Contacts & Companies

There are multiple ways in which a contact is created in Freshdesk.

1. When a customer submits a ticket he is automatically added as a contact in Freshdesk
2. An agent can add a contact with the help of the Quick Create option under the customer's tab - by providing the Contact Name and Email Address/Phone Number.
3. Agent can click on New Contact option under the customer's tab to create contact.
4. A CSV file with a list of all contacts can be imported to bulk create contacts.

There is no restriction in Freshdesk regarding the number of customers you could add to your account. 

Please navigate to the customers' tab on the global header and click on "new contact" to add them. You could add unlimited contacts to your account using the "Quick Create" section in the customers' tab or by using the "Import" contacts to your account.

For all account in the Estate and Forest plan you can add upto 300 companies for a single contact.

Customers in Freshdesk are any contacts who are added to your account, available under the Customers' tab. On the other hand, Requesters are those customers who have raised a particular ticket with you through Freshdesk.

With regards to reports and filters, Customers would refer to the Companies listed under the Customers' tab -> Companies. 

On the classic version of Freshdesk, this error means that the email address you're trying to save is already saved as either a contact or agent in Freshdesk. When you get the error, you'll find a link next to it to 'view user' which would redirect to the contact's profile. 

Please use the option 'Convert to agent' on the top right side of the page to add this contact as an agent. Once this is done, please navigate to Admin > Team > Agents > click on Edit next to this newly added one > and change the profile details of this particular agent. 

If you are using Freshdesk on Mint, once you enter the email address, the system will check if this is an existing user on your account. If so, you will be notified of the same. You can search for the contact and use the 'Convert to agent' button to convert that contact into an agent.

If the email address is new, you will get the option to enter further details - Full name, Work number, Mobile number and Title.

When a new contact is linked to a company, the tickets that are raised by that contact will automatically get linked to the Company as well. Once a ticket is linked to a company, even if the contact is associated to a different company on a later date, the ticket will remain with that old company.

There are three primary ways in which a Company can be added in Freshdesk

1. Manually add a company using the 'New Company' option under the Customer's tab
2. Automatically add Company when importing contacts
3. Bulk import Companies using a CSV file

If you are on Freshdesk Mint, you would be able to find the 'New Company' button under the 'New' dropdown on the top right corner near the 'Search' icon.

The tickets that the contact creates in future will not be marked as Spam. The tickets will be considered as valid tickets because Freshdesk would have no records of the contact and would not be able to spam the tickets automatically.

This can be done by navigating to Customers-> Contacts and choose the contact and clicking on the send activation email option. This will send a secure link to the customer's email, which they can use to set up a password. Your customers can then log in to the portal using these credentials.

You can edit a contact and add the new email address as a secondary email address. You can then change the new email address to be the primary email address. Once this change is made, you can choose to delete the secondary (old)email address or retain it for record keeping purpose.

Under the Customers tab, when you hover over an unverified contact, you will find an option to 'Send activation email'. Clicking on it will trigger an activation email to the respective contact.

Note:

It is not possible to re-send the activation link for a verified contact this way. However, you would be able to change the password share it with them or the contact could directly trigger a password reset.

As an Admin, you will have the option to set a password for your customers, using which they can log in to your Support Portal. 

To do this, please go to Customers tab > click on a contact name > Change Password. On the following page, you can set the new password that the customer can use for future logins.

If you are using Freshdesk on Mint, you will find your contacts under the Contacts tab from the left panel.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XDOm5iI9bqU&t=1s

When there's a large customer base, your clients might want to keep track of all the tickets raised from their company. There will be managers or employees at the VP level, who will want to get a list of tickets raised from their company. This is possible with a feature called 'Allow this contact to view all tickets from this company' which can be enabled on the contact details page.

Please click on the 'Edit' option against the contact that has to have this option enabled and click on the ticket icon next to the company field. Enabling this would allow the contact to view all tickets from that company.

Please navigate to Customers --> Contact Name --> Edit(corresponding to the contact name) --> and click on the "Minus sign" to remove the Company associated with the contact. This would remove a company that was associated with the contact.

We do have an option to link one contact with multiple companies. However this feature is available as a part of Estate and Forest Plan. Click here to get more information on the same.

Please navigate to Customers' tab -> click on the contact that needs to be associated with more than one company -> click on Edit so that you would be taken to that contact's profile. 

In the "edit contact" page, kindly scroll down to the company field to find a dropdown where you could add multiple companies.

You can make use of the Time Sheet summary report to get this data. Choose the date and the customer in the filters and export the report from Reports > Time sheet summary. 

Please navigate to Admin --> Support Operations --> Customer Fields. Under the Contacts tab, scroll down to the Company --> Change. Disable the option "Associate one contact with multiple companies". This would remove the functionality to associate one contact with multiple companies for your account.

When a contact is deleted we do not permanently purge the contacts. Instead it is moved to the Deleted contacts list on the Customers tab. You can restore the contact from under Customers > Contacts > Showing: Deleted to continue using it.

You can delete a contact in two ways in Freshdesk:

Delete (soft delete)

Delete forever(hard delete)

Delete (soft delete) 

Soft deletion moves the contact from the All Contacts page to Deleted Contacts view, and any future communication from the contact will be directed to the SPAM folder. All the tickets raised by the contact before deletion will remain in Freshdesk.

