Act! reviews

Love the ease of use for both entering data and retrieving info

Opmerkingen: I use it to track my clients and prospects and I can tell anyone the last time I made contact, what that was - letter, Email, Phone Call, etc. and it allows me to connect important info to any of my clients, prospects, friends and family.

Pluspunten:

The fact that I was able to use the product immediately with no instruction was a great pro. Entering data and retrieving info about a client is easy, and building history of calls, Email messages, letters in a record is great.

Minpunten:

I am not happy with support as all they do is provide a fix when there is a problem, but not direction in how to build reports or use other functionality. I have had to fix the same problem with direction from their service group several times. If I ask for help with reports they tell me I need to find a consultant for that.

Basic CRM that does the job

Pluspunten:

ACT is easy to use and does what a CRM is supposed to do: manage contacts and contact information. It is easy to create contacts, companies, links and search for them. It can be used offline which makes it extremely convenient when there is no internet access (eg: business trips). The DB will synchronize when you are back online. Another thing is that it is an off the shelf product: it does not require any development to configure.

Minpunten:

The software lacks customizable reports and dashboard. It is extremely complicated to setup a good dashboard with the reports that you need. There is not much options or flexibility, and the display does not always end up being right (missing items). So it is not the best for sales/opportunities management.

ACT! Review

Opmerkingen: great product grreat features great support team even weekends keep up the good work

Pluspunten:

as an existing ACT! user i was already familiar with product. the cloud feature is great in a remote team environment

Minpunten:

not being able to synchronise databases across cloud platform. have to do on desktop version

ACT CRM, Great Starter CRM.

Opmerkingen: For many years that I did use act I really enjoyed it was a great tool getting used to working with it was very easy for me. we did a lot of customization to the dashboard added some imagery additional fields it was really awesome. We didn't get to the point to using their marketing campaign products but the email templates were really awesome really awesome

Pluspunten:

I really liked the contact management history management email integration and tracking grouping of contacts opportunity groups add opportunity ratings.

Minpunten:

Act is a really great entry level CRM it has some functionality's third party capabilities other products you can purchase from the store but it just doesn't have what it takes to get you over the hill when you get a little bit larger

Small Business Owner & ACT! User since V2

Opmerkingen: I'm a small business owner, mostly focused on selling services and ACT! has enabled me to manage all aspects of selling, marketing, client communications and far more. Great customer support over the past almost 30 years as an ACT! user.

Pluspunten:

Ability to customize the product for my preferred activities - follow-ups, invoicing, managing client relations, sales pipeline tracking and more.

Minpunten:

Nothing to complain about as they've gotten the product to work efficiently with the past 6 or 7 versions. Upgrading used to be inconvenient but they've made the upgrade process seemless

Act and your need for a CRM

Opmerkingen: Without the introduction of a CRM, i doubt we would have had the client retention we have been lucky to have, we had trialed other CRM's, from free online to high cost ones like Goldmine - they all do much the same but our need to a specific way of accessing and manipulating our data left us with Act as the only real option. One option was to have a bespoke system but costs in the region of £100,000 and constant support didnt make much business sense at the time and after seeing similar projects fail at rival companies we think the route we took has been justified

Pluspunten:

Having the ability to scale requirements has helped the business grow without huge outlay. Has the capability to use high end hardware and now has a Cloud based solution so removing the need for costly onsite equipment if required

Minpunten:

As usual costs, the license model has change from perpetual to the per user per year, the Cloud based variant is expensive but comparable to others. The need for a 3rd party module to fully use the software for our needs has increased usability but at a cost, would of been nice to include in subscription

A GOOD STABLE BASE FOR CRM ... JUST WISH ENHANCING WAS A LITTLE EASIER

Opmerkingen: We need ACT, and it is the core of what we do. We would like to see ways that we can add depth and richness to a good platfrom

Pluspunten:

I like the fact that a team of 5 can share effectively in real time, I like the ease of changing layouts and adding fields, and with Seamless the ablity to easily prdcue high quality documenation. It's link to outlook and ODBC is good and it is a stable, which being at the core of our business is a good thing

Minpunten:

There are many things I think we could do to be more productive but can't, and we do see fields being changed or lost "by themselves". The web version was a poor version of the Pro, and we haven't been able to make it available when offline, which is a frustration.

Good As A Contact Manager, Not As A 2020 CRM

Opmerkingen: ACT! was very helpful in moving our business forward at a time where we mainly needed to focus on contact management. Now that I need a true CRM, there are better alternatives for us.

