Infusionsoft is awful
A public service announcement for any prospective Infusionsoft buyers. It sucks. Sucks hard. Being a CRM firm you’d at least think that customer service would be a strong point, but that’s one of their worst qualities. If tech support reps openly lie, who knows what the sales guy will say? Their API is one of the most difficult I’ve ever integrated with. To do almost anything requires an obscene number of distinct XML-RPC calls. For example, to process a sale for a customer:
- Check if contact exists, if so capture the contact ID, check if the given card already exists on the contact and if not validate the card and add the card (up to 4 calls)
- If the contact didn’t exist, create the contact, validate the credit card and add the credit card to the contact (3 calls)
- Create a blank order invoice, capture the invoice ID (this is also called the orderId in some methods, but it’s the same number)
- Add a product to the invoice, to do this you already need the product code and some meta data (price, description, etc) which most likely means another API call
- Charge the invoice. If you have a problem here, you’re in pretty shitty. The invoice still exists in the system, so when you present the error to the user (they gave you the wrong expiration date or something silly) you need to have your system skip all of the above steps and instead update the card so you can charge the existing invoice. Which you can’t do in the API, cards can only be added. So add it again and clutter up the back end with broken credit card numbers with no real way to tell which one is right.
After you integrate all this you’ll find out that some API requests then aren’t processed in real time, because that could “crash their system” (literally, that’s what the API guy told me). Instead it takes up to an hour. So your customer gets no receipt and can’t log into your website for up to an hour. Deal breaker.
Every integration I’ve done with them has a similar issue and their technical staff had no idea of really huge gaps in functionality. Another example, you can start a subscription in the API but cannot stop one. So to process cancellations you have to trigger an email to your support staff to log into Infusion Soft, look up the customer and manually cancel. And this is a company centered around business automation. There are tons of other complaints (terrible usability, out of date documentation, really slow, etc etc), but it’s the API that really grinds my gears. It’s as if they are actively trying to make sure that you can’t really integrate with them.
Anyway, I just heard they scored $8 million in VC last month to advertise their shitty platform, so I figured I’d tell my side of the story. If you are considering Infusion Soft for your business, run in the other direction.
Update 2/13/09: Another integration project and another Infusionsoft war story… You can make and charge invoices via the API but those orders don’t get email receipts like regular orders do. There’s not even a hook for it (com.infusion.crm.api.service.InvoiceService.emailReceipt is suspiciously absent). I called about it and you guessed it, “There’s only one guy here who deals with the API… Let me see if he’s available… Nope, but I’ll have him call you.” Yea, we’ll see about that. Jusin, the API Guy, is also the clown who has his voice mail message listing “office hours” of approximately an hour where you are allowed to contact him for help. What a crock.
I stand by my original point, the API is a better marketing tool than development tool. When you actually try and build products with it the gaps are enormous and frequent.
Update 2/26/09: Infusionsoft found this post (curiously via several Google searches for phrases like “Infusionsoft sucks” and in some cases simply my name) and has been busy getting in touch with me to help resolve issues. Better late than never right? The icing on the cake was that I got a ticket resolved today (out of the blue). This was one of the many issues that they simply lied to me about and never got back in touch with me to resolve. Check out the dates on the ticket:
If you’re about ready to plunk down $5,000 up front and $300 a month, think about that. 70 days to get a simple question answered. It’s not worth it. On the day I opened the ticket I had a full explanation, a test URL set up and even walked the rep through the process. No more information was required or requested. What was the problem? They still don’t know but punted and said it was “PCI Compliance” even though as far as I can tell that’s not true. It was a two sentence reply with no explanation as to why non billing information is covered under “PCI Compliance”. At first I thought it was another one of the mental midget CS reps bullshitting me again to close off tickets, but apparently this was by the “Director of Client Services”. Hopefully that’s a more important sounding title than it really is.
Update 4/14/10: As of today Infusionsoft is able to send email in real time through the API, which fixes one of my long standing issues with the API. Hurray. (The same APIEmailService.sendEmail() method is used, it just now works in real time instead of at maximum once per hour.)
Hello Jon,
I came across your entry that harshly criticizes our company. I’d like to reach out and lend a hand if I can.
I admit that I’m not very knowledgeable about the API, as it’s not my specialty. However, understand what it’s supposed to do for our clients. So, please go easy on me for not knowing much about the semantics of XML and SOAP.
Based on what you described, it’s apparent that our API needs some work. We have a new SDK that we plan to publish soon, which should simplify how to use the API for our third party developer community.
It appears there was a breakdown in communication regarding the API. For that, I apologize and would like to offer that I’ll advocate for your needs around building solutions with our software. I’ll be glad to share your feedback with the management team so we can improve.
I would love to hear more about how we can improve usability, a customer service and anything else that comes to mind. I want to share that anyone is welcome to submit and vote on ideas on our Ideas portal at http://ideas.infusionsoft.com/. Our product management team frequently reviews and sets out to complete the top ideas submitted by our users.
Again, I’m sorry for the problems you had. I’d love to improve our API so it a pleasure for developers to interact with, not a pain. If you would rather take this to e-mail, you can shoot me a message at joseph.manna [at] infusionsoft.com and I’ll help you the best I can.
Thanks again for the feedback! We’re always striving to improve our software and would love to chat.
–Joseph Manna
Community Manager, Infusionsoft
What really sucks about InfusionSoft is the customer service. I have twice experienced a case in which Infusion billed a client “by accident”. Once was a failed payment plan, in which the payment to the client failed…so instead, the system billed OUR AFFILIATE. To other time was when thirty-sum clients got an authorized charge. They had all be properly canceled from further billings to a continuity program, and then IS billed them once more.
Clate Mask publicly apologized in the Infusion back office for that latter goof (I guess it happened to more than just me), but the frustrating thing is entire companies eagerness to pass the buck. The first time I called in about failed payment plan billing our unsuspecting affiliate, they immediately said it was the EFFING BROWSER! Give me a break, we set our web form to pass variable directly, and we tested it on the four major browsers. Then, after we called B.S., they go and test the web form, and it turns out it’s not the browser, but they don’t know what it is an nobody is available right now, so they’ll need to contact us later.
I’m sure we’re not their biggest clients, but we’re not the smallest either. We push hundreds of thousands of emails every month, and we process a lot of revs through their system. Plus, we signed up with them back in the day when it took $6,000 to get their system up, and several hundred a month. They just can’t seem to understand that when you position yourself as “elite” and then deliver a mediocre product with low-end support, people are going to get ANGRY. When their mistakes cost their clients thousands of dollars in lost revs and makes you look like an IDIOT for processing former clients without their authorization…well, they are creating a great opportunity for a competent competitor to move in and take all their customers. If aweber started using action sets, integrated merchant processing, and provided voicemail broadcast, they would eat Infusions lunch.
UPDATE
We just got off the phone with an Infusion rep who looked into the problem of one of our affiliates being billed for a failed client payment plan that the affiliate had referred through.
1. Infusion said they would investigate and get back with us in sixty minutes. And they did
2. Infusion conducted three separate investigations on the issue. The first was whether we were in violation of PCI processing compliance standards. They concluded what we already knew – NO, WE ARE NOT IN VIOLATION. Gr8 news.
The second was whether we are using HTTP or HTTPS. We are using the latter, as that is what’s needed for secure processing.
Third, they had one of their developers look at it, and they said we need a script that clears out secure cookies on a thank you page when a client purchases a payment plan. Otherwise, the secure cookies from our affiliates can intermingle with the secure cookies of the client ordering, and thus create a big secure cookie omelet in which either client or affiliate could billed for purchases.
They said they would put the specs together so we could build the script. We said “great – would you mind creating that script as this doesn’t seem to be our problem?” And they responded “Maybe – we’ll look into it and get back to you by the end of the day”.
We’ll see what happens.
Step 1, try to build something useful with your API. Step 2, when confronted with the quite obvious bugs and limitations, call into your own support center and try and get help. This part will be frustrating, but stick with it. Step 3, fix it.
By my count there is only one person at your company that knows anything about your API and even he’s not very good. He’s the one that let it be known your firm cannot live process API orders because it might “overload” the system. That’s just pathetic, use a queuing system like everyone else in the world. He’s also fucking pretentious, his voicemail message mentions office hours where you’re allowed to call him and they are ridiculously short (9-10 AM if I remember correctly). You need to listen to that message too because he doesn’t return phone calls or [frequently] email messages.
I completely second your comment. I was told by our sales rep at infusionsoft that there is one API specialist, Justin Morris. And he always seems to be in ‘Meetings’. I never get a hold of the guy, always get his voicemail, rarely get an email reply. He just seems too busy in his ‘meetings’ all day long.
So what are the near competitors of iffusionsoft? Who are the better systems and what would you say plus or minus about each?
I’m not sure what the nearest competitors are. I am not really in the market for an InfusionSoft type product myself, I just help firms integrate with them. What are you looking to accomplish?
I would love to read what Infusion has to say about the comment that “the API orders then aren’t processed in real time, because that could crash their system”
Not really orders, action sets I guess. Justin Morris, their API guy, emailed this to me:
It’s bullshit, queue systems are ancient. We were trying to add customers to InfusionSoft and have them sent a double opt-in email… Can’t happen in real time. How pathetic is that?
I have read all the comments on this page and can’t understand all the bad comments.
I give Marc Pilkington all praise. Derek in the finance department was of great benefit for my company. At anytime I would ever need their assistance, I know I can call either of them.
Thanx Marc & Derek.
Timm R.
Just wait until a client or affiliate gets an unauthorized charge, and their response is that it’s your “browser cookies”. Or maybe we just all need your mans contact number. I’m sure IS has some competent people working for them – we’d love to get a number to someone with answers.
Apparently you don’t know what a “queue system” is. Just blurting out “queue system” doesn’t make you seem smart. It sounds like they have a queue system. Stuff is added to a queue and run every hour. What they should probably do is make it a priority queue or something. Or a priority/aged queue. I understand their concerns about making it real-time. Someone could launch a DOS attack that way.
“Jeff”, please disclose your employment at Infusionsoft before trying to comment again. Especially before your talk down to customers.
I know exactly what I’m talking about–Infusionsoft is being lazy and didn’t want to take the time to engineer a proper system to send email in real time through the API. If there were load concerns, a simple throttling/queue system is what would be implemented. Messages over the throttling limit would be sent into a queue that would get sent shortly thereafter.
To dumb it down for you, set the limit at X messages per minute. If the API system gets message X + 1 the message is delayed into a queue that is then the first message sent out during the next minute. That is the best of both worlds, it allows you to send many messages but does not impact real time delivery.
The comments about Infusion’s customer service and API is absolutely true. Both are unbelievably bad, but it doesn’t end there unfortunately.
Personally, I think Infusionsoft is bordering on being a scam. The system is so flakey that it’s hard to believe that they’re in it for the long term, which makes you wonder whether there intention is just to grab as much cash off people as they can and then let the company go bust.
Once they’ve taken your $3000 to $4000 off you for signing on you’ll then find yourself paying another $300 to $600 a month in fees. You will very quickly wonder why the hell you’re paying this when you start to do anything remotely advanced. There are just so many holes in the system, that hardly anything but the very simplest tasks work. On that basis what is the point in paying hundreds of dollars a month and thousand of dollars for the set up when you could get these basic features for less than a hundred bucks all over the web.
The interface is terrible and they have a habit of making changes that just messes everything up. So, just as you think you’ve got everything working fine, they’ll change something and your whole system will come crumbling down like a pack of cards.
It’s a nightmare system and I highly recommend that you stay well clear if you want to remain in business.
I don’t need to keep belaboring the point, but I had another run in with InfusionSoft’s customer service and they failed to get back in tough with me *again*. Every time with these people is the same result. They say whatever they need to get you off the phone and then don’t follow through. Don’t lie to your customers. It’s not very hard, just say “I don’t know” and then actually *follow through* and find the answer. The customer service manager and at least half of the reps should be fired immediately.
