As part of our commitment to providing the best experience for our customers, we're excited to announce that we're upgrading your Freshchat account to the latest version. This upgrade represents a significant improvement over our previous versions, and we're confident it will benefit our customers. This will not impact the existing configurations inside your account. Some features will work differently, and you will have access to many new tools to make it easier to engage with your customers. 


With the new AI-powered conversation engagement solution (Freshchat), you will offer faster response times, more accurate answers, and personalized conversations. This article will guide you through what this upgrade will mean for your plan.


ARTICLE NAVIGATION


Features that are changing in the latest version of Freshchat (Growth plan)

Features
Status
Description
Email
Enhanced with the upgrade
Bring your customer conversations from your email as a channel in Freshchat. Learn more.
Unique Records
Enhanced with the upgrade

Email and Mobile fields are unique for each Contact. You can also mark other fields as unique.
Conversation properties
Enhanced with the upgrade
Support for conversation properties (default and custom), allowing you to tailor your responses based on unique customer characteristics, further enhancing your ability to deliver personalized experiences and improve customer satisfaction. Learn more.
Marketplace
Enhanced with the upgrade
  • We've improved how you search and find marketplace apps through a more handy icon on the sidebar. 
  • We're also consistently building more apps. 
Access to all these apps is available only on the newest version of Freshchat. Check out the Freshchat marketplace.
Smart plugs
Deprecated
Replaced with marketplace apps
Smart plugs have been deprecated and replaced by more powerful apps from the Freshchat marketplace, which can do more.

Check out the Freshchat marketplace.
Agent APISupport for certain endpoints will no longer be available.
The following endpoints are not supported:
POST /agents
DELETE /agents/{agent_id}
PATCH /agents/{agent_id}
PUT /agents/{agent_id}
Notifications
Reduction in scope
Notifications will no longer be available across all your devices while Classic Freshchat supported notifications across desktop, mobile, email, and in-app for conversations. 
While the number of devices has reduced, you will be able to get notifications for more features such as for conversations, tasks, threads, meetings, etc.


Segments
Enhanced with the upgrade
Loss of data
You will experience some differences in how exporting contacts and visitors will work in Freshchat after your upgrade. 
  • You can continue to export your contacts, but exporting visitors will no longer be supported. 
  • You will need to set up your segments again, as we cannot migrate them to the new instance powered by the more robust module.


Learn more about using segments in Freshchat 

Custom contact fields
Change in feature behavior
  • Custom contact fields are no longer supported as part of canned responses.


  • If multiple custom fields have the same name, the fields will be merged, and one of the values will be retained. The account owner will receive an export during the upgrade to be used as a backup.


Learn more about setting up custom fields here.


Features that you gain after migrating to the latest version of Freshchat (Pro plan)

The Pro plan includes all the changes in the Growth plan and the following:
Features
Status
Description
Answerbot and custom bots
Enhanced with the upgrade
  • Replace legacy chatbots with a modern, AI-powered bot builder to craft sophisticated decision trees (Flows) and natural language processing (NLP) conversations. 
  • Leverage the power of APIs to extend the functionality of your bots to meet all your customer support needs. 
  • Quickly deploy functional bots using prebuilt templates tailored to your business requirements.


Freddy AI
Available only with the upgrade
Use Freddy AI to enable your customers with better self-service, empower your agents with more tools to improve their productivity, and enable your admins to make powerful data-driven decisions.


Start powering your customer service with Freddy AI.

Custom CSS
Enhanced with the upgrade

Customize the appearance of the conversation widget by applying your own CSS style to align its design with your brand identity.

Learn more about bringing your own brand onto the widget.

CSAT on email, Instagram, and WhatsApp.
Enhanced with the upgrade
Utilize Freshchat's CSAT survey to create multiple customized surveys for various use cases and communication channels (WhatsApp, Instagram, and email). Leverage prebuilt survey templates or modify them to meet your specific requirements.


Learn more about tracking customer happiness on all channels.

Cobrowsing
Deprecated
The co-browsing feature will be deprecated. Agents can instead use other third-party apps from the marketplace, which could offer more advanced features, a smoother experience, and video conferencing capabilities.
Email campaigns
Moved inside a different feature (Customer journeys)
  • Email campaigns will now be a part of the customer journeys module from the sidebar to set up visual journeys.
  • Use prebuilt templates called playbooks or build them from scratch using triggers, actions, conditions, and controls to steer their customers (and prospects) through desirable journeys.
Omni route
Deprecated. Feature functionality can be replicated using other tools.
  • Omnichannel routing will be deprecated as part of the upgrade
  • Customers can use assignment rules, Intelliassign, Topics, and skill-based routing to prioritize and assign conversations to the right agents.
Advanced automation app
Customer action required
  • Customers need to update the advanced automation app to work with the latest version of Freshchat.
  • This is specific to customers using the advanced automation app and if any automation rules use custom user properties.


