Customer fields in Freshdesk are highly customizable and can represent all your customer data in a bespoke, robust schema.
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Before you begin
This article is the first in a series about Managing your Customers.
- Manage your Customer Data Schema—understand contacts, companies, and their respective fields.
- Manage Customer Data in Freshdesk—understand how to create, edit, delete, and manage contacts and companies.
- Personalize support using Customer Segments—filter and group customers and create automations and self service for them.
About Contacts and Companies
In Freshdesk, your customers are represented as Contacts and Companies.
- A Contact is a single person, identified by their email address. Freshdesk automatically creates a contact for every new user who sends an email or submits a ticket.
- A Company is a group of contacts from the same organization. Freshdesk automatically associates contacts with a company based on their registered domain name.
For both, Freshdesk provides a list of default fields. If you're on paid plans, you can also create custom fields.
Manage your schema with customer fields
Customer information is captured in a number of fields in both contacts and companies. If you're on the Growth plan or above, you can also create custom fields to capture specific information relevant to your business.
Default contact and company fields
You can view the default contact fields by going to Admin > Support Operations > Customer Fields and selecting the Contacts tab.
To view the default company fields, select the Companies tab.
Each field is described below:
| Tab | Field | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Contacts | Full name | Single-line text. The primary name field for the contact. |
| Title | Single-line text. Use for a position or role. | |
| Single-line text with validation. The primary email address for the contact | ||
| Work phone | Number with validation. 1 of 2 phone fields for the contact. | |
| Mobile phone | Number with validation. 1 of 2 phone fields for the contact. | |
| Other phone numbers | Dropdown field for additional phone numbers. Modify it to add labels for phone number type (such as "US Office" and "India Office"). | |
| Single-line text. The Twitter ID of the contact. | ||
| Company | Dropdown field to hold a Company added to your Freshdesk. By default, this field accepts multiple companies. Modify to change this behavior. | |
| Address | Multi-line text. The primary address for the contact. | |
| Time zone | Dropdown. The time zone of the contact. Only modifiable on paid plans. | |
| Language | Dropdown. The language of the contact. Only modifiable on paid plans. | |
| Tags | Dropdown with validation. Tags you've added to your account. Learn more. | |
| About | Multi-line text. A description of the contact. | |
| Unique external ID | Single-line text. If you use an ID convention in other tools (such as account numbers), you can represent that same ID here. | |
| Companies | Company Name | Single-line text. The primary name field for the company. |
| Description | Multi-line text. A description of the company. | |
| Notes | Multi-line text. Any additional details for the company. | |
| Domains for this company | A special multi-input field to hold email domains for the company. | |
| Health score | Paid plans only. A dropdown field to represent the customer relationship. | |
| Account tier | Paid plans only. A dropdown field to represent the contract tier. | |
| Renewal date | Paid plans only. A date field to serve as a reminder for contract renewal. | |
| Industry | Paid plans only. A dropdown field to represent the customer industry. |
Field properties
When you hover over a field, you can delete the field by clicking the trashcan icon or edit the field by clicking the pencil icon. You can only delete custom fields, not default fields.
When you edit a contact field (or create a new custom field), its properties appear in a dialog.
| Contact Field | Explanation |
|---|---|
| (For agents) Required when submitting the form | Make a field mandatory for agents. |
| Display to customer | Customers can see this field in their profile. Fields that are not visible to customers have a lock icon next to them in the list of fields. |
| Customer can edit | Customers can update this field in their profile. |
| Customer can see this when they Sign up | Customers can see this field in the signup form. |
| (For customers) Required when submitting the form | Make a field mandatory for customers during signup and while editing their profile. |
| Label | The name of the field on the agent portal and the customer portal. |
| (Dropdown fields) Dropdown Items | The choices for a dropdown field. |
When you edit a company field (or create a new custom field), its properties appear in a dialog. Note that company fields are not visible to customers.
| Company field | Explanation |
|---|---|
| Required when submitting the form | Make the field mandatory for agents. |
| Label | The name of the field. |
Custom contact and company fields
Custom fields are available from the Growth plan onwards.
If you need additional customer information, you can create custom fields for both Contacts and Companies. You can create the following types of fields:
| Field Type | Description |
|---|---|
| Single-line Text | Accept a single line of text. Suitable for first names, last names, and other phrases. |
| Multi-line Text | Accept long text. Suitable for addresses, background information, and other descriptions. |
| Checkbox | Accept a true or false value. Suitable for getting permissions. |
| Number | Accept a numeric value. Suitable for zip codes, costs or prices, etc. |
| Dropdown | Accept a value from a predefined list. Suitable for many different types of inputs. |
| Phone number | Accept a phone number. |
| URL | Accept a link. Suitable for website links, Linkedin profiles, etc. |
| Date | Accept a date value. Suitable for date of birth, scheduling, etc. |
To create a new field:
- Go to Admin > Support Operations > Customer Fields and select the Contacts or Companies tab.
- Drag and drop a field icon to the list.
- Modify the field's properties and click Done.
- Reposition your field as required and click Save in the top-right. Your fields are now ready for use.
- Agents can view these fields in the Contact Details widget on a ticket and in the Contacts and Companies pages.
- If the fields are visible to customers, customers can see them in the Customer portal when they signup and when they edit their profile.
Customize Requester Widget
When agents view a ticket, they can see the requester's details in the Contact Details widget. See Understand the Ticket Details View.
As an admin, you can customize the fields that appear in the widget. To do so:
- Go to Admin > Support Operations > Customer Fields and click Customize Requester widget.
- In the dialog, modify the fields visible.
- The Full name, Title, and Company Name fields cannot be removed.
- Click the minus icon next to a field to remove it.
- Click the plus icon at the bottom to add an existing Contact or Company field.
- Review your changes and click Save.
Once you've updated your customer data schema, you can create or import your data. See Manage Customer Data in Freshdesk and Import and Export Data in Freshdesk.