As an agency owner for over a years, I depend on software application and automation to enhance operations and supply outcomes. So when GoHighLevel arised on the scene few years back, it absolutely captured my interest GoHighLevel Calendar Integration.
The concept was enticing– an all-in-one customer management system with marketing, sales, and solution devices integrated with each other. As an entrepreneur always seeking to streamline and scale my organization, it appeared like a desire become a reality theoretically. That would not want a single remedy that does it all?
However in this extensive GoHighLevel testimonial, I’ll take you inside my dreadful journey of attempting (and stopping working) to change to this popular brand-new software application. You’ll discover:
If you’re thinking about whether GoHighLevel is right for your own company needs, hopefully you can learn from my uncomfortable blunders and pumped up assumptions.
Looter: I do NOT advise GoHighLevel. If you require a CRM, start with this list of best CRMs rather. I utilize Keap.
Some GoHighLevel Alternatives
If you’re looking for a sales, marketing, and job monitoring alternative to GoHighLevel, after that here are a few we advise.
Backstory: Why I Thought About Changing from Keap
To understand what attracted me to GoHighLevel in the first place, you require context concerning my previous configuration. For over 5 years I had been happily relying upon Keap (formerly Infusionsoft) to satisfy all my client management and automation requirements.
I located Keap intuitive to utilize and it handled everything I needed– CRM, e-mail marketing, sales funnels, subscription websites, and customer support.
Keap’s CRM and sales and marketing automation are made to help small companies keep their customers while adding brand-new ones effortlessly. Automate follow-ups with emails and texts, guaranteeing leads and customers receive the best messages at the correct time. Usage site and social media kinds to streamline lead follow-up, and handle your growth with very easy visit scheduling and lead tracking. Boost sales with automated pricing estimate, invoicing, and payment handling, maximizing your time. With Keap, local business can conserve 10 hours each week and increase revenue by 39%. Beginning with a 14-day free trial, no credit card needed.
Why we like Keap
Keap uses a thorough customer connection administration (CRM) and marketing automation solution tailored for small businesses and entrepreneurs. We appreciate Keap’s focus on enhancing sales procedures and nurturing client partnerships through effective automation tools. The platform’s all-in-one method integrates CRM, e-mail marketing, invoicing, and task management, making it specifically eye-catching for businesses looking to combine their tech pile.
For the most part, it simply functioned reliably with minimal difficulty or upkeep called for. My open and click-through prices were terrific (like 35% wonderful). Automations ran efficiently without any issues.
So why in the world was I tempted to uproot my whole functional foundation from a system that functioned to try something unverified and untried?
In knowledge I can confess I got attracted by the alarm call of “shiny things syndrome”. You recognize the sensation: when everyone’s speaking about a new tool that will transform your company … The lawn frequently looks greener on the other side, and I asked yourself whether GoHighLevel could minimize friction points that I ‘d discovered to tolerate for many years with Keap.
I resisted at first, yet a few more aggravations led me to assume perhaps it was time for an adjustment.
The Investment: Moving My Agency to GoHighLevel
Earlier this year I made a decision to start. I signed up for HighLevel’s Agency plan at $297/month, spending substantially greater than the $97/month starter cost.
This wasn’t a decision I ignored. I knew switching platforms was going to need moving all my Keap information and basically reconstructing my entire tech facilities from the ground up making use of every one of the GoHighLevel integrations readily available.
Here’s an introduction of simply some of the effort needed:
- Manually exporting 20,000+ email client documents
- Recreating loads of automations and workflows
- Moving client accounts, notes, and job data to the new CRM
- Reconfiguring my Stripe invoicing integration
- Establishing landing pages, promotions, and sales funnels throughout again
- Learning an entirely international UX and interface layout
All in, I spent around 30-40 tedious hours of configuration work transitioning everything over– and also taking care of shed performance throughout the switch.
However eventually, it was a computed financial investment I agreed to make. I figured some short-term pain would repay with GoHighLevel giving a better lasting service for my company, Dripify. Oh how wrong I was …
It just took me concerning a month of hands-on use to recognize I had actually made a huge blunder. The issues started piling up rapidly, up until it got to a point I needed to cut my losses and switch back to Keap entirely.
Let’s go through the nightmarish issues I encountered.
Security Issues & Numerous Bugs
Offered GoHighLevel placed itself as an all-in-one automation platform, I made sure to diligently recreate every workflow from my old Keap account.
These consisted of sequences for onboarding new email clients, onboarding new clients, automating follow-ups for webinar registrations, sending out event suggestions, taking care of membership expirations and far more.
Every little thing appeared to be working penalty … up until all of a sudden it had not been. One morning, I awoke to discover 171 completely pointless e-mails had actually been sent out to customers that ought to NOT have actually received them. This occurred 3 days straight, with a different batch of 160 people daily.
