As a company owner for over a decade, I rely on software application and automation to enhance procedures and provide outcomes. So when GoHighLevel arised on the scene few years back, it certainly caught my interest GoHighLevel Virtual Assistant.
The concept was enticing– an all-in-one client monitoring platform with marketing, sales, and solution devices integrated with each other. As an entrepreneur always wanting to streamline and scale my company, it looked like a dream happened on paper. That wouldn’t desire a single service that does it all?
But in this extensive GoHighLevel testimonial, I’ll take you inside my tragic journey of trying (and falling short) to switch over to this preferred new software program. You’ll learn:
If you’re thinking about whether GoHighLevel is right for your own service demands, with any luck you can learn from my unpleasant blunders and inflated expectations.
Spoiler: I do NOT recommend GoHighLevel. If you require a CRM, start with this checklist of best CRMs rather. I make use of Keap.
Some GoHighLevel Alternatives
If you’re searching for a sales, marketing, and project management choice to GoHighLevel, then here are a couple of we suggest.
Backstory: Why I Thought About Changing from Keap
To understand what attracted me to GoHighLevel in the first place, you require context concerning my previous configuration. For over 5 years I had actually been gladly relying upon Keap (formerly Infusionsoft) to fulfill all my customer management and automation demands.
I discovered Keap intuitive to make use of and it dealt with every little thing I needed– CRM, e-mail marketing, sales funnels, subscription websites, and customer support.
Keap’s CRM and sales and marketing automation are developed to aid small businesses keep their clients while including new ones effortlessly. Automate follow-ups with e-mails and messages, making certain leads and clients receive the best messages at the right time. Usage site and social media kinds to simplify lead follow-up, and manage your growth with simple consultation organizing and lead monitoring. Boost sales with automated pricing quote, invoicing, and settlement handling, freeing up your time. With Keap, small companies can save 10 hours weekly and rise profits by 39%. Beginning with a 14-day free trial, no charge card needed.
Why we like Keap
Keap provides a detailed consumer partnership monitoring (CRM) and marketing automation service customized for local business and business owners. We value Keap’s concentrate on improving sales procedures and supporting client relationships with powerful automation devices. The platform’s all-in-one technique integrates CRM, e-mail marketing, invoicing, and task management, making it particularly attractive for businesses aiming to combine their technology stack.
Generally, it just functioned reliably with very little fuss or upkeep called for. My open and click-through prices were terrific (like 35% fantastic). Automations ran efficiently without concerns.
So why on earth was I tempted to uproot my whole operational foundation from a system that worked to attempt something unverified and untested?
In knowledge I can admit I got seduced by the siren telephone call of “shiny item disorder”. You understand the sensation: when everyone’s discussing a brand-new tool that will change your company … The grass typically looks greener beyond, and I wondered whether GoHighLevel may reduce friction factors that I would certainly discovered to tolerate for many years with Keap.
I withstood in the beginning, but a couple of even more irritations led me to assume maybe it was time for a modification.
The Financial investment: Migrating My Agency to GoHighLevel
Previously this year I determined to start. I signed up for HighLevel’s Agency plan at $297/month, spending significantly greater than the $97/month starter expense.
This wasn’t a choice I took lightly. I recognized switching over platforms was mosting likely to call for moving all my Keap information and essentially rebuilding my whole technology facilities from the ground up making use of every one of the GoHighLevel integrations offered.
Below’s an introduction of just some of the initiative called for:
- Manually exporting 20,000+ email subscriber documents
- Recreating dozens of automations and workflows
- Relocating customer accounts, notes, and task information to the new CRM
- Reconfiguring my Stripe invoicing integration
- Setting up landing pages, promos, and sales funnels throughout again
- Learning a completely foreign UX and user interface design
All in, I spent around 30-40 laborious hours of configuration job transitioning whatever over– in addition to managing shed productivity during the button.
But inevitably, it was a computed investment I was willing to make. I figured some short-term discomfort would certainly pay off with GoHighLevel offering a far better lasting service for my company, Dripify. Oh exactly how wrong I was …
It only took me regarding a month of hands-on usage to recognize I had actually made a big blunder. The concerns started accumulating promptly, up until it got to a factor I had to cut my losses and change back to Keap completely.
Let’s go through the horrible problems I encountered.
Security Issues & Numerous Bugs
Offered GoHighLevel positioned itself as an all-in-one automation platform, I took care to carefully recreate every workflow from my old Keap account.
These included sequences for onboarding brand-new email clients, onboarding brand-new customers, automating follow-ups for webinar registrations, sending occasion tips, handling subscription expirations and far more.
Every little thing appeared to be operating penalty … up until unexpectedly it had not been. One early morning, I awoke to find 171 totally irrelevant emails had been sent out to customers that ought to NOT have actually gotten them. This took place 3 days in a row, with a different set of 160 people every day.