Following the steps below to soft delete a contact in Freshdesk,

1. Navigate to the left Menu bar, click on the People icon() and select the Contacts tab. 

2. Select one or more Contacts you wish to delete by clicking on the checkboxes adjacent to their name.

3. Click on the Delete button on the top bar.

4. Click Confirm on the prompt that appears.
   
   

   

In case of accidental deletion, you can restore the contact back from the Deleted Contacts list. 

Delete forever(hard delete)

Hard deletion permanently deletes the Contact from the Freshdesk and removes their profile, along with their tickets, calls, forum topics and comments, satisfaction ratings, todos, and notes. 

Permanently delete contacts from your Freshdesk account by following these steps.

1. Navigate to the left Menu bar, click on the People icon() and select the Contacts tab. 

2. Click on the Filter icon () on the All Contacts page and select the Deleted Contacts view.

3. Click on the Contact’s name you wish to delete permanently.

4. Click the Delete forever button from the top bar.

5. Click DELETE FOREVER on the prompt that appears.
   
   

   

Once you hard delete a Contact, it will take a few seconds for the contact to be removed entirely from Freshdesk. During this time, the contact will be inaccessible.

You can also use Freshdesk APIs to delete the contacts from the backend. Learn more about Freshdesk APIs to perform operations such as reading, modifying, adding, or deleting data from your helpdesk. At the moment, Freshdesk allows individually deleting contacts from the system rather than in bulk.

Please write to support@freshdesk.com for any further clarifications.

Contacts in Freshdesk can be deleted only per page (each page would contain 50 contacts). Once deleted all tickets raised by that contact will be directed to the Spam folder. However, you cannot permanently delete contacts in bulk. This would have to be done one contact at a time from the deleted contact's profile. 

In Freshdesk, we never permanently purge the contacts. If you delete a contact, it is still visible under the Deleted contacts list on the Customers tab. 

Please navigate to the Customers' tab -> click on Contacts -> and go to the Showing dropdown: choose Deleted and restore the contact to continue using it.

Yes, we do have an option to add a profile picture for a contact. When you edit a contact from under the Customers tab, you will see an option on the top left corner to add the picture.

As a recent user of Freshdesk, you would want to bring in all your contacts into the portal and while doing that - you get an error on the customers' tab saying "an import is already running." This is because while uploading the CSV (or excel) file, there would have been a technical glitch which would block the import. Kindly contact support (support@freshdesk.com) and ask them to kill this so that you could import the file again. 

Another recommendation would be to check the solution article in the "file import" page which would give you specifications about the various parameters in the file. 

The unverified contacts are the contacts who have not activated their email address or have never logged into Freshdesk. You can resend the activation emails for these contacts and they can verify their account by clicking on the activation url.

• Go to the Customers tab > Contacts
• Click on the hamburger menu in this page and then choose 'Unverified Contacts' from the various lists

• All the contacts that are unverified on your helpdesk will show up 
• Click on or check the required contacts from the list and hit the 'Send activation email' button 

If a verified contact is unable to access their account, an agent can either set a password on their behalf and share it with them or trigger a password reset by going to the customer portal and clicking on the 'Forgot password' link.

In a helpdesk, a contact is a customer who sends in support tickets through the many channels you have enabled in Freshdesk. They can submit tickets, check their ticket status, read articles, participate in forum discussions, etc. 

When you delete a contact in Freshdesk, their information is not entirely purged from the system initially. Instead, the system will move the contact to the "Deleted Contacts” list in Freshdesk, and you can restore these contacts as and when needed.

Note: Any future communication from a deleted contact will be directed to the SPAM folder.

Please navigate to Admin -> Support Operations -> Customer Fields -> click on the companies tab where you could add the custom field. 

In this page, there is the "Drag & Drop field" column, where the various kinds of fields could be used to create this field. 

Furthermore, you could trigger an automation based on this Company Field.

You can export your contacts to a CSV file from under the Customer's tab. When a contact export is triggered, an email is sent to the event performing agent with the link to download the CSV file.

If you already have an existing database of contact information, you could import the same onto your Freshdesk Account, from under Customers-->Import. You would have to upload a .csv file containing the contact information and map the columns to contact fields on your account.

Once this is done, the contact information would be uploaded into your Freshdesk Account and would be accessible from under the Customers Tab. The Activation Email would not be automatically sent to the contacts from your Freshdesk, while being imported.

There will not be any duplicates contacts created. When you import, the existing contacts will be updated if there are different details for the email address. If not, that particular contact will be skipped.

If you accidentally delete a contact and wish to recover it, you can do so by using the Restore button of the contact. However, you cannot restore once you permanently delete a contact after clicking the Delete forever button.

Please follow the steps below to restore a contact in Freshdesk.

1. Navigate to People icon from the menu and select Contacts.

2. Click on the hamburger icon on the top left corner.

3. Select the Deleted Contacts option to list all the soft-deleted contacts.

4. Select the checkbox next to the contact that you want to restore and press the Restore button.
   
   

Your deleted contact will now be restored, and you can find them under the All Contacts view.

Timeline section will include the activity of the customer in Forums as well, in addition to the recent Tickets that he/she has raised. The Tickets section is exclusively for tickets. In the below screenshot, you see that the customer's reply in Forums is also available in the Timeline section :