As a firm proprietor for over a decade, I depend on software program and automation to simplify procedures and deliver outcomes. So when GoHighLevel emerged on the scene couple of years back, it absolutely caught my interest GoHighLevel Outbound Calling.
The concept was enticing– an all-in-one client administration platform with marketing, sales, and solution tools integrated with each other. As a business owner always wanting to streamline and scale my service, it looked like a desire become a reality theoretically. Who would not want a single solution that does it all?
Yet in this comprehensive GoHighLevel review, I’ll take you inside my tragic journey of attempting (and falling short) to change to this popular new software application. You’ll discover:
If you’re thinking about whether GoHighLevel is right for your very own service requirements, with any luck you can pick up from my agonizing blunders and blew up expectations.
Looter: I do NOT recommend GoHighLevel. If you require a CRM, begin with this listing of finest CRMs instead. I use Keap.
Some GoHighLevel Alternatives
If you’re searching for a sales, marketing, and job administration alternative to GoHighLevel, after that below are a few we recommend.
Backstory: Why I Took Into Consideration Switching from Keap
To comprehend what attracted me to GoHighLevel in the first place, you need context regarding my previous arrangement. For over 5 years I had been gladly depending on Keap (previously Infusionsoft) to fulfill all my customer monitoring and automation requirements.
I located Keap intuitive to utilize and it managed whatever I needed– CRM, e-mail marketing, sales funnels, subscription websites, and customer support.
Keap’s CRM and sales and marketing automation are created to help small businesses keep their clients while including new ones effortlessly. Automate follow-ups with e-mails and messages, guaranteeing leads and clients get the best messages at the right time. Usage internet site and social media sites kinds to enhance lead follow-up, and manage your growth with very easy appointment organizing and lead tracking. Boost sales with automated quoting, invoicing, and settlement handling, maximizing your time. With Keap, local business can conserve 10 hours per week and increase revenue by 39%. Begin with a 14-day free trial, no charge card needed.
Why we like Keap
Keap uses a comprehensive client connection administration (CRM) and marketing automation option tailored for local business and entrepreneurs. We value Keap’s concentrate on improving sales procedures and nurturing client relationships with powerful automation devices. The system’s all-in-one technique incorporates CRM, e-mail marketing, invoicing, and task monitoring, making it specifically attractive for businesses seeking to consolidate their tech pile.
Essentially, it just worked accurately with marginal hassle or maintenance called for. My open and click-through rates were excellent (like 35% wonderful). Automations ran smoothly without any problems.
So why on earth was I lured to uproot my whole operational structure from a system that worked to attempt something unverified and untested?
In knowledge I can admit I got attracted by the alarm telephone call of “glossy item syndrome”. You know the sensation: when everyone’s discussing a new device that will transform your service … The yard commonly looks greener on the other side, and I asked yourself whether GoHighLevel might lower friction factors that I would certainly learned to endure throughout the years with Keap.
I withstood at first, yet a couple of even more irritations led me to think maybe it was time for a modification.
The Financial investment: Migrating My Company to GoHighLevel
Previously this year I decided to take the plunge. I signed up for HighLevel’s Firm plan at $297/month, investing substantially more than the $97/month starter expense.
This had not been a decision I ignored. I knew switching over platforms was going to call for moving all my Keap data and essentially reconstructing my entire technology framework from square one utilizing every one of the GoHighLevel integrations available.
Here’s a summary of just a few of the effort required:
- Manually exporting 20,000+ e-mail customer documents
- Recreating loads of automations and workflows
- Moving client accounts, notes, and task information to the brand-new CRM
- Reconfiguring my Stripe billing integration
- Establishing landing pages, promotions, and sales funnels throughout once again
- Learning a totally foreign UX and interface style
Done in, I spent around 30-40 tiresome hours of arrangement job transitioning every little thing over– as well as dealing with lost productivity during the button.
Yet inevitably, it was a calculated financial investment I was willing to make. I figured some short-term pain would pay off with GoHighLevel supplying a much better long-term solution for my business, Dripify. Oh just how incorrect I was …
It only took me regarding a month of hands-on usage to recognize I had made a large mistake. The issues began piling up promptly, up until it reached a point I had to reduce my losses and switch over back to Keap completely.
Let’s walk through the horrible troubles I encountered.
Safety Issues & Numerous Bugs
Provided GoHighLevel positioned itself as an all-in-one automation system, I made sure to carefully recreate every single workflow from my old Keap account.
These included series for onboarding brand-new e-mail subscribers, onboarding brand-new customers, automating follow-ups for webinar registrations, sending event tips, handling membership expiries and much more.
Everything seemed to be functioning penalty … till suddenly it wasn’t. One early morning, I awoke to discover 171 completely unimportant e-mails had actually been sent to users who should NOT have actually gotten them. This occurred three days straight, with a various batch of 160 individuals each day.
