Pipeline Reviews

Its not Salesforce, but it also won't bankrupt your small business

Comments: Overall, this was the solution my company needed. We had used Salesforce long before I was on staff, and it was too costly to keep using. When I was onboarded there was no CRM being used, and that had to change. Pipeline Deals gave us all the functionality we needed at a much much lower cost and barrier to entry.
Highly recommended.

Pros:

This is a very powerful CRM solution. As I was looking for solutions I came across quite a few that were reviewed by many sites. Pipeline Deals consistently was in the top tier of CRMs for SMB companies. I watched a few online demos and reviews before reaching out to their team. I was quickly assigned a representative that walked my team through a live demo and set us up with a POC trial. After our trial ended we signed up and were off. Setting up Pipeline Deals was quite easy, as the software can conform to your needs. Almost all fields are fully customizable, however this did take some getting used to, to see how changes were reflected as a whole in pipeline view. Overall, great product for a lot less than what Salesforce, Salesloft of Hubspot might run you.

Cons:

As a smaller company some of the integrations that other CRMs have were either missing or lacking. However, Pipeline Deals is getting better about innovation. One of my favorite shortcuts they rolled out was a LinkedIn plugin, this allowed for you to connect with somebody on linkedIn and in one click import them into your CRM. However, many times it would populate the fields with incorrect info or just generic info like where their company was headquartered instead of where that employee was actually located. Additionally, at times the APIs for some of these newer services would change, and then the features would not work.

Nice software but we grew out of it...

Comments: It's a generic CRM software that you can tailor to your own needs. In the end we needed a software that was specific for publishing.

Pros:

User-friendly and very easy to use. You can add all sorts of custom fields for your own reporting and tracking needs.

Cons:

No invoicing, no estimates/proposals, the multiple email only works with Gmail accounts, no online payments. It helps you keep track of people, but doesn't really help you bring in the $$$ once a sale has been made.

Sales in our office is all about Volume

Comments: The program is really not completely intuitive. This has not hurt us as our questions get answered whenever they arise by their support team. We are more successful with our business because of this program.

Pros:

It could not be easier to load prospects. We signed up for a library card online. We select the type of businesses we want to pursue. We download spreadsheets of demographic information related to them. We upload those spreadsheets and start calling.

Cons:

I am certain that there are programs that provide more management tools. We simply are not that sophisticated with our sales efforts. If it is simply volume you seek, this is the right product. If you are looking for less effort and more management, pick again.

User-friendly

Comments: Have used some Different CRM’s before. But I seem to like pipeline the way it set up in the way that you can customize it

Pros:

The functionalities on pipeline very customizable you can use this for track and sales you can also use this afternoon customer converts

Cons:

You have to have accurate data if not you have to build it out and then it’s time consuming

Great for Small Business Sales Teams

Comments: My company has used Pipeline Deals since around the time they started. We were a very early customer. I started with one sales person and have moved up to about 10 today. The system works great for this size sales team. It's not cumbersome to use as a central system for a small team to stay organized. I highly recommend it to anyone with a sales force in that range. I can't speak to it's scale above that as its my experience up to 10 active reps. They have taken what was a massive set of things reps would need to do in some of the other online systems (lets call it OVERKILL) and boiled it down to activity, opportunities, and centralized performance measurement. Its got all the bells and whistles you need... while not overwhelming you (as the sales manager/owner) or your reps with tons of required extras that clutter their ability to move fast and keep selling.

Pros:

The BEST small biz sales relationship management tool we've used (7+ years now every single day) Very intuitive interface. Amazingly powerful API (if you want to code connect it to your own systems) Great customer support team (you talk to real people, in the real office) Extremely powerful list filtering and saved reports tools Constantly adding new features and enhancements to make it more powerful without more "clutter"

Cons:

The actual "finished" reporting built-in for sales performance, historicals, trending, etc is lacking quite a bit as far as "management" type reporting goes [its almost all list based reports, no roll ups, etc... you can see everything, but its not presented in any customized executive way, reason I think it works well for smaller teams. But without better aggregation, I dont think it would be fun to manage 25+ reps on something like this]. (It can be done with outside graphing and custom tools using their API but not everyone can do that). Real-Time, Customizable, Formatted Reporting for "summary/trend management" would make this thing a 10 out of 10 !

Works well for the price

Pros:

The cost of the software is great and works well for such a low cost.

Cons:

Does not interact with other software I use like other CRMs.

Pipeline for Commercial construction customer followup, relationship building, and new Clients

Comments: Before we used Pipeline Deals we were using paper and pen to keep track of our client relationships. These notes were easily lost in the shuffle and we had no hard reminders for us to follow up with our clients. Now we are able to keep our office focused on the needs of our clients and to pursue new business.

