How to use Freshdesk AI chatbots to deflect tickets in 2025

If you're on a support team, you know the feeling: the ticket queue is always growing, and your agents are stretched thin. Freshdesk tries to help with its own AI chatbots, promising quick answers for customers and fewer repetitive questions for your team. But does it actually work? How good is it at deflecting tickets, and where does it fall short?

In this guide, we'll get into the nitty-gritty of using Freshdesk AI chatbots to deflect tickets. We’ll look at how its native AI, Freddy, operates, uncover some of the challenges you might not see at first glance, and walk through how you can build a truly smart automation system by adding a dedicated AI tool that plays nicely with everything you already use.

Understanding Freshdesk AI chatbots

Before we jump into the deep end, let's get on the same page. It’s important to understand what Freshdesk’s built-in AI actually is and why everyone keeps talking about "ticket deflection."

Meet Freddy AI, Freshdesk’s native bot

Freddy AI is the brain behind Freshworks' customer service tools, including Freshdesk. Think of it as an engine designed to automate chats, give agents response suggestions, and pull insights from your support data. For a customer, Freddy is usually the chatbot they first interact with. It can answer common questions, point them to the right knowledge base article, or, if it gets stuck, create a ticket for them. The main idea is to offer a self-service option that filters out the simple, repetitive questions before they ever hit a human agent's queue.

Freddy AI engaging with a user to provide information from the knowledge base. Using Freshdesk AI chatbots to deflect tickets starts with a good conversational AI.

What's the big deal with ticket deflection?

Ticket deflection isn't just about making the number of tickets go down. It's about giving customers the power to find answers instantly, which in turn frees up your agents to tackle the tricky problems that need a human touch. When you get deflection right, you'll see some pretty great results:

• Lower costs: Fewer routine tickets means your agents spend less time on copy-paste answers.

• Faster answers for customers: People get help 24/7 without having to wait for an agent to be available.

• Happier customers: A good self-service experience is a huge driver of customer satisfaction (CSAT).

• More productive agents: Your team can focus their brainpower on complex issues where they can make a real difference.

How native Freshdesk AI chatbots work

Freshdesk gives you a few built-in tools to get a chatbot up and running. They’re designed to be fairly straightforward, so you can dip your toes into automation without needing a developer on speed dial. Here’s a rundown of the key parts.

Key self-service features

Freddy AI mainly works by using the content you already have in Freshdesk to hold a conversation. The core features include:

• Figuring out what people mean: The AI uses Natural Language Processing (NLP) to understand a customer's question, even with typos or casual phrasing. It then tries to match what the user wants (their "intent") with the right answer or workflow.

• Tapping into your knowledge base: The chatbot’s main source of truth is your Freshdesk knowledge base. It scans your help articles to pull out answers for common questions.

• Creating tickets when needed: When the bot can't find an answer or the problem is too complicated, it smoothly hands things off by creating a ticket. It will even gather the basic details from the customer first.

• Working across different channels: You can put Freddy AI to work on your website, in your mobile app, or even on platforms like WhatsApp. This gives customers a consistent experience no matter how they reach out.

The no-code bot builder

One of the big draws of Freshdesk is its user-friendly, no-code bot builder. It’s a visual, drag-and-drop tool that lets you map out conversation flows without touching any code. You can build out decision trees, decide which questions the bot should ask, and set rules for when a conversation needs to be passed to a live agent. It’s pretty handy for getting a basic FAQ bot online fast.

Freshdesk's no-code bot builder allows for creating conversation flows with branch logic conditions, a key feature of Freshdesk AI chatbots to deflect tickets.

The sneaky problems with relying only on native Freshdesk AI

Look, Freshdesk's built-in AI is a decent place to start. But if you’re really serious about automation, you’re going to hit a wall pretty quickly. The very simplicity that makes it easy to set up is also its biggest weakness, often leading to vague answers, annoyed customers, and a deflection rate that just stops improving.

Its knowledge is stuck in one place

The biggest issue with Freddy AI is that it pretty much only learns from your Freshdesk knowledge base. But let's be real, your company’s actual knowledge is scattered all over the place, isn't it? It’s in:

• Old ticket conversations that have the perfect solution buried in them.

• Internal how-to guides living in Google Docs or Notion.

• The detailed technical docs your engineers keep in Confluence.

• Countless agent notes and macros.

If your AI can’t tap into all that juicy information, its answers will always be a bit shallow. It ends up having to escalate tickets that it could have solved if it just had the right context, which kind of defeats the whole point.

You don’t get much control or customization

The no-code builder is fine for simple question-and-answer flows, but it often falls short when things get complicated. What if you need the AI to handle a ticket differently for a VIP customer versus a free user? Or what if you want it to check an order status in Shopify before it responds?

Native Freshdesk AI just doesn't offer much wiggle room here. You're mostly stuck with rigid, one-size-fits-all rules. This is a huge contrast to a solution like eesel AI, which gives you a completely customizable workflow engine. With eesel AI, you can set up super-specific automation rules, give your AI a custom persona, and connect to any external tool to pull data or take action in real time. You get full control over the entire experience.

