As a company proprietor for over a decade, I count on software program and automation to improve operations and provide outcomes. So when GoHighLevel arised on the scene few years back, it definitely captured my interest GoHighLevel Zoom Integration.
The concept was attractive– an all-in-one client administration platform with marketing, sales, and service devices incorporated with each other. As a business owner constantly looking to streamline and scale my business, it felt like a dream come to life on paper. Who would not want a solitary solution that does it all?
But in this in-depth GoHighLevel review, I’ll take you inside my disastrous journey of trying (and stopping working) to switch over to this preferred new software application. You’ll learn:
If you’re taking into consideration whether GoHighLevel is right for your very own business needs, with any luck you can gain from my agonizing blunders and inflated expectations.
Looter: I do NOT recommend GoHighLevel. If you need a CRM, start with this listing of ideal CRMs rather. I use Keap.
Some GoHighLevel Alternatives
If you’re searching for a sales, marketing, and project monitoring option to GoHighLevel, then here are a few we advise.
Backstory: Why I Considered Switching Over from Keap
To recognize what attracted me to GoHighLevel in the first place, you require context concerning my previous setup. For over 5 years I had actually been happily relying on Keap (formerly Infusionsoft) to satisfy all my customer administration and automation requirements.
I discovered Keap instinctive to make use of and it managed whatever I required– CRM, email marketing, sales funnels, membership sites, and client assistance.
Keap’s CRM and sales and marketing automation are developed to assist small businesses keep their customers while adding brand-new ones effortlessly. Automate follow-ups with e-mails and messages, making sure leads and clients get the ideal messages at the correct time. Use internet site and social media kinds to simplify lead follow-up, and manage your development with easy appointment organizing and lead monitoring. Boost sales with automated pricing quote, invoicing, and repayment handling, freeing up your time. With Keap, local business can save 10 hours weekly and increase revenue by 39%. Begin with a 14-day free trial, no charge card required.
Why we like Keap
Keap supplies an extensive customer partnership management (CRM) and marketing automation service customized for local business and entrepreneurs. We appreciate Keap’s focus on improving sales processes and nurturing client relationships with effective automation devices. The system’s all-in-one approach integrates CRM, e-mail marketing, invoicing, and task management, making it especially eye-catching for services seeking to consolidate their tech stack.
Essentially, it just functioned dependably with minimal difficulty or upkeep called for. My open and click-through prices were terrific (like 35% terrific). Automations ran smoothly without concerns.
So why in the world was I tempted to uproot my whole functional structure from a system that functioned to try something unproven and untried?
In hindsight I can admit I obtained seduced by the siren telephone call of “glossy object disorder”. You recognize the sensation: when every person’s discussing a brand-new tool that will certainly revolutionize your service … The lawn often looks greener beyond, and I questioned whether GoHighLevel could decrease rubbing factors that I ‘d found out to endure throughout the years with Keap.
I withstood at first, however a few more frustrations led me to think perhaps it was time for a change.
The Investment: Migrating My Firm to GoHighLevel
Previously this year I chose to take the plunge. I signed up for HighLevel’s Firm plan at $297/month, investing considerably more than the $97/month starter price.
This had not been a decision I ignored. I knew changing platforms was going to need moving all my Keap information and basically restoring my whole tech infrastructure from the ground up using every one of the GoHighLevel integrations readily available.
Right here’s an overview of simply some of the effort required:
- Manually exporting 20,000+ e-mail subscriber records
- Recreating dozens of automations and workflows
- Moving client accounts, notes, and job data to the brand-new CRM
- Reconfiguring my Stripe invoicing integration
- Establishing landing pages, discounts, and sales funnels all over once more
- Learning a completely international UX and interface layout
Done in, I spent around 30-40 tedious hours of arrangement work transitioning every little thing over– and also managing lost productivity throughout the switch.
However inevitably, it was a calculated financial investment I agreed to make. I figured some short-term pain would repay with GoHighLevel giving a better long-lasting solution for my service, Dripify. Oh exactly how wrong I was …
It just took me regarding a month of hands-on use to understand I had made a big blunder. The problems started piling up quickly, till it reached a point I needed to cut my losses and change back to Keap totally.
Allow’s walk through the nightmarish problems I experienced.
Safety Issues & Many Vermin
Given GoHighLevel positioned itself as an all-in-one automation system, I made sure to carefully recreate every workflow from my old Keap account.
These consisted of sequences for onboarding new email customers, onboarding brand-new customers, automating follow-ups for webinar registrations, sending event pointers, handling membership expirations and far more.
Whatever seemed to be operating fine … until instantly it wasn’t. One early morning, I woke up to find 171 entirely irrelevant e-mails had been sent to individuals that ought to NOT have actually obtained them. This happened three days in a row, with a various batch of 160 people every day.
