As a company proprietor for over a decade, I count on software and automation to simplify operations and supply outcomes. So when GoHighLevel emerged on the scene couple of years back, it most definitely captured my focus GoHighLevel DocuSign.
The idea was enticing– an all-in-one customer management system with marketing, sales, and solution tools incorporated with each other. As a business owner constantly looking to streamline and scale my organization, it looked like a desire become a reality on paper. That would not desire a single option that does it all?
Yet in this extensive GoHighLevel testimonial, I’ll take you inside my tragic journey of trying (and falling short) to change to this popular brand-new software application. You’ll discover:
If you’re considering whether GoHighLevel is right for your own company demands, with any luck you can learn from my excruciating mistakes and pumped up assumptions.
Looter: I do NOT recommend GoHighLevel. If you require a CRM, begin with this listing of ideal CRMs rather. I make use of Keap.
Some GoHighLevel Alternatives
If you’re seeking a sales, marketing, and task monitoring option to GoHighLevel, then below are a couple of we recommend.
Backstory: Why I Considered Changing from Keap
To comprehend what attracted me to GoHighLevel in the first place, you need context regarding my previous configuration. For over 5 years I had actually been happily counting on Keap (formerly Infusionsoft) to satisfy all my client management and automation needs.
I located Keap instinctive to use and it handled everything I required– CRM, email marketing, sales funnels, subscription sites, and client support.
Keap’s CRM and sales and marketing automation are developed to assist small companies maintain their customers while adding brand-new ones easily. Automate follow-ups with emails and texts, making sure leads and clients obtain the ideal messages at the correct time. Usage web site and social networks types to enhance lead follow-up, and handle your development with easy visit scheduling and lead monitoring. Boost sales with automated estimating, invoicing, and repayment handling, maximizing your time. With Keap, local business can save 10 hours each week and increase revenue by 39%. Begin with a 14-day free trial, no credit card required.
Why we like Keap
Keap supplies an extensive consumer relationship administration (CRM) and marketing automation remedy customized for local business and entrepreneurs. We value Keap’s concentrate on simplifying sales processes and nurturing consumer relationships via effective automation devices. The system’s all-in-one strategy integrates CRM, email marketing, invoicing, and task monitoring, making it particularly eye-catching for services seeking to settle their tech stack.
Generally, it simply worked dependably with very little hassle or upkeep called for. My open and click-through prices were terrific (like 35% terrific). Automations ran smoothly without any problems.
So why on earth was I lured to uproot my entire operational structure from a system that functioned to attempt something unproven and untried?
In knowledge I can admit I got seduced by the alarm call of “glossy object disorder”. You recognize the feeling: when every person’s talking about a brand-new device that will reinvent your business … The yard frequently looks greener beyond, and I wondered whether GoHighLevel may reduce friction points that I ‘d discovered to tolerate throughout the years with Keap.
I stood up to initially, yet a couple of more disappointments led me to believe maybe it was time for an adjustment.
The Financial investment: Moving My Company to GoHighLevel
Previously this year I chose to start. I registered for HighLevel’s Agency plan at $297/month, investing considerably greater than the $97/month starter price.
This had not been a decision I took lightly. I recognized switching systems was going to need migrating all my Keap data and essentially rebuilding my entire technology facilities from the ground up utilizing every one of the GoHighLevel integrations readily available.
Below’s a review of just several of the effort needed:
- By hand exporting 20,000+ e-mail subscriber documents
- Recreating lots of automations and workflows
- Relocating client profiles, notes, and project information to the brand-new CRM
- Reconfiguring my Stripe invoicing integration
- Setting up landing pages, coupons, and sales funnels around again
- Learning a completely international UX and interface design
Done in, I invested around 30-40 tedious hours of arrangement work transitioning everything over– in addition to taking care of lost efficiency throughout the switch.
However ultimately, it was a calculated investment I agreed to make. I figured some temporary pain would repay with GoHighLevel giving a better lasting solution for my service, Dripify. Oh how wrong I was …
It just took me regarding a month of hands-on use to recognize I had made a huge mistake. The concerns started piling up quickly, up until it got to a factor I needed to cut my losses and switch over back to Keap completely.
Let’s go through the nightmarish troubles I encountered.
Safety And Security Issues & Lots of Vermin
Given GoHighLevel positioned itself as an all-in-one automation platform, I made sure to diligently recreate every single workflow from my old Keap account.
These included sequences for onboarding new e-mail customers, onboarding new clients, automating follow-ups for webinar registrations, sending occasion pointers, taking care of membership expirations and much more.
Everything appeared to be operating penalty … till instantly it had not been. One early morning, I awoke to find 171 entirely unimportant emails had been sent out to customers that should NOT have actually obtained them. This happened three days in a row, with a different batch of 160 individuals each day.
I hysterically attempted repairing and rebuilding the automation from scratch. Yet the problem lingered.
