As a firm owner for over a years, I rely on software and automation to enhance operations and supply outcomes. So when GoHighLevel arised on the scene couple of years back, it definitely captured my attention Hospitality GoHighLevel Snapshot.
The idea was attractive– an all-in-one customer monitoring platform with marketing, sales, and service tools integrated together. As an entrepreneur always wanting to simplify and scale my service, it felt like a dream happened theoretically. Who wouldn’t desire a single option that does it all?
However in this thorough GoHighLevel testimonial, I’ll take you inside my tragic trip of trying (and failing) to switch over to this prominent new software program. You’ll find out:
If you’re considering whether GoHighLevel is right for your very own business demands, hopefully you can pick up from my unpleasant blunders and inflated expectations.
Spoiler: I do NOT recommend GoHighLevel. If you need a CRM, start with this checklist of finest CRMs rather. I utilize Keap.
Some GoHighLevel Alternatives
If you’re searching for a sales, marketing, and project administration option to GoHighLevel, after that right here are a few we advise.
Backstory: Why I Took Into Consideration Changing from Keap
To recognize what attracted me to GoHighLevel in the first place, you need context regarding my previous setup. For over 5 years I had actually been gladly counting on Keap (formerly Infusionsoft) to fulfill all my client monitoring and automation demands.
I located Keap instinctive to utilize and it managed every little thing I needed– CRM, e-mail marketing, sales funnels, membership websites, and customer support.
Keap’s CRM and sales and marketing automation are created to aid small companies keep their customers while adding brand-new ones effortlessly. Automate follow-ups with e-mails and texts, making certain leads and clients get the ideal messages at the correct time. Use web site and social networks forms to enhance lead follow-up, and manage your development with easy visit scheduling and lead monitoring. Boost sales with automated pricing estimate, invoicing, and repayment processing, maximizing your time. With Keap, small companies can conserve 10 hours each week and rise earnings by 39%. Begin with a 14-day free trial, no bank card called for.
Why we like Keap
Keap uses a comprehensive client relationship monitoring (CRM) and marketing automation remedy customized for small businesses and business owners. We value Keap’s focus on streamlining sales procedures and supporting client partnerships via effective automation tools. The platform’s all-in-one strategy integrates CRM, email marketing, invoicing, and job monitoring, making it especially eye-catching for services seeking to consolidate their technology stack.
Essentially, it just worked reliably with minimal fuss or maintenance called for. My open and click-through prices were excellent (like 35% terrific). Automations ran efficiently without issues.
So why on earth was I tempted to uproot my entire operational structure from a system that functioned to try something unproven and untried?
In knowledge I can confess I obtained attracted by the alarm phone call of “shiny item syndrome”. You know the sensation: when everyone’s talking about a brand-new device that will certainly change your business … The lawn frequently looks greener beyond, and I wondered whether GoHighLevel may lower rubbing factors that I ‘d discovered to tolerate for many years with Keap.
I resisted at first, but a couple of more disappointments led me to believe maybe it was time for a change.
The Financial investment: Migrating My Company to GoHighLevel
Earlier this year I decided to start. I enrolled in HighLevel’s Company plan at $297/month, spending dramatically more than the $97/month starter expense.
This wasn’t a decision I took lightly. I understood changing systems was going to need migrating all my Keap information and basically reconstructing my whole technology infrastructure from square one using all of the GoHighLevel integrations available.
Right here’s a review of just a few of the effort required:
- Manually exporting 20,000+ email customer documents
- Recreating loads of automations and workflows
- Relocating client accounts, notes, and project data to the new CRM
- Reconfiguring my Stripe invoicing integration
- Setting up landing pages, promos, and sales funnels all over once more
- Learning a completely foreign UX and interface layout
Done in, I invested around 30-40 laborious hours of configuration job transitioning whatever over– in addition to dealing with shed performance during the switch.
Yet ultimately, it was a computed financial investment I was willing to make. I figured some short-term discomfort would certainly pay off with GoHighLevel giving a far better lasting service for my organization, Dripify. Oh exactly how incorrect I was …
It only took me regarding a month of hands-on use to recognize I had actually made a big error. The issues began accumulating promptly, up until it got to a factor I needed to cut my losses and switch over back to Keap completely.
Allow’s walk through the horrible issues I experienced.
Protection Issues & Several Bugs
Offered GoHighLevel positioned itself as an all-in-one automation system, I made sure to diligently recreate every workflow from my old Keap account.
These consisted of sequences for onboarding brand-new e-mail subscribers, onboarding new clients, automating follow-ups for webinar enrollments, sending out event pointers, handling subscription expiries and a lot more.
Whatever seemed to be working penalty … till unexpectedly it had not been. One early morning, I awoke to discover 171 entirely unnecessary e-mails had actually been sent out to customers who need to NOT have actually gotten them. This took place 3 days straight, with a various batch of 160 individuals each day.