I hysterically attempted troubleshooting and rebuilding the automation from square one. However the problem persisted.
When I frantically reached out to their assistance team, they vaguely claimed “server problems” were to blame. Yet this description didn’t make any kind of sense, given that the errors proceeded happening each early morning like clockwork unrelated to any kind of downtime.
In my mind, this large failing was totally undesirable and just didn’t benefit my company. I have countless calls counting on my automated campaigns running smoothly.
So if GoHighLevel was mosting likely to be entirely unreliable, exactly how could I turn over mission-critical workflows and sensitive customer data to their innovation?
The unintuitive user interface just compounded these concerns …
Discouraging UX
Originating from Keap where every little thing was smooth and user-friendly, GoHighLevel’s learning curve really felt steep and difficult.
Easy jobs like modifying workflows included excavating through menu systems that were all over the place. Secret settings were unexplainably scattered in completely different areas. Relocating between features felt disjointed or complicated.
I’ll inform you what I indicate by talking about their funnel builder as an instance. There were 3 separate setups panels to take care of total, individual, and product arrangements. Yet for some crazy factor, the links to access each of these core settings were expanded on opposite sides of the display. What!?
As someone who values clean, thoughtful layout, this seriously frustrated me.
It enhanced that GoHighLevel still felt like a work-in-progress rather than a polished item ready for prime-time use. Their top priorities seemed focused on stuffing in every feature imaginable, with inadequate functionality as a second thought.
And speaking of features, I quickly understood the low cost tag came with expensive concessions …
Deceptive Pricing GoHighLevel Zoom Integration
One of GoHighLevel’s greatest selling points is the cost effective rate for accessibility to many features. Yet I promptly discovered this inexpensive base cost was deceitful.
They nickle-and-dimed users with sporadic fees for core performance. Instantly my bank card statements had obscure $10 fees from GoHighLevel here and there.
As it ended up, you obtain charged every single time you send out an e-mail with their web servers. So for high quantity users, this added up to hundreds of dollars in unforeseen expenses.
Between these per-email costs and paying extra for deliverability add-ons like Mailgun, my “inexpensive” GoHighLevel membership wound up setting you back significantly greater than my Keap plan.
The low price tag was alluring, however 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 thoroughly nurtured 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. Once I migrated their documents over to GoHighLevel, efficiency tanked promptly to a worthless 9% open price.
Despite how much I enhanced my sending techniques or tried every troubleshooting trick, I might barely push open prices back into the teenagers– still a 50%+ decline from my previous standards GoHighLevel Zoom Integration.
Let me repeat: my exact same target market and e-mails all of a sudden had awful engagement. The only point I could think that would certainly be causing this was whatever was happening behind the scenes at GoHighLevel. For an agency so based on email marketing, this was a big deal.
Between the debilitating deliverability concerns, concealed charges, busted features, and dreadful interface, I had ultimately reached my limit …
Why I Quit GoHighLevel after 37 Days
Just 45 days after migrating my company to GoHighLevel, I knew I had made a massive blunder. The cons drastically exceeded any kind of advantages.
No software is ideal, however the large quantity of issues was beyond appropriate.
At the end of the day, software program comes down to trust fund. If I can’t trust it to manage vital functions effectively or think a vendor has my benefits in mind, then it’s time to walk away– even after spending significant time, money, and effort moving.
So I made the hard phone call to turn around program and return back to Keap completely simply weeks after going done in on GoHighLevel. Let’s discover what I learned from this debacle.
Secret Takeaways: What I Learned From My GoHighLevel Mistake
My time with HighLevel can be summed up as a costly accident. However in knowledge, it showed me a couple of crucial lessons:
- Stick to what works. Don’t disturb what’s working unless something is definitively much better across the board. Change brings danger.
- Veterinarian asserts completely. Marketing buzz around new software program frequently obscures larger underlying flaws. Deep due diligence is vital.
- Select simpleness over features. Properly designed tools must make your work life simpler, not a lot more difficult and untidy.
- Openness builds count on. Nontransparent pricing, unethical reseller terms, and finger-pointing to escape issues ruins trust fund.
- Look for unbiased testimonials. Delighted support evaluates mean much less if extreme problems indicate bad total use.
- Excellence is difficult. No single remedy can perfectly meet every one-of-a-kind business requirement. Find the least-bad fit.
- Development over transformation. Incremental improvements commonly surpass high-risk wholesale reinvention of what already works penalty.
In short, I discovered to be extra hesitant of “too great to be real” marketing cases and less tempted by the appeal of shiny new items. The tools you make use of daily should gain depend on via openness and efficiency, not glossy advertising.