Today's Deep-Dive: freescout
Ep. 26

Today's Deep-Dive: freescout

Episode description

Customer satisfaction is vital, especially in today’s digital environment. A dependable help desk solution like FreeScout can be a game-changer, providing the essential functionality of high-cost platforms like Zendesk or Help Scout—without the hefty fees. FreeScout is an open-source platform offering a free, feature-rich experience with no hidden costs, making it ideal for businesses looking to control expenses while scaling.

FreeScout’s standout features include unlimited agents, tickets, and mailboxes, unlike traditional platforms that charge per user or ticket volume. It integrates seamlessly with email, messaging platforms like Slack, WhatsApp, and Facebook, and even supports secure Microsoft Exchange authentication. The platform is designed for flexibility and efficiency, with features such as starred conversations, push notifications, saved replies, internal ticket notes, and collision detection to prevent duplicate work. Customization is extensive, allowing businesses to white-label the interface, create custom fields, and set up tailored workflows and SLAs.

As businesses grow, FreeScout offers scalability with Kanban boards for workflow visualization, detailed real-time reports, CRM integration, time tracking, GDPR compliance, and API access, enabling connections with other tools for a cohesive support ecosystem.

A significant advantage of FreeScout is its active community, which contributes “community modules” that enhance functionality, such as ChatGPT integration, calendar scheduling, and ClickUp integration. The platform operates on a freemium model, where core features are free, and revenue is generated through premium modules, such as a self-service portal, knowledge base, live chat, and in-depth analytics for those who need them. FreeScout also offers paid support options for users needing dedicated assistance.

FreeScout’s balance of robust features, scalability, community-driven enhancements, and cost-efficiency makes it a competitive help desk solution for businesses of all sizes.

https://freescout.net/

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0:00

keeping customers happy that's the name of the game these days especially in the

0:03

digital world absolutely and a big part of that having a help a desk solution

0:07

that can really you know handle the load a solid help desk one that won't let you

0:11

down right now you've probably heard of the usual suspects then desk help scout

0:15

all those big names feature-packed but Tracy they can really put a dent in your

0:21

budget so what if what if there was a way to get that same robust

0:26

functionality all those bells and whistles without having to shell out a

0:29

fortune well that's where open source software comes in I mean it's really

0:34

changing the landscape you know it's not just for like tech geeks anymore it's

0:38

going mainstream absolutely and in the world of open source help desks there's

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one name that keeps popping up free Scout free Scout it's a totally free

0:47

platform no monthly fees no hidden costs Wow just pure unadulterated help desk

0:54

goodness Wow so for this deep dive we're going to explore free Scout in depth

1:00

we'll look at what it can do what it's good at where it might fall short and

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most importantly we'll figure out if it's the right tool to take your

1:08

customer support to the next level I'm excited to dig into this I mean from

1:12

what I've seen free Scout seems to be packed with features oh yes it really is

1:16

and one of the things that immediately jumps out especially for you know

1:20

businesses that are growing is the unlimited agents tickets and mailboxes

1:25

the limited right from the get-go that's a big deal it's a direct challenge to

1:29

the traditional pricing models we see with with these other help desk

1:33

providers where they charge you per agent or based on how many tickets you

1:38

have yeah it can get really expensive really fast it can and with free Scout

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you don't have to worry about hitting those limits or you know having to

1:46

upgrade your plan as your team expands right and it's not just about saving

1:50

money it's about yeah having the control the flexibility to manage your support

1:54

your way it's now another thing that free Scout does really well is

1:58

integration you can seamlessly connect it with your existing email that's

2:02

important even if you're using a modern Microsoft exchange setup now for those

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who might not be familiar with the technical jargon Microsoft exchange

2:10

authentication is a more secure way of handling email right yes it's essential

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for businesses that prioritize data security and the fact that free Scout

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supports this out of the box shows that they're really catering to a wide range

2:25

of organizations with you know diverse needs absolutely they're not just

2:30

focusing on one segment they're trying to make it accessible to everyone right

2:34

and then to keep you connected on all fronts free Scout also integrates with

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popular messaging platforms like slack whatsapp Facebook even telegram so all

