iContact vs. SwagUp

I would only recommend it if someone was a small business. I think they are the best suited for companies who will send out a coupon or offer here and there. The most recent updates made it more complicated to use for more complicated processes. It is easy to train someone on the program, and so quick to learn. But I would also only stick to the simpler things. I also think the colorful templates are great, and show great creativity. But again, it is hard to justify recommending the program when it isn't WYSIWYG.

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In my experience, it was a horribly complicated process with an account manager, who takes things very personally in my opinion. SwagUp came highly recommended from some client-serving companies, who I believe, apparently, spend a lot of money with them. For a company that is supposed to help other companies wow their clients, I find their customer service is woefully lacking in my opinion. I believe “swag” doesn’t make up for the bad service. Not recommended because I believe I did not get the customer service or product fulfillment I expected when initially choosing this product, service, and company.

• Contact management. iContact is really great for entering all your contact. You are able to put them onto different lists, and let them choose which lists they would like to be a part of as well. There are many data fields provided to fill in information.
• Emailing. We use the email feature at least once a month. They are always improving and adding new features, which is very helpful in presenting content in a new and exciting way to our readers. There are many options with remade templates and themes, or you can add your own.
• Insights. It is really helpful being able to have the data to see what is working and what isn't. It is nice to be able to go back and see how things went in the past compared to now. Opens, clicks, shares, etc.

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• Customer Services has gotten better.
• Platform is organized.
• Communication.

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• We also would like to send transactional messages which don't require an opt-out, this is a challenge with iContact. (May be a feature with pro?)
• The regular version of iContact doesn't support event management or logic flows for automated messaging.
• Custom form fields have limited field type options (can't build a drop-down).

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• UX
• International shipping.

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iContact has been a quick and easy way to send any announcements and news directly to email and social media subscribers. Its tracking and reporting capabilities turn a simple email into a marketing campaign that can be used as a tool to efficiently gauge reader response and customer satisfaction, and ultimately to reach potential customers. The consistency and excellent customer service is what makes this program a pleasant experience.

I rate iContact as an easy to use program due to its user friendly dashboard and user interface. Most companies of small to medium size do not have a dedicated marketer, therefore it is someone multitasking who may or may not have this kind of experience. iContact makes it relatively simple and can actually expand one's knowledge in the area of business promotion.

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iContact is regularly up and running. Only once has it been unavailable for maintenance, which is to be expected and even desired for optimal performance when needed.

They have always been responsive to any issues or concerns that have arisen with our account. Our customer account manager participates in our monthly county-wide communicators meetings via telephone to ensure that we are getting the most from the service. He also analyzes our lists to help us weed out inactive contacts.