Hey John, Justin here. I am sorry to hear that you have had such a hard time getting support for Infusionsofts API. Just to clear up a few things, I am available most of the day to take calls, it just so happens that I am on the phone most of the day assisting customers. On my voice message it states that 9AM-10AM are my “open hours” meaning I keep that time open to schedule appointments for people that need longer API consulting calls. I wouldn’t directly say that I am a clown, Just trying to keep it fair to all customers giving them time to schedule calls if they need.
You are also able to email me directly with questions as well as submit a ticket in the help center. Please contact me with whichever method you choose and I will make sure to set aside some time to help you out whenever you need.
You seem to be the best I’ve talked to at InfusionSoft, but you’re just one (obviously quite busy) guy. I have very bad luck actually getting things resolved. I’ll open a ticket and whatever my problem is stays a mystery and I won’t be followed up with.
I had to nearly threaten the customer service rep last time to be able to talk to his manager and get a straight answer (the CS rep told me multiple times it would be fixed the next day, etc etc, just to get me off the phone). And guess what, the particular issue wouldn’t be able to be fixed until your next code push, about a month away. I had said in the original ticket that I was on a hard deadline, so if this was really a bug that couldn’t be fixed in time just let me know so I can work around it. But since the CS reps just say what they think I want to hear, I was dicked around for over a week and ended wasting hours of time on something that was a deal breaker from the start. (The issue BTW was a field missing from the HTTP POST after an order is placed, I’m not sure if that ever got fixed.)
It is also interesting that even I while have outstanding issues that I never heard back on, when I actually hear from you guys its on my website. It’s easier to get a response by posting a complaint on a independent website somewhere than it is to get an answer to my support questions. Priorities?
I understand your frustration with technical support, I have dealt with many companies where technical support is more painful than pulling teeth. I am not part of the technical support team, but supporting people with the API is a big part of what I do. A good friend of mine here at Infusionsoft is going to become the Quality Assurance guy for our support department soon and he plans to get all of the reps on the same page. I am also working on some API training classes for the support team to attend so that they can start fielding some of the more basic API calls.
I definitely wont argue with me being quite busy, I have been at work for 2.5 hours today and have already answered about 20 API emails and been on the phone with 6 people and still have 2 people to call from yesterday since I was out of the office. It would bring me nothing but happiness to have 2-5 more people here that do what I do. I might actually get time to breathe.
You should send this post to whoever makes the hiring decisions. I know just this little post has lost you business (in addition to the comments, people have emailed thanking me for the heads up and asking who else they should go with). The combination of having only you on the API front and not really having a whole lot of docs is just asking for trouble.
If I were you guys I would nail down common use cases (opt-in contact form, subscriber site, etc) and pay some hackers to code extremely clean solutions in a few languages. A Infusionsoft API cookbook of sorts. Support PHP for sure, probably Java too. I am biased to Python, so that’d be nice as well
. Post everything publicly, not locked down somewhere in the member site, trapped in a PDF, in the middle of a forum thread or in a mystery zip file. This is your API so it only helps you to have people know it.
Search around for Infusionsoft API or SDK and you just get a bunch of people looking to hire people for help. No documentation. In fact in my different search phrases I actually found this post before I found anything helpful from you guys. That’s exactly what potential customers are going to do, “Oh they have an API, let me call my programmer and see what he thinks about it.”
Also API Orders are processed in real time, you use the InvoiceService to create a blank order, add order items and then charge the invoice. You get a real time response back from Infusionsoft with the merchant accounts transaction number. The only orders that could be considered as not being processed in real time are recurring orders and thats because they go into a scheduler that handles all of the recurring billing, Or if you use a payment plan because they use the same scheduled payment system.
The part I was referring to is emails, which are a fairly large part of your platform. They get stuck in a queue that is worked on hourly. I’ll get back from the API that the email is queued and then have to sit around for it to send, I can’t even check the status if a customer calls to ask what’s up. They are supposed to be sent within an hour, but I called last week because they were taking up to a couple hours. I got another “We’ll get back to you” statements and have heard nothing since.
Yeah, I am not too happy with how emails are currently handled (thrown in the followup sequence scheduler) I would have personally designed it with a throttle (only allow X API initiated emails per X interval of time) so that as long as your site isn’t getting hammered with traffic there wont be any delay in emails for customers. I have been pushing to get this changed for a while now, but other matters usually come first.
A hack that I have used is to send the email via php or whatever language you are using from your server and then use the APIEmailService.attachEmail method to attach the email to the contact record in Infusionsoft.
The hack works for welcome letters (where it’s a canned response pretty much), but not double opt-ins. Those are required to come from you guys and it’s *really* lame to have customers wait an hour to be able to opt-in. You’re basically trying to have them not opt-in.
Yeah, I will totally agree that our documentation needs a ton of work, I have been trying to get a standard format posted somewhere online but it takes a while for me to re-write the docs on top of everything else.
Also I have my own site http://www.fuzioncore.com dedicated to the Infusionsoft API. I am not sure how long its been since you have used our API but I developed an SDK in PHP that greatly simplifies the process and best of all is fully documented each release.
My site is somewhat new but I am trying to get a lot of C# and PHP examples up there.
I have come across your site before and it’s quite helpful (the docs on your library are good), but I find it strange that you’re the one having to do all this on your personal site. No offense as you really have been the most knowledgeable person at Infusionsoft, but this kind of information should not be reliant on one person. What happens if you change jobs? No one else at your company knows anything about the API and the PHP SDK (including documentation) could disappear over night. That’s scary. Hopefully they are paying you well.
I just did an integration with PHP, though I didn’t use your library. I didn’t need most of it (it was a pretty simple task) and rolled my own tiny class. It’s pretty close to yours, though with exceptions tossed in so I could use it in my app without worrying about something dying. I also saved some sanity and used array_map() to run php_xmlrpc_encode() on all the arguments. XML-RPC is such a pain…
Yeah, xmlrpc is uh… less than optimal(I guess thats a polite way to put it), but it does the job. the newest release of the SDK (sometime this week) will have debugging where you can tell the sdk how to handle errors that get returned.
Infusionsoft is not in danger of losing me any time soon, I love working there, its a great environment and I have a great boss. Those two aspects alone are worth more than the salary as far as I’m concerned(but the salary doesn’t hurt either
haha).
Infusion absolutely stinks. It’s a complete pile of garbage – to put it politely. The sooner people realize it is a big con the better. It’s all hot air and hype to sell – sell – sell. Once they’ve hooked you they don’t give it a damn.
Here’s what their strap line should be:
‘At Infusionsoft out next customer is our must important customer’
Here’s a list of some of the errors we’ve had to deal with:
- Incorrect affiliate reports (by tens of thousands of dollars)
- System down for hours and so nobody can place orders
- Duplicate credit card transaction (hundreds of them)
- Support telling you there is nothing wrong even though you can demonstrate it to them
- Total lack of response to tickets for months on end
- Inability to change profile of affiliates (e.g. email or paypal address) – went on for over a month
And the list goes on and on.
Juston Morris who posted above is just a bullshitter for Infusion who makes out it is all good. It is not. It is VERY bad. If he had one ounce of integrity he would quit the job, but he obviously hasn’t so he continues to work for a company who is conning people out of thousands of dollars, and that will ultimately either go bust or sell out to someone else.
How can this Justin guy claim he loves the job whilst at the same time pretty much admitting that there IS a lot wrong at Infusion.
Be warned. Do a search for ‘Infusion Sucks’ at Google and then ask yourself whether you really want such a bad system.
And remember, most of the customers who are p****d off are worried about saying so because it will damage their own business. No marketer would want their affiliates to know that they are using such a bad system – one that misreports commissions, etc. Everyone is keeping it quiet and I know several personally who are developing their own inhouse systems so that they can tell Infusion where to shove it.
Stay well clear!
Carlos
I would just like to state I never said there is anything wrong with Infusionsoft or at Infusionsoft. I simply voiced a few personal opinions about how certain aspects of the API work and how I would have done them differently. Which is great because I am in a position at Infusionsoft to help influence how the API will grow. An API is one of those things that you only really get 1 shot at, if you miss that shot you end up with a board full of bent nails (it holds up but could be better) and have to go back and carefully pull the bent nails and properly re-sink new ones. This takes careful planning and attention to detail to make sure you don’t make the same mistakes twice or invent new problems that surface as the software grows.
I can respect your opinion in calling me a BS’er but I have to respectfully disagree. I have dealt with literally thousands of Infusionsoft users in my time here and the satisfied rate to unsatisfied rate is greatly in Infusionsofts favor. With ANY software product out there you will always have the people that dont like it, thinks its a scam, plain out hates it etc. etc. just ask Microsoft about that one. There is literally no way to make everyone happy because everyone wants something a little bit different. Also I will be the first to tell you if Infusionsoft is or is not a good fit, you can ask quite a few sales reps here that I made a sale fall through when they had the prospect talk to me on the phone about the API and Infusionsofts ability, I have told them that Infusionsoft is not a good fit for their business and they should look into other options. I would not consider that being a BS’er. I am a programmer, not a sales or marketing person, I say what I mean and I mean what I say. I am under no pressure to make any deals and the fact that I DO have integrity shows when I tell people exactly what they need to hear, not what they or a sales rep wants to hear.
I am a bit confused why you say I should quit my job if I have any integrity. Infact having integrity would more likely involve doing your very best in trying to improve upon a companies public image rather than “abandon ship” to seek out clear waters. If I were the type to run away from a job if things didnt always go smoothly I would probably be working at retail store where I dont have to think and just scan products.
What I am really confused about is your personal attack towards myself when I am posting here on a personal basis. Everything I have said in the above comments are my personal opinions and are in no way associated with Infusionsoft its views or anything of that nature, no one at Infusionsoft told me to post here to try and patch things up with unhappy customers, I took time out of my personal life to help clear some things up and offer assistance. In exchange I get verbally abused. If you have any problems you would like to resolve with me, please email me or call me personally instead of trying to drag my name and reputation through the mud. I am more than willing to assist anyone with anything within my knowledge/power related to Infusionsoft and I stand behind the company and the product 100% I have seen it not only transform peoples businesses but their lives for the better.
My personal Email – fuzioncore [AT] gmail [dot] com
My Mobile Phone Number – (six zero two) 318 – 4139
Once again just to clarify – Everything I have said in this comment and my previous comments are my own personal opinions and in no way reflect those of Infusionsoft.
For what it’s worth, I appreciate your comments here. While I’m no fan of InfusionSoft, you do seem to know your stuff and try to help. It’s too big of a job for one guy though and the support quality is suffering as a result. That’s my beef–it’s not your fault. I blame whoever is managing the support department, they have failed miserably.
Thank you for the compliment. I take pride in what I do and always try to be the best while I am doing it (maybe I am too competetive? haha).
Also as a note to anyone else, if you have any questions for me directly feel free to use my contact info above. I just know exactly how frustrating it can be when you spend a lot of money (either on software or on actual objects) and it isn’t doing what it should be or isn’t doing what you want it to.
If you really want to know what frustrating means, get into flying RC helicopters. You spend a lot buying it, then spend even more fixing it when it doesn’t do what you expected it to.
I am surprised that nobody here has commented on the group’s affiliation with Dan Kennedy, the legend, the man, the myth. I mean, have you taken a look at the drivel that he generates for the company? If I used some of these outreach emails in my own business I’d be the laughing stock of Big Muddy, but the Infusionsoft team perceives him as the second coming of, who, Obama? I went to one of their rah rah road shows in Atlanta and had to sit through this presentation. My partner and I got up and left then went to lunch. When we returned there was a crowd of people purportedly wanting to take pictures with the guy. The last time I look, he was far from being the male equivalent of Heather Graham, Trish Regan or Robin Meade but, hey, if you tell the anointed something long enough with enough fervor, anybody will believe it. As for me, I’ll eschew the purple Kool-Aid for now.
