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 Method[:CRM] is well suited when you have a large company that needs to keep track of customers. It also connects with Quickbooks and that has really been nice for our organization. Our company is small so this really helps us stay on track and build our data base of customers.
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 The customization team is brilliant! The various integrations, QBO & Gmail, help me keep track of all customer interactions. The more organized I am, the more time I have to take care of my clients! I have nothing but praise for the support team and the rest of the crew at Method. 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 believe there is room for improvement with scaling down on the customizing (sometimes having too much isn't always a good thing) The estimate creator in Method is not as fluid as making an estimate in QB. (moving lines around, adding lines, etc.) 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 The things Method does well - QuickBooks data integration and extreme customization - it does very, very well. If you are looking for a CRM product or any business process automation software that integrates with QuickBooks, you have to look at Method CRM
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 Method has a great overall "usability". Once we started using the software; it did not take long before we were able to start editing our own web lead forms, email templates, etc. I think there is a learning curve however the learning curve is not bad. Anyone looking for a cloud CRM should start here
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 The support is great. They are on the line within minutes and share screen to figure out the problem immediately. I would highly recommend this product for that reason. I do wish the customization was a bit easier to use; however, with fewer settings that are available to the end user and an easier way to read the customization.
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 Be available to learn! There is a huge learning curve to this program. You have to be willing to take it all in. Be available to the Method expert and be patient.
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 Method is by far the easiest of all platforms. It brings a lot of great features that
Salesforce has as well as email campaign features like constant contact, all in one. The only thing I would add would be more reporting and custom report capability.
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 Method:CRM has probably saved me about 6-10 hours per week over the past few years. It has likely saved our company several hundred hours in the last 10 years. It has specifically saved us countless hours with better data management vs. having separate spreadsheets for keeping track of things. Read full review ScreenShots