With so much other CRM software out there in today’s market, it is necessary for companies to justify their price and its features. This is where Freshsales causes the dilemma for the customers.
“The price starts to look expensive when you go higher up on the plans. It is full of (theoretical) features which do not work in reality and you have to spend a lot of time and money till you discover it.”
Though their basic plans are moderately priced the values they offer are not sufficient for any established or growing businesses to run solely on Freshsales.
“Invest in another CRM tool if you are a professional, you will regret if you use Freshsales. It is not worth to save the xxx bucks.”
When you decide to move up the plan the pricing gets expensive($79/user/month) for a very little value. This is because, in Freshsales, a business has to purchase licenses for every single employee, even though they don’t need it. This could dramatically increase the overall pricing of the software budget you’ve set. To put it in simple words, you have to buy a license for every single employee in your firm and not just for your sales team.
“In my opinion, Freshsales does not provide the most “bang for your buck” when it comes to a CRM system.”
This is where Apptivo standout from the rest of the other CRM solution out there. Apptivo encourages businesses to pay for licenses solely for the employees who will be using the system. In addition to this, Apptivo also provides flexibility in pricing based on user volume.
There’s no question that when it comes to scaling your business operations and to keep up with the scope of changing needs some businesses inevitably request specific customizations that fit their own business needs. An out-of-the-box solution cannot always meet the 100% satisfaction.
In most cases, an out-of-the-box solution is only good as long as you’re a small or medium-sized business. But every business is eventually set to grow and scale.
Though Freshsales is said to be simple and less complex CRM, it still misses out the basic customizations that leave customers unhappy. The dashboard is so small that it is tedious to look at an overview of entities. Also, lacks the dashboard that gives you an overview of sales and leads, which is a big drawback.
“it also stops you from editing/removing default fields.”
Not just the dashboard, a simple field editing in leads form isn’t possible. This causes a cluttered and confused form with fields and button that you wouldn’t need for your business.
“There are quite a lot of standard fields which are not relevant to my business but which I can’t remove.”
Keeping all this in mind, Apptivo offers you a completely customizable software solution. You can customize almost everything and the dashboard is completely customizable to fit individual user needs.
Customer Retention is arguably the most important part and Third-party integrations are becoming an essential ingredient to attract and retain customers. Businesses are looking for new software that seamlessly integrates with the software that they already use. Dumping an existing system for a new one might not be a big deal for small businesses but established businesses have a lot to go through. It costs them time and money to get used to the new software. This means if the software doesn’t have the right integrations in place, they are at risk of higher churn and difficulty in acquiring new customers as well.
“Not many integrations from third-party apps ”
Freshsales is one such CRM solution with only a handful of third-party integrations. If you want to use a web-to-lead form (which can be considered a common feature for a CRM), then you are required to sign up to the most comprehensive plan – i.e. $49 USD per month which seems crazy.
“Contact sync is missing. We need to rely on Zapier to sync with Google. The price starts to look expensive when you go higher up on the plans.”
For a simple contact sync between your Freshsales and Google account, you have to rely on another application which will cost you more than budgeted.
“I hate, hate, hate the fact they have the last name mandatory field to import a lead. I was ready to sign up & pay the monthly fee but this was a deal-killer for me.”
In conclusion, Freshsales is still new to the market and lacks some of the mandatory features and third-party integrations that any customer would look for in a CRM application. So, if you’re a business using a software already and looking for a CRM solution then Freshsales might not be the best options out there.
Whereas Apptivo is seamlessly integrated with G Suite and Office 365 for contact sync, several major payment gateways for online transactions, and more than 200+ applications directly and indirectly via Zapier and PieSync.
Like features and integrations, customers also look for the best Support in a software. A great customer support not only keeps the customer happy but also acts as a free marketing for any type of businesses.
“The support sometimes takes a long time to respond, and sometimes I was unable to make calls, or receive.”
The Live Chat function for support doesn’t seem fully activated. Customers sometimes receive only automated response since no one was available at a crucial time to help. Not just that, Freshsales support is only available on weekdays and not available on weekends. By the time they get in touch with the support, they would’ve already entered into “frustration mode”. If the support isn’t available when they need it the most it kind of defeats the whole purpose of saying that “we have great support”.
For example, let’s just assume a business is scheduled for data migration process on Saturday. During the process, when something goes wrong or if they get stuck, all they could do is wait till Monday.
Unlike Freshsales, Apptivo Customer Support operates 24/7 throughout the year and supports Live Chat, Email, Call, FAQs, and User Guides.