Harry -
I stumbled on to Dan Kennedy a few years ago, started reading his books and have never looked back. If you haven’t read his No BS Guide to Sales Success or Ruthless Management or read the Ultimate Sales Letter, do yourself a big favor and do so.
He offers very sound advice about the sales and marketing process including things like:
follow up with your customers,
offer people deals but only for a limited time,
use call-for-action words
make it easy for your customers to buy
sell based on benefits and not features,
send thank you letters to new customers,
give customers more than they think they bought,
solicit testimonials and use them in advertising,
do risk reversals and offer money-back guarantees,
assume 7 to 10 contacts before the sale.
etc,
etc,
etc.
And yes, you can find a lot of that information elsewhere spread among various books but Kennedy distills it all down for you and puts it all in one place.
And yes, he is a blowhard. I’ve heard him talk. But that him. Not his ideas. Don’t confuse the two.
Since I’ve started using ideas from his books, I’ve got far more sales and much happier customers.
Gregg LaPore
Jon’s experience reminded me that I’ve been meaning to write a review of Infusionsoft. I agree with some of the things mentioned here and disagree with others.
I realized that I’ve got quite a bit to say about Infusionsoft, so I put my complete comments on my blog.
If you want the perspective of another Infusionsoft user who is also a Certified Infusionsoft consultant (CMAC), please go to:
http://www.greasedskid.com/index.php/infusionsoft/infusionsoft-complaints-and-review/
I’m an Infusionsoft employee (#2, actually). I worked on the original API. For what it’s worth:
When we released the original API, we did a ton of research to choose the technology we felt was best for our customers at the time. When we talked to the people who were actually doing integrations, we realized that the majority of them were using PHP and for the most part were “web guys” just trying to connect the dots between a couple of systems. So, in a choice between SOAP, XMLRPC, and REST, we went with XMLRPC because of:
- A standard (REST is not a standard)
- Ability to specify structured requests and responses (REST does not provide the ability to provide structured requests)
- Low learning curve
- Wide availability of free client software
I still maintain that based on our needs at the time and the available standards, we made the right choice. Ironically, I did an integration today with our own ticketing system for an internal tool we are using to track time. Here was my code for the integration:
def serverProxy = new XMLRPCServerProxy(globalInfusionsoftConfig.url)
def result = serverProxy.DataService.query(
globalInfusionsoftConfig.apiKey, //API key from config
“Ticket”, //What table we’re querying
100, 0, //How many results to pull
[DevId: userConfig.infusionsoftUserId, Stage: globalInfusionsoftConfig.stageId],//Query params
["Id", "TicketTitle", "Priority", "IssueId"] //What fields to return
);
result.each {ticket -> rtn.put(“infusion.${ticket.Id}”, “Inf:#${ticket.Id}: ${ticket.TicketTitle}”)}
I also did an integration with another system that provided a soap interface. I had to:
- Generate client stubs from a wsdl. Oh, but the wsdl required authentication that my stub generator didn’t support. Had to manually download the wsdl (This step alone would have killed many integrations). When generating my stubs, I had to decide which type of binding I wanted to use, whether I wanted to wrap all requests and responses with wrapper objects, which soap client library and version I wanted to use, and a host of other decisions.
- My client stubs (17,601 lines of code, if anyone cares) had to be integrated into my project, compiled every time my project builds, then I had to figure out how to instantiate my service based on which version of soap client I had used to generate my stubs
- Then I had to write 3 times as many lines of code as the example I provided above
I understand that for many developers, specifically those working in static-type and strong-type systems, SOAP is a better fit. However, like any smart company, we are trying to best solve the problem for the majority of our clients, instead of half-way solving the problem for all. XmlRpc was the right choice at the time.
Look, I get the frustration with the API. Nobody likes to have to make 10 calls to do one thing. Nobody likes gaping holes in data access or functionality. I’m just trying to shed some light on the thought process that got us to where we are. Sometimes a little insight can aid understanding.
At Infusionsoft, we subscribe to the Stockdale Paradox – retain faith that you will prevail in the end, regardless of the difficulties, AND at the same time confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they might be. We also believe very strongly in engaging constructive conflict. This is why you’ll see employees out on the internet trying to help people that are pissed off. Some people we’ll help and they’ll become raving fans. Some people will always hate our guts. Such is life.
I will issue a challenge to anyone that has blanket negative statements to say about the people at Infusionsoft: Fly yourself out to Gilbert, AZ and spend a couple of days with us. If you leave with a negative opinion, I will personally pay for your trip. We have no fantasies about pleasing every single customer. But we will try.
Like Justin, I’ll post my email. Feel free to engage at any time. And don’t be offended if I’m slow to respond. My wife doesn’t even get quick turnaround.
ericm[atsymbol]infusionsoft
Oh, one other thing I see frequently:
When you send an “immediate” email in Infusionsoft, it stores the entire email (content, attachments, etc) as well as a reference to the contact you sent it to. When you send a batch to 50,000 people, it creates ONE email and 50,000 references.
So, when someone imports a list of 1.2 million people into our system through the api, and runs an action that has an immediate email, the system will store 1.2MM emails and 1.2MM links. Yes, it’s happened. This absolutely puts a strain on the system, (though it will not crash it). That’s the reason for the queuing up of emails. I highly doubt it will be that way forever.
Does anyone else think it is ridiculous to pay this kind of money and then fight the company at every turn. Josh your a jackass. You’ll promise anything to get a sale. The best money I will ever spend is to get a lawyer to expose the fraud and shitty software you make and have to lie about to sell.
This is pretty typical of Arizona companies. Having lived in Arizona for a few years and dealing with the endless shysters and con men there, the reason I initially didn’t sign up for InfusionSoft is the mere fact that they are in Arizona. This is exactly what I would have expected based on that, and it turns out it’s true.
I regret to say the company I work for currently uses Infusion. It is well and truly awful.
I can tell you a HUGE Infusion horror story.
A few months back the s**t hit the fan because Infusion had put through thousands of dollars of charges **WITHOUT OUR PERMISSION** or the permission of the credit card holders.
Basically, anyone who had attempted to buy one of our products, but whose card had failed to charge properly was recharged. But here’s the MENTAL thing. This happened to everyone even if they had tried to buy it a year ago.
Imagine that. You go to a web site. Your card gets rejected and you forget all about it. A year later some jerks decide to bill your card again without you knowing anything about it.
The proverbial hit the fan big time.
Some of the people who were charged had subsequently put the payment through on a different card and so were already happy customers, but ended up seriously annoyed because as far as they were concerned we had tried to sneak through a second charge, many months later, without their permission.
It took days to sort all of this Infusion caused c**p out and I’m sure the reputation of the company I work for took an unfair hit when the whole fiasco was caused 100% by Infusionsoft.
Here’s the amazing thing.
This massive error was caused by a small change in Infusions system and it effected not just us, but LOTS of Infusion customers. It is safe to say that on that black day literally millions of dollars of unauthorized charges were triggered by Infusion and that is no exaggeration. Do the math with the volume of Infusionsoft users they say they have.
The truth is that the Infusionsoft users who it did impact upon dare not say anything as it makes them look bad, so everyone has been very quiet about this.
How they’ve kept this under wraps I don’t know. I’m surprised it’s not been on the TV news it’s that bad.
If you are thinking of moving to Infusionsoft be scared – be VERY scared.
Same thing happened to us. Twice.
I bought into InfusionSoft Myself. I am embarrassed to say they are very good at the sales process; however, they do not look into your business model and determine if the timing is right for your company. All they are looking for is the sale. I do not going on websites and bash products; however, I felt a need due to the fact that they have almost $5000.00 of my money.
I am a business owner in construction and I am an existing Infusionsoft client. I have no e-commerce or web-based sales… I just want something to manage email and mail campaigns based on clients’ potential interests or recent purchases or referrals. Infusionsoft is not for beginners. They do very little to help those non-tecks (unless you continue to feed them money). I have asked for additional help several times. I have pleaded with my “dedicated Infusionsoft coach” (Derek Solomon) for help. I have emailed and called him several times, but cannot get him to respond. Infusionsoft is not a good system. It is not intuitive at all. I find the support guys excellent and the sales staff full of BS… avoiding calls.
I have been a paying customer since February 2009, but unfortunately not a happy one. I have asked for help in getting one successful campaign sequence and they have not helped – yet I have paid over $5,000 to date. I purchased the followup software thinking it would help increase my business, but it has been the opposite. I am on the brink of going out of business before I have the chance use it. I took the chance and invested in them, but they won’t return the favor to me… big surprise. Infusionsoft really should practice what they preach and take care of their existing customers.
I don’t usually bash companies either, but Infusionsoft is severely hurting me right now because they have over $5000 of my money at a time when my business is very cash-poor. I can’t keep quiet any longer because it is unfair for them to prey on small businesses (like they do) with no recourse.
I didn’t even know that this forum was up. For some reason I pulled up Infusionsoft on google and stumbled onto this chat. I happen to be one of the bad, bad salesmen at Infusionsoft. I got a bachelors in business, and took a stab at my own business, then realized that I needed to do a little more work for someone else before I try to be superman.
Reading these posts, even from our own employees, I see one common theme. Infusionsoft has or hasn’t done something wrong. I have no reservations in saying, “buck up and take ownership for yourself and your responsibilities.” If you want to be on the path of life that allows you to be the victim and find fault, failure, and dissatisfaction in all that you do, I feel sorry for you. Everyone on this post needs to go back to basics and evaluate themselves and determine what the true issues are. I am truly sad, and I hope that all the negativity that is beaming from my monitor right now will somehow be realized and resolved.
Ironically, I bet that at least one person reading this will try to track the source. All I can say is…time to get a hobby.
Jamon, you see a bunch of people with specific complaints about faults with your company and the best you have to say is “buck up”? How about stop ripping people off?
Also, what’s this bullshit about the life path where you’re a victim? You’re the fucking predator. It’s your fault. A normal person would realize this and try to change when called out–you decided to tell the people you steal from to evaluate their lives and figure out why they are weak.
You and your company’s pathetic attitude is why I keep getting emails and phone calls from people asking who they should use instead of InfusionSoft. It’s a great feeling to know I have saved many people from the frustration of going with you guys.
And as for the “irony” of someone wanting to track the source of an Infusionsoft sales employee who’s unconcerned with unethical sales tactics, I’ll save everyone the time… Jamon is apparently Graham Nelson.
What CRM is everyone recommending? I do NOT want to make the same mistake twice!!!
There are lots of choices out there depending on your needs. Infusionsoft jams a lot of features into one, but as for a central CRM I’ve heard good things about Sugar CRM and Salesforce.com. If you’re looking to do ecommerce a lot of people I know are happy with 1ShoppingCart. It really depends on what you’re looking to do.
Thank you for this helpful page! Currently, this shows up on Google’s 1st page result for “infusionsoft” which is how I found it. I’m glad I did.
As for 1ShoppingCart, it seems to be a standard in the industry, but I’ve had MORE problems than success AS A CUSTOMER (trying to buy from others who use 1shoppingcart) which makes me not want to use it for my own customers.
I posted about the problem I had here:
http://www.linkedin.com/answers/technology/e-commerce/TCH_ECM/478081-53663
(and I’m more tech savvy than the average person, so I wouldn’t be surprised if there are others who can’t buy from 1shoppingcart and don’t go to the trouble of publicizing it.)
Primarily I’m looking for an affiliate management system. Any tips there? Thanks.
Hmm, I’ll have to keep an eye out about 1ShoppingCart. Haven’t used it myself, so thanks for the feedback.
As for affiliate management, have you checked out Google’s offering? Since you’re already using Checkout, that might play nice. It obviously ties in nicely with Analytics. Haven’t used it myself though (I don’t sell anything myself and haven’t been asked by a client to integrate with it). They got the unit from DoubleClick last year if memory serves. It might be overkill for what you’re looking for, but probably worth a glance.
