Velocify--Great for front end lead conversion, not much else
December 17, 2014

Velocify--Great for front end lead conversion, not much else

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

Software Version

Enterprise

Overall Satisfaction with Velocify

We utilized Velocify to manage our student life cycle as well as transactional emails at each stage of the process. This was being utilized by our marketing and sales, admissions teams, management and executive teams, as well as the business and analytics area. Velocify was designed to help us be able to break down the black holes of the enrollment process and give more granularity to the process as a whole.
  • The simplicity of the system setup is relatively easy.
  • The built in speed to lead Dialer worked very well and distributed leads accurately.
  • The help and support area was easy to navigate.
  • No limitation on numbers of fields assisted with our need for granularity.
  • The canned reporting is not a one size fits all, and therefore customization of reports was needed. However, the ability to filter different criteria in and/or boolean was non-existent.
  • Customer Service and personable touch was poor at almost every level. We were with Velcoify for 2 years and we had to repeatedly explain our business to them with each issue.
  • Fields were not able to be shared across different areas, which proved to be problematic with different reporting needs.
  • Validation was only added to the system in the last few months, and this was very basic; because there were not specific security items for each role, this made our data integrity very shaky.
  • Creating emails and duplicating statuses, etc was labor intensive. There was no ability to clone existing emails, status, actions.
  • Drip campaigns were not available.
  • Vendor posting proved problematic at times, and the fact that anyone could enter anything into a drop down (again, validation) proved problematic as well.
  • Faster lead conversion lead us to higher potential for "first school wins" philosophy.
  • Negative return on time spent maintaining Velocify. Because manual reporting was needed and much had to be done outside of the system, there was a monetary loss of time because of this.
  • Predictability was near impossible for us, and the fact that we had to purchase an email automation system because Velocify did not do anything we needed was a negative ROI for our business.
Before we went with Velocify, we had Salesforce and Hobson's EMT Connect. Both of these systems were rather expensive and didn't give us exactly what we needed for lead conversion as well as the customization we desired. However, I feel that some of the reasons we went with Velocify were not exactly truthful as we found out during the implementation process or much later that there were things they said that they could do that once we started getting into the weeds with it they weren't able to execute. From a lead conversion and speed to lead standpoint, this is a good product. From a reporting and lifecycle management standpoint, this is a very poor product compared to the other two.
We have already moved back to using Salesforce. We tried to discuss different options as far as what we could use Velocify for, but with the larger spend associated with Salesforce, there was no business reason to continue to utilize Velocify.
Small businesses who do not need complex reporting and analytics would fit well into the Velocify model. There needs to be specific segments that appeal to this type of CRM, and the best feature is within an added layer--dialer. The ability to turn things around and contact your leads immediately was very beneficial to us, and could prove to be a boon for a small to midsize business.

Velocify Support

We single-handedly were involved in having the company change their response email to say that they would have a response in less than 4 hours, as it previously stated 1 hour and they never, ever met this. Velocify does not learn its customer's business, it tries to fit it into the cookie cutter of the platform.
ProsCons
Knowledgeable team
Slow Resolution
Problems left unsolved
Not kept informed
Escalation required
Need to explain problems multiple times
Support doesn't seem to care
Slow Initial Response
Yes - This was not done in a timely fashion at all on many occasions, and it took escalation many times to the supervisor of our account manager to even get a response. They operate solely on west coast hours and are closed on holidays for any support. What CRM vendor does this?