Likelihood to Recommend From my experience, I believe that Vision Critical offers the best software to manage an insights community. They are great to work with, and my opinion has only improved over time. However, that doesn't mean it is the best survey software overall. If someone simply needs to program and distribute surveys, this may or may not be the right solution. There are some other really great survey tools on the market that are competitively priced and offer very intuitive interfaces (like Qualtrics). If you are going to recruit people to answer surveys or provide feedback on an ongoing basis (re-contacting and engaging with the same people repeatedly), though, Vision Critical would be my #1 recommendation.
Read full review With Mailchimp we are able to revive and enhance our personal connect with the customers. The easy-to-use tools allows us to personalize the email content, segregate and target important leads & send relevant messages. Also, it offers interactive analysis on the performance of a particular campaign. We can judge the effectiveness of our mailers in real time.
Read full review Pros The team is helpful in creating complicated survey logic The team is accommodating in creating interfaces that suit our desired look The team keeps in regular contact in order to effectively manage our requests and goals Read full review Mailchimp allows you to manage your mailing list really well. You can subscribe people, unsubscribe people manage the mailing list directly into segments, and what not. Mailchimp has features where you can create campaigns based on your mailing lists and send out newsletters to your subscribers based on a multitude of parameters that you can setup. Such as send email daily, weekly, monthly and they also have event based mails that you can send out. Mailchimp also has a feature where you can design your emails. The look and aesthetics are very important when sending emails to your subscribers and all those needs are addressed here. Read full review Cons The functionality when creating a new questionnaire is rather clunky, particularly when there are a few conditional factors in the logical flow; being able to see those factors and how they apply with some sort of other logical layout would really help when creating a longer survey. There are quite a few steps that aren't intuitive when launching a survey, for instance all the various dates (launch date, reserve date, survey date, etc etc etc). If there were a description field if you hovered above labeled areas of sections that explained what this field was for that would really help It doesn't help either that the entire site is grey; it's a cold environment to be in for a long time, and the simple design makes it seem more clunky than it probably really is. Read full review The interface remains a cluttered, non-intuitive mess. That's true from the haphazard way features are organized to the actual email layout. Analytics have never been a priority, and I don't see that changing with Intuit's new ownership. I'm very frustrated over the limited choices for reporting, even when using third-party solutions. If I needed that function, I would not use MailChimp. I would love to develop a workflow screen that lets me focus on the things that I use all the time. Customizing the interface where the content actually goes into the software would help. I never understood why we couldn't import a document into a MC template. At best, we're spending time copying-and-pasting from one app into MC. Read full review Likelihood to Renew Vision Critical often requires you to dump the data to a statistical program. I hate that step. You waste time, and improve the chance of data being lost, or changed.
Read full review We've had Mailchimp for about ten years, I want to say. I started with the company about four years ago, and I don't see us ever diverting to another source. It's easy for us to use, and we have all our clients already built into the database. I imagine we'll use them for as long as we have the company.
Read full review Usability I think there is a ton of room to improve, in things as simple as aesthetics and other areas of logical flow when it comes to creating and then launching a survey, as well as providing descriptors for what each field is referencing. For instance, there are like 5 date fields to be filled out, but no button near them that says "this date will determine _________" and I am not about to go back into the training module, which was confusing enough to FIND, let alone work through to find just ONE answer.
Read full review Our team use Mailchimp almost every week. Overall UI is simple for anyone to get started with it. The resource library around using particular features is also there, so we don't have to train our team on this product. We also used a lot of other features as well.
Read full review Reliability and Availability I have, in the 4+ years that I've used Mailchimp, never seen an issue that restricted the use of their software/tools. I don't know of a single time when they're system crashed or went down. I could be wrong, but I honestly haven't experienced any issues with outages, errors or unplanned downtime
Read full review Performance I haven't noticed any slow speeds from Mailchimp or their tools. I think the landing pages load quickly and look nice. The email reports and editing operates smoothly and doesn't take time to load. Additionally, when I use Mailchimp in conjunction with Zapier + Hubspot I don't notice any drag between any of these tools
Read full review Support Rating Absolutely fantastic support team. Willing to help you online through vast collection of how-to guides and resources, online via chatbox, or over the phone. Even though we were in different time zones, they were always available. Very helpful and knowledgeable
Read full review Website tools were easy to use and understand so a novice can easily meet or exceed their client's expectations! Loved that we were able to totally customize so that the e-mail we created conveyed our client's overall messaging consistent with their branding! Client love that we can provide turnkey services to support their sales and marketing teams!
Read full review Implementation Rating It's pretty easy to get up and running! There's a slight learning curve on a few things, but once you find where everything is located, you can import your list and send your first email. It really makes our clients feel great to see how quickly they can get that first email out.
Read full review Alternatives Considered Vision Critical is more appealing visually but no where near as complex or robust. Vision Critical is also much more expensive though.
Read full review Mailchimp is a means to an end and a way to stay within GDPR laws. We may not use it if this wasn't a requirement. Other platforms are better for design or management of contacts, but Mailchimp offers that secure storage of data that is required. I have not tried other bulk mail applications, so am unable to compare these.
Read full review Scalability Mailchimp over the years I've used it has grown in leaps and bounds. They have added so many additional features than were previously available. They are truly an all-in-one marketing platform now. If you're a small operation and just want to add email to your marketing efforts, they're there for you. If you're a larger operation and want to start sending postcard advertisements, they can do that. If you'd good with that and want to kick up your marketing by going social, you can do that on their platform. They are truly able to be as small as you need, but also get quite large in whatever it is you'd like to do through their system.
Read full review Return on Investment Our use of Vision Critical's software has allowed us to dramatically increase the amount of research that we do, at a much lower cost. Since there is no incremental cost for each survey we field, we can ask many questions we wouldn't have been able to otherwise. Our use of an insights community has also sped up the research process, allowing us to write, program, field and report on a survey within only a few days. Because of the two advantages listed above, we have been able to listen closer to our customers' opinions. Read full review Mailchimp has allowed us to communicate effectively with thousands of customers with ease. Mailchimp's use during our second year of business helped us expand our list of brands considerably (almost 30% YTD) because of regular interactions that we've launched. Mailchimp ramp-up time is minimal for new users so I can turn things over to junior staff - saving me time and money. Read full review ScreenShots