I have been searching for quality CRM, after being treated like dirt from Cory, I sent the CEO a golden Screw Driver. You ask why, when someone calls and wants to buy something you would anticipate that the sales staff treats you good, instead Infusion thinks everyone should bow down to them. So if they were going to screw me, I wanted them to get the proper tool to do so. Then the CEO has a guy named Nate call me, he a very good sale person, I look at it ( Infusion Soft) and Aaron Stead told me that they would offer 30 day free trial. Nate continued on all the feature and yes it appears to have amazing features. The Prices on the website at the time was $ 299.00 a month. I stated I would take that. Then I was asked to pay $ 4000.00 for setting it up!, I asked where did the $ 4000.00 come from. They never mention it through out the presentations. NOT ONCE. Now a week later there websites hides all pricing. They say they are here to help the entrepreneurs….no they are not, they are here to mislead you and take as much as you can.
This is were the following statement comes true ” Figures never lie, but liars allow figure.” Its really ashame as it appear to be a nice product, just has the wrong team presenting it. If there were honest from the start it would have been more acceptable, but when they mislead you, can you trust them. I am one who called the administrator and asked what else can I use.
In today’s economy more people are being very aware of companies like infusion, I called the presidents assistant and she makes claim that we are here to help us and stated that the prices were on the website, I asked where, and she could not fine it as she is not knowledgeable of what the website looks like and then stated “oh, you have to call us”
All I can say is Honey I did, and your team would not reveal it until the very end and tried to cover it up.
Good Luck To all the people that got CON by Infusionsoft.
Ah, the infamous set up fee. For a webapp. Software as a service (SaaS) should almost always have a free trial. I’d be highly suspicious of any firm that wants that much up front when there are no actual costs to set up your account (it’s not like they have to go program you the solution–it’s already set up and setting up your account should be a effectively adding a database row).
Very true, the set up fee is what the salesperson earns, by offer High Setup commission the can afford to get the best CON MEN in sales, if they do one sale a week at $ 4000.00 that’s 12,000 a month, that’s 144,000 a year for selling a setup charge that does not need to be there. Like I stated get con men.
If I were running things I would tie the commission to how long the customer stays active. A bunch of pissed off customers who want their money back shouldn’t be rewarded. If you only get the big money once they stay on for a year you can’t lie to your leads.
Oh yeah. The rabid selling hype of the guy (Rob Hegarty) made me dubious (anything any good will sell itself, not need a pusher) about the whole deal. My feet were cold and my ripoff radar was flashing and beeping. Once he hit me with the $4000.00 setup fee after telling me how ‘affordable for small businesses’ the system was, my feet went from cold to ice, and my ripoff radar started jumping up and down and turning backflips trying to get my attention.
Later, when he realised I wasn’t fooled into being hooked, and he offered to do it without the setup fee (suddenly minus $4000.00 in cost!), my feet went from ice to liquid nitrogen, and my ripoff radar detonated from overload.
I am SO glad I didn’t go with them it’s not funny.
Don’t mess with your business or your shopping cart system; getting someone else in between you and your customers is financial suicide. As to increased sales through better web visibility, just go with a Google Adwords campaign; no, they’re nowhere NEAR the results Infusionsoft promised, but they are REAL and POSTIVE positive results. In my personal experience, the result was on the order of 30% increased sales per month, for only $100 per month, or $1200.00 per year.
Folks, any time anyone makes the claims that Infusionsoft’s pushers do, it’s likely a load of hooey; in an old adage (all the best wisdom is handed down; ‘there’s nothing new under the sun’) if it seems too good to be true, it probably is.
I also had a terrible experience with Infusionsoft. The guy who was supposed to import my leads took over a month to get back with me and actually never ended up doing it. The software is extremely “bulky” and “slow”. Thank God I did a free trial and didn’t leave 1ShoppingCart. Of course it took over 3 weeks before I got my money back from the free trial but at least I did.
I can say that when I did call in for technical support those guys were knowledgable and willing to help. I give them that. But this big problem is the OVERALL support. Infusion has 1 or 2 guys doing a job that 5 people should be on, making it impossible to get good service.
Bottom line, I’d NEVER go back to Infusionsoft. But it would be nice if they cleaned up their sloppy CRM and just started over from scratch.
AT least you go the free trial, for me they wanted the set up fee of $ 4000.00 just to do the free trail. How is it a free trial if you have to pay $ 4000.00
I don’t usually do this, but the fact that it is one of the worst experiences I have had with any salesmen, I wanted to put this out there to warn people. I was approached by infusionsoft and to put a long story short, every part of the very, very high pressure sale, felt like a con. They were promising way too much, and it sounded like a lie. They even made up a so called “VP” who had to make decisions for them, and give them authorization to give me a good deal. This “VP” doesn’t exist. They made a mistake, and didn’t hang up the phone all the way, and I could hear them talking. Short version is that if you would be safer to do business in Iraq selling American flags on the street, dressed in a shirt that says shoot me. Total 100% con. If I was mean I would post what I recorded to the Internet. I’m not. Instead, I’ll just warn you. If you deal with this company after reading this, and not properly researching the many other voices that echo the same, it was just your time to learn a lesson. Guaranteed fraud. I promise you. The salesmen will tag team until they get your money, because that is all they want. Terrible company, terrible business, and as a whole, entrusted to people who need to know we are not all fools. Shutdown Infusionsoft, and help us make the Internet a better place, which requires your non-existance.
Let me start by saying I am an Infusion Employee. I have been with the company for over three years. I have had the opportunity to work with customers who are very pleased with our software and those who are not. Calling the company a fraud is really a joke. The people at Infusionsoft are there because they have a passion for helping small businesses. It pains me to hear about your bad experiences, but it is still good to hear. We try and share both our successes and failures internally, hearing the bad helps us know what to fix, and believe me we are always trying to improve. I am ok with criticism where criticism is due. We have a large number of happy customers and I think you can tell by the number of posts from our employees which are all unsolicited that we care and want to make a better product. Our product may not be perfect, but I don’t know one that is. What you will find at Infusionsoft is a group of people working hard to do something good for small business. If you don’t have a good experience I encourage you to let us know. We listen to feedback. I am disappointed that the author of this blog felt he had to go to this length to get our attention, but am glad he did and hope it will create the changes needed to make the product better.
PS To the guy who sent the golden screw driver. While I hate that you sent it to our CEO I find you sense of humor impeccable.
Ryan,
Good to see employees backing up their company. But that’s expected. The litmus test is not in what the employees think about your company, but what the clients think about your company. If you want to improve your business, I’d suggest focusing less on what employees have to say about their employer and more on what clients say about the employer.
I found this blog because of an RSS feed I have set up regarding Infusionsoft and CRM. I have been with Infusionsoft, as an employee, for 9 months and came over hear at great sacrifice after working at a University for 7 years. I am fortunate to work with a group of people who care and seriously work hard for the idea of helping small business owners run their businesses better. Any company will have those customers whose needs were not met, or who felt ‘pressured’ into buying.
I don’t know of any tactic that Infusionsoft can possibly use to ‘force’ people to make a decision and spend their resources. I do know that thousands of our customers are gratefully turning their businesses around by fixing their follow up and better serving their customers and communities.
Any chance that we have to right a wrong is an opportunity to help not only our business grow but all of yours also. I appreciate the passion and conviction that it takes to write down opinions and perceptions that deeply affect others. However, we at Infusionsoft are hard working and honest people who have a passion to improve small business and create a better way to stay in front of prospects and clients. There will be great successes and inevitable errors as we grow. We appreciate being able to have the errors and mistakes realized so that we can overcome them and positively effect our clients.
Clarke Bishop from Greaseskid Marketing posted a fair rebuttal to Jon’s earlier posts:
http://www.greasedskid.com/index.php/infusionsoft/infusionsoft-complaints-and-review/
Update by editor: full text of the above link removed–we’re not in the business of copyright infringement. Go to Clarke’s site to read his rebuttal.
This is an interesting site. As a recent InfusionSoft buyer (about 9 months ago) I might not have purchased InfusionSoft if I had read this blog. There are some truly frightening stories here.
But as an Infusionsoft user, none of these experiences are ours. So far we are using their “sequences” system to automatically followup with companies that have requested information on our construction software.
Everything is working as advertised. And one of the reason it’s working, is that we put A LOT of thought and work into crafting strong marketing materials for our followups. So far we are seeing strong results from that effort. Now when we call people to follow up, we are hearing our own marketing language coming back to us. In other words, we are educating the customer on how our software will improve their lives/businesses as well as making them comfortable with us and they are, therefore, closer to saying “yes” to a purchase.
We also use InfusionSoft to automatically followup with prospects who’ve purchased. We have sequences with training content as well as invitations to on-line training classes. We use InfusionSoft not only to deliver training materials but monitor who has opened those e-mails so we know who’s learning and who’s not.
And all this happens automatically because we are using InfusionSoft.
As to problems with APIs and carts, we can’t speak to that because we haven’t used them, but the followup features of InfusionSoft are 100% reliable in our experience.
We have made back far more money than we have put into it, so I would give InfusionSoft a strong thumbs up to other companies who want to make their marketing more effective.
A word of advice to anyone considering adopting InfusionSoft for customer followup. You will get out of it exactly as much as you put into it. All that InfusionSoft is is a piece of software. It contains no marketing materials. It cannot write copy for you. It can’t write a sales letter or make a phone call. But, if you write your own marketing materials or hire someone who can, InfusionSoft is an amazing force-multiplier. It’s like having a perfect assistant that never fails to get the correct information to the correct prospects/customers in the correct order on the correct day.
And if you know anything about marketing, you know that it takes between 7 and 20 hig quality contacts with someone before they decide to purchase. That is what many companies fail at. This is where InfusionSoft can help you.
Success to you all,
Gregg LaPore
TRAKWARE
Great to hear of your success Gregg. You seem to be only using a small portion of what Infusionsoft does and luckily for you you’re using what it is best at. There are much cheaper solutions for auto-responders though (AWeber comes to mind).
I’m sorry, but when you compare Infusionsoft to Aweber, it shows me you don’t understand the power of Infustionsoft, and you probably have not even looked at the pricing, because for a decent sized database, Aweber costs just about as much as the basic Infusionsoft.
Aweber does not have the tagging feature and is set up completely different- I’m surprised a programmer cannot grasp that basic concept. Aweber has a set of lists. Infusionsoft has a database of people, which you can apply tags to that mean whatever you want them to. Aweber does not do printed letters, fax, or voice broadcasts. Have you even been to aweber.com?
I’m not bashing Aweber at all; I’m sure if you talked to them they would tell you they do not have all the features Infusionsoft has, and they don’t offer a shopping cart, either.
It’s funny that the people I know who actually use Infusionsoft like it; they did not tell me any horror stories like I see here.
He was only using a small portion of what Infusionsoft does and the portion he was using happens to be what AWeber does. It was a simple suggestion based off a small comment, you’re reading way into things.
Curious though that you’re all about Infusionsoft when you came to this site by searching for “Infusionsoft scam”. Have a beef that you didn’t share?
Actually I just searched on Infusionsoft, and Google suggested the term with “scam” on the end, so I was curious what the alleged scam was, since the people I know who use it are happy with it.
An API that isn’t as great as you would like it is in no way a scam.
I never said it was a scam, those statements were people who found the post and added their own comments. I said it was awful, speaking of the API and customer service. I stand behind that.
The problem with AWeber is that there is no logic flow. You can drop someone into an e-mail sequence and it runs until you take them out manually or it ends.
It’s the same thing for Constant Contact or iContact. These are perfectly good solutions for people who want to do e-mail campaigns but they are limited to that.
I already have autoresponders in my 1ShoppingCart and I use them. But that’s all they are. Just dumb autoresponders. They cannot make changes based on the actions of the recipient.
