A guide to the Freshdesk portal: Add a support widget to your website

So, you're looking to put a support widget on your website. Good call. It's one of the best ways to give your customers answers right where they are, improving customer satisfaction and saving your team some precious time.

The native Freshdesk help widget is a popular first stop for this. It connects your website directly to your support portal, letting customers search for help articles or submit a ticket without having to open a new tab. It’s a solid, straightforward tool.

As customer support evolves, many teams are looking for ways to make their help options even more conversational and smart, pulling answers from various internal sources. The good news? You can get that level of AI-powered help while continuing to use the reliable help desk you already trust.

What is the Freshdesk help widget?

The Freshdesk help widget is a small, embeddable tool that acts as a bridge between your website and your Freshdesk support portal. Think of it as a little window that lets your customers peek into your support content without leaving the page they're on.

It’s built to do two main things:

1. Ticket Submission: It gives customers a contact form to create new support tickets. This is very convenient as it keeps customers on your site while they reach out for help.

2. Self-Service: It has a search bar that lets customers look up and read articles from your Freshdesk knowledge base. This helps them find their own answers to common questions, which is a win-win.

At its heart, it’s a dependable self-service portal. A customer types in a question, and the widget serves up a list of matching articles. It’s a direct lookup that points them to the helpful content you’ve already written in your Freshdesk instance.

Key features of the Freshdesk help widget

The native widget comes with a solid set of features for getting a support option on your site. It is designed to be reliable as you grow your support operations.

Integrated contact form

The most obvious benefit of the widget is letting users submit tickets from any page on your site. You can set it up as a simple form with the basics (name, email, subject, description) or use a more detailed one that includes all the custom ticket fields you've set up in Freshdesk.

It also has options for letting customers attach files and for enabling a CAPTCHA to keep your queue organized. It’s a functional way to grab support requests right when they happen.

Knowledge base access

This is the self-service part of the widget. It brings your solution articles to the forefront, letting customers search for answers before they decide to reach out. Freshdesk gives you two ways to set this up:

• Neutral: This mode shows both the search bar for articles and a "Contact us" button. It gives the customer the choice.

• Optimized for deflection: This mode is a little more assertive. It encourages the user to search for an article first, showing the contact form after they’ve had a chance to review your knowledge base content.

This system works best when you have a well-maintained knowledge base. Freshdesk provides an excellent platform for hosting this content, ensuring that customers who use the right keywords can find exactly what they need immediately.

Widget customization

You can tweak the widget to better match your brand’s look and feel. Freshdesk lets you change the widget's color, its position on the page (bottom-left or bottom-right), and the text on the button that opens it.

Freshdesk offers tiered plans to match different team sizes. If you want to customize the branding further, those options are available on the Growth plan and higher, allowing for a more seamless brand experience.

Advanced API control

For teams with developers, Freshdesk offers a Widget API. This lets you do things like programmatically pre-fill form fields, hide certain options based on who the user is, or even authenticate logged-in users to show them restricted articles.

This is a powerful feature for teams with the technical resources to build deeply customized workflows, allowing the widget to be adapted to very specific business needs.

How to add the Freshdesk support widget to your website

Getting the Freshdesk widget running on your site is a standard process. Here’s a quick rundown of the steps:

1. First, log into your Freshdesk account and head to Admin > Channels > Widgets.

2. From there, you can create a new widget or edit an existing one. You'll set up its content and its appearance.

3. Once you’re happy with it, go to the Embed code tab and copy the JavaScript snippet provided.

4. Finally, paste this code into your website's HTML. The usual spot is right before the closing "body" tag on every page where you want the widget to appear.

graph TD A[Log into Freshdesk] --> B{Go to Admin > Channels > Widgets}; B --> C[Create or Edit Widget]; C --> D[Customize Content & Appearance]; D --> E[Copy Embed Code]; E --> F[Paste code into website HTML before /body]; F --> G[Widget is live on site];

If your site is built on a platform like WordPress or Shopify, the process is even easier. WordPress has an official Freshdesk plugin that simplifies things, and on Shopify, you’d typically add the code to your theme’s footer file.

This approach provides a stable container for your support content. Because the widget is connected directly to Freshdesk, any updates you make to your articles in the main dashboard are reflected for your customers.

Considerations for the Freshdesk help widget

The Freshdesk widget is a great foundation for self-service. As your support needs become more complex, you might look for ways to expand its capabilities.

Focusing on curated knowledge

The widget is excellent at finding answers within your up-to-date knowledge base articles. To ensure its success, teams typically focus on documenting their most frequent resolutions. While it primarily looks at solution articles, it provides a very reliable experience for customers seeking documented information.

Evolution into conversational support

The Freshdesk widget is a powerful search and submission tool. While it is built for keyword-based search rather than being an intelligent chatbot, it serves its purpose perfectly by directing users to the right resources. For teams that want to add multi-step troubleshooting, Freshdesk offers a mature ecosystem of integrations.

Expanding your knowledge reach

Your company’s knowledge is often spread across various platforms. While the Freshdesk widget focuses on the help desk content, Freshdesk’s impressive marketplace allows you to connect other tools. This ensures that while the widget handles the frontline ticketing, you can still leverage information from Google Docs or Confluence through various add-ons.

A complementary option

This is where a tool like eesel AI can be a great addition. It isn’t a replacement for your help desk; it’s a complementary layer that integrates directly with Freshdesk to enhance the user experience.

• Unify your knowledge: eesel AI works alongside your Freshdesk knowledge base and past tickets. It can also connect to other sources like Confluence and Slack to help provide comprehensive answers.

• Quick setup: eesel AI is designed to be easy to use. You can connect your help desk and have an AI agent ready to assist your team in a very short amount of time.

• Simulation mode: You can test your setup on past tickets to see how it would have responded. This allows you to forecast impact safely while maintaining the reliability of your Freshdesk setup.

Freshdesk pricing overview

Freshdesk offers tiered pricing plans to match different team sizes and needs. This structure allows businesses to choose the features that best fit their current stage of growth.

Plan	Price (Billed Annually)	Key Features
Growth	$15/agent/month	Ticketing, Knowledge Base, Reports
Pro	$49/agent/month	Everything in Growth + Custom Objects, Advanced Routing
Enterprise	$79/agent/month	Everything in Pro + Audit Logs, Skill-based Assignment

Freshdesk also offers flexible AI options through "Freddy AI":

• Freddy AI Copilot: Available for $29/agent/month, providing helpful agent-assist features.

• Freddy AI Agent: Designed for automated resolutions, with pricing that scales based on your usage needs.

This modular approach lets you pay for exactly what you need. For those who prefer a different structure, platforms like eesel AI offer all-inclusive plans that can work alongside your Freshdesk subscription.

A smarter way to enhance your Freshdesk support

The native Freshdesk widget is a reliable and functional tool for offering self-service. It effectively brings a contact form and your knowledge base search to your website, providing a great starting point for any support team.

By combining the mature, trusted platform of Freshdesk with modern AI enhancements, you can create an even more responsive support experience. Using an AI layer allows you to leverage all your company's knowledge while keeping Freshdesk as your central source of truth for ticketing.

eesel AI is a fantastic partner for your Freshdesk setup. It enhances the help desk you already have, providing top-tier AI capabilities without requiring you to change your existing workflows. You get the proven power of Freshdesk for managing customer relations and the added intelligence of eesel AI for your frontline support.

Ready to see how you can further enhance your widget? Connect your Freshdesk account to eesel AI today and see the impact on your real support tickets for free.