Features that you gain after migrating to the latest version of Freshchat (Enterprise plan)

The Enterprise plan includes all the changes in the Pro plan and the following:
Features
Status
Description
Custom objects
Available only with the upgrade
  • With Freshchat, go the extra mile in customer service with information specific to your business needs, saved as custom objects.
  • Enable your agents with personalized context right within your Team Inbox.
  • Associate custom objects with existing default objects and provide agents with a comprehensive and complete view of the issue raised by your customers. 
Learn more about using custom objects here.
Freddy AI
Available only with the upgrade

Use Freddy AI to enable your customers with better self-service, empower your agents with more tools to improve their productivity, and enable your admins to make powerful data-driven decisions.


Start powering your customer service with Freddy AI.

Skill based round robin routing
Available only with the upgrade
  • With skill-based round-robin routing (SBRR), your customers will always receive responses from the agent best suited for their problem. 
  • SBRR considers each agent's unique skills before assigning incoming conversations.
Trusted IPs
Coming soon, only to the upgraded version

Trusted IPs or the ability to allow only specific IP addresses to contact your team — or, in other words, restrict access to your support using IP addresses are currently unavailable as part of the upgrade but will be made available shortly.

Full contact
Deprecated
The ability to fetch the customer's details, such as their name, contact details, or social media by using their email addresses, will be deprecated with the upgrade.


Discover the Upgraded Freshchat: Elevating Customer Engagement

Exclusive to the new Freshchat account, these features bring a spark to your conversations!


1. Team Inbox

Use one inbox to handle conversations across multiple channels.


Categorize chats similar to Freshdesk tickets, enhancing organization and swift resolution.



 2. CSAT for social media channels

Engage customers through CSAT surveys across WhatsApp, Instagram, and Facebook Messenger, amplifying your reach.



3. Spark UI for Contacts and Accounts

Prepare for a productivity surge! Freshchat comes with a Spark UI experience, an easier, simpler, and faster, way to work with Contacts and Accounts. Spark UI  boosts agent productivity and gives a holistic view of your records. 

The view includes:

  1. Love the spreadsheet experience? Get a spreadsheet-like experience with the Table View

  2. Need additional information about a Contact but don’t want to switch tabs? We’ve got you covered! The Contact Summary view helps you with additional information about a Contact right from the list page!

  3. Create filters and save them as tabs. Feel free to share them with your team or with specific agents!

  4. Whether you’re an agent seeking streamlined insights or an admin trying to enhance support efficiency, the Kanban or Card View lets you group Contacts based on lifecycle stage, territory, source, sales owner, and more fields!

Note: You can customize columns or card fields from a user or admin level. Learn more.


4. Custom modules

Create additional modules, or custom modules, that are relevant to your business process and capture additional information.




5. Customer Journeys

Reach out to your customers for order confirmation, promotional messages across platforms like email and WhatsApp.


6. Skill based round robin routing

Skill-based routing helps,

  • Accelerate Responses: By matching conversations with the most qualified agents, it speeds up resolution times significantly.

  • Prioritize Issue Typesand : It enables the sorting of various issues, ensuring urgent matters are handled promptly, improving customer satisfaction.

  • Maintain Agent Workload: This ensures that agents aren't overwhelmed by balancing the workload evenly among them.



Use IntelliAssign to enable skill based routing. Learn more


7. Admin Settings

The admin interface comes with additional capabilities apart from Chat settings like:

  1. Phone Settings

  2. Default and Custom modules, Tags

  3. Website tracking and APIs

  4. Integrations

  5. Roles and Permissions



8. Advanced Roles

You can fine tune and control access to specific modules within Freshchat, determining who can view, edit, or manage certain sections. Moreover, you can also regulate access to individual fields within these modules, granting or restricting permissions based on the user's role. This enhanced control allows for a more nuanced and secure management of information, ensuring that users only have access to the data necessary for their responsibilities within the product.


9. Freddy AI

Elevate your efficiency and productivity using Freddy AI, Freshworks' generative AI solution. With Freddy AI, unlock intelligent insights that streamline your workflow, providing invaluable time-saving benefits. This cutting-edge AI tool empowers you to make smarter decisions effortlessly, harnessing its capabilities to optimize your operations and enhance overall productivity.


Note: If you have any further questions regarding this, please write to cs-product-upgrades@freshworks.com