We really value the logic that you can build into your campaigns in InfusionSoft. We have a long campaign that drives the prospects to a sales video. Once they click the link that takes them to the video, we kick them over into another sequence that’s based on them having seen that video. If they buy at any point, the system kicks them over into both a Welcome and a Training sequence. That’s the thing we like about InfustionSoft, is that we can build intelligence into the follow up. That way we aren’t annoying new customers with sales info and we aren’t offering special deals to people who just bought and no one has to remember to do this manually.
The other thing that AWeber is cannot do is fax broadcasts or voice broadcasts. We use both of those. Our target market is Joe-Sixpack-Excavator. In general, these guys are not e-mails savvy. But they all understand a fax or a voice message.
And it’s true, we could be using a separate service for both of those and do it cheaper. But someone would have to work hard at making sure the lists we send to each were correct all the time. Btdt! And I’d never go back.
We use also use InfusionSoft to keep track of all of our customers and prospects. We’ve used ACT and Maximizer and both are good in their own ways but you still have to do so much stuff manually. Neither of those can do e-mail, fax or voice broadcasts or take in information from webforms. it all has to be done manually and labor is expensive.
InfusionSoft isn’t for everyone. Just like you said, there are other solutions. Autoresponders. Contact Manager software. Shopping Carts. Fax broadcast system. Voice broadcas systems. But they are all separate. The don’t talk to each other. They cannot react.
So, as an actual user who’s seen what it can do for his business and has a high value products, I would never go back. Not even if they offered me double my investment back.
I appreciate Greg’s time in posting the response. The biggest reason that companies are looking into Infusionsoft is not the API or shopping cart. What they are looking for is getting away with one off emails that don’t allow for change or multiple macros to fire off automatically. If someone is looking for an auto responder they are better off going with Constant Contact or Awebber. However, if you’re going to do that you might as well master Outlook and hope that people follow up with you about your business based on the minimal follow up you’d do.
The great thing about Infusionsoft is that we are not a big dumb software company that doesn’t care. We value everyone’s opinions and try to relate how they feel. I really feel that anyone reading this blog should consider the consistent message that Infusionsoft is willing to listen and do better. It does no one any good to plead the victim and draw others down.
Kirk – great suggestion. No doubt some are here trying to plead victims. But not everyone. I’m a current Infusion user who is simply FRUSTRATED by the predictable “it’s not our problem” attitude of many IS personnel. I’m a long-time client who has had lots of experience with Infusion. I appreciate aspects of the system, and am deeply frustrated with other aspects. I’m glad you are willing to listen. What I personally need is someone who is willing to take an OWNERSHIP mentality to problems, and not look for an opportunity to pass/deflect the buck. I understand that everything IS integrates with is not perfect either, and we are not expecting perfection. But the problems that come up are not small ones, and they are not infrequent.
Here we go again, I received an email from Clate Mask, really not from him but a marketing blast, then one from Joseph Manna stating the pricing is now $ 199 not the 59.95 like it was, but when I call him, he knows nothing about pricing, even though he sent an email with pricing.
I wonder if there really is a company out there that is HONEST. IT appears as Infusionsoft is not honest company. No one knows about pricing, each rep makes up his own pricing. Since this is happening what kind of support will they offer???? with nothing established and its a free for all environment. How long will Insfuionsoft last?
I gave them once a golden screw driver for screwing with me, Maybe we should send another giant poster for screwing with all the companies and not have established pricing. Imagine all the people that did pay the $ 4000.00 set up fee and now Joseph Manna states ” the setup fees are waived” Waived is amazing that so many paid and now they are not.. Professional Scam artist.
My only hope was to find a quality CRM for Sales. How many do you think got rip off by them to-date?
B. Nolan doesn’t have his facts straight. Infusionsoft is offering a basic self serve for $199 a month to those potential clients who don’t need help with the set up. Maybe if B. Nolan figures out which company he’s trying to complain about he’d know that Infusionsoft has never sold its software for that price.
Just because you have a rant doesn’t mean that you are truthful or accurate.
B. Nolan had his fact correct. but Kirk can mislead people all day long, since he works for infusion.
More awfulness. Infusionsoft makes passwords expire for no reason other than time. It’s frequent too, they only last a month or two. This along with the crazy rules makes it way more likely you will write your password down and end up with a breach. Check out the password requirements:
Just one of many examples of poor usability in Infusionsoft. If someone gains access to your account, requiring a password change is pretty useless since they will just go ahead and change your password and lock you out. (No, email confirmation is not required.)
Those are PCI requirements. At least they are not as heinous as the windows domain password requirements
Then it seems odd that PCI Compliance would allow anyone to change someone’s login with just access to the email account. It doesn’t matter how strong a user’s Infusionsoft password is if all it takes is to guess the secret question on Yahoo. Not to mention that you store the actual passwords, not hashed copies. (I really hope they are encrypted.)
What are my options??
I run a dental office off of dental-industry-specific software (Eaglesoft; an SQL database) and don’t have e-commerce.
I want to manage combined email and direct mail campaigns (emails andled automatically; direct mail via third party or by giving us a daily list). I want logic-based management of who is sent what, and I want it updated daily based on things like (A) website request for additional information (they fillout a form on website; software collects their info and starts a contact campaign), (B) patients who have certain procedures on that day, (C) patients who refer others… people that fall off our radar screen. The kind of contact management I’d otherwise have to hire a full time person to manage.
It sounds as though Infusion could manage the web stuff easily. I’m not sure how I’d be able to daily update my Infusionsoft database from Eaglesoft (again, have someone manually do it?).
No $$ transactions or anything like that. I’m just looking for am automated way to manage lots of contacts with my patients based on potential interest, procedures, etc.
It’s alot of money for my small business if this isn’t simply the greatest solution for what I want.
If not Infusionsoft, then what?
Over 3,000 small businesses helped and specifically over 300 dentists with their systemization, marketing, web, seo, processes, growth strategies and implementation… lets at least meet for a 15 minute collaboration call. What say ye Malcolm George?
getmeautomated@myautomationcoach.com
Wow, I was interested in getting in touch with this company but from reading your very descriptive and detailed account with them, and other peoples comment, I don’t think I will be contacting them anytime soon.
It’s also funny to me that on their twitter page as of 6/17/09 they have this written: “Good morning! How is everyone’s small business going? Keeping customers happy, following up, increasing revenue?”
The impression I get is that they are very much about saying what they think customers want to hear, but getting results from them is a different story… or no one there knows what is going on, and there are so many jobs spread across the board that getting to the right “department” and getting a specific answer is a major headache.
Thanks for the post Jon, it’s good to see someone take charge and make a company accountable for their business practices. So often, people don’t have a voice when something has gone wrong with a company, but you took to the Internet and it looks like people have heard you. I certainly do not plan to use InfusionSoft, and I more than likely won’t or wouldn’t recommend it to anyone else.
We are currently trying to figure out how the Pay Plans are all put together and having a horrible time. Just found out the the limits seem to be at a 1000 max. Our test program is used to dump the tables so we can find things. We could find what we were looking for then noticed that we are only getting 1000 records. This was an unpleasant surprise. No error msg just only can get 1000 records.
Previously we tried using the Synced and cannot set or reset it.
I posted this originally over at Jonathan Van Clute’s blog:
http://tooltrainer.com/tools/blog/infusionsoft-customer-service-sucks/
When I used to use them about 3 years ago they had a ’special gift from Santa’ offer – just click here.
So I clicked (as you do)
‘Congratulations your SPECIALLY DISCOUNTED gift is on it’s way from the North Pole – you just pay $xxx instead of the usual $yyy (I forget the exact $)’
With that SINGLE CLICK they charged my cc for some useless info product, printed single-sided on chunky huge poorly-bound manuals – some gift!
It gets better…
Oh well I thought – lets see if it’s any good, I’ll politely request a refund after seeing it. I felt it was the least I could do as Santa was going to all that trouble to bring it all the way from the North Pole.
One day there’s a knock on my door (in the UK). ‘Maybe it’s Santa with my ‘gift”.
I answer the door and it’s the mailman.
’scuse me sir but you’ll need to pay an extra $xxx – there’s not enough postage to cover the cost of sending it…
We were considering “IS” and ran into this site. I went through the DEMO with a rep and it appears very solid. One concern I had was certainly the customer support. Because regardless of how good the functions are, if you are not able to get them working, they are worthless. And that is always a concern. And you would certainly expect top flight support for $4000 down and $300 per month.
We have made investments in other software and ran into big problems with support that either stalled projects or stopped them altogether…wasting valuable time and money.
I respect the owner of this site postings, but why is no one listing viable InfusionSoft alternatives? And run of the mill shopping carts are not alternatives.
I’ve been researching systems for some time now, and we decided to go with UltraCart (http://www.ultracart.com), and hooking it in with a locally -hosted Interspire Email Marketing autoresponder (http://www.interspire.com/emailmarketer/).
We are in the free trial of UltraCart, and went with it because of its one-click upsells and sales-funnel capabilities for upsells, cross sells, downsells, etc. We then pass the contact info to the autoresponder which can do triggers for different email sequences.
This combination seems to give us the majority of what IS offers, at a fraction of the cost (only about $59/month for UltraCart, plus the one-time purchase price for Email Marketer).
BTW, I think Infusionsoft is an awesome concept; we were just able to approximate all of its major functionality with a little patience by combining these other two solutions.
I am yet another disgruntled customer just letting anyone who seeks a CRM solution to beware Infusionsoft. I got the ole bait and switch. I was “sold on” the Deluxe version and then sold the Basic version. The rep told me it would do everything I needed except co-branding I needed for my affiliates. I was mislead about integration with my software program, which the salesman (who is no longer employed there)knew was my greatest need. He convinced me to try it for three months and if I didn’t see the benefits in my business he would see that my set up fee was refunded. The program is a nice daily planner, but that isn’t worth $200 per month. I finally woke up when I got ready to import a letter I had written an realized support had never resolved the issue I had importing a simple letterhead. For $200 each and every month they couldn’t even make that work. I called to cancel and asked for my set-up back. What a joke…. Surprise, surprise – my request was denied. Don’t even talk with these people without recording the conversation, they lied to me and they will lie to you. Whatever it takes to get your money. I will not lay down and roll over for them. Anyone know of a Better Business Bureau I can report these people to? This may not be financially viable as a lawsuit, but I can at least warn others about my experience.
I’ve researched various CRM products, I don’t know much about infusionsoft, but their infatuation with various “sales gurus” makes me nervous (plus comments above)….I’m just about to go with saleforce.com, I believe with some third party add-ons you could duplicate infusionsoft follow up marketing etc.
Heard lots of good things about Salesforce. And there’s a free trial, not a BS giant setup fee like with Infusionsoft. No reason not to try it!
Eric and Administrator,
Would you mind reporting on your efforts/successes/failures/wins/losses/time/expenses in evaluating Salesforce.com and the various add-ons/bolt-ons/strap-ons required to recreate the built-in features you get with Infusionsoft?
As a 4.5 year user of SFDC and certified SFDC instructor for Dell I can tell all who read this that SFDC was not built for the small business entrepreneur to automate their marketing, tag prospects, process ecommerce activities, create, manage and deliver follow-up sequences, etc.
While their App-Exchange offers some nice features how much time and money will you spend researching and implementing tools that come built-in with Infusionsoft?
The bottom line is the 1-15 person company that is Infusionsoft’s stated target market needs the functionality Infusionsoft provides all in one package. The double bottom line is most entrepreneurs are a) terrible at writing, b) terrible at marketing, c) terrible at delegating, d) terrible at setting goals, e) terrible at ecommerce, f) terrible at affiliate/JV marketing, g) terrible at selling…basically, they’re good at whatever skill around which they launched their current venture (programming, PC repair, mortgages, basket weaving) and they are bound to fail with any system they choose unless they get a boatload of help.