Pluspunten:

I used ACT daily for years. It works well as a contact manager and can help track email conversions through an Outlook plugin.

Minpunten:

The program lacks the advanced functionality you would expect with a modern day customer relationship management software. The design is also extremely dated.

Act! has changed a lot over the years

Pluspunten:

initially, I liked the ability to manage my various lists of contacts.

Minpunten:

Lots of duplicates get created by not being able to have a master database with the option of placing contacts in multiple categories and then creating separate lists per project that do not change as the master database is updated. I want to be able to see what contacts I sent information to two months after I built the list so I am clear where we had a miss when we learn of updates/new contacts, but Act does not allow that.

Act! Review

Pluspunten:

It's fresh and innovative approach to email automation is brilliant.

Minpunten:

Some of it's features especially the content management is shakey at best.

Very versatile

Opmerkingen: I have been using it non stop since the earliest versions - that should tell you that I am very satisfied with it.

Pluspunten:

I have been using ACT for over 25 years and have seen lots of versions. I like its flexibility and that I can put users into multiple groups, It would be impossible to design a program that did everything everybody wanted it to but ACT comes close. I use it for sales, marketing, personal groups I coordinate, keeping track of some of my customers' customers. It can interact with Outlook and Google's calendar if you use either of those programs. I am a Premium member. The bad side to that is it is a little pricey - about $0 a month. The good side is that I always have the most up to date version. The customer support is wonderful if you are a premium member. Whenever Microsoft Windows has an update a lot of my programs need some adjusting. ACT requires the SQL to restart but that is a simple fix. If/when I have had issues I couldn't fix I just made a call and their support team was terrific in helping me. I like the fact that it is cloud based so I can access it on my tablet or cell phone or any computer anywhere. At my office I use the offline version and simply update the sync to the cloud. I have it set to update overnight also. One of the features I like best is the history. It is great to be able to look back to meetings, calls etc to see what I said, did etc. The library of forms is very useful also - create a form, letter - whatever - and you have a pre printed template you can utilize for multiple clients or for just one. It holds tons of contacts also.

Minpunten:

I wish it had more options for the ID/Status cells. The group function sort of does that but not like I need it to. Having 3, 4, 5 or more ID/Status cells would be very useful. Most of my clients fall into more than one category.

Act! through the years

Opmerkingen: I love Act!, the functionality, the ability to customize, detailed reports. I run my single jobs, AR, AP, reporting, generate documents, calendar, follow up, email all through Act! and have micro control of every document and report. I have several users and the addons are endless.

Pluspunten:

I began using Act! 20+ years ago the draw for me was the ability to customize the product for my companies needs. I have run my company's database with this software from start up and I have made it work through the years. In the earlier days I was able to automate functionality to stay ahead of trends and have robust productivity far a head of my competitors. As the years have gone on and the product was sold and resold they have updated and brought general users more but have left lifelong users in the dust for profit.

Minpunten:

Subscription services that cripple my ability to utilize the fully purchased/owned product. I feel that the company sold out for recurring subscriptions. I don't care that they want to go to subscription but I do care that I have my feet held to the fire because of it. Users like myself enabled their progress and continued success.

Value of using Act

Opmerkingen: See What I liked most.

Pluspunten:

Started using Act about 25 years ago. Have added contacts since and used most of the features. Over time the use of certain features such as mass mailings to customer lists have faded, and now occasionally by e-mail. Over time I have come to value how I can locate someone that was a customer years ago, and have a complete record of a transaction, conversation or specific subject we were involved in. You have to learn to use for nearly every phone conversation or piece of correspondence. If you do, you will always be able to revert back to a contact, and who said what when. What correspondence was involved etc. To say nothing about scheduling appointments, and being reminded of birthdays and other important events. Act is the backbone of my business and personal contact information. Invaluable and used every day. I have used over may revisions and Company changes. Sometimes the customer service is better than others. Presently the Customer Service is Excellent. If you are a first time user or considering starting to use it I would recommend you take a course on using it as many of the features are not apparent unless someone shows them to you. A great tool to keep track of what everyone on your team is doing and as they move on a record of what they did and who was involved. A great tool that I rely on daily. Happy to spread the word.

Minpunten:

Many features that I never use, but see how others would. Don't like having to use MS Outlook for e-mail. Would like to access completely by phone, but my database is too big.