I anxiously attempted repairing and reconstructing the automation from scratch. However the problem lingered.
When I frantically reached out to their assistance team, they slightly declared “web server concerns” were at fault. Yet this explanation really did not make any kind of feeling, considering that the mistakes proceeded happening each early morning like clockwork unrelated to any kind of downtime.
In my mind, this massive failing was entirely undesirable and just really did not help my organization. I have countless calls depending on my automated campaigns running smoothly.
So if GoHighLevel was mosting likely to be completely unstable, how could I entrust mission-critical workflows and delicate client data to their technology?
The unintuitive interface only worsened these issues …
Aggravating UX
Originating from Keap where every little thing was seamless and instinctive, GoHighLevel’s learning curve felt steep and difficult.
Basic jobs like editing and enhancing workflows entailed excavating through food selection systems that were all over the place. Secret setups were unexplainably spread in totally different areas. Moving between features felt disjointed or complicated.
I’ll inform you what I mean by discussing their funnel builder as an example. There were 3 separate settings panels to handle total, individual, and product arrangements. Yet for some insane factor, the web links to gain access to each of these core setups were expanded on opposite sides of the screen. What!?
As someone who values tidy, thoughtful layout, this seriously frustrated me.
It reinforced that GoHighLevel still seemed like a work-in-progress instead of a polished item ready for prime-time use. Their priorities appeared focused on packing in every feature under the sun, with poor usability as a second thought.
And talking features, I quickly understood the low cost tag featured pricey compromises …
Misleading Pricing GoHighLevel Calendar Integration
Among GoHighLevel’s most significant marketing points is the economical price for accessibility to many features. Yet I rapidly learned this affordable base expense was deceptive.
They nickle-and-dimed individuals with sporadic fees for core capability. Instantly my credit card declarations had unclear $10 fees from GoHighLevel here and there.
As it ended up, you get charged each time you send an e-mail through their web servers. So for high quantity users, this amounted to hundreds of dollars in unexpected expenses.
In between these per-email charges and paying additional for deliverability add-ons like Mailgun, my “inexpensive” GoHighLevel subscription ended up costing substantially greater than my Keap plan.
The low sticker price was appealing, yet just not realistic in practice. This bait-and-switch left a poor preference in my mouth.
Email Fees Suffered
The last dealbreaker was seeing my meticulously nurtured e-mail open rates plummet practically overnight after switching over to GoHighLevel.
Formerly, my audience engagement consistently hit 35-40% open prices in Keap month after month. But once I migrated their records over to GoHighLevel, efficiency tanked immediately to a pathetic 9% open price.
No matter how much I maximized my sending out practices or attempted every troubleshooting method, I can hardly push open prices back right into the teenagers– still a 50%+ decrease from my previous criteria GoHighLevel Calendar Integration.
Let me repeat: my exact same audience and e-mails all of a sudden had awful interaction. The only point I might believe that would be causing 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 crippling deliverability issues, hidden fees, busted features, and awful user interface, I had actually finally reached my limit …
Why I Stop GoHighLevel after 37 Days
Just 45 days after migrating my agency to GoHighLevel, I understood I had made a substantial error. The disadvantages dramatically exceeded any advantages.
No software program is perfect, however the large quantity of issues was beyond appropriate.
At the end of the day, software application boils down to trust. If I can’t trust it to handle critical features capably or believe a vendor has my benefits in mind, then it’s time to walk away– even after spending significant time, money, and effort moving.
So I made the tough contact us to reverse training course and return back to Keap totally just weeks after going all in on GoHighLevel. Let’s discover what I learned from this fiasco.
Key Takeaways: What I Learned From My GoHighLevel Mistake
My time with HighLevel can be summed up as a pricey ill fortune. Yet in knowledge, it showed me a few essential lessons:
- Adhere to what jobs. Don’t distress what’s functioning unless something is definitively better across the board. Modification brings threat.
- Veterinarian claims extensively. Marketing buzz around new software frequently obscures larger underlying problems. Deep due diligence is essential.
- Pick simpleness over features. Properly designed devices must make your work life much easier, not a lot more challenging and messy.
- Openness constructs count on. Nontransparent pricing, unethical reseller terms, and finger-pointing to avert issues ruins count on.
- Look for honest evaluations. Happy assistance reviews indicate less if extreme concerns suggest inadequate general use.
- Perfection is impossible. No single option can completely satisfy every special company demand. Locate the least-bad fit.
- Evolution over transformation. Step-by-step renovations normally exceed risky wholesale reinvention of what already works fine.
In other words, I found out to be much more hesitant of “also good to be true” marketing cases and less attracted by the attraction of shiny new items. The tools you make use of daily should earn count on via transparency and performance, not glossy advertising.