When I seriously connected to their assistance group, they vaguely claimed “server problems” were to blame. Yet this explanation didn’t make any kind of feeling, since the errors proceeded taking place each morning like clockwork unassociated to any kind of downtime.
In my mind, this massive failure was entirely unacceptable and just really did not benefit my company. I have countless contacts depending on my automated campaigns running smoothly.
So if GoHighLevel was going to be absolutely undependable, exactly how could I delegate mission-critical workflows and delicate client information to their technology?
The unintuitive user interface only worsened these problems …
Irritating UX
Coming from Keap where every little thing was smooth and instinctive, GoHighLevel’s learning contour really felt steep and challenging.
Simple tasks like editing workflows entailed excavating through menu systems that were all over the place. Trick settings were unexplainably scattered in entirely different sections. Moving between functions really felt disjointed or complicated.
I’ll inform you what I suggest by talking about their funnel builder as an example. There were 3 different setups panels to take care of overall, private, and item arrangements. Yet for some crazy reason, the web links to accessibility each of these core setups were spread out on opposite sides of the screen. What!?
As somebody that values clean, thoughtful layout, this seriously frustrated me.
It reinforced that GoHighLevel still seemed like a work-in-progress as opposed to a sleek item ready for prime-time usage. Their concerns seemed concentrated on packing in every feature imaginable, with bad usability as an afterthought.
And talking features, I quickly recognized the low cost tag came with expensive concessions …
Deceptive Pricing GoHighLevel DocuSign
One of GoHighLevel’s biggest marketing points is the economical price for accessibility to a lot of features. However I promptly learned this affordable base expense was deceptive.
They nickle-and-dimed customers with occasional charges for core performance. Unexpectedly my bank card declarations had obscure $10 costs from GoHighLevel occasionally.
As it ended up, you obtain charged every time you send out an e-mail through their web servers. So for high volume customers, this amounted to numerous bucks in unexpected prices.
In between these per-email costs and paying extra for deliverability attachments like Mailgun, my “budget friendly” GoHighLevel membership wound up setting you back dramatically greater than my Keap plan.
The low price tag was alluring, however just not sensible in practice. This bait-and-switch left a poor preference in my mouth.
Email Fees Suffered
The final dealbreaker was seeing my very carefully nurtured email open prices drop almost overnight after switching to GoHighLevel.
Formerly, my audience involvement constantly hit 35-40% open rates in Keap month after month. Once I migrated their records over to GoHighLevel, efficiency tanked quickly to a pitiful 9% open rate.
Regardless of just how much I maximized my sending out methods or tried every repairing technique, I can barely push open prices back right into the teenagers– still a 50%+ decline from my previous standards GoHighLevel DocuSign.
Let me repeat: my exact same audience and e-mails all of a sudden had terrible involvement. The only point I might assume that would certainly be triggering this was whatever was happening behind the scenes at GoHighLevel. For a company so based on email marketing, this was a big deal.
Between the crippling deliverability concerns, hidden fees, broken features, and terrible interface, I had finally reached my restriction …
Why I Stop GoHighLevel after 37 Days
Just 45 days after moving my firm to GoHighLevel, I knew I had actually made a massive blunder. The disadvantages dramatically exceeded any benefits.
No software is perfect, yet the large volume of problems was past acceptable.
At the end of the day, software application comes down to trust. If I can not trust it to take care of crucial functions capably or believe a vendor has my benefits in mind, after that it’s time to leave– also after spending considerable time, money, and initiative moving.
So I made the tough call to reverse training course and return back to Keap entirely just weeks after going done in on GoHighLevel. Let’s discover what I learned from this fiasco.
Trick Takeaways: What I Gained from My GoHighLevel Mistake
My time with HighLevel can be summed up as an expensive accident. Yet in knowledge, it educated me a couple of vital lessons:
- Stay with what jobs. Don’t upset what’s working unless something is definitively much better across the board. Modification brings risk.
- Veterinarian claims completely. Marketing buzz around brand-new software program usually obscures bigger underlying flaws. Deep due persistance is vital.
- Pick simpleness over features. Properly designed devices need to make your job life less complicated, not more complex and messy.
- Transparency constructs trust fund. Opaque pricing, unethical reseller terms, and finger-pointing to avert problems ruins depend on.
- Seek impartial evaluations. Delighted assistance evaluates indicate much less if extreme concerns suggest inadequate overall use.
- Excellence is impossible. No solitary service can perfectly fulfill every unique organization need. Find the least-bad fit.
- Evolution over transformation. Step-by-step improvements generally surpass high-risk wholesale reinvention of what already functions fine.
Basically, I learned to be extra hesitant of “too good to be true” marketing insurance claims and less attracted by the allure of glossy new objects. The devices you use daily ought to earn trust fund via openness and efficiency, not slick advertising.