As an agency owner for over a decade, I rely on software program and automation to improve procedures and deliver outcomes. So when GoHighLevel emerged on the scene few years back, it most definitely captured my attention GoHighLevel Troubleshooting Tool.
The idea was attractive– an all-in-one customer administration platform with marketing, sales, and solution tools integrated with each other. As a business owner always wanting to simplify and scale my service, it felt like a desire come true theoretically. Who wouldn’t desire a single option that does it all?
However in this extensive GoHighLevel testimonial, I’ll take you inside my tragic trip of attempting (and stopping working) to change to this prominent new software application. You’ll find out:
If you’re considering whether GoHighLevel is right for your very own service needs, hopefully you can pick up from my painful mistakes and inflated expectations.
Spoiler: I do NOT advise GoHighLevel. If you require a CRM, begin with this checklist of best CRMs instead. I use Keap.
Some GoHighLevel Alternatives
If you’re looking for a sales, marketing, and task administration option to GoHighLevel, then below are a few we suggest.
Backstory: Why I Thought About Switching Over from Keap
To recognize what attracted me to GoHighLevel in the first place, you require context about my previous arrangement. For over 5 years I had actually been happily depending on Keap (previously Infusionsoft) to satisfy all my customer management and automation requirements.
I located Keap user-friendly to make use of and it dealt with whatever I required– CRM, e-mail marketing, sales funnels, subscription websites, and customer assistance.
Keap’s CRM and sales and marketing automation are designed to aid local business maintain their customers while adding new ones easily. Automate follow-ups with emails and texts, making sure leads and clients obtain the appropriate messages at the correct time. Use site and social media sites kinds to simplify lead follow-up, and handle your development with simple consultation scheduling and lead tracking. Boost sales with automated pricing estimate, invoicing, and payment processing, liberating your time. With Keap, local business can save 10 hours weekly and boost profits by 39%. Begin with a 14-day free trial, no credit card required.
Why we like Keap
Keap provides a comprehensive customer partnership monitoring (CRM) and marketing automation remedy tailored for small companies and entrepreneurs. We appreciate Keap’s focus on streamlining sales procedures and supporting customer relationships via powerful automation tools. The platform’s all-in-one approach integrates CRM, email marketing, invoicing, and job management, making it particularly eye-catching for companies looking to consolidate their technology pile.
Generally, it simply worked dependably with very little hassle or maintenance required. My open and click-through rates were fantastic (like 35% excellent). Automations ran smoothly without concerns.
So why on earth was I lured to uproot my whole functional foundation from a system that worked to attempt something unproven and untried?
In hindsight I can confess I obtained seduced by the alarm telephone call of “glossy things disorder”. You know the feeling: when every person’s discussing a brand-new device that will certainly transform your organization … The lawn usually looks greener beyond, and I questioned whether GoHighLevel may lower rubbing points that I ‘d found out to tolerate throughout the years with Keap.
I withstood at first, yet a couple of more frustrations led me to assume maybe it was time for a modification.
The Financial investment: Migrating My Agency to GoHighLevel
Earlier this year I chose to start. I signed up for HighLevel’s Firm plan at $297/month, investing significantly greater than the $97/month starter expense.
This had not been a decision I ignored. I knew switching systems was mosting likely to call for migrating all my Keap data and basically rebuilding my entire technology infrastructure from square one utilizing all of the GoHighLevel integrations offered.
Here’s an overview of simply some of the initiative required:
- By hand exporting 20,000+ e-mail subscriber records
- Recreating loads of automations and workflows
- Moving customer profiles, notes, and task information to the brand-new CRM
- Reconfiguring my Stripe invoicing integration
- Setting up landing pages, discounts, and sales funnels throughout again
- Learning an entirely international UX and user interface layout
All in, I invested around 30-40 laborious hours of setup work transitioning every little thing over– in addition to taking care of lost efficiency during the switch.
However eventually, it was a calculated financial investment I wanted to make. I figured some temporary discomfort would settle with GoHighLevel providing a better long-term solution for my business, Dripify. Oh just how wrong I was …
It just took me regarding a month of hands-on usage to recognize I had made a large mistake. The problems began accumulating quickly, up until it got to a factor I had to reduce my losses and switch over back to Keap completely.
Let’s go through the horrible issues I experienced.
Safety Issues & Many Vermin
Provided GoHighLevel placed itself as an all-in-one automation system, I made sure to carefully recreate every workflow from my old Keap account.
These included series for onboarding brand-new email customers, onboarding new clients, automating follow-ups for webinar enrollments, sending event pointers, taking care of subscription expirations and a lot more.
Every little thing seemed to be functioning penalty … up until instantly it wasn’t. One morning, I awoke to locate 171 totally irrelevant emails had actually been sent out to individuals that must NOT have received them. This happened 3 days in a row, with a various batch of 160 people each day.
