Act! CRM vs. Less Annoying CRM

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

I already mentioned some specific scenarios in the earlier parts of my review. I'd say that my best experience has been Customer Service. When I was first using Less Annoying CRM and had NEVER BEFORE used any sort of CRM, I was intimidated. Surprisingly, the company had a customer service phone number as well as a way to email them. I contacted them for help initially. They were quick to respond, and were willing to set up appointments to walk me through the setup process. But it was SO EASY! They have been available, friendly, and helpful, every time. They also have a video series that is super-helpful when you're first learning how to use the CRM.

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.

• Simple, intuitive usage
• Daily agenda emails
• Ease of moving calendar / action items around, closing out
• Customer service is extremely responsive, they don't hide behind a "contact us" form on their website as so many companies seem to do. You can readily reach them by phone!

• 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.

• The one thing I was looking for is a place to manage multiple businesses with one project. Like if I am selling a "summer camp guide," I would like to have info for sales in one place with multiple contacts and businesses. LACRM customer service provided a workaround for me by suggesting I set up a specific pipeline for each project and them put each business in there. It is working great and, actually, a much better way to manage the project than I have originally intended.
• I really don't have anything else to add. LACRM is perfect for us.

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

Excellent product which meets my needs of a complex industry

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!

In a nutshell, lesson on CRM is everything I didn’t even realize that I wanted. The website is so smooth and intuitive, using it in my mobile browser is unbelievably easy and efficient, and the fact that it’s so remarkably easy to use and the website loads so incredibly fast, that for those things alone deserves a 10. Everything else it does is just a bonus. I highly recommend Less Annoying CRM.

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.

I happen to be a blind person that uses a screen reader to access software on my computer. Anytime I have had an issue with the Less Annoying CRM software, I have always had a person from customer service either walk me through my issue or send my concerns to their developers that resolve my issues in a timely manner. I highly recommend this software based off of the customer service alone.

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

After explaining that I was moving from Salesforce and the problems I was encountering, they took over and implemented the data in such a quick and efficient way, I was looking for the other shoe to drop but they did an amazing job so very impressed

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

HubSpot has a huge selection of tools, reports, integrations and supports that Less Annoying does not have. It is not comparable in price or functionality - but I am comparing it because it was the last CRM I used before I used Less Annoying, and it made me realize that if you don't need all the bells and whistles, but you just need to track your Customers and manage your leads and you don't want to spend a lot of money, Less Annoying CRM is the way to go.

• 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

• Not just storage of information, but utilizing that information to build stronger relationships with clients
• Because it's web-based, we can be at our desk or on the road and still have the full functionality of the CRM at our fingertips, which helps us keep focusing on sales!