Freshdesk small talk for bots

Let's be real for a second. Nobody actually enjoys talking to a robot that sounds like a robot. We've all been stuck in that chatbot loop, right? You ask a question, and it spits back the same scripted, unhelpful answer over and over. It's frustrating, and it’s a perfect example of why a chatbot's personality can be just as important as its programming.

This is where "small talk" enters the picture.

We’re going to walk through what Freshdesk's native small talk feature is, how to get it up and running, and, more importantly, where it starts to fall short. We'll also get into how you can build a genuinely smart conversational experience without having to leave your Freshdesk setup.

What is Freshdesk small talk for bots?

At its core, Freshdesk small talk for bots is a built-in feature designed to make chatbot interactions feel a bit less, well, robotic. It's a part of the broader "Freddy AI" suite and is basically programmed to handle friendly, non-work-related chatter. Think of simple things like "hello," "how are you?" or "thanks!"

The main idea is to stop the bot from giving a cold shoulder with a "I do not compute" response when a customer is just being polite. It’s like teaching a robot basic table manners before you send it out to do its job. It's a nice touch, for sure. It can soften the edges of an automated chat and make the whole experience feel less stiff.

How to configure your native Freshdesk small talk for bots

Setting up the basic small talk feature in Freshdesk is pretty straightforward. The real trick is getting it to work well. And that all comes down to the quality of the data you feed it.

Finding the bot builder

First things first, you need to get to the bot builder. If you're an admin in Freshdesk, you can usually get there by going to Admin Settings > Freddy > Agent Assist bot or a similar spot under the AI settings. This is your command center for creating and tweaking your bot's behavior, from its main functions to its conversational style.

Training your bot with answers and knowledge

As one smart user pointed out in a Reddit thread, when you're training AI, it's 'garbage in, garbage out.'

Reddit

A bot is only as good as the information you give it. Freshdesk bots mostly learn from static sources, like your solution articles, Q&As you write by hand, and other official documents. You have to think up questions and all their possible variations just to help the bot understand how real people talk. If your help center is a bit of a mess, your bot will be, too.

Turning on the small talk feature

Once you're inside the bot builder, enabling small talk is usually as easy as flipping a switch. You should see a toggle to turn on the pre-built small talk library. From there, you can tweak some of the bot's default messages for greetings, requests for feedback, and "I'm stuck" responses so they sound more like your brand.

A look at the toggle switch to enable Freshdesk small talk for bots.

The hidden problems with pre-scripted small talk

While a polite bot sounds great on paper, relying on pre-scripted answers can completely backfire and create the exact kind of headache you were trying to avoid.

The trouble with static knowledge

That "garbage in, garbage out" problem is a real hurdle for a lot of teams. Keeping a knowledge base perfectly polished and up-to-date is a huge job, and it often gets pushed down the to-do list. When your bot is trained only on these official docs, it has no idea how to answer questions about problems that aren't documented yet or have solutions that are now outdated.

A lack of real understanding

Pre-scripted bots don't really understand conversations; they just match keywords. This is why they can feel so clunky and disconnected from what you're actually saying. You've probably seen this happen.

A user on Reddit shared a story about how their company's AI bot would jump into Slack conversations with random links anytime it saw a company acronym, even if the team was just talking about their vacation plans.

Reddit

That's a classic sign of a bot that has zero context. It can also lead to bigger issues, like a bot that constantly escalates simple tickets because it can't figure out what the user wants. This just creates more work for your team and leaves customers feeling ignored.

The danger of "bad deflection"

There’s a huge difference between good deflection and bad deflection. Good deflection is when a chatbot actually solves a customer's problem, leaving them satisfied and saving your team valuable time. Bad deflection is when a customer gets so annoyed with the bot that they just give up and leave, possibly for good.

A bot that can't solve a problem and just keeps repeating the same scripted phrases creates a terrible experience. By the time that person finally gets through to a human agent, they're already fuming. This not only damages your brand but also adds a lot of stress to your support team's day.

A better way: Building truly conversational AI

The good news is you don’t have to settle for a basic bot, and you definitely don't need to replace your entire helpdesk. Modern AI platforms can plug right into Freshdesk and create a much smarter, more capable experience.

Train your AI on real conversations, not just static docs

This is where a tool like eesel AI really shifts the perspective. Instead of leaning only on your help center articles, eesel AI learns from the best source of knowledge you have: your past support tickets.

By analyzing thousands of real conversations, the AI learns your brand's actual voice, understands complex fixes that were never written down, and gets the context of how your team truly helps customers. It’s less like digitizing your FAQ page and more like cloning your best agent. Your bot learns from real-world success, all without you having to manually write hundreds of question-and-answer pairs.

Test performance with confidence before going live

One of the biggest fears when launching a support bot is that it will go rogue and start frustrating customers. eesel AI tackles this fear head-on with a powerful simulation mode.

Before the bot ever interacts with a live customer, you can run it against thousands of your past tickets in a safe environment. You get to see exactly how it would have replied, what its resolution rate would be, and where it might need a little fine-tuning. This lets you build confidence in the AI without risking a single bad customer interaction, a feature that’s a world away from the "cross your fingers and hope for the best" method of many built-in tools.

Get total control over your bot's personality and actions

Moving beyond pre-scripted small talk is essential. With eesel AI's prompt editor, you can define a detailed persona for your bot, set specific rules for when it should escalate a ticket, and build custom actions that give it real capabilities.

For example, you could tell the AI to only handle certain ticket types, like "order status inquiries," and immediately pass everything else to a human. Or, you could connect it to your other systems, letting it perform API calls to look up order details in Shopify or check a user's subscription status on the fly. This level of deep customization and workflow integration is something most basic, pre-configured bots just can't do.

Comparing Freshdesk pricing and alternatives

When you're looking at AI solutions, it's important to understand the costs involved. Freshdesk's pricing often has multiple layers. Features like Freddy AI Copilot are usually an add-on, costing an extra $29 per agent, per month on top of a Pro or Enterprise plan.

For their autonomous Freddy AI Agent, they use a session-based model, charging $100 per 1,000 sessions. A "session" might be a single email response or a 24-hour chat conversation. This can make costs hard to predict, especially when you get a sudden rush of tickets.

In contrast, eesel AI offers a simple, all-in-one pricing model. Plans are based on a flat monthly fee for a certain number of AI interactions, and they include all the core products: AI Agent, Copilot, Triage, and more. There are no surprise per-resolution fees, which makes budgeting a whole lot easier to manage as you grow.

This video provides a comprehensive walkthrough of Freshdesk, perfect for anyone looking to understand the platform's core features beyond just Freshdesk small talk for bots.

Move beyond basic Freshdesk small talk for bots

Flipping the switch on Freshdesk's native small talk feature is a decent first step, but it’s really a surface-level fix for a much deeper problem. Truly effective support automation isn't about teaching a bot to say "hello." It's about building an AI that understands context, solves real problems, and learns from your team's collective wisdom.

To get there, you need an AI that learns from real-world data, can be tested safely, and offers deep, flexible customization. The goal isn't just to deflect tickets; it's to provide fast, accurate, and helpful resolutions that make your customers' lives easier.

So instead of settling for a bot that just has good manners, think about building one that's genuinely helpful. See how eesel AI can upgrade your Freshdesk automation in just a few minutes.