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your customer communication channels can flow into this one central hub

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streamlined streamlined efficient organized love it and speaking of

2:52

efficiency free Scout has some really smart features that can seriously boost

2:55

your productivity okay tell me more about that I'm all ears all right so

3:00

imagine you're in the middle of a chaotic day tons of customer requests

3:04

coming in emails flying the phones ringing off the hook yeah the usual chaos

3:09

right it's easy for things to slip through the crack oh yeah it's a

3:12

nightmare but with free Scout you can star those crucial conversations so they

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stay front and center like a little reminder like a virtual sticky note I

3:20

like it so you don't forget about those urgent issues make sense and to keep you

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in the loop in real time they have these push notifications that alert you to new

3:30

messages or updates so you don't have to keep hitting refresh on your inbox just

3:34

waiting for that next email to come through exactly and then there are these

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things called saved replies it's a lifesaver for those you know frequently

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asked question oh yeah the ones you find yourself typing out over and over and

3:45

over again exactly you can create these pre-written responses and just insert

3:49

them with a couple of clicks so much time saved hours potentially and I also

3:54

really appreciate the ability to leave internal notes on tickets so if you need

3:59

to like loop in a colleague or just jot down some context for yourself later

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it's all right there in the ticket everything's one place organized

4:08

organized and speaking of collaboration they've got collision detection which

4:13

means two agents won't accidentally end up working on the same issue that's

4:17

clever talk about avoiding duplicate efforts it's like they've thought of

4:20

everything and for those who are keyboard shortcut wizards free Scout

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has a whole set of shortcuts so you can zip through tasks even faster nice so

4:29

we've seen how free Scout helps you manage those day-to-day support tasks

4:32

but what about tailoring the entire experience to your brand ah good

4:37

question well that's where things get even better okay free Scout lets you

4:40

white-label the entire platform meaning you can replace their branding with

4:44

yours their logos their colors so it feels like an extension of your own

4:48

website your own application so customers feel like they're dealing

4:52

directly with your company it creates a seamless brand experience exactly and

4:57

you can go even further with customization by creating custom fields

5:01

to capture information that's specific to your business so for example if you're

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an e-commerce company you might want to track order numbers or product details

5:10

right within the support tickets so you don't have to jump between different

5:14

systems to get the information you need it's all right there streamlined and to

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keep everything organized you can set up your own folder structure you can define

5:22

workflows and SLAs those service level agreements yeah so free Scout gives you

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all the tools to manage everything in a way that really fits your business like

5:30

a glove it's like building your own bespoke help desk tailored to your needs

5:34

exactly but what about when those needs start to get a little more complex as

5:39

your business grows right and free Scout handle the big leagues good question

5:43

that's what I'm wondering too scaling up can be a challenge for any system no

5:47

matter how good it is on the surface let's find out yeah let's dig into that

5:51

next so we've seen that free Scout can handle you know the basics but what

5:56

about when you need something a little more advanced a little more right can

6:02

it scale yeah can it keep up with a business that's you know growing evolving

6:07

needing more and more from its help desk software well it seems like free Scout

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has a few tricks up its sleeve for those who need those uh those more

6:15

sophisticated features like what give me the good stuff okay well for one they

6:19

have Kanban boards oh I love Kanban yes they're great for visualizing your

6:23

workflow absolutely so it's like a virtual whiteboard you can organize your

6:28

tickets you can track their progress you can move them between different stages

6:32

you know like new in progress resolved all just by dragging and dropping it's so

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visual so easy to see where everything is at a glance and it really helps you

6:41

identify bottlenecks you know like where things are getting stuck oh for sure and

6:45

then for the data lovers out there you know the folks who really like to dig

6:49

into the numbers free Scout offers real-time reports ooh tell me more so

6:54

think charts graphs all those beautiful visualizations showing you key metrics

7:00

like response times ticket volume trends agent performance so you can actually see

7:06

how your team's doing where you need to improve all that good stuff exactly it's

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all about using data to make better decisions to optimize your support