However, “nobody ever got fired for buying IBM,” so when they get SFDC and 45 days later it’s a $65/mo/user online calender and Excel-generating SaaS that is not helping their marketing and sales efforts one iota they just quietly chalk it up to their own ineptitude and their sales continue to dwindle. But if they get Infusionsoft and quickly get overwhelmed with how much it does the natural human tendency kicks in they blame the messenger for the fact that growing a business is tough and you need to put processes in place to make your business life – and life – easier and more productive.
I look forward to hearing your feedback – or anyone’s feedback – on implementing SFDC and how it has helped their small business grow in the last year.
Good Selling,
Wes
Life is too short for follow up calls.
Sell the Sizzle Sell-where the beef!!
If it walks and looks like a duck it’s a duck
Do you feel you are being sold with fancy broad strokes promises or success and results?
Do you feel that someone is just tangling a carrot?
Are marketers just pitching you I watch infomercials where they request a credit card to try us and offer free stuff as an add bonus and pressure to buy right now
I have seen so many times in my travels consulting companies building custom applications for clients then all of a sudden of the revelation/ realization why don’t we go into the software business
Unfortunately the solution is designed built and implemented with the agenda of generating Consulting Services
Do you feel every time you request hard facts and figures you get loop back to speak with some slick used car salespeople. They strategy is to just keeping on spinning you until you give in and go along these slick lines of grandeur?
Every time you ask for information that is meaningful you are to a Coach (fancy term for a Billable Consultants) to discuss your need and build a custom program Why can’t you just get the substantive information you need without have to try a credit card
Serious Business people need want and desire clear and direct answer instead of fancy dialogue not slide ways responses to move you forward in the sale process
Don’t you really desire is clear as a bell and direct answers, information that your organization needs in order to make an educated decision– sorry no free stuff no fancy promotion and party give always.
Whats amazing it they state that on there website it only a Six Minute set up, and now you get to try it for free, before they charge $ 4000.00 for the set up, Six into 4000 is $ 666.66, Strange where have we seen this number before?????? at the rate per minute they claim there time is worth $39K an hour. WOW! most affordable for small businesses…..like I stated before, Con Job.
Brad Nolan
To be fair they recently scrapped the setup fee.
Infusionsoft finally paid my money back after getting the BBB Arizona involved. I am not going to say anything malicious about InfusionSoft; however, buyer beware and don’t buy into their pressure sales tactics. It may be a good solution for some companies it was not the answer for my company. Sugar CRM seems to be fitting well for my company.
Can’t believe nobody has mentioned OFFICE AUTOPILOT.
I was with Infusionsoft for about 2 months before things went hilariously wrong… and of course that was after the data transfer that resembled getting a filling drilled from a polite dentist who is, unfortunately, out of anaesthesia.
It was right around that time that I met someone at a business conference who happened to work with the guys at Office Autopilot (and their sub-brand sendpepper.com), and he said I should contact them and give it a try.
Office Autopilot ROCKS. It is everything that infusion tries to be except that it all works, and it’s all so simple and intuitive that I was able to do my own data transfer in under an hour. Amazing. Everything from tech support to deliverability and tracking is first rate and straight-forward.
I don’t want to sound like an advertisement, but this system has taken my business to the next level without any crazy set up fees or draconian user policies.
The one caveat is that Office Autopilot does not supply the electronic shopping cart service. They have an integration with Ultracart that is seamless and has been just unbelievable for my 4 info product businesses. (Ultracart is another big recommendation, by the way. Cheap as dirt and does everything from advanced affiliate tracking to “upsell after” to back-office management). The integration of the 2 is cheaper than infusion with zero hassles.
My 2 cents.
Alex
Thanks for mentioning Office Autopilot, that’s the first time I’d heard the product mentiond. I’ve checked out the site and their Send Pepper product seems the perfect fit for me.
My main focus is executing and following up direct mail campaigns and that product even integrates a PURL script and landing page creator! both major pluses over IS. Their tracking looks brilliant too. Everything I hoped IS was and more for 60% cheaper than IS how good is that. Oh it also integrates properly with Outlook and GMail so very happy about that.
Alex I appreciate you mentioning Office Autopilot. I found this thread while searching for an alternative to InfusionSoft.
I bought IS based on its reputation and the stable of top marketers already using it. Having played with it for 4 months I won’t rtecommend it to others. Every test campaign I sent went straight to my SPAM folder, I had no end of difficulty connectign to my account and the fact it did not integrate with Outlook tasks and was so clunky to use meant it was a very negative experience.
I hope Send Pepper and Office Autopilot deliver.
We’ve liked http://www.goodbarry.com. It integrates eCommerce, CRM, email marketing with auto-responders in one. And it’s cheap ($39 & up / month), especially compared to Infusionsoft. We had horrible customer service with Salesforce.com so stopped using them. We were frustrated trying to tie together QuickBooks, Website, Marketing, eMails etc. Now we just use goodbarry and QB. Not perfect but best I’ve found. This link might also help people: http://themarketingmojo.com/2009/04/14/rankings-demand-generation/#comment-1609
I do admire IS, trying to help busy small companies to compete with the big dogs by automating vital marketing. They should send their code out opensource so everyone could pitch in and fix it faster.
ConfusionSoft is a Sales organization…not a technology company…
They are looking for a high volume of customers who will barely use
the system..not a few who will dig in and quickly find the limitations…
Wow,
A friend of mine pointed me this way after his own strange “customer service” experiences with InfusionSoft.
All I can think is they must have one heck of an affiliate program.
Does it seem strange to anyone else that Infusionsoft’s affiliate management is done by CommissionJunction rather than their own system?
I have been following infusionsoft for sometime as I am a fan of Joe Polish and Dan Kennedy who are marketing royalty using and endorsing it. On my quest to not getting duped on this type of software, can you recommend a product that is solid without all the obvious issues above
Dan Kennedy is a part owner of IS… just to make sure the record is straight.
Jon,
How was your visit at Infusionsoft last week?
Wes
It was quite productive–there should be some stuff to show off soon. Still a lot of work to do, but at least it’s going in the right direction
.
Jon,
As a CMAC for over a year I like Infusionsoft and the people.
While I have had some frustration with some features (or lack thereof) the staff has treated me like gold and, no, I don’t think it’s because I’m a CMAC. (I’m not some world-renowned super marketer. Just a former Air Force football player with 6 kids building my own sales and marketing consulting gig in the bowels of SoCal with a passion for sales and marketing training/consulting.)
I am also certified as a trainer with Salesforce.com and I used SFDC since 2004 with various high tech companies.
With that experience I have no qualms recommending Infusionsoft to small business owners over SFDC. SFDC was meant for large enterprises. SFDC sucks when it comes to helping small businesses market and sell and grow.
I will stipulate that I approach using Infusionsoft from a sales and marketing standpoint vs. a programmer, which I am not.
Infusionsoft has been great for my small business clients that are looking to:
- embed web forms.
- build a database.
- tag that database for future, relevant correspondence.
- communicate with that database regularly with good, relevant content.
- codify and quantify their unique selling propositions to ensure their messaging is delivered to 100% of prospects 100% of the time.
- track open rates with HTML emails and trackable links embedded in the emails.
- process credit cards (ecommerce) for both one time orders and subscriptions via order forms and/or a shopping cart.
- offer an upsell at the time of checkout.
- store and share notes and files/documents with small teams.
- grow.
I’m glad Infusionsoft dropped the $5,000 setup fee. I was not a fan of that at all.
Infusionsoft, when installed and used properly like Gregg LaPore described above, is PERFECT for the one-office dentist, Realtor®, mortgage broker, promotional items company, IT VAR, restaurant owner, etc with 1 – 25 employees and thinks marketing is putting a wrap on their car and their picture on their business card and expect the phone to ring.
I’ve been selling and/or training since 1995 and I can tell you that Infusionsoft and Dan Kennedy made me stretch to fully comprehend and begin to master the art of marketing through persuasive copywriting, consistent follow up and upsells.
Did Infusionsoft sell a little more than they could handle? Probably. (How many small businesses [or former small businesses] wished they had that problem?)
Did it cause some pain for some users? Obviously.
Are some of their sales people a little pushy and cheesy? Yes (but none of them have been through my sales training courses!)
Do any of the sales people possess the power of telekinesis or Jedi Mind Tricks that forced people to buy? Not that I know of.
Do the support staff blow people off? Apparently but they’ve never done it to me nor any of my clients and I don’t have ESP, telekinesis or Obi Wan’s powers.
Are the support staff inexperienced? I noticed an influx of rookies 6-8 months ago but that seems to have tapered off and the folks I’ve spoken with since then have been fine if not superb.
Is it a better solution for the small businesses I listed above compared to hobbling together Outlook, Excel, 1ShoppingCart, aWeber and ConstantContact and Salesforce.com? Without a doubt.
If you’re a 90 person company with 65 SKUs and you’re growing 50% a year and you’re adding 5 products a month…Infusionsoft may not be right for you…but they admit it.
If you don’t have a list, you’re just starting out online, you’ve never created a webform and you’ve never even used the “Categories” feature in Outlook to segment your contacts, might you be better off with a ConstantContact account for $19 or $29/mo? Probably. But how big do you want to be and how quickly? If the answer is “BIG” and “fast” then it may be worth it for you to start out with Infusionsoft.
If you’re a 10 person company with two sales people and you, the owner, are involved in sales and and you’re doing manual, duplicate entry and sales and leads are falling off the table then Infusionsoft can be a life-saver.
But if you’ve never written a follow-up sequence or exported contacts as CSV files or tagged/categorized contacts, and you can’t explain your own company’s USP and you can’t rattle off in your sleep 3 COMPELLING reasons why I should buy from YOU then you’d be well-advised to take the $4,000 you just saved on the Infusionsoft setup fee and retain someone to help you set all of this up for you FROM DAY ONE!
Why?
Because sales and marketing are:
A) Not the same.
B) Not as easy as it looks.
C) Friggin’ IMPOSSIBLE to master in a timely fashion for the typical “E-Myth” technician that thinks “I can shimmy a door better than my jerk of a boss” and goes out on his own to open his own contracting business only to have his ass, kidneys, liver, lungs, nostrils, knee caps and esophagus handed to him a mere 6 months later after he’s run out of fancy business cards and relatives he can beg business off of.
If you try to duct tape your marketing and bootstrap any platform, in 4 months you’ll be out $800 in fees, $8,000 in lost opportunity costs, and 60 hours of software-induced frustration and you’ll be posting on here how much you dislike Infusionsoft.
Keep up the good work, Jon. Thanks for helping Infusionsoft improve. Thanks for being open-minded about helping them improve.
Remember, Life’s too short for follow up calls.
Feels like a scam to me – I cancelled my subscription on the day I bought it. They continued to bill me incorrect and now owe me $299 in back charges, having agreed on the phone that I was billed in error.
However…still I am being “chased” for monthly payments (despite not having a subscription) and still, despite several phone conversations, they have not refunded my money.
Crap service – open lies by people who promise to sort the issue out – still no refund.
DO NOT USE INFUSION SOFT.
Wow… pretty interesting dialogue here. As a former Infusionsoft employee, I can honestly say that the crew at Infusion is dedicated to the success of every customer. The business environment is fast-paced as it should be and the company has been wildly successful. I’ll admit that the system isn’t perfect (what software is???), but the functionality provided by Infusion and the way it can transform your business is unsurpassed.
I’m very familiar with Sugar, Salesforce, Sage and the like and Infusion is built for small businesses who understand automated marketing.
The majority of the business owners who will benefit most from Infusion have no clue what the heck an API is nor how to use one. We’re talking about taking mom & pop shops into this century and automating the mundane.
I’m stoked to see Infusion growing and, like all software, it’s not perfect, but it’s pretty darn sweet if you ask me.
BTW… if you’re curious why I’m no longer at Infusion… Arizona is not my kind of place to live. Couldn’t get out of there fast enough.
Jason, if everyone at IS is dedicated to the success of each customer, they don’t have a very effective way of translating that dedication into effective actions.
I’m a customer, and I consult for small businesses and large businesses. Much of their customer service is horrible… some is not.