I anxiously tried fixing and restoring the automation from scratch. However the issue persisted.
When I desperately connected to their assistance group, they slightly asserted “server issues” were at fault. Yet this description didn’t make any kind of sense, considering that the errors proceeded occurring each early morning like clockwork unrelated to any kind of downtime.
In my mind, this enormous failure was completely unacceptable and just really did not work for my organization. I have thousands of get in touches with relying on my automated campaigns running smoothly.
So if GoHighLevel was mosting likely to be completely undependable, exactly how could I entrust mission-critical workflows and delicate customer information to their technology?
The unintuitive user interface only intensified these concerns …
Irritating UX
Coming from Keap where everything was smooth and intuitive, GoHighLevel’s learning contour felt high and challenging.
Basic jobs like editing workflows entailed excavating through food selection systems that were all over the place. Key setups were unexplainably scattered in absolutely different sections. Relocating in between functions really felt disjointed or complex.
I’ll inform you what I imply by talking about their funnel builder as an instance. There were 3 different setups panels to manage total, specific, and item setups. Yet for some insane reason, the web links to access each of these core settings were spread out on contrary sides of the display. What!?
As somebody who values clean, thoughtful layout, this seriously upset me.
It strengthened that GoHighLevel still felt like a work-in-progress instead of a refined product prepared for prime-time usage. Their priorities seemed focused on cramming in every feature imaginable, with inadequate functionality as an afterthought.
And talking features, I quickly recognized the low price tag featured expensive concessions …
Misleading Pricing Hospitality GoHighLevel Snapshot
Among GoHighLevel’s most significant selling factors is the affordable price for access to many features. However I swiftly learned this low-cost base price was deceitful.
They nickle-and-dimed customers with erratic fees for core capability. All of a sudden my charge card statements had vague $10 fees from GoHighLevel occasionally.
As it turned out, you get charged whenever you send an email with their servers. So for high quantity users, this added up to thousands of dollars in unforeseen expenses.
Between these per-email charges and paying additional for deliverability attachments like Mailgun, my “economical” GoHighLevel registration wound up setting you back dramatically MORE than my Keap plan.
The low sticker price was alluring, yet just not reasonable 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 rates drop nearly overnight after switching over to GoHighLevel.
Formerly, my audience involvement constantly hit 35-40% open rates in Keap month after month. But once I moved their records over to GoHighLevel, efficiency tanked instantly to a useless 9% open price.
Despite just how much I enhanced my sending techniques or attempted every fixing technique, I can barely nudge open rates back into the teens– still a 50%+ decrease from my previous criteria Hospitality GoHighLevel Snapshot.
Let me repeat: my exact same target market and emails all of a sudden had awful engagement. The only thing I could think that would be creating this was whatever was occurring behind the scenes at GoHighLevel. For a firm so depending on email marketing, this was a big deal.
In between the crippling deliverability issues, hidden charges, busted features, and terrible user interface, I had actually lastly reached my limit …
Why I Stop GoHighLevel after 37 Days
Simply 45 days after moving my firm to GoHighLevel, I recognized I had actually made a big error. The disadvantages dramatically exceeded any kind of benefits.
No software program is perfect, yet the large volume of issues was past acceptable.
At the end of the day, software boils down to trust fund. If I can’t trust it to handle important features effectively or believe a vendor has my best interests in mind, after that it’s time to leave– even after spending substantial time, money, and initiative migrating.
So I made the tough contact us to turn around program and return back to Keap entirely simply weeks after going all in on GoHighLevel. Allow’s discover what I picked up from this fiasco.
Key Takeaways: What I Learned From My GoHighLevel Error
My time with HighLevel can be summarized as an expensive accident. However in hindsight, it taught me a few essential lessons:
- Stay with what jobs. Do not distress what’s working unless something is definitively better across the board. Adjustment brings threat.
- Vet asserts extensively. Marketing hype around brand-new software program often covers larger underlying flaws. Deep due persistance is crucial.
- Pick simplicity over features. Properly designed devices must make your work life less complicated, not a lot more difficult and messy.
- Transparency constructs trust. Opaque pricing, dubious reseller terms, and finger-pointing to avert problems destroys depend on.
- Look for honest testimonials. Pleased support assesses mean less if extreme problems indicate poor total use.
- Excellence is difficult. No solitary service can completely fulfill every distinct organization requirement. Discover the least-bad fit.
- Advancement over transformation. Step-by-step improvements commonly outweigh high-risk wholesale reinvention of what already functions penalty.
Basically, I learned to be extra cynical of “also excellent to be real” marketing cases and less tempted by the allure of shiny new items. The tools you utilize daily need to earn trust through openness and performance, not slick advertising.