I desperately attempted fixing and reconstructing the automation from square one. Yet the trouble persisted.
When I desperately reached out to their support group, they vaguely asserted “web server issues” were responsible. However this description really did not make any kind of sense, given that the errors continued taking place each morning like clockwork unrelated to any type of downtime.
In my mind, this massive failing was entirely unacceptable and simply didn’t work for my service. I have thousands of get in touches with relying upon my automated campaigns running efficiently.
So if GoHighLevel was mosting likely to be absolutely unstable, just how could I turn over mission-critical workflows and sensitive client data to their technology?
The unintuitive user interface only worsened these problems …
Irritating UX
Coming from Keap where everything was smooth and instinctive, GoHighLevel’s learning curve really felt high and complex.
Easy tasks like editing and enhancing workflows involved excavating with menu systems that were all over the place. Trick setups were unexplainably spread in absolutely different areas. Relocating in between functions felt disjointed or complex.
I’ll inform you what I indicate by talking about their funnel builder as an instance. There were 3 different setups panels to manage general, individual, and product setups. Yet for some insane reason, the web links to access each of these core setups were expanded on opposite sides of the screen. What!?
As somebody that values tidy, thoughtful style, this seriously irritated me.
It reinforced that GoHighLevel still felt like a work-in-progress as opposed to a polished item prepared for prime-time use. Their top priorities appeared concentrated on stuffing in every feature under the sun, with poor usability as a second thought.
And speaking of features, I quickly realized the low cost tag featured expensive compromises …
Deceptive Pricing GoHighLevel Virtual Assistant
Among GoHighLevel’s greatest marketing points is the budget-friendly cost for accessibility to many features. However I swiftly learned this affordable base cost was misleading.
They nickle-and-dimed users with erratic charges for core functionality. Unexpectedly my credit card statements had obscure $10 costs from GoHighLevel here and there.
As it turned out, you obtain charged every time you send out an e-mail with their servers. So for high quantity individuals, this added up to thousands of bucks in unexpected prices.
In between these per-email charges and paying extra for deliverability attachments like Mailgun, my “budget-friendly” GoHighLevel membership wound up setting you back considerably greater than my Keap plan.
The reduced sticker price was tempting, but just not sensible in practice. This bait-and-switch left a negative preference in my mouth.
Email Fees Suffered
The last dealbreaker was seeing my thoroughly supported e-mail open prices plunge practically over night after changing to GoHighLevel.
Formerly, my audience interaction constantly hit 35-40% open rates in Keap month after month. But once I migrated their documents over to GoHighLevel, efficiency tanked instantaneously to a pathetic 9% open price.
Despite just how much I optimized my sending methods or attempted every troubleshooting technique, I can hardly nudge open prices back right into the teens– still a 50%+ decrease from my previous benchmarks GoHighLevel Virtual Assistant.
Let me repeat: my exact same target market and emails instantly had terrible engagement. The only point I could assume that would certainly be causing this was whatever was taking place behind the scenes at GoHighLevel. For a firm so based on e-mail marketing, this was a big deal.
Between the debilitating deliverability problems, concealed costs, broken features, and terrible user interface, I had finally reached my limit …
Why I Stop GoHighLevel after 37 Days
Simply 45 days after migrating my firm to GoHighLevel, I knew I had made a substantial blunder. The cons substantially surpassed any benefits.
No software is ideal, but the sheer volume of problems was beyond acceptable.
At the end of the day, software comes down to count on. If I can not trust it to take care of vital features capably or think a supplier has my best interests in mind, then it’s time to walk away– even after spending significant time, cash, and effort moving.
So I made the hard call to reverse course and return back to Keap entirely just weeks after going done in on GoHighLevel. Let’s explore what I gained from this debacle.
Key Takeaways: What I Picked up from My GoHighLevel Error
My time with HighLevel can be summarized as a pricey ill fortune. Yet in hindsight, it educated me a few crucial lessons:
- Adhere to what jobs. Do not disturb what’s working unless something is definitively far better across the board. Adjustment brings risk.
- Vet claims extensively. Marketing hype around brand-new software program frequently covers larger underlying flaws. Deep due diligence is essential.
- Select simplicity over features. Properly designed devices should make your job life less complicated, not extra difficult and untidy.
- Openness constructs trust. Nontransparent pricing, shady reseller terms, and finger-pointing to evade problems ruins trust fund.
- Look for unbiased reviews. Delighted assistance assesses indicate much less if extreme problems suggest inadequate overall usability.
- Excellence is impossible. No solitary solution can perfectly fulfill every special service need. Locate the least-bad fit.
- Development over change. Incremental enhancements generally outweigh high-risk wholesale reinvention of what currently functions penalty.
Basically, I discovered to be much more hesitant of “also great to be true” marketing insurance claims and less attracted by the appeal of shiny brand-new items. The devices you make use of daily ought to gain trust with openness and efficiency, not glossy advertising.