Pros:

The ease of integrating pipeline into our daily routine when making calls and following up with our clients. With the preset notation in our activity feed it is just a couple of clicks with the mouse to fill out our notes for that client. The ability to share "Deals" and to follow up when one of us is out of the office on a business trip or vacation. When we are on a trip having the app available on our phone is also a very nice feature. There is peace of mind knowing that the hard work to manage relationships with our customers does not end if an employee is fired or quits working for us.

Cons:

Pipeline is not ready to sync with our Go Daddy email account, so we continue to push our emails to our home page in Pipeline Deals. Then we have to make sure they are entered into our activity feed for our customers through the home page.

Excellent CRM for sales teams

Comments: We love it. The API is very robust so anything that can’t be done in the app can be coded to integrate and work for our own custom reports and integrations. We were one of the earliest customers and have been using it for 8 or 9 years very actively.

Pros:

Very flexible custom list reports Unlimited field customization for records Easily manage a small team of reps Very easy to get started using especially if you have not had a strong CRM in your company before

Cons:

The morning coffee report lacks data that would be useful for actionable items. Wish it could be personalized and customized to show the data I want each morning. Can’t easily see a company’s “last activity” in a report if said activity was not directly on the record (example on a person or deal attached to the company... in company list views it would show incorrect “last activity”) Permission controls would be great to be more flexible (its all or nothing per user)

Best fit for our Small Business

Comments: Overall, I like PipelineDeals. It's a good combination of utility, value, and good customer service.

Pros:

After trialing 5 different CRM providers, we found some to be complicated. Others required too much manual entry. For me, PipelineDeals met our requirements because it is straightforward to use. In our experience, PipelineDeals' customer service appeared superior with response time and support. Many CRM companies require you to use their knowledge base and do-it-yourself, but Pipeline Deals offers live chat, email and live support (no automated attendant, you call and a live rep answers!) For our small business, great support and quick answers to our questions encourage us to use Pipeline Deals consistently and use it better.

Cons:

Wish there were more integrations that made it easier to connect to other programs. I also think the mobile app could be better.

Pipeline Deals Fan

Comments: I manage a global sales network. I use PLDs to manage their sales process across many time zones and geographic locations. This tool has helped greatly to understand what is happening and where.

Pros:

I have been using PLDs since 2010. It took me about two days to set up a custom sales tool that meets our specific needs to manage the sales pipeline, and I am not particularly technical. Sales Force told me that I would need a consultant and about 2 weeks to get this done. Over the past 8 years PLDs has implemented many refinements and improvements and new features. Underlying all of this is the excellent support provided in the form of the knowledge base, video tutorials that are byte sized, and support agents who are knowledgable and personable. I can buy software from anywhere. My choices are based on what happens when I have a problem. Pipeline Deals excels at providing great support!

Cons:

This is not really a PLDs-created issue, however I use LinkedIn to generate leads by importing a contacts picture, email address, phone number etc. Around 2014, LinkedIn has changed their code and PLDs was unable to support this feature. I really miss that feature.

Newer User

Comments: Overall, it's not a bad system and very helpful for following up on sales activities--essential to the job. It's a very good, basic system. I had previously been trained on salesforce from prior employment, so am accustomed to more efficiency. I loved their charts and graphs, as well as the funnel for production and donut showing levels of call activity. (I like more visuals) Perhaps you have more capability than I am aware of, as I'm not sure I am as well trained as I need to be. I wish there was a tutorial that walked a new user through how to use ALL the features in stages; beginner, intermediate and experienced so that I know I am taking advantage of all that this system has to offer.

Pros:

I do like that it allows me to set tasks and follow updates, as well as appointments. Also that this activity transfers to a monthly calendar so at a glance I can tell if I'm on target for activity and quickly project what my signings should be based on activities. Creating my own reports is a real aid to follow up, especially on hot prospects; thus more efficient.

Cons:

Not as efficient as it could be. Duplication of files as well as unnecessary duplication of effort (extra keystrokes) which waste valuable time. (ie: you search for a prospect name and it shows no such person, instead of storing that data, the user has to retype it again to add the person to the database. If I add a new prospect and create tasks and complete in same day, I have to add the task, make my notes than go out to homepage, click on prospects name to than mark the task as completed in order for that task to show up on my calendar page...same for events added and completed in the same day. It works fine if I list taks/events on 1 day and work on them on a later date.

A good "basic" CRM.

Comments: Overall it's been pretty good. Your response to emails is non-existent and that's frustrating. Information doesn't always save the fist time you input it so you have to input it a second time quite often. It's a good "basic" CRM. I don't like the fact you buried the "Daily Task List" in with all the Deal info. I liked the task list being sent separately to us so it sticks out and is more visible. Right now it's buried with all the other info and often gets overlooked by the reps.

Pros:

1) It's Excel on steroids so if you understand Excel, you can learn this for the most part. 2) It's "customizable" to some degree. 3) You can recover deleted info if somebody accidentally deletes it.