7:15

processes day is king it is king so we've talked about visualizing workflows

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we've talked about data what about connecting free Scout with other tools

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you know the other systems that businesses rely on right can it play

7:28

nicely with others it can it definitely can free Scout offers CRM integration CRM

7:33

that's customer relationship management right yep so you can hook it up to your

7:36

CRM system and get this like this holistic view of your customers 360

7:41

degrees you see their entire history their interactions their purchases

7:44

their support requests everything and that's so valuable for providing

7:47

personalized support right well absolutely you know knowing your

7:50

customer understanding their needs that's how you build loyalty and I'm

7:54

guessing they have something for time tracking too right because you know a

7:58

lot of businesses need to track their time for billing purposes they do they

8:02

have a built-in time tracking feature so you can log the time you spend on each

8:06

ticket which is essential for businesses that bill clients hourly or you know

8:10

just need to track project costs accurately very practical very very

8:15

practical but it's not just about internal efficiency right we also need

8:20

to think about things like data privacy oh absolutely big topic these days huge

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and free scout has you covered there too they've got GDPR compliance built right

8:29

into the platform GDPR that's the general data protection regulation a

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whole set of rules designed to protect the personal data of individuals in the

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European Union so it's a big deal for businesses that operate in Europe or

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work with European customer essential absolutely essential and for the more

8:48

tech savvy folks out there free scout also offers API access ah yes the API

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now for those of us who aren't you know developers break that down for me what

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is API access and why should I care okay so an API it stands for application

9:02

programming interface okay and it basically allows different software

9:06

systems to talk to each other like a universal translator for software kind

9:10

of yeah so with free scouts API you could connect it to other tools you use

9:15

your project management system your counting software even your marketing

9:20

automation platform so it's not just a standalone help desk it can actually

9:24

become part of this interconnected ecosystem of tools exactly the

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possibilities are pretty much endless it really depends on your needs and your

9:32

technical capabilities very cool so it really does seem like free scout can

9:37

grow with a business you know it can adapt to those increasingly complex

9:42

needs that companies face as they scale yeah it's flexible it's powerful and

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it's got a lot of potential but let's not forget about one of the key

9:49

advantages of open-source software the community the community the people who

9:53

are passionate about the software who are constantly contributing improving and

9:58

you know just making it better right and with free scout it's not just the core

10:02

developers who are working on it it's this whole community of users who are

10:06

out there building and sharing these amazing things called community modules

10:10

community modules what are they well think of them like add-ons or plugins

10:16

that extend free scouts functionality even further so it's like a giant

10:20

toolbox of extra features all created by people who are actually using free

10:26

scout in the real world exactly that's brilliant and we found a ton of these

10:30

listed on the free scout github wiki yeah some of them are really innovative

10:34

give me some examples like what are some of the cool things people are creating

10:37

okay so one that caught my eye was the chat GPT integration module chat GPT

10:44

that's the AI chat bot everyone's talking about these days I've heard of it so

10:48

with this module you can actually bring the power of chat GPT right into free

10:52

scout no that's interesting I mean imagine using chat GPT to automatically

10:57

generate responses to simple customer queries or to summarize you know those

11:01

really long complicated support tickets so your agents don't have to wade

11:06

through pages and pages of text exactly it just streamlines everything very very

11:09

cool okay what else what other gems are in this community module treasure

11:14

chest well if you're a fan of visual scheduling there's a calendar module

11:18

that integrates directly with free scout so I could schedule follow-up calls with

11:22

customers I could block out time for specific support tasks all within free

11:27

scout yep everything's in one place centralized love it and then for those

11:32

who use click up for project management there's a click up integration module so

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if I'm already using click up to manage my projects I can connect it to free

11:40

scout and have my support tickets show up alongside my other tasks seamlessly

11:44

it's all about creating that smooth integrated workflow these community

11:49

modules they really showcase what open source collaboration is all about it's

11:53

amazing right like having this constant stream of new features and enhancements

11:57

all driven by the people who are actually using the software it's like

12:00

this collective brainpower all focused on making free scout the best it can be

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and it's all for free which brings up a very important question yeah how does

