number of tickets, definitely in the future, we will require something more powerful.""The dashboards are useful but could be so much better. As a product manager, and data scientist, we couldn't use the dashboard for analytics and had to move the data in Power BI.""Having so many tags makes everyday work a lot more complicated, and a lot more time-consuming.""I would like to see improvements in the account management aspect, having a customer portal for better visibility into my subscription, invoices, and trouble tickets.""We have many cases where a ticket comes in, and it ends up having multiple team members working on it. It would be really nice to be able to assign a single ticket to multiple people, rather than having to create the parent-child hierarchy that they have set up. It generates a proliferation of tickets that I really don't want to have. Having to jump from a parent to one child and then to another child makes it harder for me to be able to see the entire case from end to end. A simple example is our new hire process or our termination process. We have people who leave. We also have people who come on board. We have got multiple people participating and doing things related to the leaving or onboarding process. Currently, I have to go to different tickets to be able to see whether all tasks are really done or not. If I could assign lots of people to one ticket, it would be really nice."

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Pricing and Cost Advice
  • "For an ITIL user, the cost is probably about 50 bucks a month."
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  • "It was definitely not expensive. It was two grand or maybe three grand total for a year. It has just straight and simple standard licensing fees. There is no additional fee."
  • "The price could be better, but it's okay. Compared to ServiceNow and JIRA, Freshworks offers a competitive price. There are also additional licensing costs because you need Microsoft Outlook. Each new email account costs around $15 to $19."
  • "The best system plan is enterprise. It costs basically 79 Euros per agent per month when it's billed annually and 95 Euros per agent per month when it's billed monthly."
  • "We use a licensing model only so we pay for the number of agents we have configured in the system only."
  • "Freshdesk was the best solution with the best price. It was cost efficient and included all the features that we needed."
  • "We use a combination of Freshdesk, Freshservice, and Freshchat. We use the whole suite. Weirdly enough, we pay more for Freshdesk than we do for Freshservice. I would rate it a three out of five in terms of pricing. You can get different bundles, and you can always move to different plans that are standard. Freshservice can go anywhere from $19 up to $120 per agent, per month. There is such a wide range, and it is very customizable to your needs."
  • "It is costly."
  • "The pricing is pretty manageable and acceptable."
  • More Freshdesk Pricing and Cost Advice →

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    Questions from the Community
    Top Answer:All our activities are carried out in the one place.
    Top Answer:We need to be on VPN in order to set up and access the solution, and that has created some challenges. Even though it uses our Windows login, we still have to be on VPN. The product should be able to… more »
    Top Answer:We use the solution for IT service management, it's the key process for recording incidents or problems, and change management. We are customers of Cherwell and I'm an enterprise architect.
    Top Answer:Freshdesk significantly improved our customer issue resolution process. We can now easily record and track all customer requests, ensuring that no tickets are lost.
    Top Answer:I would like to see improvements in the account management aspect, having a customer portal for better visibility into my subscription, invoices, and trouble tickets. Additionally, more flexibility in… more »
    Top Answer:I use Freshdesk to manage IT support tickets for our team of 15 IT professionals across multiple countries. It has been effective in ticket management, and we find the price-to-functionality ratio… more »
    Ranking
    19th
    out of 59 in Help Desk Software
    Views
    1,300
    Comparisons
    653
    Reviews
    1
    Average Words per Review
    477
    Rating
    9.0
    6th
    out of 59 in Help Desk Software
    Views
    3,344
    Comparisons
    2,007
    Reviews
    10
    Average Words per Review
    629
    Rating
    8.1
    Comparisons
    Learn More
    Overview
    Cherwell Service Management is a powerful IT service management (ITSM) solution that provides IT organizations the flexibility needed for rapid configuration and customization, minimal overhead, and frictionless upgrades at a fraction of the cost and complexity associated with legacy ITSM solutions. Cherwell's codeless design architecture means you can add new functionality without modifying a single line of code, integrate easily with third party applications, and upgrade without fear of breaking what you've built.

    Freshdesk is a cloud-based customer support solution that provides organizations with the features necessary to effectively streamline their support processes. This includes powerful multichannel capability, integrated game mechanics, smart automations, and more.

