Is it just me or is AC not really a CRM?

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1

Am I missing something here? I’m trying out AC to see if it will meet the needs for my clients and for my own business. I started with automations and that looks great…with some issues (but I won’t get into those here).

Now I’m playing around with contacts and running thru BASIC use cases on what one would want in a CRM and there just seems to be baseline functionality that isn’t there.

My desire is to use AC as both my marketing platform and as my daily CRM (I use hubspot currently for the CRM). Thus, I need AC contact features to match with a CRM.I don’t use the deal, pipelines, … as most of my contacts are obtained thru in person 1 on 1 meetings and entered manually not thru and integration. Help me understand if I’m just missing something or if AC isn’t really a CRM.

  1. Is it really true that if I send a contact a direct email from when viewing their contact data, that their replies are not tracked in AC and I can’t see them, respond to them, …?

  2. I do a lot of referring of business owners to each other. I do this via email typically. Thus, I want to be able to be on a contact, click create email, and send an email to them and someone else. This doesn’t seem possible which I just can’t believe it so I must be just missing it. Do I need to purchase the full CRM package to get this? Having to manage emails where I can send some from AC and then I have to resort to gmail or hubspot is not something I want to do.

  3. It appears under automations that you can only create a task for a deal and not a contact? Is this true and any idea why it was limited to this? In the life of a customer there may be many reasons you need to follow up with them outside a deal and thus this needs to be supported.

  4. Is there no way in the app to import a contact from my smartphone contacts? Once again, pretty basic functionality here.

Sorry to complain but having one of those mornings where I thought AC was my solution and now having to rethink it.

Thanks for your thoughts and insights.

2

AC takes some understanding. the CRM is the Deals. You can accomplish what is needed by setting the system up correctly. Many times I will design in a Control Panel field grouping where Calendly invites, Create Deals, etc. can be triggered from the fields. #4 is more connectivity related and .CSV files are the sole standard. Fashion Tags, Lists and Fields so the automations can utilize them and keep everything sorted. Go wild if you are on Enterprise and add a custom table (Custom Ojbects). Revolve all your setup focus around events (Referral, Demo Request Intake, Lead to Prospect move, etc. etc.). Develop a sound prototype and quality assure before you start to scale. Good luck.

3

In short: No, AC is not a CRM you (and me) would expect. It lacks a lot of essential features and behaves verry different to common CRMs. (i.e.: leads are deleted, when a contact bounces ^)

I’d only call AC an E-Marketing-Tool with slightly expanded functions. But it’s far far away from a real CRM.

4

My clients would beg to differ lol

5

I’ve become increasingly frustrated with AC over the prior months, and further things have come to light that also lead me to question why I continue to use them.

What you would think are obvious CRM functions are mishandled, unintuitive, or simply don’t exist. They seem to be more invested in adding other bells and whistles that look impressive to big companies while overlooking or ignoring seemingly obvious basic interface functionality. I’m just becoming aware of certain things AC has done that have now cost me clients and money, all while jacking up the price of the service to me without notice by an insane amount for, as you mention, features I don’t use or care about.

They were a CRM when I joined, but have clearly lost their focus, and are now charging as if they’re Kajabi, but without the all-in-one features one would want from them. I’m pretty unhappy too and am re-thinking my options.