What are the Limitations of Act! CRM?
No CRM is perfect, and Act! is no exception.
Some limitations of Act! CRM include:
- Limited pricing options: Act! CRM only offers one pricing plan (for the cloud and desktop versions). This could be a limitation for businesses with varying needs and budgets, as there isn’t much flexibility to choose a plan that’s tailored to their specific requirements. Despite the comprehensive features it offers, if your business needs only a subset of these functionalities, you might find yourself paying for features you don’t need or use.
- No free plan: Unfortunately, Act! CRM does not provide a free plan. This might be a turn-off for small businesses and startups who are testing the waters and looking for a cost-effective CRM solution. Nevertheless, Act! does offer a 14-day free trial, which can give you a brief insight into its features and capabilities.
- The UI is outdated: One of the most significant drawbacks of Act! CRM is its user interface. From the outset, we noted that the system can appear somewhat clunky, making navigation a bit of a challenge. There’s a steep learning curve, especially for beginners, which can lead to a frustrating user experience.
- Limited customization options: Another area where Act! CRM could improve is in providing more customization options. For instance, when managing contacts or tracking opportunities, we found ourselves wishing for the ability to add more personalized fields specific to our business needs. This limitation can hinder users from fully capturing and utilizing customer data, which is central to CRM functions.
Act! CRM Integrations
When it comes to integrations, Act! CRM offers quite a bit.
They also make it easy to find exactly what you’re looking for by breaking the integrations down.
These categories include the following:
- Sales & marketing
- Business productivity
- Social media
- eCommerce
- Back office
- Customer service
Here’s a screenshot of the Act! Marketplace to give you a better idea.
At Small Business Bonfire, we use Slack for the majority of our communications, so we were excited to see it on the list of “business productivity connections.”
We clicked “get started” and were taken to a Zapier web page (shown below), where we easily integrated Slack with our CRM.
The whole process took less than 5 minutes, and we were in business!
From there, we were able to receive notifications when deals were added, changed, or deleted.
We think integrations are a great way to add value to your CRM system and automate certain processes. Act! makes this process as easy as it can get.
Overall, when it comes to integrations, Act! offers quite a few options (and the process is made even easier thanks to Zapier).
How to Get Started with Act! CRM
Getting started with Act! CRM was super easy (and took less than a few minutes).
Let’s go through the onboarding process.
We navigated to the Act! homepage (shown below), where we saw a brightly colored call to action (CTA) to try it for free.
The SBB team and I don’t typically turn down a free trial, so naturally, we signed up.
Next, we filled out the following fields:
- Name
- Business email
- Phone number
- Business name
From there, we answered a few questions, such as:
- How many people would be using the CRM
- Our reason for using Act!
- Our business type
Here’s how it looked from our perspective.
Finally, we created a secure password, and that was it!
We were taken to the main dashboard (screenshot below), which honestly was a bit overwhelming.
While the onboarding process was seamless, we immediately noticed that the UI could use a major update.
However, just based on getting started, we give Act! CRM two thumbs up!
Is Act! CRM Easy to Use?
While Act! CRM offers a range of robust features that can streamline and enhance your customer relationship management, its user interface does leave a bit to be desired.
It seems slightly dated and could be more intuitive, making it less user-friendly than some of the other CRMs on the market.
Here are some areas where the user interface could benefit from improvements:
- Navigation: The navigational structure can be a bit cumbersome and complex, making it difficult for users to quickly access the information or feature they’re looking for.
- Dashboard layout: The main dashboard, while comprehensive, can be overwhelming due to the amount of information presented. A more straightforward, less cluttered layout could improve user experience.
- Visual appeal: Lastly, the aesthetic of the user interface is quite dated. A design refresh could make the platform more appealing and modern, improving user engagement.
Remember, a CRM should work to simplify your business processes, not complicate them.
So while Act! software is undeniably powerful, the challenge lies in navigating its user interface efficiently.
Act! CRM Customer Service Review
Great customer service is like a lifeline for any software user, especially when it comes to CRM systems where extensive data are managed.
When things go wrong or when you need guidance, it’s the customer support that comes to your rescue.
Let’s take a look at the kind of customer service Act! CRM provides.
Act! offers a comprehensive suite of customer service options to ensure customers get the support they need.
This includes the following:
- Helpful tutorial videos
- Knowledge base
- Webinars
- Email support
- Support tickets
To test the response time of Act!’s service team, we asked about getting started with marketing automation.
To our surprise, we heard back within a matter of minutes!
However, before getting a response, we checked their knowledge base by searching our question.
Within seconds, we found a page that detailed the entire process. Three cheers for great customer (and self) service!
