Act! Erfahrungen

Vorteile

It is very simple to use and yet very powerful. It provides me with Notes and Histories and as many fields as I need to put in data about my customers and vendors. It is linked to my phone as well as my admins data. I really cannot see running my business without ACT.

Nachteile

really nothing to complain about. they do updates and patches to fix any issues I have ever encountered

Vorteile

ACT is easy to use and does what a CRM is supposed to do: manage contacts and contact information. It is easy to create contacts, companies, links and search for them. It can be used offline which makes it extremely convenient when there is no internet access (eg: business trips). The DB will synchronize when you are back online. Another thing is that it is an off the shelf product: it does not require any development to configure.

Nachteile

The software lacks customizable reports and dashboard. It is extremely complicated to setup a good dashboard with the reports that you need. There is not much options or flexibility, and the display does not always end up being right (missing items). So it is not the best for sales/opportunities management.

Vorteile

It allows me to see the status of customers and prospects in real time and the history can be a business saver at times. The phone app integration is awesome when working in the field.

Nachteile

I'm really unhappy about the switch to subscriber based pricing. I will be looking at other CRM that I can do a purchase of.

Vorteile

I really liked the contact management history management email integration and tracking grouping of contacts opportunity groups add opportunity ratings.

Nachteile

Act is a really great entry level CRM it has some functionality's third party capabilities other products you can purchase from the store but it just doesn't have what it takes to get you over the hill when you get a little bit larger

Vorteile

We have been using Act for 18 years. It's a nice product with as many bells and whistles thats needed for a CRM. Its easy to implement and set up databases. It has the necessary features for analytics and reporting for clients.We plan to upgrade to an Act cloud version soon.

Nachteile

The only feature I would like to see added would be an internal voip so that you could hit the call button and Act would dial automatically.

Vorteile

There is nothing good or helpful about this software.

Nachteile

The trial is not really a trial because you cannot see how their marketing automation works.

In Betracht gezogene Alternativen

Agile CRM

Gründe für den Wechsel zu Act!

I chose ACT! because I had previously used this software. However, I used this software when it was own by Sage Software.

Vorteile

Decent contact management. Can customize.

Nachteile

Act/Outlook synchronization keeps breaking.

In Betracht gezogene Alternativen

Dynamics 365

Gründe für den Wechsel zu Act!

We were using a previous version of Act. We move to the Premium Cloud hoping it was more stable. It is not.

Vorteile

You can input any information and update it and the information can be seen by anyone in the organization. Makes communication between teams very simple and quick.

Nachteile

I am not a fan of the way they use multiple contacts past two for a business. If there are a list of people to communicate with each profile has up to two contacts, with more than two a new profile for the company has to be created, creating multiple profiles for each company which can cause confusion for other sections of the company, including processing payments and sending to the wrong contact at the other end or returning a product to the wrong section of said business.

Vorteile

Ease of use, easy customisation to your own preference. Good integration with other softwares eg; Ms Office.

Nachteile

Not in particular. Just love the software.

Vorteile

The customer tracking and connectivity to quick books was awesome. A bit dated look, but just worked.

Nachteile

My only issues with it was that it was a bit slow. Beyond that it was all positive.

Vorteile

Everything in a Contact or Company record's layout can be customized, moved around, hidden on a per-user basis, and otherwise manipulated however your organization needs it to be. My company makes heavy use of this feature, having multiple team-based layouts that present the most important data to those teams prominently. We also greatly enjoy the software's ability to perform advanced queries on the data that can be saved and re-run with a single click to provide accurate reports and drill down to specific needs in moments.

Nachteile

There are quite a few features that feel incomplete or at least not fully integrated. For example, the software comes with the ability to create and Mail Merge templated emails that imports information like a contact's name, and the Smart Tasks feature allows you to automatically perform certain tasks including sending an email to a contact, yet for some reason you can't do both - that is, you can't set a Smart Task to perform a Mail Merge to a templated email and send the result, meaning that the automated emails cannot contain information personal to the contact such as their name.

Vorteile

I began using Act! 20+ years ago the draw for me was the ability to customize the product for my companies needs. I have run my company's database with this software from start up and I have made it work through the years. In the earlier days I was able to automate functionality to stay ahead of trends and have robust productivity far a head of my competitors. As the years have gone on and the product was sold and resold they have updated and brought general users more but have left lifelong users in the dust for profit.

Nachteile

Subscription services that cripple my ability to utilize the fully purchased/owned product. I feel that the company sold out for recurring subscriptions. I don't care that they want to go to subscription but I do care that I have my feet held to the fire because of it. Users like myself enabled their progress and continued success.

Vorteile

This is a robust software program. We have added many custom fields that allows us to track a lot of data really dig into for trends and statistics. We love how history is captured a for all the activity we do for and with a client. We rely on the relationship tab heavily as multiple people are involved in a transaction. We are really enjoying the new Marketing Automation. It has a lot of robust features that we are just beginning to tap into. We also like the groups feature. We have hundreds of groups that we can run reports and create statistics from. We can see how many groups a contact is part of which helpful as well. I like the statistics ACT generates from drip marketing. Knowing what emails bounced back or who opted out helps us improve our data.

Nachteile

When searching for a person, it doesn't give you the option of having similar names - the spelling must be exact. It crashes when we are in the social updates tab. Customer Service: Often the techs are hard to understand. The time we spend on the phone with customer service on average lasts about 1/2 to an hour depending on the issue. That is a big interruption to our workflow in the office.

