As a company proprietor for over a decade, I depend on software program and automation to simplify procedures and deliver outcomes. So when GoHighLevel arised on the scene couple of years back, it most definitely captured my interest GoHighLevel For Coaching.
The idea was appealing– an all-in-one customer management system with marketing, sales, and solution devices incorporated with each other. As a business owner always seeking to streamline and scale my company, it seemed like a dream become a reality theoretically. Who would not want a solitary remedy that does it all?
Yet in this extensive GoHighLevel testimonial, I’ll take you inside my devastating trip of trying (and falling short) to switch to this popular brand-new software program. You’ll find out:
If you’re considering whether GoHighLevel is right for your very own organization requirements, ideally you can gain from my uncomfortable errors and inflated assumptions.
Looter: I do NOT recommend GoHighLevel. If you require a CRM, start with this checklist of finest CRMs instead. I utilize Keap.
Some GoHighLevel Alternatives
If you’re trying to find a sales, marketing, and job management alternative to GoHighLevel, then right here are a couple of we recommend.
Backstory: Why I Considered Changing from Keap
To recognize what attracted me to GoHighLevel in the first place, you need context concerning my previous arrangement. For over 5 years I had actually been gladly relying on Keap (formerly Infusionsoft) to fulfill all my customer monitoring and automation requirements.
I located Keap intuitive to utilize and it dealt with whatever I required– CRM, email marketing, sales funnels, membership websites, and customer support.
Keap’s CRM and sales and marketing automation are developed to help small businesses maintain their clients while adding brand-new ones easily. Automate follow-ups with e-mails and texts, making certain leads and customers obtain the appropriate messages at the correct time. Use website and social networks types to simplify lead follow-up, and manage your growth with very easy appointment scheduling and lead tracking. Boost sales with automated pricing estimate, invoicing, and repayment processing, maximizing your time. With Keap, small businesses can conserve 10 hours each week and increase profits by 39%. Begin with a 14-day free trial, no charge card needed.
Why we like Keap
Keap provides an extensive customer partnership monitoring (CRM) and marketing automation option customized for small companies and business owners. We appreciate Keap’s concentrate on improving sales processes and supporting consumer partnerships through powerful automation tools. The system’s all-in-one strategy integrates CRM, e-mail marketing, invoicing, and task monitoring, making it particularly eye-catching for businesses wanting to combine their technology stack.
For the most part, it simply worked accurately with minimal fuss or maintenance required. My open and click-through rates were excellent (like 35% excellent). Automations ran efficiently without problems.
So why in the world was I tempted to uproot my entire functional structure from a system that functioned to try something unproven and untried?
In knowledge I can confess I got seduced by the alarm telephone call of “shiny things syndrome”. You recognize the sensation: when everyone’s discussing a brand-new tool that will transform your service … The lawn often looks greener beyond, and I asked yourself whether GoHighLevel might minimize rubbing factors that I ‘d learned to endure over the years with Keap.
I resisted at first, but a couple of even more stress led me to think perhaps it was time for an adjustment.
The Financial investment: Moving My Company to GoHighLevel
Previously this year I chose to take the plunge. I registered for HighLevel’s Company plan at $297/month, spending significantly more than the $97/month starter expense.
This wasn’t a choice I took lightly. I understood switching systems was going to need moving all my Keap information and essentially restoring my whole technology infrastructure from square one making use of all of the GoHighLevel integrations readily available.
Right here’s a review of simply a few of the effort needed:
- Manually exporting 20,000+ email subscriber records
- Recreating lots of automations and workflows
- Relocating customer profiles, notes, and task information to the new CRM
- Reconfiguring my Stripe invoicing integration
- Setting up landing pages, coupons, and sales funnels around again
- Learning an entirely international UX and user interface design
All in, I invested around 30-40 tedious hours of arrangement work transitioning whatever over– not to mention taking care of shed performance during the switch.
But eventually, it was a calculated financial investment I wanted to make. I figured some short-term discomfort would certainly pay off with GoHighLevel offering a far better long-lasting solution for my company, Dripify. Oh how wrong I was …
It just took me concerning a month of hands-on usage to realize I had made a huge blunder. The problems started piling up rapidly, up until it got to a factor I had to reduce my losses and change back to Keap entirely.
Let’s walk through the horrible issues I experienced.
Protection Issues & Lots of Vermin
Provided GoHighLevel placed itself as an all-in-one automation platform, I made sure to meticulously recreate every workflow from my old Keap account.
These consisted of series for onboarding brand-new e-mail subscribers, onboarding brand-new customers, automating follow-ups for webinar enrollments, sending out occasion pointers, taking care of membership expirations and much more.
Every little thing appeared to be operating penalty … until all of a sudden it wasn’t. One early morning, I awoke to find 171 entirely pointless emails had actually been sent out to customers that must NOT have gotten them. This took place three days in a row, with a various set of 160 individuals daily.