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We have an active order in with SwagUp at this moment for $1400+, but the poor customer service, complicated process, the entitled attitude of their account manager who is on some sort of weird power trip, and the fact that our clients won't ever be receiving what we ordered makes that amount irrelevant in my opinion and experience. I feel like the time I wasted with their account manager was worth much more than what we spent with SwagUp. First of all, I’m not the type to be critical of anyone doing their job. People are busy, tech has issues, emails get lost, etc. in our digital world. It happens and true professionals who work online understand that. Unfortunately, in my opinion, there are employees who don’t get this and feel entitled to express their emotions freely. I believe that while this doesn’t harm them, it definitely harms the bottom line of the company. In my opinion, an angry and insulted client WILL spread the word about said company - which is precisely what I will do. Let's talk about this what I feel like is a completely unprofessional account manager first, because, in my opinion, this is the type of employee who causes companies to bleed revenue unless they are checked. The call was recorded, so whoever is in charge can feel free to review it for consistency. The purpose of my call was simple - to smooth out what I believe was a simple miscommunication. In my opinion, what should have been a simple process became stalled because the person who I feel like was an entitled account manager was more concerned with flexing his “client boundary” muscles than actually doing his job, which was taking care of the account. I believe that an account manager who gets upset and emotional because he didn’t receive a response to an email, and who can’t even disguise that fact on a zoom call, needs to fix it or work elsewhere. Because if he had this attitude with me, I feel like lord knows how many others of his accounts are receiving the same treatment. During my experience, here are a few statements I believe he made on the call: -I believe he talked about how my business was “not the type of clients SwagUp wants to work with”… -I believe he complained out how it was “unfair” it was to bring up their January 18th delay. -I believe he asked, “what sort of company we run” (because an email was missed - even though from my understanding from SwagUp, communication is encouraged mainly through their portal). -I believe he proceeded to talk about “how busy” he was and had other people to talk to, while he was on the call with me, a paying client. -I believe he also complained about third-party vendors and stated that they (SwagUp) don’t even want to have third-party materials sent to them (which to me, is confusing as a customer, because then why on earth do you even allow it through your product and service?) -I believe he denied that the company had anything to do with “fulfillment” and then proceeded to try to explain what sort of company SwagUp was. Nevermind that when our order was delayed the email literally started with (what I believe is a copy and pasted message) “You are receiving this message because we've been notified that your order is experiencing a longer than normal fulfillment timeline.” -During my experience, after what I feel like was him constantly implying that our company was incompetent because we missed an email, he proceeded to give what I felt like was a half-hearted “apology” and state that “he hopes we consider SwagUp in the future”. After all of this happened during my experience with them, I informed him that we would not based on what I felt like was his horrible customer service to me, and guess what Mr. Emotional Customer Service does? I believe he ended the call by saying, “Well, the feeling is mutual”. With all of that personal customer service experience I had out of the way, here’s the context of our experience using SwagUp: We began the process with SwagUp on November 29th. Mockups were completed and approved on December 28th. In the meantime, we had originally wanted to add a third-party item to our order, so they linked us up with an account executive. Throughout the process, the account executive was adamant that we use the SwagUp dashboard to stay informed of the progress of our materials and order. In my opinion, based on my experience there with the account executive, the implication was that everything could be one on there (SwagUp dashboard). The problem, in my opinion, is (and now I know) that it can’t. On January 18th, our order was delayed. The message I believe we received was: “We know you and your recipients are looking forward to receiving your custom swag and understand the frustration of missing holiday expectations. We appreciate your patience, apologize for the inconvenience, and look forward to getting you your order as soon as possible.” No complaints on our part for that. On the 20th, our account manager reached out to ask about the third-party material we requested to be included. Unfortunately, on our part, due to a personnel change, the email thread was archived. Nevertheless, we were informed it was shipped to their warehouse. However, at this time on their online portal (SwagUp dashboard), where we were previously constantly encouraged to check for updates, there was nothing to see in my opinion. I couldn't find any new updates or any new information. As far as we knew at that point, our order was still delayed. Bear in mind that at this point in our experience, we had paid our invoice and were assuming that SwagUp still had logistics problems due to COVID and other factors mentioned in their email. On February 16th, I believe the account manager emailed to state that due to lack of responsiveness, they were going to go ahead and pack the packages without the third-party material we had requested. I believe we did not hear back from SwagUp till February 21st when were informed that our order was ready to ship. This is when my customer service experience began, which was when the account manager was called and I believe his entire attitude was based around being upset that his emails were not responded to. In my experience, he kept repeating that under no circumstances would they place our requested material in the boxes - never mind that I didn’t even call about that. I never asked, but during our call, it seemed like to me that he got some sort of kick out of explaining how their process worked and why he would send the boxes back, which was information that I had no interest in hearing because I didn’t call about any of that. It seemed to me that he wasn't informed that SwagUp had delayed the process and that we received no feedback from their portal, which I feel like they heavily push. The craziest part, in my opinion, was that at the end of everything, he STILL redirected us to the portal to fill out everything else. I recommend SwagUp to listen up. This company (SwagUp) *looks* good as a brand. I understand that logistics is tough. This could have been a good experience - even just using your portal, but, in my opinion, there are two issues: 1) Your third-party fulfillment is clunky and 2) Your account managers (the human element) need to be better managed and trained based on my experience. Just because they had a poor experience with one client, I hope they don't treat all other clients with the disdain and disrespect that I feel like I experienced during my time using SwagUp. In my experience, we still paid for our product on time and fulfilled every aspect of the complicated process, despite a delay, which we never complained about. Even though we requested it, our third-party order will not even be included when it's shipped out to our clients – and we still had no complaints either. But, in my opinion, what we won’t put up with or will actively share is an employee that I believe is emotional, condescending, and acts like he owns the company towards clients.

The templates are difficult to customize, and they don't render well in email platforms

i wouldn't be using it if i wasn't satisfied. time is money

I didn't have a say in the decision because I wasn't with the company at the time. I listed HubSpot here because I know we used it in conjunction with iContact for email automation, but HubSpot Email was only recently built-out to the point where it is today. Now, iContact and HubSpot are no longer integrated.

SwagUp has more options to order swag and items for the organization and is more user-friendly, the others are but SwagUp is easier to figure out on the first try!

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iContact stays the same with the number of users added or taken away. It certainly remains reliable despite increased usage, and so, can be considered scaleable in that aspect.

• We have a template for webinars that we send every month. We just edit it and send. This couldn't be easier (once you know where to find it).
• We like the breakdown of statistics in the dashboard. They're easy to read.
• iContact isn't a comprehensive solution, so it is only one of a few products we use for marketing.

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• Negative- The process takes too long, comes with delays, and based on my experience, involved a lot of miscommunication.
• Negative- In my experience, I believe the account manager was rude and entitled.
• Negative- In my opinion, employees may say one thing, but their automated portal proceeds at a different rate, so I feel like there is constantly conflicting information for the customer.