As a firm owner for over a years, I rely upon software application and automation to simplify procedures and deliver results. So when GoHighLevel arised on the scene couple of years back, it definitely caught my focus GoHighLevel For Dealership.
The concept was enticing– an all-in-one customer administration platform with marketing, sales, and service tools incorporated together. As a business owner constantly aiming to streamline and scale my service, it looked like a desire come true on paper. Who wouldn’t want a solitary remedy that does it all?
However in this extensive GoHighLevel review, I’ll take you inside my dreadful journey of trying (and stopping working) to change to this preferred new software program. You’ll learn:
If you’re considering whether GoHighLevel is right for your own organization requirements, hopefully you can pick up from my agonizing mistakes and blew up expectations.
Spoiler: I do NOT recommend GoHighLevel. If you require a CRM, start with this list of ideal CRMs rather. I make use of Keap.
Some GoHighLevel Alternatives
If you’re seeking a sales, marketing, and job management option to GoHighLevel, then below are a few we recommend.
Backstory: Why I Thought About Changing from Keap
To recognize what attracted me to GoHighLevel to begin with, you need context concerning my previous configuration. For over 5 years I had been gladly relying upon Keap (previously Infusionsoft) to fulfill all my customer management and automation requirements.
I found Keap instinctive to utilize and it handled whatever I required– CRM, email marketing, sales funnels, membership sites, and customer assistance.
Keap’s CRM and sales and marketing automation are designed to assist small companies maintain their clients while adding new ones easily. Automate follow-ups with emails and texts, ensuring leads and clients get the best messages at the right time. Use internet site and social media sites kinds to streamline lead follow-up, and manage your growth with very easy appointment scheduling and lead tracking. Boost sales with automated estimating, invoicing, and settlement processing, liberating your time. With Keap, small companies can save 10 hours weekly and rise revenue by 39%. Beginning with a 14-day free trial, no charge card needed.
Why we like Keap
Keap uses a thorough consumer connection monitoring (CRM) and marketing automation option tailored for small companies and entrepreneurs. We appreciate Keap’s focus on simplifying sales processes and nurturing client relationships through effective automation tools. The system’s all-in-one approach integrates CRM, e-mail marketing, invoicing, and task administration, making it specifically appealing for businesses seeking to combine their technology pile.
Generally, it just functioned reliably with minimal difficulty or maintenance required. My open and click-through rates were excellent (like 35% excellent). Automations ran efficiently without issues.
So why on earth was I lured to uproot my entire functional foundation from a system that functioned to try something unproven and untried?
In hindsight I can admit I obtained attracted by the alarm call of “glossy object syndrome”. You know the sensation: when everybody’s discussing a brand-new tool that will reinvent your organization … The lawn frequently looks greener on the other side, and I questioned whether GoHighLevel might lower rubbing points that I would certainly discovered to tolerate for many years with Keap.
I resisted initially, but a few more aggravations led me to assume maybe it was time for a change.
The Investment: Moving My Firm to GoHighLevel
Earlier this year I chose to start. I signed up for HighLevel’s Firm plan at $297/month, investing considerably more than the $97/month starter cost.
This had not been a decision I ignored. I understood switching platforms was mosting likely to need migrating all my Keap data and basically rebuilding my entire technology facilities from scratch using all of the GoHighLevel integrations offered.
Here’s an overview of just several of the effort required:
- By hand exporting 20,000+ e-mail client records
- Recreating lots of automations and workflows
- Moving customer accounts, notes, and job data to the brand-new CRM
- Reconfiguring my Stripe invoicing integration
- Setting up landing pages, promotions, and sales funnels around once again
- Learning a totally international UX and user interface style
All in, I spent around 30-40 laborious hours of configuration work transitioning every little thing over– not to mention managing lost performance throughout the button.
But eventually, it was a calculated investment I was willing to make. I figured some temporary discomfort would settle with GoHighLevel giving a far better long-term solution for my service, Dripify. Oh exactly how wrong I was …
It just took me about a month of hands-on usage to realize I had actually made a huge blunder. The concerns started piling up promptly, until it got to a factor I had to reduce my losses and switch back to Keap entirely.
Let’s go through the horrible issues I ran into.
Safety And Security Issues & Several Bugs
Given GoHighLevel positioned itself as an all-in-one automation system, I made sure to meticulously recreate every workflow from my old Keap account.
These consisted of series for onboarding brand-new e-mail clients, onboarding new clients, automating follow-ups for webinar registrations, sending out event pointers, handling membership expiries and much more.
Whatever seemed to be functioning penalty … till unexpectedly it wasn’t. One morning, I awoke to find 171 entirely unimportant e-mails had been sent to customers who ought to NOT have obtained them. This happened three days straight, with a different set of 160 individuals each day.
