Freshsales allows you to run outbound email campaigns from your CRM.
All subscription plans include cloud-based phone service.
Upper-tier plans include AI-driven insights to help you stay on top of deals and grow revenue.
This review is for small business owners who are interested in implementing Freshsales CRM.
Freshsales by Freshworks is a top CRM platform with an excellent mix of built-in communications tools and AI-powered features that push the traditional sales pipeline beyond the basic functionality of tracking and managing deals. With built-in cloud telephony, you’ll have far more context about your prospects with an instant view of past activities, call notes, previous conversations and their overall score to win deals faster. The platform can automatically log sales calls to help you analyze the key performance indicators that drive sales. The AI-powered assistant, Freddy, will learn from your historical sales data, activities and customer engagement to deliver better recommendations that you can apply across the customer journey. With the chatbot enabled, you reduce the first-response time on your website with precise answers to popular customer questions and capture new leads.
Freshsales CRM
The Verdict
Freshsales is our best pick for a communications-focused CRM platform, largely thanks to its built-in cloud telephony and AI-powered chatbots for seamless selling across channels.
Freshsales Editor’s Score: 94/100
Ease of use 93
Features 95
Integrations 93
Pricing 96
Customer service 93
Why We Chose Freshsales for Communications
In addition to the native cloud-based phone support with toll-free and local business phone numbers available for purchase in more than 90 countries, Freshsales also offers AI-powered chatbots, bulk email marketing tools, easy forms to capture customer data and auto-enrichment to automatically add social and publicly listed information to your contacts’ listings. By combining basic communications tools with an automated sales pipeline, your team will have access to vital customer information and AI-powered insights to focus efforts efficiently and close more deals in less time. If you’re not ready to leave your existing phone provider, you can use numbers from an existing plan while leveraging the CRM platform’s benefits through the Enterprise plan. And with the mobile app that’s included with all plans, you can run all of your sales from your phone on the go. While the free version includes chat, email and phone service, the Pro plan is recommended for the best Freshworks experience, with AI-powered deal insights, time-based workflows and multiple sales pipelines to help teams sell effectively.
Pros
- All paid Freshsales plans include Al-powered tools that provide actionable insights across the entire customer journey.
- Freshsales has basic built-in VoIP phone service with virtual phone numbers available in more than 90 countries.
- You can manage global transactions with over 150 currencies and multilanguage support.
Cons
- The built-in phone system is lacking in cloud-based call management features.
- You’ll have to pay $75 for 1,000 extra bot sessions if you go over your limit.
- There’s no discounted rate for purchasing a large number of seats.
Usability
While far from a difficult CRM platform to learn and use, Freshsales is not among the easiest we’ve reviewed. The learning curve also applies to many of the AI-powered tools that improve over time with access to historical sales data, activities and engagement. However, once you and your team have your visual sales pipelines, sequences, workflows, enriched contacts and AI-based forecasting tools in place, Freshworks makes it much easier to understand your customers and serve them better.
The platform features many automated sales productivity tools for workflows, chat campaigns, lead capture and sales sequences to boost your team’s efficiency.
With all of Freddy AI’s features enabled, you’ll benefit from predictive contact scoring to prioritize your efforts and recommendations for the next best action to close a deal. Freshworks also includes API access and easy integrations with popular business applications that sales teams across industries use on a daily basis.
Freshsales Features
All three of the paid Freshsales plans include everything you’ll need to manage your customer relationships and sell effectively. However, many of the standout features that make Freshworks such a powerful CRM platform are available only with the Pro and Enterprise plans. Some features, such as bulk email and sales sequences, are limited by a set number of actions per day, which varies by plan.
- Cloud telephony Get inbound and outbound VoIP phone service with basic call management features and tools.
- Freddy AI Gain actionable insights across your customers’ journeys with intelligent tools.
- Bulk emails Design personalized email templates and track key metrics to improve performance.
- Deal management Grow revenue by staying on top of deals with automated follow-ups and predictions.
Cloud Telephony
Many Freshworks subscribers can ditch their business phone system provider and enjoy many of the same calling features and tools through their CRM software with a built-in cloud-based phone system. This feature provides everything you need for a successful sales call, including call recording, call logs, voicemail and phone numbers available for purchase in more than 90 countries. You can make calls directly from any laptop or mobile device and track all of the calling metrics to optimize your sales tactics and strategies.
Freshsales FAQs
Are Freshworks and Freshsales the same?
The Freshworks CRM is now called Freshsales. Freshworks has expanded with Freshdesk, Freshmarketer, Freshservice, Freshteam, Freshping and Freshstatus to support numerous business departments and teams.
Is Freshsales Free?
Yes, Freshsales offers a limited free version of its CRM platform. This version includes contact management, deal management, a built-in phone dialer, inbound caller ID, a chat widget, mobile apps, contact lifecycle stages, an activity timeline and 24/5 support.
How is Freshsales used?
Freshsales is a cloud-based CRM platform designed to help businesses collect new sales leads and manage interactions with potential customers. The CRM platform is accessible via mobile app for iOS and Android, and it includes an AI tool to help cultivate and convert leads.
Overall Value
We recommend Freshsales for …
Businesses looking for chatbots to reduce first-response time.
Small businesses that want to reduce recurring software and service costs.
Small teams with large lead lists.
We don’t recommend Freshsales for …
Businesses that don’t use online lead capture.
Businesses that don’t want to worry about overages.
Large businesses that want enterprise-level discounts.