Freshworks Inc. (NASDAQ:FRSH) Q3 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Tyler Sloat: Yes, so we haven’t guided to anything for 2024 yet. In our Investor Day, we kind of talked about 2025 in terms of getting to Rule of 40 and then we talked about some revenue numbers for 2026. We’ll give out the 2024 numbers at the end of this quarter. I do think you’re right in terms of, [indiscernible] just said, I think we can make some slight improvements there, but it’s definitely heading in the right direction. In terms of the AI SKUs, it’s so new, we’ll have to wait and see on those things. The one other comment you made on macro, we don’t expect macro to immediately turn around. For us, that would be reflected in our expansion motion increasing with [indiscernible], meaning companies are going back to hiring. And we expect that to see continued pressure for a while, so we’ve kind of built that into our expectations.

Pinjalim Bora: Got it. Thank you.

Operator: Thank you. One moment please for our next question. Our next question comes from the line of Rob Oliver with Baird.

Rob Oliver: Great. Hi, good afternoon. Thanks for taking my questions. Dennis, one for you just on the comment around more than half of the $50,000 plus customers now using two products. Clearly great progress on that front for you guys. I think you said overall it’s at 25%, which is kind of what you had said at the Analyst Day, which is great. Just curious, as you make that move sort of off-market, are you seeing more multi-product lands or are these still largely expands? And then can you talk a little bit about what you see in the pipe and if there’s a mix of those. And then I had a quick follow-up.

Dennis Woodside: Yes. Sure. So thanks, Rob. We do see multi-product lands. They tend to be multi-products within the same family. So an example would be a customer taking IT plus ESM or Freshchat and Freshdesk. Now, most of our expansion in those larger accounts tends to go cross true persona. So from IT to CS. In fact, if we look at our largest expansions, those are true cross product expansions. Some of them I think we talked about in the prepared remarks like Giant Eagle and Western Financial. So, as we continue to move up market, that expansion motion is becoming more and more important for us and that’s going to be a big emphasis for us going into next year.

Rob Oliver: Great, that’s really helpful. Thanks for the color there. Yes, and then just on the macro, Tyler, I appreciate your comment in response to the last question just about how you’re thinking about macro and around agent count. You kind of reiterated what you said at the Analyst Day, which is, hey, we’re not really counting on those agent additions. And that sounds like that’s the pressure that’s likely going to remain here. But on the other hand, it does seem like you guys — I mean, you deliver tremendous value for the price. So I’m just curious to get a sense as the execution’s been strong here, is there a flip side to the sort of macro headwinds where some of those mid-market customers are feeling like that may be upper end can get a lot more value with you guys? Are you seeing some of that as well? Thanks.

Girish Mathrubootham: Hey, Rob. I’ll take that. This is Girish. So first of all, I would like to say that from a macro standpoint, we’re not seeing any significant change in Q3 compared to Q2. And one of this, clearly, when companies are still carefully considering their spends, we are a vendor of choice, because of our affordable pricing and lower total cost of ownership. So that may be in play, but that’s not specific to Q3. That’s pretty much our promise to our customers. And as we see continued demand for AI and even to offset. Moving forward, we hope that our AI strategy will help us make money when businesses are not hiring agents. We’ll make money when businesses are hiring agents by making them more productive and also our Insights product helping open up a new skill for leaders.

Rob Oliver: Great. Thanks, G. Thanks everyone.

Dennis Woodside: Thanks Rob.

Operator: Thank you. One moment please for our next question. Our next question comes from the line of Brett Knoblauch with Cantor Fitzgerald.

Brett Knoblauch: Hi guys, thanks for taking my questions. Congrats on the quarter. I guess the first for me, you guys talked about your AI product. It may seem like that maybe SMEs might be the biggest early adopters of this. Is that how you’re thinking about it? And do you think that could help maybe drive a step function improvement in churn at the lower end of the market?

Girish Mathrubootham: So yes, I’ll take that. So first of all, if you look at the three pillars of our AI strategy, Freddy Self-service, I think will be really, really useful and adopted by larger customers, because they are the ones who have a large volume of support, like millions of customers coming in for support. So that’s where the scope for automation is much higher. On the other hand, Freddy Copilot would probably be like more universally applicable to SMBs and with market customers, because every user can now become more productive and SMBs really want to do more with less. So — and Freddy Insights is for leaders, again, larger companies may benefit more because their needs for data from different teams could be larger.

So — and specifically on AI helping us deal with the macro, I think we said this in the last earnings call. So we are focused — we’re not waiting for the macro to improve, we are focused on controlling the variables that we can. Like, our focus on four growth pillars, like how can we use product innovation in AI? How can we cross-sell more into our existing base? How can we focus on larger deals and drive more operational efficiency? So that is our plan to keep executing as — while we wait for the macro to turn.

Dennis Woodside: And just — hey, it’s Dennis, just to add some color there. Today, we’re seeing — even though our products are still in beta, we’re seeing pretty broad adoption across all customer sizes for our AI products. So we have over 2,500 customers in beta using Freddie Copilot to improve agent productivity. We have over 4,000 customers using some aspect of Freddie Insights. And those range the gamut from our largest to our smallest customers. So I think AI is on the agenda for every CEO. They’re all looking for improved outcomes. They’re looking for improved efficiency in their operations. And all of our customers, whether you’re a customer support leader or an IT leader, you have to have an AI strategy. So that’s provoking a lot of discussions. And we’re very optimistic about how this is going to play out over the next year.