Cons:

1) No way to filter out notes by person or department 2) Very difficult to track demos by model number of machine. Have to "trick" the system basically to do it which makes it hard to train. 3) Customer service response via email is non-existent. It's "ok" if you call in though usually.

More Bang for the Buck!

Comments: Having used SalesForce.com in prior sales/marketing roles, it is hard to deny SF's dominance and superiority in the CRM space. However, it is equally hard to deny that SF is the highest priced solution available, especially when you factor in the investment of time and consultation fees required to tailor SF for your specific needs and preferences. Given this we began a diligent search through the CRM jungle to determine if there was a CRM solution that offered most of the same capabilities as SF "out of the box", for less money. Our matrix of candidates winnowed down very quickly to Pipeline Deals. PLD provided all of the SF type capabilities that we needed, such as email tracking, mass email tracking, account & deal history management, remote access via iPhone App, Deal stage tracking, customization, and excellent customer service. So, all of the attributes and capabilities that we admired about SF were present in PLD, but for much less money, and with a much easier set-up process, and with a much better and more accessible customer service team. PLD has been an exceptionally good CRM for our needs and expectations at a more competitive price point.

Pros:

Ease of use and capabilities. Customer service. iPhone App. Email Tracking. Email interface.

Cons:

Calendar doesn't sync with my Outlook or iCal calendars. There is no 'Click to Dial' VOIP option. Historical view under a contact or deal is a little cumbersome and wonky. Does not have SF's capability in customizing the historical view, Person view, company view.

A Great CRM Tool for Small Teams

Comments: Overall, the service has been invaluable to us as a small organization. Especially in a small company that experiences turnover with apprentices and interns coming through in sales roles, it has been extremely easy to make sure conversations are not ignored or missed.

Pros:

The ability to cc the service on emails and have the contact immediately integrated and updated in the Pipeline dashboard is extremely helpful to track not only yourself but the rest of your team and progress on past and current conversations. Additionally, the ability to add contacts directly from LinkedIn makes it very easy to add contacts with extra steps.

Cons:

It is easy to get unorganized on the platform and once that starts, it can be a challenge to get everything back on track. Because the search bar is very exact in its search results, it can be easy to miss targets with different potential spellings or with apostrophes and other symbols in their names which can lead to creating duplicate profiles that go unnoticed for some time.

Jeff Abel's Review of PLD (Company - Heating Green)

Comments: Overall, I've had an excellent experience. Their customer service is very prompt and helpful if you ever have an issue. There are numerous plug-ins available from 3rd party vendors if you want additional functionality (eg click to dial).

Pros:

PLD is intuitive to use and it can be customized to best fit what you need. Console management is great to use, it's easy to set tasks and follow up with leads. PLD syncs with our email (Google Platform) and so it's simple to track emails through the CRM and see the activity history. Logging calls and other manual data entry is straightforward. As with most CRMs there's multiple ways to accomplish and manage what you need, I personally find the "Deals" console (customized to the fields that I want to see) is the most useful, and tasks associated with deals are sorted in chronological order. Deals without tasks show at the top of your console (eg hot deals ready to close). Ability to color code with the status also helps with prioritization.

Cons:

Reporting capabilities are not as robust as I'd like. For example, you can currently only set parameters on a report based on a positive value and not a negative value i.e. "if ___ = "XX" ~versus~ if ___ does not = "XX" " There are also a few minute glitches in the system, and a few areas which efficiency can be improved (eg when creating a deal, have the primary contact on the company auto-fill into the contact field on the deal).

Middle of the Road

Comments: The entire point of this type of software is to be able to scale customer relationships and extract data to make decisions re: those relationships and customer profiles. When it takes days to produce reports, the purpose is defeated.

Pros:

It is easy to maintain communications with team members about individual accounts with email transcriptions.

Cons:

Every time I tried to produce a report and excel sheet or .csv files with various iterations of customer profiles, it took at minimum 48 hours to "build the report in the background and have it emailed to [me]." I made a request just yesterday afternoon that still has not been emailed to me (the report only has about 3-4K lines of data). I once got an email of a request I'd made weeks later after I had to find a workaround. That is honestly disgraceful.

Perfect for us

Comments: without this software, we have no better way to manage communication with customers, we are dealing with hundreds of new and old customers everyday, and we only need 2 or 3 employees to do that. everything is recorded in the deals and we know what is going on (without relying on our memories). Communication between team members is fanstasic, we dont even have to work side by side to communicate.

Pros:

Nice and simple design, easy to use, lots of useful function, easy to customize, great support. what else? almost perfect, our team rely heavily on this software everyday to deal with hundreds of clients and so far it has never disappoint us

Cons:

not too sure.. maybe cannot 100% customise the function. but this is not an in-house built CRM and so far it works perfectly for me and i believe it will do for many small medium business.

