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Freshdesk vs Intercom Customer Communications Platform vs Salesforce Marketing Cloud comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Mindshare comparison

Customer Experience Management Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Freshdesk3.0%
Salesforce4.9%
Genesys Cloud CX4.4%
Other87.7%
Customer Experience Management
CRM Customer Engagement Centers Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Intercom Customer Communications Platform1.8%
Microsoft Dynamics CRM19.8%
Salesforce Service Cloud14.2%
Other64.2%
CRM Customer Engagement Centers
Social CRM Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Salesforce Marketing Cloud7.0%
Sprinklr9.1%
HootSuite7.5%
Other76.4%
Social CRM
 

Featured Reviews

Bharanidharan K - PeerSpot reviewer
User-friendly interface but needs enhancement in ticket tracking and response times
There is no room for improvement in Freshdesk. We can set a time period for particular employees as something that could be better. For example, if some new employees are unfamiliar with Freshdesk, it should be more user-friendly. They need to give shortcut keys to use the ticketing portal. If some users don't know how to generate a ticket, providing them with a help desk or tutorial portal would be useful for the end-user.
Kumar Abhishek Anand - PeerSpot reviewer
Customer support has improved significantly with seamless chat integration for quick resolutions
The feature we appreciate most about the Intercom Customer Communications Platform is the messenger functionality. We are able to integrate it into our application and provide support to customers directly through our application. The messenger works efficiently, allowing users to have conversations without entering their details repeatedly. There is conversation history available for each customer interaction, and they can access the help section within the chat itself. The Finn AI agent handles conversations both in chat and WhatsApp, which is particularly beneficial. Regarding automation tools, we have enabled the AI agent to answer customer queries instantly, reducing the need for constant staff presence. The AI agent quickly responds to customers and summarizes their issues, informing us when it cannot resolve a problem independently.
Napitch K - PeerSpot reviewer
Integration challenges impact workflow efficiency
The features of Salesforce Marketing Cloud that I have found most valuable are the Journey Builder and Flow. These capabilities are valuable because they make managing automation easy. Automating customer journeys saves time when scheduling content through every channel, and we can set the automation in advance when planning marketing content. The AI-powered tools such as Salesforce Datorama and Einstein save time and have an impact on marketing strategy decisions for my customers. I have noticed a positive impact from Salesforce Marketing Cloud through customer feedback. For example, a customer mentioned after project completion that it had a significant impact on their marketing team by eliminating the need to hire additional staff for marketing content and planning.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"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."
"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."
"It is very easy to make reports."
"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."
"The UI is easy to use."
"I used Freshdesk for communication with the clients, such as real-time chats."
"Omnichannel is one of the most valuable features of the solution."
"Freshdesk's requirement for appending resolution details before allowing ticket closure ensures the automatic creation of a knowledge base."
"The feature we appreciate most about the Intercom Customer Communications Platform is the messenger functionality, allowing users to have conversations without entering their details repeatedly."
"The live chat is pretty good because you can create a macro, which is a predefined input we can give customers."
"The ability to automate processes is one of the most valuable features of Salesforce. This sets it part from other systems. We use the journey builder to design a fully automated journey."
"I like that I can constantly add leads to Salesforce Marketing Cloud and look at accounts there. I also like that the solution lets me set up meetings."
"I like the user interface it has a nice look and feel."
"Salesforce Marketing Cloud's journey builder is very easy to handle and quickly sets up a journey for clients who use a lot of communication."
"If you want to be able to communicate with your client using email, WhatsApp, and push notifications, know if the client opened the communication or not, and create and automate their journey, Marketing Cloud is very good."
"The tool's most valuable feature is its automation. We can integrate data with the Salesforce hub. Its Einstein feature tells us whether our campaigns are on the right track. It also helps with ideas."
"Salesforce Marketing Cloud integrates with multiple systems seamlessly, enabling effective lead management."
"It is very easy to use from a marketing standpoint."
 

