Act! Reviews

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

Comments: 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.

Pros:

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.

Cons:

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.

Small Business Owner & ACT! User since V2

Comments: 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.

Pros:

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

Cons:

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

Long time user

Comments: I use ACT 10 hours a day, but it is clunky.

Pros:

I understand the interface because I have used ACT daily for over 30 years.

Cons:

ACT does almost everything poorly. It does not sync with multi-user unless you call support. You cannot move your data out of ACT onto a competitive product. They keep raising the price of support. I have tried all three different mass email programs they have offered over the years, but none of the mass email systems worked. The email system required support from ACT to make them work, and still a major problem. I have used ACT for over 30 years, have 10K contacts, and I cannot leave ACT. If you have not bought ACT, do not. If you are going to work on this everyday, pay the money and go with SalesForce.

Good first CRM

Comments: Positive experience and we are using the custom fields. I wish you could make some fields limited based on other field inputs. ACT! is great if you are just getting into CRM and want to get your business up and running quickly, this is one of the reasons it is such a popular choice. They have been doing CRM for a very long time.

Pros:

Easy to setup and have customized fields. They have an option to run on your own server to avoid monthly fees of other CRM options.

Cons:

Once you have over 10,000 contacts. It is harder and slower to organize CRM. Works much better for smaller contact lists.

I used to love Act!, but now I'm looking for a better product that actually works for me

Pros:

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.

Cons:

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.

Good As A Contact Manager, Not As A 2020 CRM

Comments: 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.

Pros:

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

Cons:

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

My Most Important Sales Tool

Comments: I utilize ACT's calendar to organize my day and I keep notes in the NOTES section for all communications with the contact. I also use Marketing Automation but just started using it last year.

Pros:

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

Cons:

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! has changed a lot over the years

Pros:

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

Cons:

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.

Great CRM software

Comments: perfect to manage e big customers data base

Pros:

I use Act ! from almost 25 years ! now only as contact manager and customer data base

Cons:

Solid product and easy to use a perfect solution as customers data base

Act! CRM is a comprehensive customer relationship management (CRM) platform

Comments: Act! CRM is a comprehensive and flexible CRM platform that offers a range of features and functionalities for managing customer relationships, sales, and marketing.

Pros:

One of the key benefits of Act! CRM is its flexibility, which can make it a good fit for businesses of all sizes and industries.One of the standout features of Act! CRM is its contact management capabilities. The platform offers robust contact management features that enable businesses to store and organize customer information in one centralized location. Act! CRM also offers advanced search and filtering capabilities, which can help businesses find and segment their customer data more easily.

Cons:

One concern that businesses may have is the platform's user interface, which can be somewhat dated and challenging to navigate. Additionally, some users may find Act! CRM's pricing is somewhat steep, especially when compared to other CRM platforms on the market.

ACT! for Insurance/Financial Advisors

Comments: I love all the features that meet the needs of financial advisors. The customizable fields are beneficial and improve the overall use of the software. It has probably just as many features as other customer relations management programs but cost is substantially less. Very happy with my selection.

Pros:

The Act! for Advisors software has been modified to meet the requirements of a financial advisor which includes being able to input information regarding insurance contracts. The new Marketing Automation is an great way to send out Newsletters, etc.

Cons:

They have lots of online resources/video's to learn the Marketing Automation. You can also speak to customer service but they recently cut their remote access where you can have customer service work on your computer to help answer/show you how to do things with the marketing automation.

How act is helping me working at 74 as a sales man

Comments: I have been using ACT's since 1999 and this year I turned 74 and I'm still selling with the very best of them. I sell power supplies to industry and without ACT there is no way I could compete in the world of sales today without ACT, I put everything and anything that helps me sell more in a very competitive field including emails, quotes, power supply spec, and notes. I see so many people who will not invest in this program or database if they did their sales would be much higher nobody can remember everything but ACT does. In all the years I have used at never a problem of any kind I do keep it on three computers as the backup just in case there's a crash of one of my computers. I backup my database 2 to 3 times a week making sure I have everything when I need it. The thing I like most about ACT when I go to sales meetings I have all my information right in front of me on my laptop and so many people don't. So when I am questioned about any customer I can look in my notes and have the answers I need, without ACT my sales numbers would be much lower.
Thanks ACT

Pros:

Without ACT I could not compete as well as I do in the sales world for it is changing every day. I need ACT to help track my customers my orders my RFQ's and so many other things without it I wouldn't have a job today. I see so many salespeople who won't invest in ACT who sales numbers could be so much better I tell them about ACT but they don't seem to want to invest in their future and their future sales that could be so much better.

