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Empty Promises, Inflexible Solutions, Poor Customer Service Leads
July 09, 2022

Empty Promises, Inflexible Solutions, Poor Customer Service Leads

Anonymous | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 1 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User

Overall Satisfaction with Blackbaud Raiser's Edge NXT

We use Blackbaud Raiser's Edge NXT as our donor database of record, email marketing platform, and volunteer management software
  • Cloud-based
  • The system is constantly difficult to access. With upgrades, there are regular mass outages that impact clients.
  • Customer service is abysmal in my opinion. The customer service agents are unfamiliar with the platform and often just give you a knowledgebase article that doesn't solve your problem. Oftentimes, somehow the problem is flipped on the client - it's something we did or it is our responsibility to recreate the problem for the agent to solve.
  • The fees have increased despite losing functionality, training opportunities, and inflexible options for organizations.
  • Blackbaud Raiser's Edge NXT loads report inconsistently, often provides incorrect information, and are not a dependable solution.
  • It is cloud based
  • We have not seen an impact.
Much of the analytics and data intelligence that provides any insight is behind paywalls and you have to upgrade your package to have this included. Unless you have a staff member who has the time to build dashboards and monitor that the data is accurate, the analytics are not suitable for our use.
  • Online Training
Online training was good several years ago. The training has now become sales pitches for additional modules you need to pay more in order to use your solution effectively. Now, even if the training is difficult to access, and find, and again, there is an additional cost.
We originally selected Blackbaud Raiser's Edge NXT as it was promised to be a great solution for us. In addition, Blackbaud Raiser's Edge NXT was supposed to ultimately incorporate many of the features of the database view. Several years later, we have seen very few upgrades and the upgrades do not allow us additional capacity. For example, if I use a dashboard in Blackbaud Raiser's Edge NXT and create a list from those results. The list will incorporate a constituent's full name and address in one cell. This means I can't use this list to email constituents. Or for example, Primary Salutation is not a merge field in their email marketing which is a field we use heavily. We are changing providers and will no longer be using Blackbaud Raiser's Edge NXT.

Do you think Blackbaud Raiser's Edge NXT delivers good value for the price?

No

Are you happy with Blackbaud Raiser's Edge NXT's feature set?

No

Did Blackbaud Raiser's Edge NXT live up to sales and marketing promises?

No

Did implementation of Blackbaud Raiser's Edge NXT go as expected?

No

Would you buy Blackbaud Raiser's Edge NXT again?

No

Blackbaud Raiser's Edge NXT is no longer the gold standard for nonprofit organizations. Customer service and client relations have gone downhill from my experience. Their management of the data breach was unacceptable and left nonprofit organizations to navigate a very stressful solution on their own. For example, a helpline was provided. It was outsourced to a company that was only allowed to read from the FAQ on the website that was given to clients. No one was able to answer client-specific questions. If you need a flexible solution with reporting to dive into your analytics and you don't have a data analyst on your team, this is not a suitable solution I feel.

Blackbaud Raiser's Edge NXT Support

I feel customer service is awful and has gone downhill considerably over the years. It is rare to talk to an agent who is actually familiar with the product. In many cases, they will send you a link to a knowledgebase article or will have you recreate the problem as a client. If you can't recreate the problem, they claim that they solved the problem or that it was user error. If they can't solve it during chat, they send it to engineers. You'll hear from them every once in awhile asking if the problem is still occurring with no solutions. It's just an endless cycle.
ProsCons
None
Slow Resolution
Poor followup
Less knowledgeable
Not kept informed
Escalation required
Difficult to get immediate help
Need to explain problems multiple times
Support doesn't seem to care
Yes - No

Using Blackbaud Raiser's Edge NXT

NXT has become a solution that is not stable and often has glitches that provides inaccurate information. In the past 2 weeks, we have been unable to login for 4 days.
ProsCons
None
Do not like to use
Unnecessarily complex
Difficult to use
Not well integrated
Inconsistent
Slow to learn
Cumbersome
Feel nervous using
Lots to learn
  • It is cloud-based.
  • Information displayed is legible and the fonts are easy to read.
  • Lists
  • Email marketing doesn't have the appropriate merge fields
  • Login is consistently a challenge when upgrades occur
Yes, but I don't use it