February 23rdAvoid ACT! at All Costs
Christopher Kenton
If you’re already using a current version of ACT! from [tag]Sage Software[/tag], sorry, I can’t help you–you’re already in hell. If you’re considering ACT!, run away quickly. This is a product with so many lethal problems for users, developers have told me the number-one add-on purchased by users is a utility to export their data in order to roll back to an older version. In fact, the developers I spoke with couldn’t stop the stream of anecdotes about data problems, support debacles, and a business approach that has turned Sage’s development and user community against them. There has been a consumer class-action lawsuit filed against Sage by end-users in a U.S. District Court in Georgia, charging “deceptive, unlawful conduct in designing, manufacturing, distributing and supplying” ACT! 7.0. Sage Software is the company that also manufactures SalesLogix, however that product is primarily sold and supported by third party vendors.Â
I’ve used ACT! for a number of years, and have frequently run into issues caused by bad programming and database development. I had to rely on outside developers to create tools that would help me manage my customer lists by exporting data to Access or SQL where I could actually run sophisticated queries. Recently I fell for the hype about ACT!’s upgrade to .NET and SQL, and downloaded a trial version to check it out. It seemed marginally better, until I started trying to use some of the email features and discovered it wouldn’t meet my needs. No problem. I just walked away from the trial.
Not so fast.
After my trial ran out, I realized with some horror that when I had loaded the ACT! email client, it had downloaded two months of my email from my server. It was now locked up in ACT! and I couldn’t get it out. When I called customer service to find out how to access and export my email, they told me they don’t support the trial version, and I’d have to buy a support package. When I called the developers I used to rely on to make ACT! work, they told me they won’t touch the new version of ACT!, and are only working on tools for the large pool of users stranded on the ACT!6 ice floe.
With all the tools that are out there for handling CRM and SFA, do yourself a favor and find a company that stands behind its products, respects the developer community, and understands the concept of customer service. Sage is not that company, and you can confirm that charge by calling any of the many 3rd party companies that create add-ons for ACT!.
If you’re already using a current version of ACT! from [tag]Sage Software[/tag], sorry, I can’t help you–you’re already in hell. If you’re considering ACT!, run away quickly. This is a product with so many lethal problems for users, developers have told me the number-one add-on purchased by users is a utility to export their data in order to roll back to an older version. In fact, the developers I spoke with couldn’t stop the stream of anecdotes about data problems, support debacles, and a business approach that has turned Sage’s development and user community against them. There has been a consumer class-action lawsuit filed against Sage by end-users in a U.S. District Court in Georgia, charging “deceptive, unlawful conduct in designing, manufacturing, distributing and supplying” ACT! 7.0. Sage Software is the company that also manufactures SalesLogix, however that product is primarily sold and supported by third party vendors.Â
I’ve used ACT! for a number of years, and have frequently run into issues caused by bad programming and database development. I had to rely on outside developers to create tools that would help me manage my customer lists by exporting data to Access or SQL where I could actually run sophisticated queries. Recently I fell for the hype about ACT!’s upgrade to .NET and SQL, and downloaded a trial version to check it out. It seemed marginally better, until I started trying to use some of the email features and discovered it wouldn’t meet my needs. No problem. I just walked away from the trial.
Not so fast.
After my trial ran out, I realized with some horror that when I had loaded the ACT! email client, it had downloaded two months of my email from my server. It was now locked up in ACT! and I couldn’t get it out. When I called customer service to find out how to access and export my email, they told me they don’t support the trial version, and I’d have to buy a support package. When I called the developers I used to rely on to make ACT! work, they told me they won’t touch the new version of ACT!, and are only working on tools for the large pool of users stranded on the ACT!6 ice floe.
With all the tools that are out there for handling CRM and SFA, do yourself a favor and find a company that stands behind its products, respects the developer community, and understands the concept of customer service. Sage is not that company, and you can confirm that charge by calling any of the many 3rd party companies that create add-ons for ACT!.
Thanks for your post. I am sorry to hear that ACT! is continuing to have problems with their ACT! 7.0 product. I had heard about horror stories when this version was first released, but they seemed to fade. I guess not.
The recommendation I would make is to always check with a reseller before doing an upgrade, especially if you already have a relationship. These folks have to support you and the new product, so if they are credible, they will tell you the straight scoop by telling you the good, bad, and ugly.
We are a Sage SalesLogix business partner and we tell our customers when it’s safe to upgrade to a new version. The last thing a reseller wants to do is inflict pain onto their customers.
I would appreciate it if you would remove your comments about staying away from SalesLogix unless you have some valid evidence to support this statement. SalesLogix is owned by Sage, just the same as ACT!, but that’s where the comparision ends.
Harris Technology, our company, has been in the CRM space since 1992 and were the first reseller to see the SalesLogix product when it was being developed by Interact Commerce. We started selling SalesLogix in 1999 and find it to be a very solid and capable product.
