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    Overview
    ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price

    Cortana (discontinued)

    Score7.5 out of 10
    N/AMicrosoft's Cortana was a general purpose productivity assistant, that has been deprecated as a standalone product.N/A

    OutboundEngine

    Score10 out of 10
    N/AOutboundEngine provides a hands-off way for small business owners to market and grow their business. The product aims to provide small businesses with what big companies have achieved with marketing automation. The service aims to help users keep in touch with clients and prospects with professionally designed, branded campaigns. Benefits include: driving engagement, surfacing warm leads from current contacts, generating referrals and repeat business from their existing contacts, social…

    $199

    per user

    Pricing
    Cortana (discontinued)OutboundEngine
    Editions & Modules
    No answers on this topic
    Essential
    $199
    per user
    Value
    $299
    per user
    Premium
    $499
    per user
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    Cortana (discontinued)OutboundEngine
    Free Trial
    NoNo
    Free/Freemium Version
    NoNo
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    NoNo
    Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup fee$99 per user
    Additional Details—More information is available on the vendor's website.
    More Pricing Information
    Community Pulse
    Cortana (discontinued)OutboundEngine
    Considered Both Products
    Discontinued Products
    No answer on this topic
    Elm Street Technology
    No answer on this topic
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    No answers on this topic
    75%
    Would buy again
    42 Answers
    Delivers good value for the price
    No answers on this topic
    75%
    Delivers good value for the price
    38 Answers
    Happy with the feature set
    No answers on this topic
    75%
    Happy with the feature set
    42 Answers
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    No answers on this topic
    67%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    37 Answers
    Implementation went as expected
    No answers on this topic
    84%
    Implementation went as expected
    47 Answers
    Features
    Cortana (discontinued)OutboundEngine
    Email & Online Marketing
    Comparison of Email & Online Marketing features of Cortana (discontinued) and OutboundEngine
    Feature
    Cortana (discontinued)
    -
    Ratings
    OutboundEngine
    5.9
    50 Ratings
    22% below category average
    Mobile optimization00 Ratings8.643 Ratings
    Email deliverability reporting00 Ratings3.050 Ratings
    List management00 Ratings6.044 Ratings
    Lead Management
    Comparison of Lead Management features of Cortana (discontinued) and OutboundEngine
    Feature
    Cortana (discontinued)
    -
    Ratings
    OutboundEngine
    5.3
    38 Ratings
    23% below category average
    Automated sales alerts and tasks00 Ratings5.338 Ratings
    Social Media Marketing
    Comparison of Social Media Marketing features of Cortana (discontinued) and OutboundEngine
    Feature
    Cortana (discontinued)
    -
    Ratings
    OutboundEngine
    10.0
    48 Ratings
    36% above category average
    Social sharing and campaigns00 Ratings10.048 Ratings
    Best Alternatives
    Cortana (discontinued)OutboundEngine
    Small Businesses
    No answers on this topic
    HighLevel
    Score9.3 out of 10
    Medium-sized Companies
    No answers on this topic
    LocaliQ
    Score8.6 out of 10
    Enterprises
    No answers on this topic
    No answers on this topic
    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    Cortana (discontinued)OutboundEngine
    Likelihood to Recommend
    7.1
    (3 ratings)
    10.0
    (61 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    -
    (0 ratings)
    7.0
    (2 ratings)
    Usability
    -
    (0 ratings)
    7.6
    (7 ratings)
    Availability
    -
    (0 ratings)
    8.8
    (27 ratings)
    Support Rating
    -
    (0 ratings)
    7.9
    (24 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    Cortana (discontinued)OutboundEngine
    Likelihood to Recommend
    Discontinued Products
    It's easy for anyone who is expecting some simple AI problems like fetching the keywords, understanding the intent, language translation, etc. to be solved from an existing database and all they need is to connect to their APIs via a subscription model. But for complex use cases, there is still room for improvement like customization of underlying AI models for a specific use case like identifying some unique identifiers with respect to industry.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Elm Street Technology
    OutboundEngine does a referral campaign and I've been able to close a couple of deals based on getting in touch with people who engage with this campaign and state they could use my services in the next 6 months. This is a great follow up tool for those you may or may not know are going to be needing your services.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Pros
    Discontinued Products
    • Being hosted in Azure solves a massive hosting problem
