G2

Jared M.

IT Operations & Client Solution Manager

Information Technology and Services

Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.)

10/24/2026

Business partner of the seller or seller's competitor, not included in G2 scores.

Guest users or non-business users of the software, not included in G2 scores.

"Freshsales Keeps CRM, Calls, and Deal Automation Perfectly in Sync"

4/5

What do you like best about Freshsales?

As IT Operations & Client Solution Manager at NovaTech Consulting Partners, I value Freshsales most for its native blend of CRM contact tracking and deal pipeline automation, which fits our workflow of rolling out cloud infrastructure and managed IT support packages for small business clients. We juggle multiple consultation threads, scoping calls, quote approvals and onboarding handoffs, and this platform ties every interaction directly to the relevant prospect or active customer record. Its custom sales sequence builder lets me design step-by-step outreach flows tailored to our IT service offerings. For example, when we were pitching a bundled cloud migration and endpoint protection plan for a local dental clinic, I built a sequence that sent technical overview documents, scheduled discovery calls, and followed up on quote feedback automatically. This structured automation cuts roughly three hours weekly that I once spent drafting and sending individual follow-up emails across our prospect list.

I also rely heavily on its built-in phone dialer and call logging functionality. Many of our SMB clients prefer quick voice check-ins to clarify server setup timelines or ticket escalation priorities. Every outbound call from Freshsales attaches a transcript and call notes straight to the contact profile, so our support engineers can review prior discussions before stepping into a client ticket. This removes gaps in context that often pop up when team members rotate across accounts. We no longer depend on scattered notebook entries or separate call logs to recap what was agreed during technical scoping sessions.

An unexpected benefit we uncovered over time is how well its alerting system pairs with our existing ticketing platform. We set up webhook triggers so that whenever a client marks a deal as ready for onboarding, Freshsales pushes that record to our support queue and flags our engineers to begin environment prep. This link eliminates the manual handoff email that previously sat between our sales consultation phase and delivery team. During our busiest quarter last year, this automation kept onboarding timelines consistent even when our consulting roster expanded quickly.

Our boutique IT firm does not have dedicated security staff, and the granular permission controls let me restrict sensitive client infrastructure details only to engineers assigned to that account. We can hide pricing and contract fields from junior support staff while still letting them access contact history for troubleshooting. Freshsales is not a replacement for our specialized monitoring and ticketing tools, so we still feed post-deployment performance data back into client records manually. Even with that limitation, it brings cohesion to our client acquisition and onboarding pipeline. It keeps conversation history, quote status, and deal milestones centralized, reduces repetitive outreach work, and helps our small team maintain clear visibility into every IT consulting engagement amid packed delivery schedules. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What do you dislike about Freshsales?

As IT Operations & Client Solution Manager at NovaTech Consulting Partners, the biggest shortcoming of Freshsales for our boutique IT consulting practice is its rigid reporting engine, which struggles to produce service-focused metrics aligned with our managed IT and cloud setup engagements. We need to track KPIs such as time from initial discovery call to signed SLA, pipeline split between cloud migration projects and routine support retainers, and how many leads convert after technical assessment sessions. The default report templates are built around generic sales metrics and lack flexible tagging to separate these distinct service lines. Earlier this quarter, we ran a campaign targeting regional retail businesses for endpoint security upgrades. I wanted to isolate all deals under that service category to measure conversion rates and average quote value, but there was no simple filter to pull this dataset. I had to export all deal records to a spreadsheet and build custom pivot tables, matching each entry against our service labels one by one. This manual sorting occupied more than three hours of my week that I would otherwise allocate to coordinating engineer schedules and reviewing client security readiness checklists.

I also find the workflow builder limited when handling multi-stage technical onboarding sequences. Our delivery process often requires conditional branching: if a client already hosts their servers on AWS, we trigger one set of follow-up tasks; if they run an on-premises environment, we launch a different scoping workflow. Freshsales automation rules only support simple if/then logic and cannot layer multiple dependent conditions seamlessly. When we took on a group of five small-office clients in one batch, I was forced to create duplicate workflows for each infrastructure scenario, which made updates cumbersome. Every time we revised our onboarding checklist, I needed to edit each workflow separately, raising the risk of inconsistent steps reaching our clients.

Another frustrating gap is its weak native ticketing sync with our support stack. While webhooks let us push deal data outward, inbound ticket updates cannot feed back into the corresponding Freshsales contact or deal card. When our engineers resolve a critical server outage for an active customer, that resolution note does not populate the CRM automatically. I have to copy ticket summaries into the client record manually, which creates delays and increases the chance of losing context for renewal discussions.

One small positive outcome from these constraints is that our team adopted a standardized naming schema for deals and tags. This consistent labelling makes the exported datasets easier to parse and reduces mismatches when we compile our custom performance reports outside the platform. Since our firm operates without dedicated security or development staff, we cannot build complex middleware to bridge these functionality gaps. If Freshsales added multi-condition workflow branching, service-category report filters, and bidirectional sync for support tickets, it would fit our IT consulting delivery model far better. As it stands, these limitations force constant manual exports and duplicate workflow maintenance, adding administrative overhead when our project delivery calendar is already stretched thin. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What problems is Freshsales solving and how is that benefiting you?

Before rolling out Freshsales at NovaTech Consulting Partners, our prospect and customer data was scattered across separate email threads, spreadsheets and our support ticketing platform. As IT Operations & Client Solution Manager, I oversee consulting projects for small businesses needing cloud deployments, endpoint security setup and ongoing managed IT support. Before this CRM, sales conversations, quote drafts and discovery call notes lived in disconnected places. When an engineer stepped into a new client engagement, they often lacked full background on prior discussions, leading to repeated questions and slower scoping work. Freshsales unifies all client-facing records in a single location and eliminates the friction caused by jumping between disjointed tools during our sales and onboarding cycle.

Its deal pipeline and native activity logging form the core of this improvement. Every call, email and quote update attaches directly to the corresponding deal card. During a recent engagement with a local accounting firm seeking cloud migration, we logged discovery notes, SLA drafts and security assessment results all within one record. Our consulting team could review the full history before the kickoff meeting without reaching out to me for context. This centralized tracking cuts roughly three hours weekly that I previously spent forwarding old messages and compiling background summaries for our engineers.

The built-in sales sequence automation addresses another persistent pain point: inconsistent follow-up with warm leads. Many small-business prospects take weeks to evaluate IT services, and our team used to miss check-ins amid urgent break-fix tickets for existing clients. I build tailored sequences that send technical briefs, scheduling links and quote reminders at staggered intervals. The system handles these touches automatically, so leads do not fall out of the pipeline just because our team is occupied with emergency support work.

An unexpected benefit we found over time is the contact assignment and access control structure. Since we have no dedicated security staff, we need to limit exposure of sensitive client infrastructure details. I can assign accounts to specific engineers, restricting visibility so only the assigned team can view contract terms and environment details, while general reception staff still see basic contact information for scheduling. This granular separation keeps sensitive client data contained without complicating our day-to-day handoffs.

This CRM does not replace our monitoring or ticketing tools, so we still manually input post-launch service updates back into client profiles. Even with that limitation, Freshsales stabilizes our front-end client workflow. It removes information silos between our sales and delivery teams, standardizes lead follow-up cadences, and keeps critical client history readily available. That consistency helps our lean consulting group deliver smoother scoping and onboarding, even when our schedule is packed with overlapping cloud and security implementation projects. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.