Cons

"Asset management and branding are two areas in the solution that have scope for improvement."
"I would like a better integration towards Azure DevOps. The current integration is more complicated and doesn’t work as well."
"While it's good for a small number of tickets, definitely in the future, we will require something more powerful."
"There aren't any features that we want to enhance, but we need to mature in our usage of some of them. I can't say any feature is missing or needs improvement, but a tool's built-in features need to evolve customer feedback. We have a dialogue set up for that kind of feedback."
"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."
"It should enhance its service and its reporting capabilities."
"If Freshdesk had forms in it so that I could go to the portal and fill out a service request, that would improve it immensely and make it more valuable for enterprise customers, but that's not a current functionality. You can't have a certain catalog of any type. You can't be like, "Hey, I want to just go submit a ticket," and then type in. You can't prompt them to ask anything. It is just a blank form."
"I would like to be able to change the subject in emails for ourselves. If we could have the option to do that, it would improve our speed and the overall cleanliness of the CRM."
"It would be beneficial if there was a way to train the AI to better understand customer language."
"Sometimes, the solution lags and takes time to update something."
"When you use your iPhone or Android phone, Salesforce is not as user-friendly as it could be. That UX needs to be improved."
"There could be easier tools to configure the product and to create landing pages to better handle large data sets."
"The quality of support for this solution has been decreasing over time and the support team are sometimes more focused on closing tickets that resolving issues. Often the support team is not well trained or aware of the new features or products released by Salesforce."
"We have struggled to get resolution of support tickets from the Salesforce team."
"The data extension tools are not very user-friendly."
"I found that the tool is more complex than expected. It requires a deeper understanding to utilize its capabilities thoroughly."
"The performance is sometimes sluggish, but I think that's to be expected with a heavy CRM tool because they're running reports in real-time on the data that you have entered."
"We would like an improvement to the 'Einstein Engagement Frequency'; the optimal range of emails that our subscribers will engage with."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We use a licensing model only so we pay for the number of agents we have configured in the system only."
"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."
"It is costly."
"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."
"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."
"We pay approximately $70 per agent to use Freshdesk. We have 10 agents, which is approximately $700 or $800 per month. It is a fixed license, there are not any additional fees."
Information not available
"Its licensing is on an annual basis. Customers are okay with its licensing cost, and they don't find it expensive."
"This is a low cost solution suited to larger organizations."
"On a scale where one is the lowest and ten is the most expensive, I rate the solution an eight out of ten."
"It's not cheap, which is why I recommend that you use Marketing Cloud to create automated journeys. If you plan to use Marketing Cloud just to send emails, use another tool."
"Salesforce is an expensive solution."
"The price is expensive."
"The solution is a bit expensive."
"The solution is paid for monthly."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
23%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Educational Organization
6%
Financial Services Firm
6%
No data available
Computer Software Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Healthcare Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business21
Midsize Enterprise5
Large Enterprise8
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business20
Midsize Enterprise14
Large Enterprise28
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Freshdesk?
Freshdesk significantly improved our customer issue resolution process. We can now easily record and track all custom...
What needs improvement with Freshdesk?
With the advancements in AI now, I will say Freshdesk should consider integrating more AI, but so far, I am satisfied...
What is your primary use case for Freshdesk?
As a customer success manager for over six years, I can sum up the benefits I've seen from using Freshdesk: it has pl...
What do you like most about Intercom Customer Communications Platform?
The live chat is pretty good because you can create a macro, which is a predefined input we can give customers.
What needs improvement with Intercom Customer Communications Platform?
For the Intercom Customer Communications Platform, we are updating our knowledge base to help the AI read more proact...
What is your primary use case for Intercom Customer Communications Platform?
When asked about AI tools and AI coding tools, we were using ChatGPT until recently. We switched to GitHub Copilot, w...
What do you like most about Salesforce Marketing Cloud?
Datorama is part of Salesforce Marketing Cloud, which is quite a valuable feature that provides customer analytics.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Salesforce Marketing Cloud?
I did not work on any pricing or implementation aspects but learned on my own when dealing with Revenue Cloud products.
What needs improvement with Salesforce Marketing Cloud?
Salesforce Marketing Cloud works effectively as a suite, best-of-suite solution. However, if you want to reuse specif...
 

Also Known As

No data available
Intercom
ExactTarget
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Honda, 3M, Hugo Boss, Petronas, Sony Pictures, The Atlantic, goodreads, Clear Channel Radio, Penn University of Pennsylvania, unicef, Kuoni, Movember
Expensift, Moz, Invision, Salesforce, Droplr, Vend, BugHerd, Ghost, Put.io, Codeship
American Express, Financial Conduct Authority, KPN, Merck KGaA, Peterborough City Council, The Chapar, ADP, Financial Times, Stanley Black & Decker, SureFlap, Western Union, Philips
Find out what your peers are saying about Salesforce, Qualtrics, Genesys and others in Customer Experience Management. Updated: September 2025.
868,706 professionals have used our research since 2012.