ACT is a great software product that allows you to integrate your database and track your clients

Opmerkingen: ACT is worth the price and worth the training to get educated on it. Unfortunately you need to spend some time figuring out the details, but once you do, it is off to the races and you will love the system every day. It really is a great product.

Pluspunten:

This product allows you to integrate the basic and most complicated processes within your business. I love the email link feature, any time I send an email to a client (who has their email in their account profile), the system automatically saves that email in the client profile. You don't have to search for it in your inbox, or click an extra button to push the details over to the profile, it all happens automatically. The icing on the cake, is now that it is in the client profile, other members of my team can see what emails I have communicated to client, and when they were sent. It helps to keep my team all on the same page. This is by far the best Client Database system I have ever used. AMAZING!

Minpunten:

The biggest downside to ACT is there is not a built in funnel email system. You have to select the group or type of clients that you want to email, export that to another database and then send the communications from there. The system will still tag your emails as long as they are sent from your domain, but having to export the list an use an additional software or service to send the mass email notifications is a little frustrating. If they can fix this option, it would make my life a lot easier.

Long time Act user 20+ years

Opmerkingen: We put a local copy on each of their computers and sync to the master database. Since our equipment needed an upgrade I signed up for a trial of the newest cloud based system. It did not work, would not load on our trial computers and was totally unreliable. I called customer service who took DAYS to get back to me, and by then, we had pulled it off the test machines. We have 64000 contacts, and the Act Consultants tell us that is sketchy to transfer that many contacts to the newer systems. I am stuck with the older software, but that's ok, it works flawlessly.

Pluspunten:

None that I can think of...over our old ACT versions.

Minpunten:

We are a long time user of Act with 64000 contacts, and thought about an upgrade and tried the newest software. Connection to ACT did not work, called customer service which took DAYS to respond, and only with trivial solutions or told us out browsers were inadequate. We cannot use cloud based software, as many of our sales persons need to travel and out of internet on the road. We asked about purchasing a copy for local server use, and they STILL have not called back. Uses alot of memory and crashed the test computer a couple of times. I reviewed the posts, and many are favorable, but their usage is very different than ours. Most of the positives come from short time users who have no other experience. If you have alot of contacts, doubt if this will work for you.

Long time ACT! user, especially happy with V23

Opmerkingen: Greatly improved and confidence-inspiring in V23.
Minimal frustration
ACT! is feature-rich, and discovery of additional functionality is fun as well as useful.
Many useful/fun feature surprises to be discovered with HELP and excellent videos to get there

Pluspunten:

Not easy to learn, but getting much easier. But very powerful for those who would take the time to become familiar with its muscle. It is apparent to me that Swiftpage folks are remarkably skilled and motivated to make ACT! an (THE) industry leader. Significantly greater reliability and freedom from issues. I have seen wonderful improvements in marketing automation with V23 Current functionality of marketing automation was beyond my imagination Technical assistance is quick and has become absolutely first class. I rate a solid 10

Minpunten:

Steep learning curve, but learning the system is greatly eased recently with new videos that are easy to follow and with a narrative voice that is especially understandable Technical help is not available on weekends and after hours.

22 year plus customer Sage / Act

Opmerkingen: Years ago Act software helped me build a tremendous mortgage business. Out of that experience, I am reaching out to offer some effective criticism to enhance your product. Good luck! Feel free to contact me anytime.

Pluspunten:

I was probably one of the first purchasers of Act. It is a great program that needs a company to put some serious thought behind making it work better. After shopping several other CRM software's I still think it is above the rest in both user friendly and functionality. You price for the product is more than fair (in fact, I think low) but the software runs like it is somebody's part time job.

Minpunten:

Customer service is the worst. The guys in India are great and I have nothing bad to say about them but is there some reason I need to sit on a phone 45 minutes waiting to speak to the representative? Again I think Act could be the CRM leader but I don't see much improvement over the past few years. The principles of this company have sat back and let opportunities walk by not focusing on the customers needs. With all the apps and technologies available Act should have more to offer.When I purchase a product I do not expect to have to spend hours chasing down my answers through videos.

This is the worst CRM ever! I wouldn't recommend this to my worst enemy.

Opmerkingen: It is easy to use when it is working correctly.

Pluspunten:

It is easy to use when it actually works. I receive emails advising my current version is expiring quite often so it keeps me informed regularly.

Minpunten:

The syncing feature doesn't not always work between the different platforms that we have in our office. In an office of Sales Reps, we need a CRM that will sync in real time but sometimes this CRM won't sync for an hour which makes it difficult for us to schedule appointments for our Sales Reps.