Cons:

I cannot find one thing wrong with ACT I have been using it approximately 20 years and never had a problem I cannot say this about other database programs I have had to use when I worked for other companies. Some of them were super complicated took hours of work just to get your data in whereas using ACT it was a breeze putting data in and saving data of all kinds.

Constant glitches, awful customer service

Pros:

At this moment, I am struggling to think of anything positive to say about my Act! experience. Both my boss and I have had problems since we bought it. I have lost entire days' worth of sales time on the phone with their tech support trying to fix issue after issue. And to make matters worse, they keep telling me to give them more money if I want better, faster, more competent customer service. All I want is for the program to work correctly and do what they promised it would do!

Cons:

This program is seriously glitchy, and the customer service experience has been bad. I have spent countless hours on the phone trying to get issues resolved. And to add insult to injury, they keep telling me that if I want better customer service and faster, more professional support I need to give them more money. If you believe in your product then, stand behind it and fix it. My boss and I have spent enough time (and money via lost sales revenue) dealing with Act's technical issues already, so I wish they would stop telling me we need to shell out more. After two days on the phone with them, having been escalated to their Level 3 support guy, my Outlook started to have problems immediately after hanging up with him. I have never had a single problem with Outlook since I started using it. Over the last two days, three different tiers of tech support have remotely accessed my laptop, gone into my Outlook as administrators, and messed around with it. Though they managed to fix the mail merge issues I was initially having with Act!, they clearly messed up my Outlook along the way. Now they claim it is a complete coincidence that Outlook started sending me error messages the moment I hung up with their top tier tech guy. They keep telling me the problems are not related, it is solely the problem of Outlook, they are not experts in Outlook, and I should call Outlook's tech support for help. Clearly, it is not a coincidence or unrelated. And clearly, they are confident enough in their Outlook expertise to go into my program and mess with it. And as tech support for a software program that works with Outlook, they should be trained and qualified to work with Outlook in the first place. I have asked repeatedly to have their top tier guy call me back. He knows what he did, so he should be able to track down his mistake and fix it. But they keep saying they can't do that without me shelling out more money. As if all of that wasn't enough, during my last conversation with their support, I had to force the rep to stop trying to get me off the phone and to fix the new problem that had cropped up with Act! just today: the loss of my email history. It took her close to an hour, and she finally discovered that my email history was now gone from Act! because one of the three techs who has remotely accessed my computer over the last two days accidentally replaced my database with a demo database. And even in light of that, she still tried to say that the issue with Outlook had nothing to do with anything their tech staff did. She continued to insist it was all just a coincidence. I told her I felt the time had come to talk to a supervisor, and I asked her to put one on the phone. After placing me on hold once again, she finally came back and said a supervisor was unavailable, and one would have to call me back in 10 minutes. It ended up taking close to an hour to hear from him. He did finally fix the Outlook problem, but when I asked him what I should do if the error messages come back in an hour or two, he said I had to start all over again from the bottom. The whole routine: wait on hold, start with a low-level tech, slowly work up the ladder, all of it. That or pay the fee. The next day, the Outlook error message came back! And I had to lose that day as well trying to get them to fix it. I spoke to my boss, and he said the same thing happened to him a while back, where they tried to blame Outlook. So my boss said he started a conference call with the Act! tech guy and the Microsoft tech guy on the phone at the same time, and lo and behold, the problem turned out to be with ACT, not Microsoft.

Value of using Act

Comments: See What I liked most.

Pros:

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.

Cons:

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.

Marketing Automation AWFUL - Zero support

Pros:

The way it’s supposed to work is ok. Not great. But getting it to work is a very heavy lift. And with inadequate support, it’s totally up to the user to figure it out.