There is NO other option than Pipeline Deals for CRM as far as our company is concerned!

Comments: We have been a customer with Pipeline Deals for many years. We are extremely pleased with the quality of customer service and continued growth and development of the application. Pipeline Deals is such a useful tool that we not only use in our global ministry, but also our Christian Resort and multi-national corporation. We have NEVER had any downtime or experienced any inconvenience, so Pipeline Deals has EARNED our 100% trust as our preferred technology tool to manage all of our contact data.

Pros:

Flexibility, accessibility, ease in use, automation, simply import/export features, mobile use,

Cons:

In next release, I recommend having a user-defined access level for Executive users to ONLY have access to certain work-groups assigned to them for certain projects, and not limit this feature to Managers with users that work directly under them.

Pretty Good CRM for the money with good customer support

Comments: Pipeline Deals is a reasonable CRM. I've used SalesForce, Hubspot, Insightly, and Zoho. Pipeline Deals rates well with all of the above. I would argue its Deals section is superior to anything else I've tried. On the downside, I believe other CRMs have done a better job with linking the organization with the person globally. E-mail is decent, but there is not a good way to take an incoming mail in from my email client to the contact record. Outgoing email works well and lets me use my mail client so there are not messy third part integrations needed to make my out-bound emails look professional.

Pros:

The customer support is good. I like the Deals section. I think it is excellent the way it organizes the sales pipeline.

Cons:

The connection between company record, deals record, and individual record. Something seems awkward about it all. The information about the person's company and their names do not always seem linked among these three parts of the database.

Great for small business

Pros:

Pipeline has many features that are easy and the filtering options are great. The reporting is pretty basic and as long as you do not have a lot of Sales people or too many products it is great. The deal feature is better than other softwares. the limitations on "task", no way to audit or add checklist etc., as well as not being able to tag and segregate your list in more detail needs to be looked into. We have unfortunately switched to another software that has these capability as well as being a great CRM and has more customization options.

Cons:

It also does not have any marketing features built in which if you sell and market for your position then you will want a software that can manager your customers, contacts, sales, products, and email marketing. the limitations on "task", no way to audit or add checklist etc., as well as not being able to tag and segregate your list in more detail needs to be looked into. We have unfortunately switched to another software that has these capability as well as being a great CRM and has more customization options.

Client Success Review

Comments: Its a basic sales tool. Unfortunately I'm also trying to use it as a CRM and its not great

Pros:

Improvement to contacts and being able to view only key contacts is very helpful. Being able to easily manage a view and save it.

Cons:

I use this platform for CRM and so the inability to customize the homepage is not great. There are many gadgets that are visible that I dont want to see. Being unable to not easily remove deactivated contacts from client page makes it confusing for new users. Client page summary field does not really allow for formatting including word formatting or tables Reporting on sales for the year using the reports table is not great or easy to use

Great CRM

Comments: Lovely experience! I love the flexibility, the views to track deals and tasks, the custom fields,.... it is easy to use.

Pros:

It is very flexible, smart, easy to use. It allows us to do a lot of integrations with our tools.

Cons:

The Activity section in deals and people: I would love if I can use templates or format the text, and even more important, I would love to be able to search easily (currently I have to keep opening past activities by clicking on "show more" and spend time reading all of them instead of searching by keywords or a date. The second point would be the speed (we have a lot of deals and people, and it takes long to load each view and filter we change)

Pipeline Deals Review

Comments: Their support was good and they keep trying to evolve the product which is good.

Pros:

It was pretty easy to set up and create custom view reports so we could track sales and onboarding activities. It synced to my email which was great.

Cons:

We tried to use it for project management tracking for onboarding activities. While it sort of worked for that, the number of notification capabilities had quantity limits on it and it would have been good if notifications could have gone to customers too for each project and not just internal people.

This product will cost you thousands in frustration

Comments: Horrible

Pros:

Building sales page, but I can't access them. I can't access anything and the cusotmer service is THE WORST I"VE EXPERIENCED IN ANY INDUSTRY

Cons:

I haven't been able get past the a frozen blue screen after logging in. Customer service is appalling, if they decide to get back to you it takes at least 24 hours, and the standard response is we've reset your password (which is not the fix). I created sales pages using this app, which scrambled my domain certificates and has created a massive mess -- and customer service response...we've reset your password.

Open to Feedback

Comments: Great way to handle your day to day scheduling , effectively manage deals, and provide a universal communication platform for your company

Pros:

The team at Pipelinedeals listens to us as clients and tries to cater to how we use the software, helping to improve our efficiency around it. We also provide feedback on innovative ways we use their software and they share it with their clients.

Cons:

Pulling useful sales data from the software can be difficult at times. It relies on accuracy from it's users, which, can be trouble for a whole team whose individuals may not be at the same proficiency.