Disastrous account closure process with a broken product & terrible customer support that cost us thousands of dollars
January 04, 2024

Disastrous account closure process with a broken product & terrible customer support that cost us thousands of dollars

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

Overall Satisfaction with Guideline

We selected Guideline as our 401k provider and used the integration with Rippling (our payroll provider).
  • Costs ended up being exorbitant - Guideline forced us to self-fund the contribution after the account was closed and their product and customer support mistakes
  • Employee satisfaction - offering a 401k as an SMB is important
We went with Guideline as it was more affordable than alternatives. I believe this ended up being a terrible mistake. Invest in a stronger 401k partner. Human Interest was the other provider we were considering. I don't know if closing an account would have been as complicated with other providers, but I certainly know the support would have been better and more transparent with a provider like Human Interest

Do you think Guideline delivers good value for the price?

No

Are you happy with Guideline's feature set?

No

Did Guideline live up to sales and marketing promises?

No

Did implementation of Guideline go as expected?

No

Would you buy Guideline again?

No

I believe that the only thing more broken than Guideline's product is their customer support. From initial contribution dates to the disastrous account closure that cost us personally thousands of dollars, this has been by far the worst SaaS and customer experience I've ever had in my career. If only 1) Guideline's product or 2) customer support had individually been broken, we would not have ended up in this state. I sent dozens and dozens of emails inquiring about oddities I was seeing in the product, but Guideline's reps only gave more conflicting and what ended up being grossly inaccurate feedback and status updates. I hope this review reaches anyone who is thinking of closing their Guideline account. Be extremely wary of what Guideline says and does in the account closure process and exact for detailed and exact timelines (you'll have to follow up many times...). For those of you who haven't yet selected a 401k provider, I'd recommend staying as far away from Guideline as possible.

Guideline Feature Ratings

Administration and Recordkeeping
2
Payroll Integration
1
Compliance Maintenance
5
Plan Flexibility
7
Filings and Disclosures
3
Ease of Enrollment
3