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Conversica vs. Blackbaud Education Management Solutions

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    Overview
    ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price

    Conversica

    Score4 out of 10
    Mid-Size Companies (51-1,000 employees)
    Conversica provides lead management software for marketing, inside sales and sales groups.

    $1,499

    per installation

    Blackbaud Education Management Solutions

    Score7.1 out of 10
    N/ABlackbaud Education Management Solutions is a unified student management system for K–12 private schools. Blackbaud Enrollment Management System™: Gives schools and families the ability to track admissions progress from first impressions all the way through the application process to acceptance, enrollment, and tuition payment. Blackbaud Learning Management System™: Track students' academic performance and progression…N/A
    Pricing
    ConversicaBlackbaud Education Management Solutions
    Editions & Modules
    Starter Edition
    $1,499
    per installation
    No answers on this topic
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    ConversicaBlackbaud Education Management Solutions
    Free Trial
    YesNo
    Free/Freemium Version
    YesNo
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    NoNo
    Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeRequired
    Additional DetailsA Conversica subscription includes an unlimited number of seats for marketers, sales reps and managers. Different editions include different levels of functionality to match your needs. The service is a monthly subscription with an annual commitment.—
    More Pricing Information
    Community Pulse
    ConversicaBlackbaud Education Management Solutions
    Considered Both Products
    Conversica
    No answer on this topic
    Blackbaud
    No answer on this topic
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    No answers on this topic
    73%
    Would buy again
    11 Answers
    Delivers good value for the price
    No answers on this topic
    85%
    Delivers good value for the price
    11 Answers
    Happy with the feature set
    No answers on this topic
    87%
    Happy with the feature set
    13 Answers
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    No answers on this topic
    100%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    7 Answers
    Implementation went as expected
    No answers on this topic
    83%
    Implementation went as expected
    10 Answers
    Best Alternatives
    ConversicaBlackbaud Education Management Solutions
    Small Businesses
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    Piper the AI SDR by Qualified
    Score8.9 out of 10
    No answers on this topic
    Enterprises
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    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    ConversicaBlackbaud Education Management Solutions
    Likelihood to Recommend
    9.3
    (95 ratings)
    7.0
    (120 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    8.5
    (6 ratings)
    7.5
    (9 ratings)
    Usability
    9.0
    (1 ratings)
    6.5
    (7 ratings)
    Support Rating
    8.9
    (73 ratings)
    7.0
    (115 ratings)
    Implementation Rating
    8.1
    (49 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Ease of integration
    -
    (0 ratings)
    7.0
    (21 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    ConversicaBlackbaud Education Management Solutions
    Likelihood to Recommend
    Conversica
    Conversica is an excellent tool if you have a large database of potential students, sales leads, or other forms of potential customers/users. It does not replace human interaction, but instead supplements it - allowing your admissions/sales/retention team to spend their time with those individuals that are in most need of assistance - whether that be because they are "hot leads" for a sale, students with a sincere interest, or customers needing assistance beyond the capabilities of an automatic system.
    Incentivized
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    Blackbaud
    A good, and constantly improving solution for private schools. I don't know that a lot of its functionality would be well suited to public schools, but maybe? The integration with other Blackbaud software is a huge plus for us, as we have several of their other products including their flagship Raiser's Edge. Smaller schools may not need the sophistication of Blackbaud solutions, and it is not an inexpensive option.
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    Pros
    Conversica
    • Conversica is great at working low level leads and surfacing those that are in fact interested in your product or service.
    • Conversica is also useful in weeding out leads that are not strong.
    • Since Conversica is sending emails to various prospects, customers and opportunities, it allows sales, account managers, service etc, to focus on other activities, thereby saving time and freeing up resources.
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    Blackbaud
    • Seamless integration between the LMS, EMS and SIS modules
    • Real-time, effective chat support helps me not only with urgent needs but also to work through possibilities for increasing how we use the product.
    • Feature upgrades monthly that respond to voiced needs from users
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    Cons
    Conversica
    • The method of standing up campaigns can be a little tedious for administrators because it uses copy/paste of Salesforce Campaign ID instead of just searching for active Salesforce campaigns.
    • Understanding the conversation path options that the AI could take is improving greatly, but can still use some improvements for admin awareness when standing up a new conversation.
    • Understanding what conversation types exist and how they differ from one another is sometimes difficult to self-serv, but the Conversica team is always very good about helping out explaining these.
    Incentivized
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    Blackbaud
    • Forms - lack of conditional questions
    • Gradebook -lack of links to assignments
    • Not being able to customize displays, for example, Grading tab - we just finished 1st semester and teachers could only see the current quarter but not the 1st one which is still part of the first semester. Lack of customization in assessments.