    The solution is designed to automate agent workflows and resolve routine questions using AI and bots. Freshdesk allows managers to prioritize, categorize, and assign tickets to their agents, making it easy for them to collaborate and quickly respond to customers. 

    Freshdesk Features and Benefits

    Some of the solution's top features and benefits include:

    • Simplified ticketing: With Freshdesk, you can easily prioritize, manage, and assign trackable tickets. The management system ensures that multiple agents don’t work on the same ticket by accident. You can easily set deadlines for ticket resolution based on specific categories and create custom statuses that suit your workflow to identify what stage a ticket is in.
    • Automation: Automatically assign tickets to agents and groups based on keywords and requests and set up automated repeated actions and provide quick, consistent responses to common questions using pre-formatted replies. In addition, you can choose to prevent the reopening of tickets when customers reply with a thank you.
    • Improved collaboration: Share tickets with other teams while retaining full visibility into the progress being made on the issue. Related tickets can be linked together to better keep track of the big picture. Tickets can also be split into smaller child tickets and assigned to multiple agents to help resolve complex, multi-stage issues.
    • Build up your knowledge base: Create effective support documentation by enabling agents to convert their ticket replies into knowledge base articles, while they reply.
    • Metrics and reporting: See how different agents and groups are performing by viewing various help desk metrics and improve performance by identifying problems based on insights.

      With Freshdesk’s reporting tools, you can schedule the periodic delivery of out-of-the-box and custom reports to your inbox. The solution’s customer satisfaction reports provide you with feedback on how your customers rate your support.
    • Forum moderation: Set up moderation workflows to ensure that forum posts that violate your guidelines are not immediately published. Critical issues raised in the community are automatically converted into tickets to ensure they get the required response.

    • Integration: Freshdesk’s open API can be used to integrate the solution with multiple  third-party systems. 
    • Comprehensive security: Freshdesk’s security features allow you to:

      • Set custom access permissions for agents.
      • Perform comprehensive audits of networks and systems.
      • Secure your own support domain or vanity URL with custom SSL certificates.
      • Whitelist IP ranges and restrict login access outside of work, or link IP whitelisting to a VPN.
      • Set up SSO scripts for credential authentication.

    Reviews from Real Users

    Freshdesk stands out among its competitors for a number of reasons. Two major ones are its effective ticketing system and its intuitive interface.

    Deepak B., an application manager, writes, “Freshdesk has allowed us to measure and track the response and resolution time of tickets which has been reduced from seven to eight hours down to 30 minutes to one hour. This information is valuable for board meetings.”

    Sample Customers
    Ausenco, Highlights for Children, B/E Aerospace
    Honda, 3M, Hugo Boss, Petronas, Sony Pictures, The Atlantic, goodreads, Clear Channel Radio, Penn University of Pennsylvania, unicef, Kuoni, Movember
    Top Industries
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Educational Organization53%
    Government11%
    Computer Software Company6%
    Retailer4%
    REVIEWERS
    Computer Software Company21%
    Retailer21%
    Comms Service Provider11%
    Financial Services Firm11%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Computer Software Company23%
    Media Company6%
    Real Estate/Law Firm6%
    Retailer6%
    Company Size
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business9%
    Midsize Enterprise58%
    Large Enterprise32%
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business59%
    Midsize Enterprise14%
    Large Enterprise28%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business28%
    Midsize Enterprise16%
    Large Enterprise56%
    Buyer's Guide
    Help Desk Software
    April 2024
    Find out what your peers are saying about ServiceNow, Atlassian, BMC and others in Help Desk Software. Updated: April 2024.
    768,740 professionals have used our research since 2012.

    Cherwell Service Management is ranked 19th in Help Desk Software with 6 reviews while Freshdesk is ranked 6th in Help Desk Software with 27 reviews. Cherwell Service Management is rated 7.2, while Freshdesk is rated 8.4. The top reviewer of Cherwell Service Management writes "Having everything in one location has significantly improved our efficiency and reporting". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Freshdesk writes "Incredibly user-friendly, flexible, and affordable". Cherwell Service Management is most compared with ServiceNow and Ivanti Neurons for ITSM, whereas Freshdesk is most compared with JIRA Service Management, ServiceNow, Microsoft Dynamics CRM, Spiceworks and BMC Helix ITSM.

    See our list of best Help Desk Software vendors.

    We monitor all Help Desk Software reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.