ClearSlide vs. Socialtext (discontinued)

Clearslide makes it easy to share files with anyone via a single link. It simplifies the process of document sharing in the new "work from home" age we have now and allows multiple parties to view the same document, either simultaneously or separately. It is less appropriate for sensitive information, as the link can easily be shared between parties or forwarded on, so there is no gatekeeping.

Incentivized

We use Social Text as a platform to air our issues with different departments. We voice our concerns and suggestions so we can help find a solution to the problems we incur on a daily basis. We need to have social text as an app so we can communicate in real time not only during work hours.

• Analytics: for sales, especially when selling virtually, it can be difficult to know if your customers are engaged with the presentation. Clearslide will give you reports that indicate how long customers were viewing what you were presenting, if/when you lost them, and at what place in your presentation you lost them. It can also show you how long potential customers spent reviewing follow-up materials you've sent them.
• Screenshare: the screenshare functionality, when using Google Chrome, is very seamless, and the customer can take over the screenshare without needing any downloads or plug-ins.
• Presenting: It's quite easy to present material with Clearslide, and to move between materials that you are presenting.

Incentivized

• Version history - Always keeps the edited versions and one can revert back any time
• Creating and Editing an article is very easy and intutive
• Sharing the articles with peers

• Call quality with CS has always been an issue in my two (2) years of experience with the platform. CS upgraded their phone provider in winter 2018, but the call quality has only been marginally improved from my perspective. Also, with the switch to a new phone provider, users are required to use a new conference line, access number, and a leader pin. The leader pin is new and adds an extra step to setting up a conference line, which seems unnecessary.
• Content curation is probably my biggest issue with CS. With previous experience in a sales enablement company, I've seen how content can be curated to map to the seller's specific stage in a deal cycle, which is what most companies want. CS does not have this functionality from my perspective, and if it does, then overall curation capabilities are weak. Rather than curating content to match a seller's current point in a sales process, CS relies on surfacing content that is most popular or recently added. There is a search feature, which works well if you know what the collateral is called, but it is not scanning the content of documents to find what is most relevant. I equate the content feature of CS to a search that you would do in your computer's "Download" folder or even in Dropbox. If your company is smaller and only needs to surface a few pieces of collateral, then CS will work fine. If your organization is larger with large amounts of specific collateral, then I would look elsewhere.
• The CS plugins for Outlook, Gmail, or your web browser are great ideas but executed poorly. The integrations have caused a lot of headaches for colleagues and me since their release. They have caused our email to close unexpectedly, content to not be linked properly, or emails to not be tracked. The idea for these integrations was to reduce the amount of time a seller has to jump between windows, which is awesome, but the integrations are full of glitches. One of the biggest glitches I've seen is how CS, Grammarly, and Outlook all work together. CS is always the component of those three that causes everything to freeze or crash. In short, the integrations are a great idea but executed poorly at this time.

Incentivized

• Search needs a ton of improvements. It was very slow a year ago
• Search result quality was also not that good
• I know they have improved their UI recently but when i used it last year it did not really have any design elements which could be used to make the articles look more presentable. It was important for us as we used it for external communication as well.

ClearSlide is embedded in our culture and in our organization. The sales and marketing teams use ClearSlide on a daily basis to share information and presentations as well as communicate "what is working." Our leadership uses the analytics to provide improved feedback and coaching regarding bottlenecks our representatives are experiencing.

Incentivized

We have a lot of info in Socialtext already. It would be hard to get all that info out and port it to a different system

Its easy to use from a presenter's perspective. Its web based so anyone who can navigate Facebook can open a live pitch or shared file. This makes it easy to give live demos, share files, and share screens with out downloading any software or installing java patches

Incentivized

It wasn't 100% but it was better than our experience with GoToMeeting.

I was mostly involved in the implementation process and syncing ClearSlide with Salesforce, and I would say the support was mostly average. It took a few times to get everything scheduled, and a lot of the process was left up to me. I was reading through the documents that they supplied. It wasn't complicated, but more direct support would have been appreciated.

Incentivized

They do a good job

Web based so easy for them to configure account

ClearSlide stacks up to be as good as any of the aforementioned tools. We selected Clearslide because of its ease of use and implementation. It did not take our team too long to get acclimated with how ClearSlide works and how they would be using it, allowing them to generate more meetings and more revenue.

Incentivized

I frankly like Confluence better than socialtext because of the speed and the quality of search. They also have better design elements which can help make the articles pleasant to the eyes.

This product ROCKS!!!! ClearSlide shortened my sales cycle by over 50% by enabling to jump right into a LIVE demo on an initial client call so I don't have to waste time scheduling a demo at later date. People are busy and finding a time to schedule a call can take days or weeks

• Has helped us close more deals because of the easy "on the fly" screen share
• Also, you get a notification when people view your information so having that, I have followed up shortly after and closed the deal
• Helps my team with all external presentations

Incentivized

• We get solutions to concerns much faster
• We promote interactions with the other depts
• We listen and have discussions