GreenRope vs. LocaliQ

There's no such thing as a CRM that doesn't have its complications and headaches. I have tried a lot of them and ultimately like GreenRope heads and shoulders above the rest. GreenRope is particularly suited for small to medium sized businesses who do not have the budget or need for a SalesForce install, or the engineers necessary to make other CRM software work. If you want a more sophisticated system than an email responder like MailChimp or Constant Contact, you need to have a CRM. So ask yourself what you are looking to automate in your business and then go for a solution that has the ability to scale with you. A CRM is a commitment to long term growth and automation, and you should see it as an investment -- both in cash and in time. I don't have a programmer and have managed to get a lot of functionality out of GreenRope (all DIY). And I'm always adding to it with no limits in sight.

ReachLocal is a trustworthy agency for smaller-scale multifamily buildings that can do the basics of website management, SEO, and advertising on Facebook or Google. I think they provide a solid product but do not get into the nitty-gritty advanced features that create value for clients that want to stick out.

Incentivized

• GreenRope provides a full-featured application at ALL pricing levels. You don't have to 'upgrade' to get better features - you've got them all right away. I really appreciated this!
• GreenRope doesn't charge per user (i.e., administrator of the system). Other systems require additional fees when adding administrators to your account. GreenRope makes it easy for me to get help with the CRM by adding more of my people, without adding multiple fees.
• Customer Service at GreenRope rocks! They really want to help you get started well. The training and set-up calls are fantastic. For any support issues that have come up (usually newbie questions!) I've always received a prompt response. I can't say enough about their support.
• There are many ways for me to customize my data sets, for management and segmentation of contacts, specific to my industry and business needs.
• Dashboard customization - as a visual learner, the presentation of information on my screen is important to me, and GreenRope allows me the ability to customize colours, icons, and sizes of things in my dashboard. This is helpful for my creativity and productivity.

• ThriveHive is a smaller marketing team dedicated to helping small to medium sized businesses perfect their marketing messages. ThriveHive is particularity good at understanding how Google, and other search engines work, and have been instrumental in helping my company to grow and evolve.
• With ThriveHive, you get a dedicated coach who is matched to your type of business. This experience with similar businesses gives your coach a better understanding of your business and the challenges your company faces.
• My coach is very good at responding to my needs within 1 to 2 business days. Email contacts are fluent and as often as I need, to discuss ideas or questions. I can only speak of my relationship with my coach, and I am very pleased.
• I feel that ThriveHive makes every effort to take excellent care of their clients, and makes you feel like you are their most important customer. I definitely believe that this is one of ThriveHives' greatest assets.

Incentivized

• The project management software - while usable in its current form - can still benefit from further development. But I've noticed that they are working on it, so it seems they are aware of this area of opportunity.
• This is a little thing, but I'd like the ability to drill into specific tasks from more areas, and mark them complete quickly or make notes on them.
• I honestly don't have many suggestions. I use their ticket system to make suggestions when they occur to me, and they tend to incorporate suggestions very quickly into subsequent builds.

• The email content editor could use some additional bells and whistles, it cannot handle some more advanced functions, but for the basics it is more than adequate.
• Options for website creation are a bit limited and the turnaround time can be a bit lengthy at times because of the volume they do.
• Tracked phone lines can be a bit pricey, but not exorbitant.

Incentivized

They have monthly renewals, so at any time you can cancel and not feel like they are holding your money. Their customer support is easy to work with. Their ticketing system to communicate with you about service issues is fantastic(which is included in the monthly fee) allows you to track issues. We use the ticketing system and add it to our website. This gives people the ability to communicate with us 24/7.

It takes time to learn this system. It is not going to happen over night, but once you master it it will be worth it. I am already seeing some great results, all I have to do is keep learning.

Many times I have to repeat the issue several times before the person understands correctly. There was also an instant where support was not available when help was needed, had to wait for a response and it was a business day.

I think there are some cheat sheets and best practises lists that could be created that would save a business a lot of time and frustration. BUT, even as it is, the frustrations and challenges disappear as things start working. I am going to be offering up a few of the tricks I have learned to the team at GreenRope to share with other users because when customers offer valuable work arounds that they find helpful to others, we accomplish a few things. The coders get an idea of things that aren't working quite as expected so they can look into fixes, other customers get benefit and we all win

We chose GreenRope.com because they were the best fit. We already had a marketing email strategy with Constant Contact so choosing a CRM with those capabilities was very important when making our decision. Everything we were already doing could be in 1 place instead of needing to login to several different outlets to reach our goals and objectives. For example, email marketing (Constant Contact), website tracking (our Host), client tracking (spreadsheets), Calendars (Outlook), etc. Now we do everything, email marketing, track leads, have a work flow, track website visitors, post events and forecast all with 1 login. It's great!!

While WordPress provides you with the opportunity to build a custom website, it stops there. ThriveHive has a strong small business marketing suite of products that are integrated into a WordPress-based website while also making it easy for the user to make quick and easy edits to existing content. I will say that I find MailChimp's aesthetic and deliverability to be leaps and bounds ahead of ThriveHive, and so I was unable to cut my account with MailChimp. I still use it for large email newsletters while using ThriveHive's email client for shorter, more targeted marketing efforts for segmented lists.

Incentivized

• It has helped us from an efficiency standpoint to organize, keep track off, and communicate with our contacts.
• We have high functionality and great features for a great cost.
• People with varying levels of computer experience can use GreenRope and many of its features.

Incentivized

• I think one of the most important lessons learned so far, is to really have a very clear idea of who your customers/clients are, and who you want them to be.
• My website is now in its second iteration. Completely different focus from the 1st iteration. My first website was producing "hits" but not producing leads. The experience gained from this attempt lead to my new website, which is now doing the job that a website is intended to do, creating leads. Often, failure is the stepping stone to success. There is no doubt that the level of clientele that my new website is generating is worth every penny that I have spent with ThriveHive.
• Building a successful business takes time, and a good understanding of your customers/clients. The people at ThriveHive are good at helping you figure this out.

Incentivized