As a firm owner for over a decade, I depend on software program and automation to enhance procedures and supply results. So when GoHighLevel arised on the scene few years back, it absolutely captured my focus GoHighLevel AI Chatbot.
The concept was attractive– an all-in-one client monitoring system with marketing, sales, and solution tools incorporated together. As a business owner constantly seeking to simplify and scale my organization, it appeared like a desire come true theoretically. That would not want a solitary option that does it all?
Yet in this comprehensive GoHighLevel testimonial, I’ll take you inside my devastating journey of trying (and falling short) to switch over to this popular brand-new software application. You’ll learn:
If you’re thinking about whether GoHighLevel is right for your very own service demands, ideally you can gain from my excruciating blunders and pumped up expectations.
Looter: I do NOT suggest GoHighLevel. If you need a CRM, begin with this list of finest CRMs rather. I utilize Keap.
Some GoHighLevel Alternatives
If you’re searching for a sales, marketing, and project monitoring choice to GoHighLevel, after that right here are a couple of we suggest.
Backstory: Why I Considered Switching from Keap
To comprehend what attracted me to GoHighLevel in the first place, you require context regarding my previous configuration. For over 5 years I had been gladly relying on Keap (formerly Infusionsoft) to satisfy all my client administration and automation demands.
I discovered Keap user-friendly to utilize and it managed everything I needed– CRM, e-mail marketing, sales funnels, membership websites, and client support.
Keap’s CRM and sales and marketing automation are created to help local business maintain their clients while adding new ones effortlessly. Automate follow-ups with e-mails and texts, ensuring leads and customers obtain the best messages at the correct time. Usage web site and social networks kinds to enhance lead follow-up, and manage your growth with simple visit scheduling and lead tracking. Boost sales with automated estimating, invoicing, and repayment handling, liberating your time. With Keap, local business can conserve 10 hours per week and increase income by 39%. Begin with a 14-day free trial, no credit card needed.
Why we like Keap
Keap supplies an extensive client partnership administration (CRM) and marketing automation remedy customized for small businesses and business owners. We value Keap’s focus on improving sales procedures and supporting customer partnerships with effective automation tools. The system’s all-in-one method combines CRM, email marketing, invoicing, and job monitoring, making it especially eye-catching for services wanting to consolidate their technology pile.
Generally, it simply worked dependably with minimal fuss or maintenance called for. My open and click-through rates were great (like 35% terrific). Automations ran smoothly without issues.
So why in the world was I lured to uproot my whole functional foundation from a system that functioned to attempt something unproven and untested?
In hindsight I can admit I got attracted by the alarm call of “glossy things syndrome”. You recognize the sensation: when everybody’s talking about a brand-new device that will certainly transform your organization … The lawn typically looks greener beyond, and I asked yourself whether GoHighLevel could minimize friction factors that I would certainly discovered to tolerate throughout the years with Keap.
I stood up to at first, but a couple of even more irritations led me to assume perhaps it was time for an adjustment.
The Investment: Migrating My Firm to GoHighLevel
Earlier this year I made a decision to take the plunge. I signed up for HighLevel’s Firm plan at $297/month, investing substantially greater than the $97/month starter price.
This wasn’t a decision I ignored. I knew switching over systems was mosting likely to require moving all my Keap information and essentially reconstructing my whole technology infrastructure from scratch utilizing all of the GoHighLevel integrations readily available.
Here’s an overview of just some of the initiative needed:
- By hand exporting 20,000+ e-mail customer documents
- Recreating loads of automations and workflows
- Relocating customer accounts, notes, and job information to the new CRM
- Reconfiguring my Stripe payment integration
- Setting up landing pages, discounts, and sales funnels around once again
- Learning an entirely foreign UX and user interface design
All in, I spent around 30-40 tiresome hours of configuration work transitioning everything over– in addition to handling lost efficiency during the button.
Yet inevitably, it was a computed financial investment I was willing to make. I figured some temporary discomfort would pay off with GoHighLevel providing a much better lasting solution for my service, Dripify. Oh exactly how incorrect I was …
It only took me regarding a month of hands-on use to recognize I had actually made a big error. The concerns began accumulating rapidly, up until it reached a factor I had to cut my losses and change back to Keap completely.
Allow’s go through the nightmarish issues I encountered.
Safety And Security Issues & Numerous Vermin
Provided GoHighLevel placed itself as an all-in-one automation platform, I took care to carefully recreate each and every single workflow from my old Keap account.
These included series for onboarding brand-new e-mail subscribers, onboarding new customers, automating follow-ups for webinar enrollments, sending out event tips, handling subscription expirations and far more.
Every little thing appeared to be working fine … until all of a sudden it wasn’t. One morning, I woke up to find 171 entirely unimportant emails had been sent to customers that ought to NOT have actually received them. This happened 3 days straight, with a various batch of 160 individuals daily.
