Act! Reviews

There is absolutely nothing I like about this software.

Zero functionality. It can't pull any reports that are meaningful. When I think I can pull a report that is meaningful, I realize the data isn't even correct. It has almost no dynamic features; for instance, it can't update data by pulling it from another source; it has to be manually changed, which leads to errors. Also, Act! web premium only works if you have a really high quality internet connection. For example, we have 100MBPS internet; however, the speed is very inconsistent, which causes the Premium web version of Act! to constantly crash every time the internet slows down, while any normal web app would continue to load, or try to load, or just slow down. But Act! doesn't have that functionality; it just crashes, becomes unresponsive, and doesn't save any of the data you just input. When you restart your browser, it makes you sign in again. Also, almost no functionality is available on the web app; you can't delete contacts on the web version; you cannot import anything into the web version, and you can't manipulate any data. You can only input completely new data. It's literally awful.

Contacts don't link well with groups or 'companies.' If you have seven people working for the same company and that company moves offices. If you change the address to that company, you have to individually change those seven people who work there.

But the worst feature is the importing tool. You can't import in any 'advanced' way at all unless you pay for an importer tool, which you can't be sure will work for you. When talking with our third party Act! customer service person, I asked if I could try the import tool to make sure it did what I want before I bought it, or if I could have him try it for me to make sure it worked, and he said "No. There is no way to provide that service."

When asking a simple question like, "So your input tool didn't find the duplicate contacts and just imported 700 duplicates. Is there a way to delete the duplicates all at once? Because all I see is an option to delete the duplicates one by one?" they told me there was no way to do it but that they would charge me to have them delete them for me. And I was quoted at an over 50 hour project quote, for something that took me one minute to do. So I just restored my backup file and started over.

Also, I purchased a duplicate removal tool that was developed by a third party software company, and I thought it would work great, but it turns out that half of the contacts in the system had been uploaded with their full name as one fiedl and the other half with their first middle and last name as different fields. There is now way to differentiate this in ACT because it displays them the same way, so it merged all of the John's into one John contact. So again, I had to restore to a backed up database.

The Swiftpage integration is awful. The only way I am able to use Swiftpage to any success is to export every single email, name, and address in Act! into an Excel spreadsheet, remove any duplicates, sort by region or the way I want to set up groups to email blast in Swiftpage, go to the actual swiftpage6.com website and upload the spreadsheets into Swiftpage manually. The Swiftpage email marketing HTML editor is also pretty bad. You can write beautiful HTML to display a great email, but Swiftpage mutilates the code in ways no one could ever understand. I am a professional coder - javascript, html, css - and it takes me hours, sometimes days, to design a marketing email that displays correctly in any sort of email client. In fact, it doesn't even ever look great when it's done, even after all the hard work. I would highly recommend any other email marketing company other than Swiftpage.

I was on hold with a Swiftpage rep once for over three hours to find out why my email blast which was supposed to be sent by 10AM was still in the queue by 7pm. It actually didn't go out till almost midnight, and we had a 3% open rate, when we normally have a 15% open rate with other email marketing software.

Please, please please do not buy this.

With a database as important and large as mine, it's going to be extremely hard to switch to another software without major delays in service. The company has used it since 2002, and there is a lot of important data that needs to be imported into to a new system. It's going to cost a lot of money to do, and we will do it, but I just pray and beg that no one else ever has to be in the same situation that I am in if they don't have to be.

it allowed me to organize myself and manage my time and also a possibility to connect to outlook and keep the communication history

impossible to change program colors and slow in any type of process no interface either

I have pioneered the purchase of ACT! in my company. Back then, It offers a perpetual license per user which is great as you don't subject yourself to a monthly or annual subscription. I love the fact that ACT! marketing can be customised and very rare that it falls under the promotions tab of the email recipient.

ACT! can only be linked to a certain version of Outlook which i find not helpful. Not all the licenses we purchased were maximise as they find ACT! a work duplicate particularly on the finance side since only selected accounting software can be integrated in the ACT! system.

I have been using Act! for decades via its various owners and takeovers. It served me well in sales and marketing, and now I use it to track my legal clients and court hearings, trials, etc.

