Harriet vs Freshdesk
Harriet replaces Freshdesk with something employees understand — and HR can run.
When to Choose Harriet
- You’ve outgrown Freshdesk’s customer service interface — and your employees are confused by it.
- You want true AI enablement, so internal teams can self-serve, tickets can be auto-triaged and assigned and you can collaborate with as many people as you want without paying extra. (And Freddy AI isn't cutting it).
- You need something HR can own and IT can trust — with proper controls, privacy, and cross-team routing.
Harriet doesn't sit in silo
It supports:
- HR — with sensitive data handling and policy nuance
- IT — with multichannel intake across slack, email, teams, text message, whatsapp or embedded website widget and smart routing
- Employees — with instant answers to everyday questions
70% of tickets resolved automatically
- Employees get instant answers
- Easy escalation and resolution of complex queries - with auto-triaging and AI drafting.
- HR get their time back and IT doesn’t need to intervene
âť“FAQs
Q: Our customer support team uses Zendesk — why not keep it consistent?
A: Zendesk was built to serve external customers. Internal teams need a different experience: private, HR-safe, human in the loop and tightly integrated. Harriet delivers that — out of the box.
Q: Isn’t Freshdesk already “AI-powered”?
A: On paper. In practice, customers report that Freddy AI doesn’t deliver value — especially not for internal use cases. Harriet is AI-native and delivers 70% ticket deflection from day one.
Q: Is Harriet secure and enterprise-ready?
A: Yes. Harriet is SOC 2 compliant, supports role-based access, SSO (including Okta), and department-level data controls.
Q: How fast can we go live?
A: We can move as fast as you can. Our fastest has been under a week. But usually our customers like to slow it down so they can pace roll out. We can help with that too. The main this is there is no delay on our side - no multi-month projects, no admin backlog.
Q: Can HR run this without IT?
A: Yes — Harriet is designed for HR and IT oversight. You keep control of integrations and identity. HR runs the workflows and content. You can split workstreams and tickets - and each can be private from the other.
Q: Does this need lots of our Dev time to get up and running
No! It doesn't! We do all the config. All we need from you is what you need integrated.
We used Freshservice because IT had it. But HR found the language confusing and employees didn’t engage. Even IT didn’t like it. Harriet gave us the clarity, automation, and integration we actually needed — across both teams.