I anxiously tried fixing and restoring the automation from the ground up. But the problem lingered.
When I desperately reached out to their support team, they slightly declared “server issues” were to blame. Yet this description didn’t make any sense, given that the mistakes proceeded occurring each early morning like clockwork unconnected to any type of downtime.
In my mind, this large failing was totally undesirable and just didn’t help my service. I have hundreds of contacts depending on my automated campaigns running smoothly.
So if GoHighLevel was going to be absolutely undependable, just how could I entrust mission-critical workflows and delicate client data to their modern technology?
The unintuitive interface only intensified these problems …
Aggravating UX
Originating from Keap where every little thing was smooth and intuitive, GoHighLevel’s learning curve really felt high and difficult.
Straightforward jobs like editing and enhancing workflows included digging through food selection systems that were all over the place. Secret settings were unexplainably scattered in absolutely various areas. Relocating between functions felt disjointed or complex.
I’ll tell you what I indicate by speaking about their funnel builder as an instance. There were 3 separate settings panels to manage general, individual, and item arrangements. Yet for some crazy reason, the web links to access each of these core settings were expanded on contrary sides of the display. What!?
As somebody that values clean, thoughtful layout, this seriously frustrated me.
It enhanced that GoHighLevel still felt like a work-in-progress rather than a refined item all set for prime-time usage. Their priorities appeared focused on cramming in every feature under the sun, with inadequate usability as an afterthought.
And speaking of features, I quickly understood the affordable price tag included costly concessions …
Misleading Pricing GoHighLevel Troubleshooting Tool
One of GoHighLevel’s most significant marketing factors is the budget-friendly cost for access to many features. However I swiftly discovered this affordable base expense was misleading.
They nickle-and-dimed individuals with erratic costs for core performance. All of a sudden my bank card declarations had unclear $10 fees from GoHighLevel here and there.
As it ended up, you get billed every time you send out an email via their servers. So for high quantity individuals, this added up to numerous bucks in unexpected costs.
In between these per-email costs and paying additional for deliverability attachments like Mailgun, my “economical” GoHighLevel registration wound up costing considerably greater than my Keap plan.
The reduced sticker price was tempting, yet simply not sensible in practice. This bait-and-switch left a poor preference in my mouth.
Email Rates Suffered
The final dealbreaker was seeing my meticulously nurtured email open rates plunge practically over night after switching over to GoHighLevel.
Formerly, my audience involvement constantly hit 35-40% open rates in Keap month after month. But once I migrated their records over to GoHighLevel, efficiency tanked instantaneously to a pitiful 9% open rate.
Despite how much I enhanced my sending practices or tried every fixing technique, I might barely push open rates back into the teens– still a 50%+ decrease from my previous benchmarks GoHighLevel Troubleshooting Tool.
Let me repeat: my exact same audience and e-mails unexpectedly had dreadful interaction. The only thing I can assume that would certainly be causing this was whatever was occurring behind the scenes at GoHighLevel. For a firm so depending on email marketing, this was a big deal.
Between the debilitating deliverability issues, hidden costs, damaged features, and terrible user interface, I had actually finally reached my limitation …
Why I Stop GoHighLevel after 37 Days
Simply 45 days after moving my agency to GoHighLevel, I recognized I had made a massive mistake. The cons substantially surpassed any type of advantages.
No software application is excellent, however the sheer quantity of problems was past acceptable.
At the end of the day, software comes down to depend on. If I can’t trust it to take care of critical functions properly or believe a supplier has my benefits in mind, after that it’s time to walk away– also after spending substantial time, cash, and effort migrating.
So I made the hard contact us to reverse training course and return back to Keap completely just weeks after going done in on GoHighLevel. Let’s discover what I picked up from this debacle.
Key Takeaways: What I Picked up from My GoHighLevel Error
My time with HighLevel can be summed up as an expensive accident. Yet in hindsight, it taught me a few crucial lessons:
- Stay with what works. Don’t disturb what’s working unless something is definitively much better across the board. Adjustment brings danger.
- Veterinarian declares completely. Marketing hype around brand-new software program usually covers bigger underlying problems. Deep due persistance is vital.
- Choose simpleness over features. Well-designed tools must make your work life much easier, not much more complicated and untidy.
- Openness develops trust fund. Nontransparent pricing, unethical reseller terms, and finger-pointing to avert problems damages count on.
- Seek honest evaluations. Satisfied support examines indicate less if too much problems suggest inadequate general use.
- Excellence is impossible. No single service can perfectly fulfill every special organization need. Locate the least-bad fit.
- Advancement over change. Step-by-step renovations typically surpass high-risk wholesale reinvention of what currently works penalty.
Simply put, I discovered to be more unconvinced of “as well good to be real” marketing insurance claims and much less attracted by the appeal of glossy brand-new things. The devices you utilize daily should make count on with transparency and efficiency, not glossy advertising.