It does not work in Windows 11, which came with my new computer. Your Tech Support was no help, telling me simply that Microsoft knows about it and "someday" will have a fix. Meanwhile, with a local technician, I had to roll back to Windows 10 (hundreds of dollars paid), then I had to pay a remote Act! specialist (not your employee) to help to get it to "work" even in Windows 10. It barely works now, freezing up constantly and repeatedly throughout my workday. It is practically useless, but I bear with it until I can find another product that works for me.

I loved ACT when I used to use it. It was by far the best CRM at the time.

Last time I used ACT and granted it was many years ago, it wasn't cloud based. At one point my computer crashed and I lost my entire ACT database that hadn't been backed up in the last few weeks. I was devastated and decided I had to switch to something that was in the cloud.

There seems to be a lot of functionality and ability to work in-depth with contacts and the information provided with the contacts.

It is not easy to have more than one person work off of the same database and keep everything integrated. We sync with Gmail and at this time it only allows for one account to sync email messages. We can sync the contacts to multiple accounts with the help of a third party software but only one for the Gmail messages.

Easy to use - feels familiar even on first use and isn't hard to get started.

Cumbersome and slow. Once you start getting thousands of contacts in the system get use to watching the hourglass. Server needs to be restarted weekly. Their cloud based solution is lacking in features and not as mobile friendly as other options.

It is a comprehensive CRM software that lets you file and keep track of your prospects and cold-calls

Customer service. I had trouble installing the software and customer service was unwilling to help unless I purchased an additional support package. Ridiculous since I my issue was the install

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.

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.

The CRM is easy to use and one can learn how to use it very quickly. Act keeps up with the changing times and provides the tools that a sales person needs to optimize his/her performance. Introduction of Marketing Automation was an added bonus that provides a sales person with more power to find leads

The pricing has risen over the years to the point that I feel it is now on the high end of the spectrum. I probably utilize only 20 - 25% of all the ACT features; but I'm paying for a software program that can accomplish more than what I need. I started with the original ACT when it first came out (forgot how many years ago) and it had a very attractive price at that time.

Act itself is as a good database software. Compering to previous version synchronized with Swift Page it has a better platform to create a template. There are other things you improve but for our small company we do not use them (like several times of sending same e-mail to one customer)

In Marketing Automation:
- you can not add and SAVE our data base fields in the template
- you can not send an e-mail from the template to one person (only to the group)
- you can not sent an e-mail to lookup (every time you must create the group from lookup)
- may e-mails is getting lost (in our 2 campaigns about 20% e-mails were not delivered)
In e-marketing
- you can not add and SAVE our data base fields in the template
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In your previous version of ACT I was able to add fields from my database SAVE them in the template and send them to lookup without a need to create the group.
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And your customer service ??? I believe you can do better work.
For example - I wrote an e-mail to you about month ago - with totally no answers from you.

we inherited this software and while it has some good basic functions, apart from knowing how to use it I have nothing positive to say about it

Customer service is the WORST. I'm currently waiting for my rep to get back to me about an unresolved issue (it's been over 4 weeks since we were able to access our task lists). In the 4 weeks i have left numerouse messages and followed up with emails. As a total I received 1 email correspondence.
We have 3 new staff members that started within the last month and although trying to reach out numerous times regarding setting up profiles for these staff, we haven't been able to get a response.

ACT for web speed
we have a database of about 28000 contacts and are unable to use ACT for web as it is that slow that it has become unusable.

INTEGRATION
Everytime there is a server update all integrations stop working. We have tried to set up email syncing since early this year. All that "support" has to say that it has to be our PC set ups. Yet they can't tell us which settings need to be changed.

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.

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

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

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

It is so comprehensive and keeps awesome records in an easy to access manner.

Nothing. it does everything i need to eun my life and my business.

Flexibility to set ACT to support different operations in my business.

I heavily customise the fields.

One version is my HR system. It beats Sage 50 HR for me

Difficult question. It does what U require.

If I am being critical, it could do with faster search routines. Also reporting is a bit dated.