Act! CRM vs. Daylite

Swiftpage ACT! would be well suited if you are using a desktop computing environment. ACT! is an old product and they were on the desktop for many years (and still are). Also, ACT! would also be well suited if you are not as concerned about implementing a CRM product that might require a little more training (e.g. if you had employees/salespeople that needed to be trained). Also, ACT! seems to be more generic than some of the industry focused products you see nowadays. For example, MethodCRM works well with non-profits that are on the cloud.

Incentivized

Well suited for any size company which needs CRM management. Easy to use. Great for individuals or teams that use Apple products. Daylite and ios expert integration has been key in capturing leads from our website into the Daylite database, plus then if they opt into email marketing, they are entered into the MailChimp database. The web forms also automate the creation of opportunities and are linked with the contacts/companies. Sales Managers with geographical responsibilities can easily filter contacts or projects based on these regions so they only see what they need. Daylite is not appropriate for Windows users.

Incentivized

• Integrated Email Marketing: For a small business, you can have a strong method to handle email marketing in an integrated non-disparate solution.
• Tailoring: There are no limits on what data you can store in the system and the ease of making changes can be done by a nontechnical person.
• User Interface: The tool is easy to get around in both the desktop (fat client) and (webclient) which both are quite similar in functionality.
• Integration: The tool integrates with Word, Excel, and Outlook nicely. And, it integrates with Google Mail and Contacts. There is a nice selection of third party tools available for various needs like AddressGrabber which allows for easy input of contacts from various sources such as email signatures, webpages, etc.
• Templates: I have enjoyed being able to store tons of various templates for letters which we use over and over for various communications like sales proposals, quotes, and nudging clients along the funnel and sales process.
• Automation: SwiftPage ACT! has a small business automation engine which allows for reminders and workflow to be administered by the system. It's not as sophisticated as some enterprise workflow automation solutions but for the price it's an awesome addition.
• Maintenance: Very rarely have a problem which needs to be dealt with and costs to upgrade are minimal at best. We hosted the system internally for the web client and implemented it ourselves initially but had upgrades subsequently done by a local partner simply due to time/cost scenario. In other words, less to have someone else do it.

• Daylite allows you to link your email so when you email a client it will link to their contact in Daylite and save the communication so anyone on the team can see all the emails that have been sent between the client and our company.
• Daylite allows you to create "opportunities" for the different packages and services we offer. This lets us track where someone is in the process, if they are still thinking about a service, have been sold on it, or are not interested.
• Daylite lets you leave notes on the account that everyone on the team can see. This has been so helpful for our company because it lets us drop helpful notes on personal things about the client that would be good for everyone to know.

Incentivized

• The auto saving function is not great. It means a simple slip or mistype can change an entire record easily.
• The reports are clunky and if you've changed the field names, that doesn't get reflected in the reports.
• The interface is still clunky. It is hard to see all the information for a contact all in one place. It gets broken up too much.

Incentivized

• The main drawback of Daylite is that it becomes slow on its iOS mobile devices.
• Sometimes I face a lot of retries to log into the account. The mobile app needs a change and needs an upgrade. Apps are lacking in giving appointment reminders on time. Sometimes it does not notify on the right time about the appointment with the client.

Incentivized

There are a lot of good SaaS options on the market but SwiftPage ACT still has a place in the mix today. It depends on your needs, goals, processes, and people

ACT follows the basic rules you would expect for this type of software, but actually doing anything sophisticated with it is near impossible without assistance or training. Unless you use it regularly it is difficult to use. I wouldn't recommend it unless you have internal IT support and it will be used regularly.

Easy to use for Mac OS users. Not possible for Windows Users. I will still give a rating of 10, though.

Incentivized

There has been an ongoing problem with Google synchronisation which no one seems to be bothered about fixing, even though it clearly states on the website that the software synchronises with Google. When the customer-facing support team are on the phone, they are brilliant, it's the back-end development support which is severely lacking.

The team at Marketcircle has always been good at support and usually quick to respond and usually under 1 hour. Keep up the good work here!

Incentivized

Delay your upgrades! ACT appears to ship out new software with virtually no checking and no concern about bad installs do to their customers.

ACT! CRM is more cost effective than like a Salesforce, but that is for a reason, it lacks a lot of the functionality that a Salesforce has. Pipedrive is actually another cost effective platform I've been evaluating as a potential ACT! CRM replacement. I like it's modern day look and feel versus ACT!.

Incentivized

Daylite provides authentic services and features with excellent programming. I have also collaborated on the Daylite calendar
with Apple Calendar so that I can never leave behind any updates of the
future. Moreover, it keeps on updating its feature for giving better services.

Incentivized

• It's been easy to keep track of progress of goals with the software. This provides the opportunity to know what is working and what is not.
• We have had to adjust a lot of things since the Virus issue took a foothold, but it is providing invaluable to make those adjustments.
• Our ROI has increased at least 30%.

Incentivized

• Daylite has been very helpful for new employees to answer their own questions about contacts/passwords, etc.
• We found the tiny notification bell to be weak, sometimes a project comes in with a tight deadline and we have to double-check and ask an employee if they saw the notification. More time would be saved by just chatting about the project and its expectations.
• A huge benefit is the institutional knowledge that can be had by reading past projects. We've tracked everything, so the history is there.

Incentivized