Act-On Software vs. Maximizer CRM

We often have quick turnaround time requests, and Act-On's new composer is great because it is easy to make an email look great in desktop or mobile views. This has been a huge time-saver for us! We have benefited from using Act-On for many years and are accustomed to where everything is and how to use it. For the new accounts we train, we will sometimes hear that the organization of where things are could be improved.

Incentivized

It was not a good experience. Nothing was as advertised, from the user experience to the security of purchase. The address book was not able to be converted from the Leads module and the maps feature wasn’t able to connect from Leads. The mobile version has a lot of bugs and isn’t very functional. They have a tutorial, yet [I think they] aren’t proactive in distributing it to new users. Their focus is on sales. And it’s not a very salable product in my opinion. The worst aspect of this company is that they aren’t risk free. If you purchase a year software and decide after a few weeks it simply isn’t for your company, there are no refunds. I had to initiate a chargeback with my bank after being told that “unfortunately, due to the terms and conditions...” No customer wants to hear that. [I feel] they tried to bully me into keeping their software. There are far too many options in 2021 for CRM to be forced into one, especially one so difficult to use. When I asked about a feature that I needed, I was told, “Perhaps later this year...” Not what I need if I’m paying good money for a software. Their sales VP wouldn’t call me when I requested a call after being denied a refund. When I went through their main website again after my experience with Maximizer, I [felt] that everything they advertise is not in line with the product they put out. They say that there’s a free trial available. Not the truth [in my experience]. This maybe would have been a good CRM in say, 1999. [I think] it’s antiquated and didn’t serve the needs of my business. I used well-known CRM previously and didn’t find Maximizer to be better than the free version of that one. There was a disconnect in usage that wasn’t able to be overcome by myself or my employees in several weeks of trials.

• The templates are easy to use and set up campaigns.
• It's simple to use, and the email editor features a drag-and-drop interface.
• It's easy to set up a drip campaign or a series of scheduled emails.
• It has the flexibility of having a variety of scheduling options and the use of user experience automation.

Incentivized

• Shared Calendar
• Customer Service cases
• Common database of customer information

Incentivized

• The designer tools, especially for emails, were often difficult to use. The formatting of the text would be all over the place and change / refuse to change at random. Moving boxes around was shifty and sometimes nearly impossible. It just wasn't customizeable enough. No "undo" functionality either.
• The only way to collect information expansively over time (there's a term Act-On uses for it, I can't recall) where it adds questions to the form each time a user fills it out, is if the person were to fill out the same form multiple times. I know this does happen for some websites/resources, but as a company that wanted to collect new information each time someone filled out any form, regardless of the resource or the URL, that was simply not an option, and that doesn't really make a lot of sense. I know it's not really possible to track someone but if they filled out the first part of the form and then it added new questions to answer, and then they submitted and got through the gating, that would actually be helpful.
• There was no "trash can" of sorts in case you deleted something by mistake. This could be so stress-inducing if it was a major project. My coworker did this once, contacted Act-On, they couldn't even recover it.

Incentivized

• Handling large data. Maximizer needs to improve on this.
• Add additional user-friendly shortcuts for the most frequently used functions in the web version.
• There is no mark for deletion option. They need to provide a way to delete without physically deleting records.

Incentivized

It's my single biggest asset in my current role. With limited resources, its enabled Anachron to punch well above our weight marketing wise and although we're still at the beginning of our journey I know the system can scale with us

We are heavily entrenched in Maximizer and trying to pull our data out and into another CRM, with the same amount of customization and workflow would take a lot of effort.

Incentivized

It's a great tool for our business, and we get a fantastic ROI on it every year based on wins for customer service and automation responses. It's save projects, repaired salesperson/customer relationships and generated new sales and interest yearly. We really wouldn't hesitate to recommend this platform at all.

Incentivized

The CRM didn’t have the capability I expected

I have always found them quick to respond to my query by web inquiry. In those instances when I call, I have always reached help quickly. They are conscientious and skilled in discussing my concern and finding a solution to my problem. Other tech organizations should use Act-On as a model for top-notch customer service.

Great for the most part. Sometimes there are little lags, but that's likely because I'm requesting to see a lot of data at one time.

Since we start using Act-on for ourselves and our clients, we have been supported very well. Often we need to integrate with legacy systems and we find the support team on our side during the whole endeavor. Always asking if they can help us further, always willing to do a better job. The support of Act-On is one of the main differentiators

The support staff are very knowledgeable and competent. Never really had an issue with them not knowing what they are doing.

Incentivized

Dan D. was great. He took the time to understand how I needed the program to run, and was very flexible to our special CRM setup.

Act-On had a lot of resources, and their staff was great at answering any questions I had to make sure we got started on the right foot. Looking back, I would have preferred some additional training sessions since we didn't have any previous experience with Marketing Automation and best practices.

What impressed me most is that Act-On showed full committment in making our implementation successful, even when it required additional support from their team. This gave me a lot of warm and fuzzy feelings. Most other software software vendors are not anywhere close to being this responsive and effective

Act-On is easier to use than Marketo, but not as visually appealing and user-friendly as HubSpot. It's much better than Pardot, as Pardot feel clunky every step of the way. SharpSpring is comparable because of its price point but surpasses Act-On in its tools and intuitive interface. We selected Act-On because of the pricing model and thought all things would be close to parity with other options. It depends on the team you have. If you have developers and a marketing team that knows some html/css, you can get by with Act-On.

Incentivized

We chose to go with Microsoft Dynamics CRM over Maximizer because of the customization and marketing options that were associated with Dynamics. The ease of use with Maximizer, however, was far better than that of Microsoft Dynamics.

Incentivized

Before I feel like I need more features, the Act-On customer service reps are contacting me telling about new features as part of my account.

• With the Automated Series, we were able to put in place campaigns that generated revenue that took no time to continue running once set up. This was a positive feature allowing employees to work on another project while the campaign ran on their own.

Incentivized

• It allows us to maximize our service billing
• It is easy to generate service quotes
• It is easy to follow up on leads.

Incentivized