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Freshdesk Launches FreshPlugs; Support Teams Can Now Integrate Third Party Data Into Their Help Desk

Freshdesk Launches FreshPlugs; Support Teams Can Now Integrate Third Party Data Into Their Help Desk

Saturday November 03, 2012 , 4 min Read

Today Freshdesk, the online customer support platform, announces the debut of FreshPlugs, allowing customer service teams to bring real-time consumer information from any third party applications right into their help desk. Freshdesk also brings screen sharing into customer support, with its integration with LogMeIn Rescue. With this integration, agents and consumers can see the same problem on screen simultaneously and in real time.

FreshPlugs provide businesses with a customizable support solution, allowing customer service departments to integrate data from any third-party tools, databases, legacy systems or applications. Now that support teams have the ability to drive intelligence by pulling pertinent business information right into their customer support process, FreshPlugs represent an opportunity for businesses to turn customer support into their primary source of actionable customer insight.

Context + Customer Support = Happiness

With FreshPlugs, companies can now tailor their support tickets to include an assortment of product information. Support teams gain a more detailed understanding of the context behind their tickets, while customers receive support that is tailored to fit their particular circumstances.

Here are a few examples:

A support team could pull the location on a product issue through Google Maps right inside a ticket, making it easy for a field technician to be sent to the location and solve the problem.

When processing a refund claim, insights like loyalty points and refund history of a customer can be pulled directly into the support ticket from a legacy system.

A company can integrate its phone systems into a FreshPlug. That way, the call center can dial a customer right from the support ticket, and even customize its phone system to send a recording of the call back into the ticket.

The possibilities with FreshPlugs in any customer centric function are almost limitless. For example, at an ecommerce company, the ability to have shipment information from UPS or FedEx right next to an open support ticket is invaluable.

This isn’t just a one-way street. With FreshPlugs, not only can you pull data from relevant third parties, but push data from your helpdesk back into these systems. Now any customer-oriented operation within a business can have its tools populated with customer insights directly from Freshdesk.

For example, imagine every support agent at the Ritz-Carlton being able to pull information from its loyalty and rewards systems directly into a customer’s support ticket. Without ever logging into Freshdesk, agents can immediately identify history, loyalty and even the customer lifetime value associated with the issue.

“One of the easiest ways to frustrate support agents and lose customers is is by forcing a one-size-fits-all customer experience and support tool,” says Freshdesk CEO, Girish Mathrubootham. “FreshPlugs allow any business, from startup to enterprise, to personalize its help desk to fit the unique needs of the customer. Freshdesk unifies the help desk with the systems and services already filled with valuable customer context, making support smarter and simpler than ever before.”

Screen-Sharing for Sublime Support

In addition to FreshPlugs and the custom integrations they offer, Freshdesk also announces its native integration with LogMeIn Rescue. Built around the adage of show don’t tell, support representatives can initiate a LogMeIn session directly from within Freshdesk. Agents can share the customer’s screen and walk them through troubleshooting steps, seeing exactly what they see, or take control of the screen directly to resolve the issue. After the session, a complete transcript, including any chat conversations, is added as a note in the ticket. As far as support is concerned, it’s the next best option to teleportation.

Freshdesk is social customer service software that allows companies of any size to support customers through both traditional support channels like email and phone, as well as social networks such as Facebook and Twitter.

Last month, the company announced the introduction of Freshdesk Arcade, the first ever gamifiied customer support platform, built to tackle the problem of keeping agents engaged in a tedious support environment.

Check out Freshdesk's Page on YourStory Pages!