I hysterically attempted troubleshooting and rebuilding the automation from scratch. Yet the problem continued.
When I desperately reached out to their assistance group, they vaguely asserted “web server issues” were to blame. However this description really did not make any type of sense, because the errors continued taking place each morning like clockwork unrelated to any kind of downtime.
In my mind, this enormous failing was totally inappropriate and simply really did not benefit my organization. I have hundreds of get in touches with relying upon my automated campaigns running efficiently.
So if GoHighLevel was mosting likely to be totally unstable, how could I hand over mission-critical workflows and delicate customer data to their modern technology?
The unintuitive user interface only compounded these issues …
Irritating UX
Originating from Keap where everything was seamless and intuitive, GoHighLevel’s learning contour really felt high and complex.
Basic jobs like modifying workflows entailed digging via menu systems that were all over the place. Secret settings were unexplainably scattered in completely various sections. Relocating between functions really felt disjointed or confusing.
I’ll tell you what I mean by speaking about their funnel builder as an example. There were 3 different settings panels to take care of general, specific, and product configurations. Yet for some crazy reason, the web links to access each of these core setups were spread out on opposite sides of the screen. What!?
As somebody that values tidy, thoughtful style, this seriously frustrated me.
It enhanced that GoHighLevel still seemed like a work-in-progress as opposed to a refined product prepared for prime-time use. Their concerns appeared focused on packing in every feature imaginable, with poor functionality as an afterthought.
And talking features, I soon recognized the small cost tag featured expensive concessions …
Deceptive Pricing GoHighLevel AI Chatbot
Among GoHighLevel’s biggest marketing factors is the economical rate for access to so many features. Yet I promptly learned this low-cost base price was misleading.
They nickle-and-dimed users with erratic fees for core functionality. Unexpectedly my credit card declarations had vague $10 fees from GoHighLevel here and there.
As it turned out, you get billed whenever you send an e-mail via their web servers. So for high volume customers, this amounted to numerous dollars in unanticipated prices.
In between these per-email charges and paying additional for deliverability attachments like Mailgun, my “budget friendly” GoHighLevel subscription ended up setting you back dramatically greater than my Keap plan.
The reduced sticker price was tempting, however just not reasonable in practice. This bait-and-switch left a negative preference in my mouth.
Email Rates Suffered
The final dealbreaker was seeing my meticulously supported email open rates drop practically overnight after switching to GoHighLevel.
Previously, my target market engagement continually struck 35-40% open prices in Keap month after month. But once I migrated their records over to GoHighLevel, performance tanked immediately to a pitiful 9% open rate.
No matter how much I optimized my sending out techniques or tried every repairing trick, I might barely push open prices back right into the teens– still a 50%+ decline from my previous benchmarks GoHighLevel AI Chatbot.
Let me repeat: my exact same target market and emails instantly had awful involvement. The only thing I can think that would certainly be creating this was whatever was taking place behind the scenes at GoHighLevel. For a firm so based on email marketing, this was a big deal.
In between the debilitating deliverability concerns, hidden charges, busted features, and terrible user interface, I had actually lastly reached my limit …
Why I Stop GoHighLevel after 37 Days
Simply 45 days after migrating my agency to GoHighLevel, I recognized I had made a massive blunder. The cons substantially outweighed any type of advantages.
No software application is best, but the large quantity of issues was past acceptable.
At the end of the day, software program boils down to trust. If I can’t trust it to deal with important features properly or believe a supplier has my best interests in mind, then it’s time to walk away– even after spending significant time, money, and initiative moving.
So I made the tough call to reverse program and return back to Keap totally just weeks after going all in on GoHighLevel. Allow’s discover what I learned from this fiasco.
Key Takeaways: What I Gained from My GoHighLevel Mistake
My time with HighLevel can be summed up as a costly accident. But in hindsight, it educated me a few essential lessons:
- Stay with what works. Don’t distress what’s functioning unless something is definitively far better across the board. Modification brings risk.
- Vet declares extensively. Marketing buzz around new software application typically obscures larger underlying imperfections. Deep due persistance is vital.
- Pick simplicity over features. Properly designed devices need to make your job life easier, not much more challenging and messy.
- Openness builds trust fund. Nontransparent pricing, unethical reseller terms, and finger-pointing to avert problems damages trust.
- Look for impartial evaluations. Happy support reviews suggest less if excessive problems suggest poor overall use.
- Perfection is impossible. No solitary service can completely fulfill every unique business requirement. Locate the least-bad fit.
- Evolution over transformation. Step-by-step improvements commonly outweigh dangerous wholesale reinvention of what currently functions fine.
Basically, I learned to be a lot more doubtful of “too good to be true” marketing cases and much less attracted by the attraction of glossy new objects. The devices you make use of daily should gain count on through transparency and efficiency, not glossy advertising.