Likelihood to Recommend 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.
Read full review DemandTools is perfect for any system that constantly adds new records to its database. For example, in higher education, we are constantly purchasing search names from various vendors and DemandTools allows us to make sure we are not doubling up on the same records. It saves us money in the long run as we are not mailing out multiple copies of our brochures to the same person.
Read full review Pros 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. Read full review PowerGrid can review and make the updates simultaneously. Single Table Dedupe makes merg[ing] the records easy and can make updates at the same time. BulkBackup [is] just one click, majority data got updated. Scenarios save a lot of time for similar working load. Read full review Cons Not intuitive to use. I will have to contact support for help if I haven't used some functions in a while. It's near impossible to delete duplicates as they have to be deleted individually. This is a problem if you have more than 5000 contacts. Reporting is difficult. Read full review I wish I could make changes to my existing scenarios using save rather than having to create a whole new scenario. Maybe you can, I just haven't been able to. Some features aren't user intuitive and it takes a while to learn. Laura Ferro Senior Coordinator of Admissions Communications
Read full review Likelihood to Renew 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
Read full review It's a great product. The only thing that holds us back is it was frustrating working with their sales team. We also don't like that when Validity purchased DemandTools they immediately started charging us quite a bit while it had been free for non-profit users when CRMFusion owned it. They also don't let you buy it for just 1 or 2 seats, you have to pay, I believe, in batches of 100 seats.
Read full review Usability Try printing reports with each record's notes section - really awful output that you are embarrassed to show anyone. Want to add a new record to a group, ACT will present another record for the group assignment. Want to work seamlessly with email? Forget it!
Read full review Allows for control in uploading lists, saved processes for checking duplicate records. Allows for backup files and quick reverts if something goes wrong. Extends reporting when Salesforce.com cannot support specific pieces of info being put together in a report. Automated processes for set and forget hygiene tasks
Read full review Reliability and Availability There has not been a time since I started 9 months ago that I've encountered any kind of downtime.
Mike Malone Assistant Director of Systems Support and Training
Read full review Performance DemandTools is a bit clunky and slow at times
Read full review Support Rating 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.
Read full review Support can be slow so do not expect quick turn for urgent issues. Help for specific queries not not there. Product tech support is offered. It would be great if query support, even if paid, was offered The training webinars help with the basics but not much if you need advanced functionality.
Read full review Online Training The trainings are free live webinars that give you a solid base for getting started with the program. The only weakness is they don't have any advanced classes.
Read full review Implementation Rating Delay your upgrades! ACT appears to ship out new software with virtually no checking and no concern about bad installs do to their customers.
Read full review I had just started using Salesforce about 3 months before I did the implementation myself, and it was easy to do just following their step-by-step instructions.
Read full review Alternatives Considered 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!.
Read full review Though RingLead has much more to offer in terms of automation (and it is in Salesforce rather than a separate program), DemandTools still has our heart. DemandTools is very cost-friendly and we were able to increase the value of DemandTools by programming in additional saved scenarios. I decreased admin time in the DemandTools suite by approximately 25% after implementing saved scenarios for every reoccurring update or list upload.
Read full review Scalability It's done everything we've needed it to do.
Mike Malone Assistant Director of Systems Support and Training
Read full review Return on Investment 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%. Read full review It is a tremendous time saver. It does things Salesforce doesn't even have the capability to do. Tasks that would take hours to manually complete. We can process a tremendous amount of data daily through one person, vs. weeks for the data to be cleaned, reviewed, routed and input. Saves on headcount by allowing a dedicated user to set up batches and jobs for other teams to ensure their data integrity. The return on investment isn't easily quantifiable but it is FELT in our department. Read full review ScreenShots