Their software updates are buggy as hell, in particular the HTML email editor in the last two releases have destroyed email messages in our campaigns.
The idea of IS and marketing automation is great. There are a lot of things that the company could do better. Q&A and customer service would be at the top of my list. Why did Scott have to take on the top customer service job, after Joanne’s departure? And why did she leave so quickly? Scapegoat?
It is not all bad, we have more than quadrupled our business since starting with IS, but it isn’t all due to their great software and service. In fact last 10 days or so I think that I could pin the loss of several thousand dollars on their email system alone…
Lastly, their email deliverability is truly pathetic. Some large ISPs routinely block every email that originates with the infusionmail.com TLD. When that happens, IS tech staff act surprised, even though they know it is happening. These issues cost my company money, and it pisses me off. If it were my company, I’d hire the best email specialist in the industry and get that part of the system fixed. The recently changed their tagline to “Email Marketing 2.0 – lol. I’d think they need to get email marketing 1.0 down first – deliver the mail… that’s the most important thing.
Based on what I’ve seen through this dialog it appears that the API is the real issue. From my perspective as a prospective user, that’s not good. However I plan to have a software company build the API link from my current scheduling and order processing softare to InfusionSoft. We need lead management and automated follow-up with our customers. At $199 per month is there better software that I should be looking at? What are the limitations on the software or the size of the contact database that can be built?
Pete,
You can get a 30-day free trial of Infusionsoft on my website and I’ll help you test the heck out of it before you make a decision. There is no limit to the size of your contact database but you’ll have to upgrade from the Basic to the Deluxe to the Pro for 500,000 contacts. Custom plans can be created if you go over 500,000 contacts. Infusionsoft has been the best for me and my growing number of clients for “lead management and automated follow up.”
If you click on my name above it will take you to my website and you can contact me from there anytime.
Good selling,
Wes
Infusionsoft turned out to be my worst investment.
Infusion fraudulently charged my customers. I had a free trial setup through an Infusionsoft web form that required a 0.49 Cent authorization charge. Instead they charged my customer $49.00!!! I called in and complained and was told there isn’t a problem that my form was wrong. They gave me instructions to modify the form. I made those modifications and still my customers were charged $49.00. Can you imagine how angry our customers were???? During that time about 90% of our free trials canceled because of the fraudulent charge. After 3 full weeks of this happening I called in and said I wanted to cancel and get a refund. I received a call that day saying my problem “is a known bug” and that many customers were experiencing the same issue on my server. Funny, for 3 weeks I was told that nothing was wrong. I call to cancel and suddenly its a known bug. I was told that my problem would be resolved within the next 5 days. 3 days later my ticket suddenly showed up as resolved. I checked and the bug was still there. 2 weeks later after going back and forth I canceled. No refund was ever given and they charged me the following month. [they did refund that last monthly charge]. I was told that Scot Morrison would call me regarding my refund. After leaving him countless voice mails I just gave up. Considered going to the BBB but I was just ready to move on.
Bottom line, as a small business putting thousands up front was hard for me to do. I made the investment and was totally burnt. This is just one issue. I experienced a laundry list of bugs and poor service. Do not use Infusionsoft.
This is scary to anyone, like me, considering Infusionsoft. Here’s my question. What can and cannot one do if they do NOT us ethe API? Is it required to use? And what exactly is Infusionsoft – ie I hear it referred to as software – is that installed on my desktop or on the web server?
Mark, unless you are a software developer, you don’t need to use the API. Some other products that you might use (like infusonWP at http://infusionwp.com) depend upon the API, but it is their headache to deal with.
You can very effectively use IS as a regular business owner without knowing a thing about the API.
I am so glad to have found your site come up 3rd in rankings under Infusion. You are right on!! I am adding a customer service correspondence I had with Infusion to tell my story. I have more issues with them than this, but this one is about creating a step in a follow-up sequence. If you name it the same name as another step, it overrides that message. So, I had named my steps Message 1, Message 2, etc. I created about 50 emails with these Step Names. Only to later find out that it was overriding my message every time I created a step using the same name. No error message came up saying it would do this, nothing on the page says that you need to have a unique name. It makes it seem like the name is just for your reference only. I bring up other issues, but this should give you an understanding to start reading their response….
INFUSIONS RESPONSE:
This is actually something we put in place for your benefit. It is a good thing to be able to reference the template with the step. It is easy to know what the template is if you are looking in each FUPS step.. But, if you are looking at your template library and your email templates are not named something that resembles the step title you would have no idea where that template is being used.
You can always change it but typically or as a best practice it is a good thing to label the two (step and email title) something similar.
All my best,
Infusionsoft Support
MY RESPONSE:
This is IN NO WAY a benefit. There is no doubt I frustrated with this system. I am shocked by your answer to this issue. It would ONLY BE A BENEFIT if you had a pop up message that says: “YOU ALREADY HAVE A TEMPLATE WITH THIS NAME, would you like to continue and override this message or cancel and rename this message?” You don’t set up your system to tell us anything, we have no idea that naming it the SAME NAME as another STEP that it will override all our messages under that STEP NAME. How would we ever know this? How does overriding a ton of messages because you don’t give us a clue helping us? I had to go in a RECREATE all my steps, delete the old ones, and rename them all with a unique name.
A VERY BIG PROBLEM with your system is you DON’T have any ERROR MESSAGES. Your system just lets us continue and we believe everything is just fine but later find out it is not. It is a big mess. This is has been SUCH A BIG problem that I would discourage my clients from using this system because of it.
Even your support guy I was talking with agreed this was a glitch in the system and was not right. He apologized for this inconvenience. And then you say it is for our convenience.
Some other examples of this kind of issue of not having an ERROR message…
You don’t say ANYTHING about NO COMMAS or CHARACTERS in the FROM NAME or TITLE of an email. Where is the warning when I click NEXT telling me this was not okay? Not letting me continue? Where was the message or link explaining what not to put in a FROM NAME or TITLE in an email to clue us in on your system? Every other system I work in you CAN have commas in the FROM NAME & TITLE, so to assume that we know this, is very irresponsible of Infusion. Instead your system let me continue with the email, pick my mailing list, leading me to believe the email was successful. I know you are going to say GO TO REPORTS, but why? There should be an ERROR message saying I can’t have COMMAS, like every other system in the world.
Another issue, we created username and passwords for our AFFILIATES, sent a ton of emails out with their login information. But, the affiliates were not able to log in. WHY? Because Infusion doesn’t allow you to have more than 8 digits in the password. Yet, when setting the passwords up, there was NO ERROR MESSAGE! How about – “Your password is too long. Please no more than 8 characters for your password”
I could give more examples of this exact same thing. We think something is working but later find out it didn’t.
My suggestion:
ERROR MESSAGES – Set up ERROR MESSAGES if something is not correct. Don’t let us just continue with these errors. AND give us little messages or links under things that are important. Like “no characters in the from name or title’, or a pop up “YOU ALREADY HAVE A TEMPLATE WITH THIS NAME, would you like to continue and override this message or cancel and rename this message?” or “Your password is too long. Please no more than 8 characters for your password” As a web designer, I know that it is easy to set up something like – a field that doesn’t allow more than 8 character to be entered – this stuff is basic.
I should also point out that we did name the title of the email the same as the step in some instances. For some reason, it still overrided our messages.
I’m afraid that the software engineers at IS don’t know too much about database design or normalization.
If I’m not mistaken, their system is running all applications using mySQL… unbelievable.
It’s the worst CRM I’ve ever used. Unfortunately, not only is the CRM junk, but the management there defends their position on not honoring refunds by using their religion (Mormon) as a crutch. I actually had someone from the management team email me saying that he was a Mormom and prayed before speaking with me. Apparently God told him to screw me and not refund any money.
Just a question for this group….if the product is so bad why have these problems not been reported to BBB? I use the BBB to verify a business and to see what the customers are saying. In a forum like this one it seems easier to gripe without really backing things up. I am not asking this because of any affiliation with Infusionsoft but rather as one curious about this whole rant. I have setup (on my own) a trial version of the software. It cost me….my time! I have run through the full cycle of setting up a campaign, importing contacts, offering free stuff etc. When I spoke to the sales rep I simply told her that I was going to setup and use the software for the 15 day trial period then assess its usefulness.
The sales rep didn’t hound me or use any pressure on me. She did ask for more info on my business which is normal if a company really cares about their customers!
I think that some of the comments are short sighted and probably have very little reality behind them. Comments like Darren Brites seem to diminish the power of this rant….so what if the company has a mormon, jew, muslim, satanist or no religious background! Anyone who has ever dealt with people knows that there are the good, the bad and the ugly in every religion or non-religion!
Until I find some obvious fault in the program I will continue to use it for free. Once the trial has expired I will decided on what to do next.
FYI BBB only reports 11 issues in the last 36 months. How many of you really are sharing actual experiences
Amber,
Would you be willing to share the name of your sales rep (coach)? I have been trying to contact ours for 2 days and no one answers or returns my messages.
I managed to get the number of his manager and he also did not answer or return my messages.
Support said they cannot help me with my issue and I need to speak to my sales coach. My sales coach won’t contact me. His boss won’t contact me. The reception person transfers me to support when I ask for help with this. It’s impossible.
Sally
Once upon a time I signed up with Infusionsoft, I am a international exporter with customers in various countries, inside infusionsoft when trying to import my customer list, I found that not every country was listed and there was no way to add them, after several emails to their support I finally got an answer aprox 2 weeks later saying that they did have improvments in the pipeline and I would have to wait until a future update to have all countries listed, this was the start of a very poor experience, I cancelled my trial and sent them several emails to not bill me for the trial as it was a waste of my time, the next month on credit card statement they billed me any way, then it took them a further 2 months to credit the money back to my account, I also had an issue with one of the sales people promising me some material and DVD package that never turned up even though they assured me it had been sent, then retracted what they had said and wanted to offer me some training instead, all in all not a good experience, there are a lot better systems out there at a fraction of the cost.
I really love InfusionSoft – the way it is designed to work is really beautiful. Regrettably, it does not always work the way it’s designed. I am getting really frustrated with the bugs – not because there are bugs – any complicated system will have them – but because tech support frequently says that they cannot reproduce the bug, that the bug doesn’t exist, or that it’s really NOT a bug.
For example, consider ANY software system: If I enter 09/15 into a mandatory DATE field, what would you expect to have happen? It should convert it to 09/15/09 (current year), or it should throw an error and tell the person to enter a valid date.
InfusionSoft sees 09/15 as an invalid date, converts it to NULL and enters this mandatory field into the database as an empty field.
Tech support’s response to this is that “they understand my concern” and here’s the correct way of fixing this: Tell the user to enter mm/dd/yy in that field.
I don’t know about the rest of you, but it’s been my experience that users won’t enter data in proper formats even if you held a gun to their heads.
I mean – come ON! If you tell me I can make a field mandatory, then let it be so, and what software doesn’t append the current year to data that’s a valid date?
This is one of dozens of bugs that I have either worked around, given up on, or just stopped using because I could not make it work. With over 25 years of database and coding experience, I don’t think I’m daff to the issues.
I will be actively searching for a replacement to InfusionSoft very soon if they don’t step up.
I just got Infusionsoft last month.
Software seems fine for what we do in our company. We use it like a CRM, nothing more.
There are MANY bugs to be fixed, and another EXTREMELY important issue, is that for what they charge, they need 24 HOUR support!! That is a MUST!!
In other hand, so far the software works kinda well, but the day it gives me any shit like the one you are mentioning in this blog i switch to another company as soon as I can. I am not “in love” with the software and so far the Infusion performance is “Just OK”
I got Infusion, but I must say I tested EVERYTHING else before made my choice. I tried SugarCRM, Netsuite, esalestrack, salespucher, pipelinedeals, relenta, oprius, salesforce, webcrm, etc etc etc etc…
And the TRUTH is that there is NOT a complete, comprehensive and yet powerful software out there! Doesnt matter what you search there is NO ONE that can handle what we (the customers) need!