With eesel AI, you can customize workflows and actions, offering more control than native Freshdesk AI chatbots to deflect tickets.

It's hard to test and launch with confidence

How can you be sure your new chatbot is actually ready to talk to customers? With Freshdesk, it’s mostly a process of manual testing and crossing your fingers. There isn’t a great way to see how your AI would have handled last week's tickets before you set it live.

This lack of a safety net is risky. A badly configured bot can easily frustrate customers and hurt your brand's reputation. On the other hand, eesel AI has a powerful simulation mode that lets you test your setup on thousands of your past tickets. You can see exactly how it will reply, get a forecast of your deflection rate, and pinpoint any gaps in its knowledge, all before a single customer ever interacts with it.

eesel AI's simulation mode lets you test your setup on past tickets to forecast the effectiveness of your Freshdesk AI chatbots to deflect tickets.

Supercharging Freshdesk for ticket deflection: How to get it right

To go from deflecting a few simple questions to automating a real chunk of your workload, you need to give Freshdesk a boost with a specialized AI layer. This isn't about ripping out your helpdesk; it's about plugging in a smarter brain that gives your existing setup the intelligence and control it's missing.

Why look beyond the built-in AI?

Teams that invest in third-party AI tools usually do so for three key reasons:

1. Deeper knowledge: They want an AI that can learn from everything, not just the help center.

2. More control: They need to build custom workflows for specific situations that native tools can't support.

3. Smarter actions: They want to automate more than just answers, like routing tickets, updating customer fields, or checking external systems.

The eesel AI advantage: Bringing all your knowledge together

This is where a platform like eesel AI comes in. With its one-click Freshdesk integration, eesel AI immediately starts unifying all your knowledge sources. It trains on your past Freshdesk tickets to pick up your brand's tone and learn common solutions right away. It also connects to tools like Confluence, Google Docs, Notion, and over 100 others. The end result? Your AI has the full picture, allowing it to give accurate, detailed answers that actually solve problems and send your deflection rate soaring.

An infographic showing how eesel AI unifies knowledge from various sources, a key to effectively using Freshdesk AI chatbots to deflect tickets.

Getting full control with a customizable workflow engine

With eesel AI, you're not locked into a rigid system. The platform lets you decide exactly which tickets the AI should handle. You could start small by automating answers for one or two common topics and letting everything else go to your team. As you get more comfortable, you can build out complex rules based on ticket details, customer type, or anything else you can think of. The prompt editor even lets you fine-tune the AI's personality and define custom actions it can take, whether that's escalating a ticket to a specific team or pinging an external API. This detailed level of control makes the AI feel like a true extension of your team.

This workflow illustrates how eesel AI provides a customizable engine to supercharge Freshdesk AI chatbots to deflect tickets.

Comparing pricing: Native AI vs. a dedicated AI layer

Alright, let's talk money. Cost is obviously a big piece of the puzzle, and Freshdesk’s pricing is structured very differently from dedicated platforms like eesel AI. Understanding this can save you from some nasty surprises down the road.

How Freshdesk prices its AI

Freshdesk often prices its AI features, like the Freddy AI Agent, based on sessions. A "session" is basically a single conversation between a user and the bot. Their higher-tier plans include a certain number of sessions, but once you go over that, you start paying for more (for instance, $100 for every 1,000 extra sessions). The AI Copilot for agents is usually a separate add-on that you pay for per agent, each month.

This usage-based model can get unpredictable and pricey. If you have a busy month, your bill could shoot up, effectively penalizing you for engaging with more customers.

eesel AI's simple, predictable pricing

In contrast, eesel AI offers transparent, plan-based pricing with no fees per resolution. The plans are based on a generous monthly number of AI interactions (like a reply or an action), so your bill is always predictable. This lets you scale up your support without worrying that a successful month will lead to a massive, unexpected cost. All the main tools, including the AI Agent, Copilot, and Triage, are included in every plan.

eesel AI's transparent pricing page offers a predictable alternative to Freshdesk's session-based model for Freshdesk AI chatbots to deflect tickets.

This straightforward approach makes it much easier to budget for your AI tools and see a clear return on your investment.

Moving from basic answers to smart automation

Using Freshdesk AI chatbots to deflect tickets is a solid first step for any support team looking to work smarter. The native Freddy AI and its no-code builder give you an easy way to start automating away some of the simple, repetitive questions.

But to really make a dent in your ticket volume and keep customers happy, you need to move past the limits of a single knowledge base and rigid rules. The future of customer support isn't just about deflecting tickets; it's about intelligent automation.

By adding a powerful AI layer like eesel AI, you can turn your Freshdesk setup into a smart, context-aware support machine. It unifies all your knowledge, gives you complete control over your workflows, and lets you test everything safely before launch. It’s about building a customer experience that’s not only efficient but genuinely helpful.

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