I frantically attempted troubleshooting and restoring the automation from square one. But the issue continued.
When I desperately connected to their assistance team, they slightly claimed “server issues” were responsible. However this explanation really did not make any type of feeling, since the errors proceeded occurring each morning like clockwork unrelated to any type of downtime.
In my mind, this enormous failure was completely unacceptable and just really did not benefit my business. I have thousands of calls relying upon my automated campaigns running smoothly.
So if GoHighLevel was going to be completely unreliable, exactly how could I turn over mission-critical workflows and sensitive customer information to their innovation?
The unintuitive interface only compounded these problems …
Irritating UX
Originating from Keap where every little thing was seamless and intuitive, GoHighLevel’s learning curve really felt high and complex.
Straightforward jobs like editing workflows included excavating through food selection systems that were all over the place. Trick settings were unexplainably scattered in totally various areas. Relocating in between features felt disjointed or complex.
I’ll inform you what I mean by discussing their funnel builder as an example. There were 3 different settings panels to manage overall, specific, and item setups. Yet for some crazy reason, the links to gain access to each of these core setups were expanded on contrary sides of the screen. What!?
As a person that values tidy, thoughtful design, this seriously upset me.
It strengthened that GoHighLevel still seemed like a work-in-progress instead of a refined product ready for prime-time use. Their priorities seemed concentrated on cramming in every feature imaginable, with bad use as a second thought.
And speaking of features, I soon recognized the small cost tag came with expensive compromises …
Misleading Pricing GoHighLevel For Coaching
One of GoHighLevel’s biggest selling points is the inexpensive price for access to so many features. Yet I swiftly learned this economical base cost was deceptive.
They nickle-and-dimed individuals with sporadic charges for core performance. All of a sudden my bank card statements had unclear $10 fees from GoHighLevel occasionally.
As it ended up, you get billed each time you send an e-mail through their servers. So for high volume individuals, this amounted to numerous dollars in unforeseen expenses.
In between these per-email charges and paying extra for deliverability attachments like Mailgun, my “cost effective” GoHighLevel subscription ended up setting you back substantially greater than my Keap plan.
The reduced price tag was alluring, yet simply not practical in practice. This bait-and-switch left a negative preference in my mouth.
Email Fees Suffered
The last dealbreaker was seeing my meticulously supported e-mail open prices plunge almost overnight after switching to GoHighLevel.
Previously, my target market engagement constantly hit 35-40% open prices in Keap month after month. Once I migrated their documents over to GoHighLevel, performance tanked immediately to a pathetic 9% open price.
Despite how much I optimized my sending out techniques or attempted every repairing method, I can hardly push open rates back into the teens– still a 50%+ decline from my previous criteria GoHighLevel For Coaching.
Let me repeat: my exact same target market and e-mails all of a sudden had dreadful involvement. The only thing I could think that would be triggering this was whatever was taking place behind the scenes at GoHighLevel. For an agency so depending on email marketing, this was a big deal.
In between the debilitating deliverability problems, concealed charges, damaged features, and dreadful interface, I had actually finally reached my restriction …
Why I Quit GoHighLevel after 37 Days
Simply 45 days after migrating my firm to GoHighLevel, I recognized I had made a substantial error. The cons substantially exceeded any type of advantages.
No software program is excellent, however the large quantity of troubles was beyond acceptable.
At the end of the day, software boils down to depend on. If I can not trust it to handle important features competently or think a supplier has my best interests in mind, after that it’s time to walk away– also after investing significant time, cash, and initiative migrating.
So I made the difficult call to reverse training course and return back to Keap totally just weeks after going done in on GoHighLevel. Let’s explore what I learned from this ordeal.
Trick Takeaways: What I Picked up from My GoHighLevel Error
My time with HighLevel can be summarized as an expensive ill fortune. Yet in hindsight, it showed me a few crucial lessons:
- Stick to what works. Don’t upset what’s functioning unless something is definitively much better across the board. Modification brings danger.
- Vet asserts thoroughly. Marketing hype around brand-new software program typically covers larger underlying problems. Deep due diligence is necessary.
- Choose simplicity over features. Well-designed tools ought to make your job life less complicated, not a lot more challenging and unpleasant.
- Openness constructs count on. Opaque pricing, unethical reseller terms, and finger-pointing to avert troubles damages depend on.
- Seek impartial testimonials. Delighted assistance examines suggest less if excessive concerns suggest inadequate general use.
- Perfection is impossible. No solitary option can completely meet every distinct organization requirement. Discover the least-bad fit.
- Development over transformation. Incremental renovations typically outweigh dangerous wholesale reinvention of what already functions penalty.
Basically, I discovered to be much more skeptical of “also good to be real” marketing insurance claims and much less lured by the appeal of shiny new things. The devices you make use of daily need to gain trust fund through transparency and performance, not glossy advertising.