One thing I wish ACT would do is send to 2 emails at once. When sending out an eblast, it pulls from the email field. If there is more than one email address followed by a semicolon, it won't send to both. It bounces back.

Vorteile

Perfect fit for mid-sized businesses. Great price point. Only truly hybrid solution that allows you to use Act both on your desktop and in a hosted environment.

Vorteile

Act itself is as a good database software. Compering to previous version synchronized with Swift Page it has a better platform to create a template. There are other things you improve but for our small company we do not use them (like several times of sending same e-mail to one customer)

Nachteile

In Marketing Automation:
- you can not add and SAVE our data base fields in the template
- you can not send an e-mail from the template to one person (only to the group)
- you can not sent an e-mail to lookup (every time you must create the group from lookup)
- may e-mails is getting lost (in our 2 campaigns about 20% e-mails were not delivered)
In e-marketing
- you can not add and SAVE our data base fields in the template
******
In your previous version of ACT I was able to add fields from my database SAVE them in the template and send them to lookup without a need to create the group.
******
And your customer service ??? I believe you can do better work.
For example - I wrote an e-mail to you about month ago - with totally no answers from you.

Vorteile

it was inexpensive. but you get what you pay for.

Nachteile

No tech support. ACT is always putting out a new version. each new version trips off problems and requires new integrations and updates that they do not tell you about and cause integration issues with all of your other software expecially microsof.

Vorteile

I liked this software to run my credit repair business. Keep track of letter management and clients. It was easy at first.

Nachteile

After you purchase your license, in a year or 2 they discontinue the version and you have to pay for the license all over again. I had purchase 3 licenses and wanted to purchase a 4th one and they said I couldn't that I would have to upgrade to the monthly fee version where you pay monthly per license including for the licenses I already had. Now this year they discontinued the licenses I already purchased, they want me to upgrade and pay 550 per license all over again because they have a new version and will not give support nor fixes to the older versions. This is insane. I pay them for a license so they discontinue the product and expect me to purchase all licenses again. ON top of that, it is glitchy, it continue disconnects from Outlook. You call customer support and someone in India answers and they are clue less. Every time Outlook does an update or act updates it completely looses all integration. OH, and they give you 0 customer service, you have to pay for that separately.

Vorteile

ACT has been around for a long time, as has Swiftpage who aquired them. The software itself has continued to evolve and improve, but hasn't lost the overall feel it has always had. What I like the most is that they have cloud AND desktop platforms for those that might not need cloud services. They also have a large number of plans available, are affordable, and there are a good number of independent technicians out there that can help you with your data, and design third party add-ons too.

Nachteile

The recent change that does not let owners of much older versions of the software activate what they already own has me concerned.

Vorteile

we inherited this software and while it has some good basic functions, apart from knowing how to use it I have nothing positive to say about it

Nachteile

Customer service is the WORST. I'm currently waiting for my rep to get back to me about an unresolved issue (it's been over 4 weeks since we were able to access our task lists). In the 4 weeks i have left numerouse messages and followed up with emails. As a total I received 1 email correspondence.
We have 3 new staff members that started within the last month and although trying to reach out numerous times regarding setting up profiles for these staff, we haven't been able to get a response.

ACT for web speed
we have a database of about 28000 contacts and are unable to use ACT for web as it is that slow that it has become unusable.

INTEGRATION
Everytime there is a server update all integrations stop working. We have tried to set up email syncing since early this year. All that "support" has to say that it has to be our PC set ups. Yet they can't tell us which settings need to be changed.

Vorteile

What's not to love? It keeps my contacts names, numbers, addresses, emails, etc... sorted. I can mark/tag them for different groups, find them, note them, write them, sort them... I can schedule me calls, meetings, to-do's with alarms to remind me. I LOVE MY ACT!

Nachteile

The only reason for the 4 stars is because this software will do so much and I being age 60 and not growing up with computers all thru school... I am probably not doing one tenth of what I could be doing with ACT and yet it is still a LIFESAVER! Without ACT, I would NEVER be able to keep my "ACT" together... lol.
It makes me feel a little incompetent knowing there is SO MUCH MORE it could do for me if I knew how to do it.

Vorteile

Elegant solution that works across a range of devices with possibilities for a range of integrations much more cost effective than the competition for small businesses

Nachteile

Not always well integrated with other platforms eg leadpages etc - needs an intermediary or requires support of an ACT consultant to implement many integrations.

In Betracht gezogene Alternativen

Salesforce Sales Cloud

Gründe für den Wechsel zu Act!

Cost

Vorteile

I can track my customers and their email addresses.

Nachteile

The confusion with accessing customers.

Vorteile

Initially I wanted to use the program because I had used it a decade ago and found it easy to use and customize. It has changed and I ended up having to hire a consultant for everything.

Nachteile

As mentioned, I have worked with ACT off and on for two decades. Their most recent "upgrade" has been filled with bugs and a lack desire to fix them. My consultants have been inundated with complaints they have passed on to ACT with no response. Plus, they lack basic integration with excel or outlook. What!?
Contact management programs are a competitive software. ACT is both more expensive than most, not user friendly and lacking in function and basic customer service.

Vorteile

This is easy to set up and has more functions than a small business will actually need. Scheduling and report writing is easy to do and keeps things well organized. I have sued this for many years and the files is very large but it is easy to search.

Nachteile

Much of my work is confidential. I attach files to people and it is a little cumbersome when people leave the company and go work for some one else. It would be nice it they could work out a way to deal with this. Also, they are moving to a web-based program and while it may have advantages for some of us, it may be a problem. When I travel, i can not always access the cloud or the speed is very slow.