I hysterically tried repairing and restoring the automation from scratch. But the problem continued.
When I frantically reached out to their support group, they vaguely claimed “web server concerns” were responsible. Yet this description didn’t make any feeling, given that the errors proceeded occurring each morning like clockwork unrelated to any downtime.
In my mind, this huge failing was totally unacceptable and just really did not benefit my organization. I have countless contacts relying on my automated campaigns running smoothly.
So if GoHighLevel was mosting likely to be absolutely unreliable, exactly how could I entrust mission-critical workflows and sensitive customer data to their innovation?
The unintuitive interface only intensified these problems …
Aggravating UX
Originating from Keap where everything was smooth and instinctive, GoHighLevel’s learning contour felt high and complicated.
Simple jobs like editing and enhancing workflows involved excavating with menu systems that were all over the place. Secret settings were unexplainably spread in totally different areas. Relocating in between features felt disjointed or complex.
I’ll tell you what I indicate by discussing their funnel builder as an instance. There were 3 different setups panels to manage general, specific, and product configurations. Yet for some crazy reason, the links to access each of these core settings were spread out on contrary sides of the screen. What!?
As a person who values clean, thoughtful layout, this seriously frustrated me.
It enhanced that GoHighLevel still seemed like a work-in-progress as opposed to a polished item ready for prime-time usage. Their concerns seemed focused on packing in every feature under the sun, with poor use as an afterthought.
And speaking of features, I quickly realized the low price tag included pricey compromises …
Deceptive Pricing GoHighLevel Outbound Calling
Among GoHighLevel’s greatest selling points is the cost effective cost for access to so many features. Yet I promptly discovered this low-cost base price was deceptive.
They nickle-and-dimed users with sporadic charges for core functionality. All of a sudden my credit card statements had obscure $10 charges from GoHighLevel here and there.
As it ended up, you obtain billed each time you send out an e-mail via their web servers. So for high volume individuals, this amounted to thousands of bucks in unforeseen expenses.
In between these per-email charges and paying added for deliverability attachments like Mailgun, my “cost effective” GoHighLevel membership wound up costing considerably greater than my Keap plan.
The reduced sticker price was alluring, but just not sensible in practice. This bait-and-switch left a negative preference in my mouth.
Email Rates Suffered
The last dealbreaker was seeing my carefully supported e-mail open rates plummet almost overnight after changing to GoHighLevel.
Formerly, my target market interaction constantly struck 35-40% open rates in Keap month after month. But once I moved their records over to GoHighLevel, efficiency tanked immediately to a pitiful 9% open rate.
Regardless of just how much I enhanced my sending out techniques or attempted every repairing method, I could barely push open rates back right into the teens– still a 50%+ decline from my previous standards GoHighLevel Outbound Calling.
Let me repeat: my exact same target market and e-mails instantly had awful interaction. The only thing I might think that would certainly be causing this was whatever was taking place behind the scenes at GoHighLevel. For a firm so depending on email marketing, this was a big deal.
Between the crippling deliverability problems, hidden fees, damaged features, and terrible user interface, I had actually finally reached my restriction …
Why I Stop GoHighLevel after 37 Days
Simply 45 days after migrating my company to GoHighLevel, I understood I had made a significant mistake. The cons substantially exceeded any advantages.
No software is ideal, however the large quantity of issues was beyond appropriate.
At the end of the day, software boils down to trust fund. If I can’t trust it to manage crucial features capably or think a vendor has my benefits in mind, then it’s time to walk away– even after spending substantial time, cash, and effort moving.
So I made the tough call to turn around training course and return back to Keap entirely just weeks after going done in on GoHighLevel. Let’s explore what I learned from this fiasco.
Secret Takeaways: What I Learned From My GoHighLevel Mistake
My time with HighLevel can be summed up as a costly misadventure. Yet in hindsight, it educated me a few vital lessons:
- Stick to what jobs. Do not disturb what’s working unless something is definitively much better across the board. Modification brings threat.
- Vet claims thoroughly. Marketing hype around brand-new software application usually obscures larger underlying defects. Deep due persistance is crucial.
- Choose simpleness over features. Properly designed devices need to make your work life much easier, not extra challenging and unpleasant.
- Transparency constructs count on. Opaque pricing, shady reseller terms, and finger-pointing to escape issues destroys trust.
- Look for honest evaluations. Satisfied assistance evaluates suggest much less if excessive issues imply bad overall usability.
- Perfection is difficult. No solitary option can flawlessly satisfy every distinct business requirement. Find the least-bad fit.
- Evolution over transformation. Incremental improvements generally outweigh risky wholesale reinvention of what already functions fine.
In other words, I learned to be more doubtful of “also great to be true” marketing insurance claims and much less tempted by the attraction of glossy brand-new things. The devices you make use of daily ought to make count on through openness and performance, not slick advertising.