    • Scheduling- even though re-running generating schedules, we're still getting a high number of unscheduled students. Lack of being able to limit the number of scheduled classes in a row for teachers.
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    Likelihood to Renew
    Conversica
    Tool is extremely powerful but comes with a heavy price tag. As long as we close more than 30 deals with year with Conversica's assistance it will be an easy choice to renew. If we don't we will have to figure out if these funds are best spent in other lead generation places.
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    Blackbaud
    It is a solid product. We have some issues with the capabilities of the website building components and the out dated technology behind its communications software but overall Blackbaud Education Management Software services to combine numerous functions into one product.
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    Usability
    Conversica
    Standalone, it's very easy to use. It becomes a little more complicated when you're working with it as an integration in Salesforce.
    Incentivized
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    Blackbaud
    Blackbaud EMS is very usable from my perspective. I am a power user and get lots of valuable functionality. It is, however, a complex system. Sometimes necessarily complex to accommodate flexibility for diverse customer needs. Some complexity seems unnecessary and/or hold-over functionality from earlier versions; nice to see this type being evolved away from over time. It is valuable to receive regular updates to the system along with good release notes of what changed and notices of significant changes in advance.
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    Support Rating
    Conversica
    Our account manager and support rep have been extremely helpful in helping us get the system where we wanted it. Given our original use case as a lead qualifier, a lot of the conversations needed to be altered or exceptions created in order to provide the customization we needed. Our AM and support rep were able to accommodate most of our requests and were extremely helpful in working with us on a solution.
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    Blackbaud
    Decent support however the chat feature can take a great amount of time out of the workday. If for instance you are waiting for someone to respond in the chat and there is a fire drill, if you are not responding within a few minutes, you are disconnected and have to start all over again. It would be great if you could submit your problem and then whoever has the most experience, can respond. The training in the Blackbaud University is good but also time-consuming - a 3 hr training in the middle of a workday is a lot to ask. I like the 90-minute sessions. It would also be great to offer a shorter webinar to update on any changes implemented. Other than the email I subscribed to, there is no information on how these updates actually work.
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    Implementation Rating
    Conversica
    The implementation went smoothly. The only advice I would give for anybody looking to integrate Conversica with Salesforce is to ensure that either you or somebody within your organization has experience with process builder as you'll need to create some processes to force your leads into Salesforce campaigns for the Conversica system to pick them up.
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    Blackbaud
    No answers on this topic
    Alternatives Considered
    Conversica
    I haven't looked into many other conversational ai products - we received a solid recommendation about using this and have been happy with the process and experience. Price was also pretty good, so we didn't feel a need to shop around on that front. If things change I'll do that homework, but we're happy for now
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    Blackbaud
    Blackbaud K-12 is very similar. I feel like I would be trading one set of issues for another so it's kind of a wash. We are very much hooked into the Blackbaud website with our Google SSO, SmartTuition, and Schooldoc integrations. It would be difficult for us to transition. That is the main reason I haven't really entertained other web firms.
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    Return on Investment
    Conversica
    • We have found that each conversation type has a different ROI. Some are very hard to report off of, whereas others are easy. this is because some are more built around building awareness of what we offer where they may not purchase it for months down the line.
    • Has helped us to save on salaries. If staff were to try to do the same thing our AI Assistant does, it would take them many hours to be as successful.
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    Blackbaud
    • Negative - The rollout is brutal. Blackbaud said it could happen in 6 months, but that is definitely not a reality. It will take well over a year, and one complete school cycle to actually integrate everything correctly.
    • Positive - The amount of time saved in data processing has allowed our office to become more involved in other areas of the school.
    • Positive - The ease of having everything in [one] place, from inquiry to application to contracts and course registration, has been a HUGE benefit to our applicants and their families.
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    ScreenShots

    Conversica Screenshots

    Screenshot of Dashboard showing an overview of important metrics, like response rates, hot leads and top-performing lead sources

    Blackbaud Education Management Solutions Screenshots

    Screenshot of Topics pages help organize units of learning throughout the year in the Learning Management SystemScreenshot of Blackbaud's education management solutions come with strong reporting tools to get the information you need quicklyScreenshot of Schedule view makes it easy for teachers to manage their daysScreenshot of Blackbaud Enrollment Management System Admissions Checklists help applicants track their progress in the admissions processScreenshot of Blackbaud's education management solutions come with strong reporting tools to get the information you need quicklyScreenshot of Keep track of all the key information about your students in one place