Act is the affordable options

Opmerkingen: Overall Act has been a strategic software choice for our organization.

Pluspunten:

Act has a lot of the features more expensive CRM’s offer without sacrificing usability or features. It is feature rich and simple to use.

Minpunten:

Act hasn’t had many changes in the last two years. I would like to see more growth for this product.

Think carefully before buying ACT!

Opmerkingen: Our overall experience with ACT! is not good, so after 17 + years I made the decision to switch to another CRM when we upgraded our computers.
Our IT Consultant summarised it beautifully when he was moving programs and files from the existing hardware to new hardware and said "Please tell me you don't want me to move ACT! as well". He never liked it either
The issue with email marketing and emails was long standing and in the end we gave up, without being even close to a solution.
For a small business, it became too complex and non-user friendly, especially as other competitors with more features, better service and a more user-friendly 'current' CRM product entered the market.
Plus, to add insult to injury, Customer Service has deteriorated over the past few years.

Pluspunten:

When we first bought ACT! around 17 years ago we loved it. We were all happy with what it could do to automate the office and with client/lead management.

Minpunten:

Email marketing and email functionality - or lack of - with Outlook. Only being able to attach one document file to a history note has also caused much frustration.

Using ACT!

Opmerkingen: I have been using the program for 15 years. I like that when I last upgraded I did not have to learn everything over again! Microsoft does this and I don't care for it. I use mostly the contact database. However, I expect to purchase another copy of the program because of a new contract that will have extensive telemarketing and reporting.

Pluspunten:

Easy to use

Minpunten:

Some of the features I will never use and some of the features take some time to learn how to use.

Act Upgrade and use

Opmerkingen: Has been a good tool for us as a small to medium business but beginning to require more functionality - support for the latest upgrade has been very intense and expensive

Pluspunten:

Elegant solution that works across a range of devices with possibilities for a range of integrations much more cost effective than the competition for small businesses

Minpunten:

Not always well integrated with other platforms eg leadpages etc - needs an intermediary or requires support of an ACT consultant to implement many integrations.

THe company has been using it for at least 10 years

Opmerkingen: THere are a lot better CRM's out there figure out what you are using it for and what you need and start shopping I could suggest a few but to me they are a bit industry specific.

Pluspunten:

seems very simple and we had a long standing relationship with ACT with the in house CRM. So we had a lot of our contacts already on board and it does keep track of contacts.

Minpunten:

When I came on board about 3 months ago I suggested going to the cloud the idea was well recieved and I contacted act. We intially had some issues uploading the information some of which I will admit was my own fault. when I did the software lagged extremely bad. I contacted the company spent almost 4 hours o the phone (mostly on hold) the first time and then didnt get a call back untill about 9:30 that night. Then the trial was running out with out the issue being resolved I asked them to extend it while we tried to fix the issue they told me I had to buy it and then they would be able to fix it....

Act! CRM gives our company what it needs . Ease of use which boosts our team's productivity output

Opmerkingen: We are happy to upgrade to ACT CRM for their cloud based services, for Act's collection as well as consolidation of our sales data for marketing use and for new business acquisition . Act has also become
an off and online supplemental data base for our company.

Pluspunten:

We loved Act's flexibility and ease of use as each of our team members were able to use Act with their mobile devices and phones. Our team members reported that Act's updating process is quick, painless, and automated. In addition , their user interface was quite intuitive and made for generation of highly configurable reports in a timely manner .

Minpunten:

We have found Act to be a solid and multi faceted CRM. However , we would love more tutorials on importing contacts for business use and referral. By importing we would value some kind of scan utility feature for use with cell phones and tablets. That said , once a client enters contact information , Act will make a connection and provide information regarding parent companies or further supplemental data. This feature proves extremely useful.

Simple and Effective Contact Management

Opmerkingen: I use ACT run run my entire client contact. It interfaces with Outlook for my emails. I can write letters and reports and are easily attached so I can find them quickly. It has a calendar and can add reminders and tasks

Pluspunten:

This is easy to set up and has more functions than a small business will actually need. Scheduling and report writing is easy to do and keeps things well organized. I have sued this for many years and the files is very large but it is easy to search.

Minpunten:

Much of my work is confidential. I attach files to people and it is a little cumbersome when people leave the company and go work for some one else. It would be nice it they could work out a way to deal with this. Also, they are moving to a web-based program and while it may have advantages for some of us, it may be a problem. When I travel, i can not always access the cloud or the speed is very slow.