Any product has holes or weak spots, but in the hands of an experienced reseller, you can do magic with these programs. Please don’t allow your readers to throw out SalesLogix just because of problems with a sister product.
Thank you for your consideration.
Ron Harris
President
Harris Technology
February 24th, 2007 at 5:15 am
Ron–
Thanks for the comment and rebuttal. I think your comment speaks for itself. I’m happy to be proven wrong, and I’ve asked some of the other developers I’ve worked with to review my commentary, and if they agree, I’ll remove SalesLogix from the title in deference to the reality of SEO.
I have to say, however, given the growing competitiveness of the space and the acceleration of social media that allows customers to connect and share experiences, I think Sage has a rude awakening coming regarding how it treats its customers and partners. That’s not a product issue, it’s an organizational issue.
/chris
February 24th, 2007 at 12:39 pm
Chris,
I’ll skip the editorial and get to the point - what does Act! have to do with Saleslogix?
I agree with you regarding Act! stability, but why should all Sage products (50+) should be avoided?
David Tinjum
Disclaimer - Sage is one of many vendors our company works with.
February 25th, 2007 at 12:08 am
After speaking with a number of vendors I’ve agreed to edit SalesLogix out of the orginal post, which I’ve done. While ACT! is a product primarily sold and supported by Sage Software itself, SalesLogix is primarily sold and supported by Value Added Resellers, so the implied guilt by association is not fair, at least at the product sales and support level.
But in respectful response to Mr Tinjum, the simple answer is that any company that does what Sage has done with ACT! is a company I wouldn’t want to do business with–and it cuts across many levels of business, including engineering, marketing, customer service and management.
I’m sure there are a lot of very capable and service-oriented VARs that can make SalesLogix work, and I appreciate the fact that those VARs have made tremendous investments in becoming business partners to represent SalesLogix. So consider this a correction, but not in any way an endorsement of Sage.
February 27th, 2007 at 6:08 pm
I have to agree with you on ACT! I’ve used it at a non-profit I worked with a few years ago and found it, overall, to be horrible. It does some things well, but it tried to do too much. Using it while I worked in an office, made me glad that I’m a Mac user - no ACT! for Mac.
I would suggest avoiding ACT! Not only because of their poor support, but because things seldom work with ACT! as advertised. The non-profit I worked for tried for a whole year to get their ACT! database on a web server using a couple of the ACT! add-on products. It never worked. Lots of promises - no results.
March 27th, 2007 at 4:39 am
I just would like to know how to remove the trial version from my computers. It is a nightmare!!!! Everytime I try to remove it from my add/remove programs it doesnt do anything but try to reinstall it.
April 20th, 2007 at 10:22 am
Act is the biggest piece of crap program that I have ever come in contact with. These people are complete flippin retards and I want to punch every single one of there employees and owners or users in the face. After that I want to smash their windshields out of there cars. Do not buy this program.
November 7th, 2007 at 1:27 pm
Chris, As a 20 year avid ACT! fanatic, user, Certified Consultant, Trainer and Platinum level reseller, I am disappointed to hear of experiences such as you have had. We and Sage have in fact provided a great deal of consideration to our clients to ensure their satisfaction. It’s too bad you weren’t dealing with a partner such as our team to ensure your results.
While it true ACT! may not be the simple do-it-yourself product it was back in the “classic” days (like many top business programs today) it really does benefit business people and marketers to work with an experienced technology partner.
I’m willing to demonstrate any day that the current ACT! 2008 Premium products provide the best value, remain the fastest/easiest to implement of any business contact management solution available. If there was something better, I’d sell it - but there simply is not. ACT! is still #1, and if you have a business case, employ a good partner and it will pay off.
Negative comments on just about any subject are easy to post and plentiful on the internet. I challenge you to offer a positive alternative to any readers of your comments, and would be willing to help you with anything to do with ACT!
Paul Marentette
Team Uptime
Toronto, Canada
http://www.teamuptime.ca
January 3rd, 2008 at 3:36 am
We are a mixed bunch at our company from sales people down to web and software developers. This software that I can only describe as a POS and so badly developed, supported and implemented that it infuriates everyone who uses it. When the obsolete 1980’s style database reaches a certain size it becomes basically unusable, multi user access across a network takes huge amounts of network resource because of the uncompressed and bad handling of data being sent, it maxed out a gigabit network with no problem at all.
We are currently developing a replacement for our act database and can’t wait to get it finished. The main problem we have found is exporting notes from the dire bad database infrastructure and have finally found a way of doing so. CORBA should come around and spank these monkeys they so call programmers.
BTW as a side note: “!” stands for not in programming, if you read what’s stated on the box in this way you get, ACT NOT the complete way to organise…….
January 23rd, 2008 at 6:16 am
Chris - In follow-up to my previous post - Pretty cool you edited the post to remove SalesLogix. You have a great blog going here.
May 8th, 2008 at 11:50 am