Act! CRM vs. Salesflare

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

In my opinion, Salesflare is an excellent CRM for small businesses. It includes everything a small business needs to manage leads, deals, and contacts in one convenient location. When a client needs more information or something done, I can quickly record it in their account—perfect for B2B SaaS and small businesses selling B2B in general.

• 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.

• Zero learning curve, one-minute setup and dead easy to integrate with complementary tools.
• Powerful data automation features so everything you do has maximum bottom-line impact.
• Stellar customer support: response is quick and the team really goes out of their way to solve your specific problems. Up to setting up custom solutions for you.

• 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

• It works wonderfully as a CRM for freelancers, consultants and small teams but feels like it would become more difficult to integrate with larger teams
• Sometimes have issues with email syncing with missing emails or having to reconnect my email to Salesflare
• Emails are sent from the app using their own servers, I would prefer to send via my own email system (Gsuite) for better delivery

Incentivized

Once our current subscription expires, we no longer plan to use ACT. We are moving to a more complete CRM system that allows us, as a project based service company, to track projects, contacts, time and employees all with one software program. ACT has very limited modules to integrate these functions and therefore is no longer a good fit for us.

Incentivized

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.

The pipeline, which is the core of the platform, is very clear and full of features. On top of that Salesflare added automations, integrations, plugins and emails. You can easily get your leads there from any platform and nurture your leads until you get the deal done. I think any business can benefit from using this sales 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.

Hit them on Chat support, and you are gonna get a response within a few minutes (if not in a few hours, during weekends) But they are gonna keep following with you till they make sure that your query has been resolved. Keep it up!

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

Salesflare does its own thing compared to the others I've tried. It's unique even though it shares many of the main features a CRM should have. Salesforce Lightning is amazing and feature-packed but can often get overwhelming depending on your use case. I never experience any slight lag or load times with Salesflare. Lightning can sometimes hang depending on your browser etc.

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

• As a start up, Salesflare was perfect for me. It was easy to get up and running; easy for me to import my contacts, and easy to earn the features.
• I like the price point - lots of features for a reasonable price.