12:09

free scout a free and open source platform support itself I mean

12:15

developing software takes time it takes resources it takes money it does so how

12:20

do they do it well that's what we're gonna explore next free Scouts business

12:24

model it's actually quite fascinating alright so we've talked about all the

12:27

amazing features that free scout offers the fact that it can scale with the

12:31

growing business and that incredible community that's constantly making it

12:35

even better right it's a pretty impressive package it is but now I'm

12:39

curious about the business side of things how does free scout actually make

12:43

money I mean they have to keep the lights on somehow right they do but it's

12:47

not through the traditional subscription model that you see with a lot of other

12:51

software companies how do they do it well the core free scout software the

12:55

one with all those great features we've been discussing that's completely free

12:59

free free you can download it you can use it you can even modify it if you

13:04

have the technical skills no strings attached that's incredible it's a real

13:08

testament to their commitment to the open source philosophy but they still

13:12

have to generate revenue right so where does that come from that comes from a

13:15

selection of premium modules ah okay so it's like a freemium model you get the

13:19

basic product for free and then you can choose to pay for extra features if you

13:23

need them exactly so what kind of premium modules are we talking about well

13:27

one popular one is the end user portal okay and what does that do it basically

13:32

allows your customers to submit support tickets directly through a portal on

13:37

your website so instead of just sending emails they have this dedicated space

13:42

where they can manage their support requests right and they can also track

13:45

the status of their tickets access a knowledge base even participate in

13:50

community forums so it's like giving them a self-service option exactly which

13:54

can really help reduce the workload on your support team and they have a

13:57

dedicated knowledge base module too right they do it lets you build a

14:01

comprehensive library of articles FAQs tutorials all that good stuff so

14:07

customers can find answers to their questions without even having to contact

14:11

support that's the goal it's all about empowering customers to help themselves

14:15

love it yeah what else what other tempting modules are there well for

14:19

businesses that need to offer real-time support there's a live chat module oh

14:24

yeah those little chat widgets that pop up on websites exactly it allows you to

14:28

interact with customers instantly answer quick questions provide guidance

14:32

especially important for e-commerce sites or any business where that

14:36

immediate connection can make a difference absolutely and then for those

14:40

who are data-driven there's a reports module okay tell me about that one I

14:44

love data so this module gives you in-depth analytics on all aspects of

14:49

your support operation you can see things like conversation volume response

14:53

times agent performance customer satisfaction so you can identify areas

14:58

where you're doing well and areas where you need to improve precisely it's all

15:02

about using data to optimize your support processes this is all sounding

15:07

really good but what about support for the actual software if I'm using the

15:12

free version of free Scout am I on my own if I run into problems not at all

15:17

free Scout has a lot of support resources available even for free users

15:21

like what well their website is packed with documentation FAQs tutorials all

15:27

sorts of helpful stuff and they also have a very active community forum where

15:31

you can get help from other users and developers so even though it's free I'm

15:35

not just left out in the cold definitely not and if you need more personalized

15:39

assistance or you have submission critical issues that need immediate

15:43

attention they do offer paid support options so they've got all the bases

15:47

covered they do they've managed to create this really compelling balance

15:51

between offering a powerful free product and generating revenue through those

15:56

premium modules and support services and they've done it in a way that seems fair

16:00

and transparent I think so so as we wrap up this deep dive into free scout here's

16:05

the big question for you our listener could free scout be the help desk

16:10

solution you've been searching for think about what's important to you is it cost

16:15

savings flexibility the power of community free scout offers all of that

16:21

and more it's a real game changer in the world of customer support it challenges

16:25

the status quo and shows that you don't have to break the bank to get a top-notch

16:29

help desk solution so we encourage you to explore free scout further check out

16:34

their website browse their community modules see if it's the right fit for

16:37

And with that we'll wrap up this episode of The Deep Tive. Thanks for joining us.

16:37

And with that we'll wrap up this episode of The Deep Tive. Thanks for joining us.