Cons:

Where do I start? Bottom line is that setup for marketing automation is nearly impossible. I’ve used successfully ACT! for more than 20 years. But marketing automation is a disaster. The documentation is unhelpful, and in some places, downright incorrect. It has lots of broken links. And their support staff, all offshore, knows nothing about how to help with the marketing automation feature. I had to hire someone who finally figured it out, by trial and error, after several weeks of work.

Long time Act user 20+ years

Comments: 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.

Pros:

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

Cons:

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

Comments: 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

Pros:

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

Cons:

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

Comments: 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.

Pros:

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.

Cons:

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.

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

Pros:

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.

Cons:

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.

Product Great but Tech Support Stinks

Comments: I've been using Act! since the early 1990s, in three different industries. For the first industry, it increased my close ratio of willing qualified buyers from around 80% to over 95%. In the second and third industries that metric was not easily measurable because of long relationship lead times, but it dramatically assisted efficiency.

Pros:

Ease of use, flexibility of design, reports, ability to track relationships across multiple contacts, and mass mailing abilities

Cons:

Seems a little unstable at times for some features, and tech support is a game of Russian Roulette with perhaps one person in 10 who can troubleshoot a problem and fix it. The rest seem to be untrained, seem to have no analytical skills or trouble shooting abilities, seem to be reading off knowledge base scripts, and often make or recommend changes that end up making matters even worse. The product is WONDERFUL when it works properly, which is most of the time. But lookout for 2-7 days of downtime if you hit that problem that is too much for the low level tech support people.

Software continues to break

Comments: Every time I call Act! Support I feel like the techs are just trying to get off the phone after they realize they are in over their heads. Each time I call they try to blame it on Microsoft Office and we have to do a repair, next they default to uninstalling Act! and reinstalling it. It is not really tech support if we keep putting a bandaid on the issue rather than addressing the root cause of the issue. This software is on a Terminal server meaning that each time this breaks for 1 user it impacts every user at this company, because each user has to logout and stop working. These issues not being addressed may cause this customer to stop doing business with our company and your company is certainty going to loose them as a customer as well.

Pros:

It is in bad taste that you will not allow this box to be left blank and are trying to force users to say something nice about your software. Every time I come in contact with your software it is because it is broken.(N/A)

Cons:

The Act! / Microsoft Office integration needs some work. It keeps breaking and we have to troubleshoot this issue with our customer on a weekly bases.

Best Program

Comments: In my business, history is necessary. I have data going back over 25 years that is at my fingertips. That and along with the ability to design and set a drip system to my client base is a great feature. I am very happy with my ACT! program for my business use.

Pros:

I have been a user of the ACT! program since I became a Realtor in 1990. It is one of the most versatile programs around. I am only using parts of the program necessary to run my business. It allows a comprehensive amount of information on each individual on record or family history. All activity is recorded in the history file for future reference. All Emails, letters and correspondence is attached to the individual for future reference. The groups that can be set-up

Cons:

There is nothing that I dislike about this program. It has all of the features that are needed to run a business. There are also features included that are helpful in record keeping and developing schedules for a smoother day to day operation.

ACT! 19 much better than 18

Comments: Have been an ACT user for over a decade. Works well, but syncing with Outlook and Gmail has been rough. Version 19 is much better, but still needs some work. It would be nice if ACT provided tech support for the first 90 days without paying all the time. Also would like to see contact photos added as it is in Outlook.

Pros:

Organization and logic

Cons:

Syncing with Outlook and Gmail can be difficult.

Poor Customer Service

Pros:

The only reason I use this software is that I have used it for 25+ years, too embedded to change

Cons:

The Company, the Pricing and mostly the Customer Service. How crazy is I have to pay extra to speak to someone in the US that speaks English. Appalling. The response time is poor. I requested a password change via email as it is set up to do because it would not take mine; never got the reset password email. I called the sales number thinking they would at least ANSWER the phone. He told me there was an issue with the reset email and customer service (which I pay an extra $480.00 a year for) can help... on hold too long, left a message for a call back.... waiting..... Years ago ACT was amazing, since the transitions it has become progressively worse. The Product itself is good, the sales people are nice. That is it. I do wish I had the time to research options and change, perhaps in 2021.

Fits my business well

Comments: Does what I need and what I expected when I purchased it.

Pros:

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

Cons:

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.