    • The language understanding system has the ability to revolutionize many vertical markets
    • Integrating with Cortana Analytics was really simple due to easy to understand documentation
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Elm Street Technology
    • The content that they generate to send to our clients is relevant and the clients want to engage with us. It makes us appear more professional and consistent, even though we are a smaller company.
    • It helps us stay in touch with clients and helps us stay top of mind. We are able to generate more new business leads if we are in consistent contact with current, former, and potential clients.
    • Their customer service and support is outstanding. All my questions were answered and I went into the program feeling confident and knowledgeable.
    Read full review
    Cons
    Discontinued Products
    • More partnerships with colleges and schools to increase the workforce with technical knowledge (increase local workforce)
    • Have more online training and documentation in other languages
    • Have affordable prices for students
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Elm Street Technology
    • I do not like the use of drawings to attract new customers, and they have ignored my requests to eliminate that for my personal emails.
    • I do not like it when a competitor in my immediate market has the same posts. It cheapens the service or makes it appear that I am simply sharing another's post.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Likelihood to Renew
    Discontinued Products
    No answers on this topic
    Elm Street Technology
    The biggest issue is poor ROI. The second biggest issue is rigid customer service process, lack of a sense of urgency, and inability to reach out to upper management with issues.
    Read full review
    Usability
    Discontinued Products
    No answers on this topic
    Elm Street Technology
    Overall, OutboundEngine is very user friendly. It is simple to set up and explore, and if there are any issues or questions, the customer service team and account managers are always available to help. They are very knowledgeable and were able to explain everything in detail to me. The program is easy to navigate and helps me stay organized, and an uncomplicated and straightforward solution was exactly what I was looking for
    Read full review
    Reliability and Availability
    Discontinued Products
    No answers on this topic
    Elm Street Technology
    I haven't had to contact Outbound Engine because I haven't had any application errors or unplanned outages. I basically have had such a trouble free experience with them that I haven't had to call. Everything is automated and I get a notice to review every isse. I suppose if I personalized the newsletter a bit more and added some of my own articles, I would need to contact them, (which I should really start to do) but so far things have been so on point, I haven't felt the need.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Support Rating
    Discontinued Products
    No answers on this topic
    Elm Street Technology
    The customer service was excellent! Everyone I spoke to was kind and knowledgeable. My account manager was easily reachable. Setup of the OutboundEngine program was explained really thoroughly, and we knew how we could best use the product to meet the needs of our clients and get our online and social media presence off the ground.
    Read full review
    Alternatives Considered
    Discontinued Products
    IBM Watson Assistant has been early into this market and has improved a lot over time compared to Azure AI Cortana. More documentation related to the services. But Ease of integration Azure AI ranks over IBM Watson Assistant. And again in terms of services offered under the ecosystem, Azure AI precedes IBM Watson Assitant.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Elm Street Technology
    I selected it for the ability to have an automated system do 3 things all at once, social media posts, emails and the instant communication with the chat box. I have never seen a chat come through that lead to a helpful client touchpoint. I have never used another product but have since begun to weigh some of the less expensive options.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Return on Investment
    Discontinued Products
    • Difficult to ascertain the ROI as we are a software house who have developed a module in our application using Cortana. However for companies that use our software I would say the use of sentiment analysis in our application could free up at least 1 full time resource to be used elsewhere in their organisation.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Elm Street Technology
    • One client identified how one article I sent that he read saved him from having to replace his entire AC system.
    • One client actually thought I was sending this to him personally because I valued him
    • One of the above transacted with me twice for over $3M in sales
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    ScreenShots

    OutboundEngine Screenshots

    Screenshot of Automated Social Media MarketingScreenshot of A personalized snapshot of your account activity and warmest leads.Screenshot of Personally designed, tested, and automated emails