Act! CRM (formerly Swiftpage) aims to empower small businesses to build and manage client relationships and leads, so the user always has a pipeline of new, repeat, and referral business under control. Users can manage their businesses with Act! CRM every day, since it’s more than a CRM – it’s designed to present everything needed to stay on top of relationships, see what’s most important and actionable, and run sales and marketing in one place.
$22
per month
RingEX
Score 7.8 out of 10
N/A
RingEx is a cloud-based VoIP solution available via computer mobile application. It features video and audio conferencing, desktop phone rentals, collaboration tools, and integrations with other business applications. Plans are available on a monthly, per user subscription basis.
$19.99
per month
Pricing
Act! CRM
RingEX
Editions & Modules
Essentials
$22
per user, per month
Act! Premium - Basic
$37.50
per user, per month (billed annually)
Standard
$40
per user, per month
Expert
$55
per user, per month
Select - Extra Features
$79
per user, per month (billed annually)
Complete - Extra Features
$199
per user, per month (billed annually)
Advanced - Extra Features
$399
per user, per month (billed annually)
Essentials (up to 20 users)
$19.99
per user/per month
Standard
$27.99
per user/per month
Premium
$34.99
per user/per month
Ultimate
$49.99
per user/per month
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Act! CRM
RingEX
Free Trial
Yes
Yes
Free/Freemium Version
No
No
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
No
No
Entry-level Setup Fee
No setup fee
No setup fee
Additional Details
For SaaS version, discount available for annual subscription.
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.
RingEX is a great solution if you want reliability and flexibility. We can trust that our phones are just going to work when we need them. Our users love the ability to be able to use the app on their mobile phones or computers when they are on the go. The ability to review the call logs makes troubleshooting very easy. The call quality is also very good.
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.
VOIP calling - call quality is excellent and has replaced our traditional landline phones
Video meetings - video quality is great(provided you have a good webcam) and the video features(multiple hosts, screen sharing, multiple room management) is 2nd to none.
Screen sharing - As an unexpected benefit, the ability to do a screen share has helped our IT crew in being able to remotely diagnose and fix problems with faculty or staff machines.
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
We are grandfathered into our unlimited toll-free minutes plan. We are very unlikely to switch because of that. It has been the major factor saving us a lot of money compared to switching to other solutions. I don't know any other company that still offers these unlimited plans.
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!
They were working on updating a few of the modules while we were going live, so this made usability difficult to train on once they did go live with those changes. Now that the changes are in place, we have really enjoyed the usability of the platform
It is quite reliable, we have the support of being able to identify failures and escalate it, also monitor the failures that are posted on the web about the status of the failures and evolutions. Its easy start-up and access allow us to have better performance and productivity, which in the long run turns into benefits.
Occasional bandwith issues. In addition to this, I have one individual whose calls are blocked. We were not able to determine whether this was a RingEX or a carrier issue.
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 have called RingEX a few times for assistance in setting up call handling or implementing changes in our call handling structure. The wait time to speak with an agent is usually minimal and the ones I have spoken to are excellent at walking me thru what changes I am trying to make as well as ensuring I understand what is being done so I can handle it myself next time if the need arises.
If someone has an existing system I tell them to keep that running initially and keep RingEX separate initially until the system is configured and tested to one's satisfaction. After testing and configuration is completed, then roll over the main phone numbers to the new RingEX system. I've seen one person who immediately flipped over to RingEX without properly configuring/testing the software and had many issues with missed customer calls until I helped him sort out his configuration.
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!.
During the tender process, we met with several other vendors. During this phase, we realized that RingEX was the only vendor we were investigating, and it was its own telecom provider – instead of offering phone software running on someone else’s network. So, we figured, ‘Why not cut out the middleman and partner with a cloud communication provider that also knows how to run a phone network?' More than any other cloud communication vendor, RingEX seemed to understand what we wanted. They listened to our needs and came back with a proposed solution that proved they heard us. They never tried to sell us on bells and whistles they knew we didn’t need. That’s what you want in a tech partner.
We have 75 users and 85 phones on the system and have yet to have any noticeable outages. The system just works all of the time without issues. Our old VOIP system on Voyant would go out all the time for multiple hours. RingEX is much more stable and reliable.