I hysterically tried fixing and rebuilding the automation from square one. Yet the problem continued.
When I frantically reached out to their support group, they vaguely declared “web server issues” were to blame. Yet this description didn’t make any type of feeling, since the mistakes continued occurring each morning like clockwork unrelated to any kind of downtime.
In my mind, this enormous failure was completely undesirable and simply didn’t help my business. I have countless contacts relying on my automated campaigns running smoothly.
So if GoHighLevel was going to be completely undependable, how could I delegate mission-critical workflows and delicate client data to their technology?
The unintuitive user interface only worsened these problems …
Aggravating UX
Originating from Keap where everything was seamless and user-friendly, GoHighLevel’s learning contour really felt high and challenging.
Basic jobs like editing workflows involved digging through food selection systems that were all over the place. Trick settings were unexplainably spread in absolutely various areas. Moving in between features really felt disjointed or confusing.
I’ll tell you what I indicate by discussing their funnel builder as an instance. There were 3 separate setups panels to manage general, individual, and product configurations. Yet for some crazy reason, the links to gain access to each of these core setups were spread out on opposite sides of the screen. What!?
As somebody who values clean, thoughtful layout, this seriously irritated me.
It reinforced that GoHighLevel still felt like a work-in-progress as opposed to a polished item ready for prime-time use. Their top priorities appeared concentrated on stuffing in every feature imaginable, with poor use as a second thought.
And speaking of features, I quickly understood the small cost tag featured expensive concessions …
Deceptive Pricing GoHighLevel For Dealership
One of GoHighLevel’s most significant marketing points is the inexpensive cost for access to many features. Yet I swiftly learned this affordable base cost was deceptive.
They nickle-and-dimed users with erratic charges for core functionality. Suddenly my bank card declarations had obscure $10 charges from GoHighLevel occasionally.
As it ended up, you obtain charged each time you send out an email with their servers. So for high volume users, this added up to thousands of dollars in unforeseen costs.
Between these per-email charges and paying extra for deliverability attachments like Mailgun, my “economical” GoHighLevel subscription wound up setting you back dramatically MORE than my Keap plan.
The low sticker price was tempting, but simply not realistic in practice. This bait-and-switch left a negative preference in my mouth.
Email Fees Suffered
The final dealbreaker was seeing my meticulously nurtured email open prices plunge practically over night after switching over to GoHighLevel.
Previously, my target market interaction regularly struck 35-40% open rates in Keap month after month. But once I moved their records over to GoHighLevel, performance tanked promptly to a pitiful 9% open rate.
Despite just how much I optimized my sending techniques or tried every repairing method, I can barely push open prices back into the teenagers– still a 50%+ decrease from my previous benchmarks GoHighLevel For Dealership.
Let me repeat: my exact same audience and e-mails suddenly had horrible engagement. The only point I might think that would certainly be triggering this was whatever was happening behind the scenes at GoHighLevel. For a company so depending on e-mail marketing, this was a big deal.
In between the crippling deliverability issues, concealed costs, busted features, and terrible user interface, I had ultimately reached my limitation …
Why I Give up GoHighLevel after 37 Days
Just 45 days after migrating my agency to GoHighLevel, I recognized I had actually made a huge error. The disadvantages dramatically surpassed any type of advantages.
No software program is ideal, however the large volume of problems was beyond appropriate.
At the end of the day, software program boils down to count on. If I can’t trust it to handle important features effectively or think a supplier has my benefits in mind, then it’s time to leave– even after investing substantial time, cash, and initiative moving.
So I made the tough phone call to reverse training course and return back to Keap entirely just weeks after going all in on GoHighLevel. Let’s explore what I learned from this ordeal.
Trick Takeaways: What I Learned From My GoHighLevel Error
My time with HighLevel can be summed up as an expensive misadventure. But in knowledge, it showed me a few key lessons:
- Stick to what works. Don’t distress what’s working unless something is definitively far better across the board. Change brings danger.
- Vet declares extensively. Marketing hype around new software program commonly obscures bigger underlying defects. Deep due persistance is essential.
- Pick simplicity over features. Well-designed tools must make your work life simpler, not more difficult and untidy.
- Openness constructs trust. Nontransparent pricing, questionable reseller terms, and finger-pointing to avert issues damages trust fund.
- Seek honest reviews. Pleased support examines imply much less if extreme problems indicate inadequate overall use.
- Perfection is difficult. No solitary remedy can perfectly fulfill every unique company demand. Find the least-bad fit.
- Advancement over change. Step-by-step renovations commonly exceed high-risk wholesale reinvention of what already works fine.
In short, I found out to be extra hesitant of “as well good to be true” marketing cases and less attracted by the attraction of shiny new things. The tools you utilize daily ought to gain depend on through transparency and performance, not slick advertising.