Infusion sucks? Can’t say, Havent tested it that long. Will let you know if something happens.
And I repeat, 24/HR support is a MUST!
Camikazee,
If you’d like to discuss ways to use Infusionsoft for more than just CRM feel free to shoot me a note and we can set a time to chat.
I’d like to see their support hours expanded as well. It would be nice to see it at least go from 6 AM ET to 7 PM PT.
Wes
I tried Infusionsoft before coming across this and other pages listing all the grievances people were having
I’ve now experienced first-hand most, if not all, of the problems people on this page have listed.
8 days now , 5 emails and no response from their tech team
Goodbye Infusionsoft! Switching to Sendpepper.com
There is always some asshole that starts posts like this; funny.
Hey Fed up, No company is perfect. I have been using infusionsoft for 1 year and I love it. It does everything I want and some of what the idiots post here is funny.
Why don’t you get off your ass and pick up the phone???
I call Infusionsoft when I have a problem and they help me fix it. The online community is great for support, and their webinars really help me grow my business.
Opinions are like assholes & everyones stinks. What makes a person say Infusionsoft stinks when we love it.
We love Infusionsoft! It just keeps getting better & better… 5 stars to Infusionsoft!!!
Posted with eloquence and class lol
You don’t think people posting here have tried calling to get their issues resolved? READ what was written above Einstein, it doesn’t matter whether you call, email, or write a letter, Infusionsoft will only cause users more grief.
You are in the minority here, if Infusionsoft is so terrific why is there 100 complaints for every positive mention of the company?
I’ve gone with another company and, 3 weeks in, I’m already feeling relived to not have to deal with the nightmare that is Infusionsoft anymore.
And tonight their site is even down lol.. *slaps forehead*
FedUp,
I’m not sure what happened to you but Infusionsoft has been great for me. I took at look at SendPepper and it looks nice but they’re charging $139/mo for only 10,000 contacts. So it looks like a decent tool for newbies/rookies with small lists but it’s an incomplete tool for professionals with big lists.
The reason there is a ratio of “100:1 complaints to compliments,” as you say, is simply human nature. The average consumer will tell 21 people when they are dissatisfied but only 3-7 when they are happy.
If you are truly so relieved then go forward with vim and vigor and vitality with your new SaaS and be happy. I’m not sure why, if you are so relieved, you are coming back here mouthing off.
If I did nothing but spew hate on every company or product or service that has ever let me down for one reason or another I’d never get anything done. Go kill it with whatever product that works for you and don’t look back.
Happy New Year.
Wes Schaeffer, The Sales Whisperer®
Jon – I feel you! I read your blog; you are obviously a very talented coder.
——–
Dear All,
I am sure the Infusionsoft API could be better. I am also sure that some of the code you have written could be better also. Things are always changing and there is always room for improvement.
Software doesn’t make you money, sales and marketing knowledge does! That is why Infusionsoft is so successful. They have made the Inc. 500 list 3 years in a row, going from just under $600,000 gross in 2004 to over 12.6 million in 2008. Don’t believe me, visit http://www.inc.com/inc500 and find out for yourself.
Why is Infusionsoft growing so rapidly? They have helped hundreds of small businesses not only double, but even triple and quadruple their sales. I should know, as I own one of those businesses!
Don’t believe me, read this blog post made by Clate Mask, the founder and CEO of Infusionsoft: http://www.infusionblog.com/company-info/the-double-your-sales-club-wall-featuring-you/
You be the judge!
Lastly, I am very happy with Infusionsoft as a CRM to run my business. We use the API for our order forms, for our custom survey, and to build custom reports. Infusionsoft is more than a software company to me—they are a compassionate and knowledgeable team of people! Justin Morris’s contribution to this thread is a testament to their caring. He remains sincere and cordial throughout, something I cannot say for the creator of this announcement.
Respectfully,
Will Franco (Flywheel aka Ortonom)
jiveSYSTEMS, LCC
——–
Hi,
Stumbled on this site whilst trying to reference what type of backend database Infusionsoft actually uses. I have been amused reading the posts, and the Administrator busting the balls of the “cloak and dagger” comments made by the mystery shoppers! Love your early rant on the pretentious API guy.
Infusionsoft seems like a big affiliate pyramid selling scheme once you are hooked you are tossed in the bucket with all the others. Whilst i can’t comment on what its like – i have used ACT, Filemaker, MySQL but as a final solution I have seen a demo of Salesforce which looks fine.
For email management and deployment I can recommend Campaign Monitor (http://www.campaignmonitor.com/) which is my favourite, you can white label it and bill clients and is so easy to use, and also Constant Contact and Aweber. If you just need email solutions check these out and make a better informed decision.
BTW – what db does the product use?
Infusionsoft uses MySQL as far as I know. The app itself is Java.
Neil,
Why do you call Infusionsoft a bit “affiliate pyramid selling scheme?” That sentence makes no sense at all. I have restaurants using it, insurance agents, medical billing companies, etc. None of them are into pyramids or anything close to it.
My restaurant client now has hundreds of customers in their database getting a free burrito coupon on their birthday and offering coupons and Super Bowl specials and similar offers to drive traffic and they love it and so do their customers.
While some internet marketers have used Infusionsoft to do stupid stuff I wouldn’t say it’s Infusionsoft’s fault.
I’ve used SFDC for years and trained hundreds of Dell sales people on it and it’s a good tool for a big business to manage pipelines and run reports and view the dashboards for inventory planning, etc. But it’s the last thing I’d recommend to a business owner running a retail store with 5 employees. It won’t help them.
Business owners don’t know how to market. I just hung up with a nice lady from the East Coast who is launching a new fitness DVD and she has her web person designing her shopping cart before she does the website…and she has no marketing in place…hates social media…has no free reports…does not understand affiliate marketing (which would enable her to KILL IT with her product and training if she offered it to gyms, dieticians, chiropractors, etc,) yet she’s debating whether to buy 1,000 or more of her DVD’s from her distribution company!
AHHHHHHH! I COULDN’T TELL HER TO STOP FAST ENOUGH!
I told her to start selling the DVD’s now. Tell everyone if it’s normally $37.97 that it’s now $19.97 if they pre-order and allow 4-6 weeks for delivery. If she sells 500 it will make ordering the 1,000 that much easier. If she sells 10…then she knows she needs to make adjustments.
I just don’t get the Infusioinsoft bashers. It’s a powerful system. It’s not perfect. But what is? The support is unlimited and included with the monthly service. Some of the techs are green but they always get me an answer.
I’ll have a booth at Infusioncon March 10-12 in Scottsdale. It’s free to attend. Come on down and let’s discuss sales and marketing in person and all grow in 2010 and beyond.
Wes, it is easy to offer unlimited support when you don’t address tickets, answer emails or voice mail.
Unlimited support is only helpful when it gets your issues solved. I have tickets older than 6 months. Quite often tickets are closed as being ‘resolved’ by a tech who replies that “nothing is wrong with our app, it must be your error” or something equally inane because he doesn’t understand the issue or can’t reproduce it.
PS – Shieff Services [http://www.shieffservices.com/] answering your support line shouldn’t really count as unlimited 24 hour support should it?
We just started our company and we were considering Infusionsoft. If these complaints are valid what
CRM would you recommend to run campaigns with large databases.
Steve,
Infusionsoft can run a big database. Look me up at http://www.thesaleswhisperer.com if you’d like to discuss it in more detail. I have over 20,000 contacts in my database with hundreds of templates / web forms / products / subscriptions / events, etc. Not a problem.
Wes
Having looked at InfusionSoft and others, and having used Eloqua, Marketo, and TrueInfluence, I’d recommend the latter.
http://www.trueinfluence.com
Shepherd,
The monthly pricing True Influence charges would choke Donald Trump, Paris Hilton and Simon Cowell…and that’s just their “Entry” pricing of $1,500/mo. (Infusionsoft’s Basic pricing is just $199/mo.)
For $1,500/mo ($18,000/yr) for just 10,000 contacts True Influence hypnotize my clients, get 3 testimonials, 7 referrals and 10 upsells from every one of them…a week! For $5,000/mo for their Pro it better include a happy ending. (I won’t even discuss their $10,000/mo Enterprise.)
Dude, we’re talking about software for small businesses (1-25 employees) to streamline their sales and marketing. Case in point, I signed a new client this week that is selling a book. He has sold about 250 books in the last 90 days and wants to take it to the next level. He had 453 names spread across 5 databases (one in 1ShoppingCart, 1 in Outlook and 3 in Constant Contact).
None of his contacts were tagged so he couldn’t cross-reference or upsell to each database. (You don’t want to offer free shipping to a customer that just bought your book 10 days ago!)
Infusionsoft’s Deluxe package with eCommerce and Affiliate modules, 50,000 contacts, 75,000 emails and 2 user licenses is ideal for him. His VA can use one license, he can assign tasks to her, we’ll send daily sales via simple script that will generate and email a report to his fulfillment house, we’re creating affiliate resources for the 13,000+ potential affiliates in the pet industry, and he WILL double his sales in the next 12 months (probably 90 days.)
While True “Diamond-Encrusted-Platinum” Influence may be good for a 50-500 employee enterprise it’s the totally wrong offering for the clients Infusionsoft supports.
Wes
We have been trying to get the API to work since March of 2009. We are on our 4th company to try and tackle this and none have succeeded. It has cost us $$$$ about $7k to date. Others seemed to have tackled the problem, but not us. We sunk a lot in our first company and now low on cash to hire it out again…. It’s become a joke in our company.
What Does it take to implement the API- Please Help!
lvsoule@hotmail.com
Larry,
I just emailed you a referral to the sharpest API guy I know.
Wes
Larry,
You obviously haven’t spoken to the illustrious host here, Mr. Jon Gales!
Wes
I have tried (unsuccessfully) to work with the Arizona BBB on a complaint against Infusionsoft. After the BBB decided that Infusionsoft should participate in BBB’s arbitration on my claim, Infusionsoft declined to… Apparently Infusionsoft had a special clause put into their BBB agreement that does not force them to use the BBB’s arbitration (free to consumers) instead they have their own idea of arbitration…We were given a 100% money back guarantee by the rep and Infusionsoft is not honoring it. To boot, after cancelling the service Infusionsoft continued to charge our company credit card. We had the charges reversed and then Infusionsoft had our account sent to an outside collection company.
I am perplexed at how they continue to get such a high rating from the BBB and why the BBB does not update their online records about complaints with Infusionsoft.
We were completely “taken” by this company and the software (bug-ridden) was incorrectly sold to us. The firm posture that Infusionsoft is taking is to not honor their guarantee.
My question to those out there with similar issues: did you try the BBB? If so, what happened? Did you escalate it from there? What agency should I go to if the BBB does not take action? Attorney General? FTC?
Please respond back or you can email me with suggestions at darren1964@live.com
Darren,
How long did you use the software? Did you use the Affiliate modules? Did you completely activate and start your first campaign within 30 days? Infusionsoft is the only software firm I’ve found that offers any type of guarantee, let alone a double your sales guarantee and/or a one year guarantee.
To get your money back you have to use it for a year.
Now if the rep you were working with offered a separate guarantee that’s between you and him but I hope you got it in writing. I’ve been in sales for 16 years and training sales people for 4 and I’ve seen some desperate guys say some stupid stuff to get a sale. No company is immune from employing stupid sales people so if encountered one that is a shame.
But they offer a 15-day free trial and you can get a 30-day free trial from any CMAC like me. If you know what you are doing and what you’re looking for 30 days is more than enough to test a hosted platform like Infusionsoft.
If you needed to test the eCommerce and Affiliate modules that are not included in the free trial you could easily arrange for detailed GoToMeeting sessions to test those features with an expert.
It sounds to me like one or more of the following happened in your case:
a) You followed every step required of their 12 month guarantee and did not double your business and you are owed your money.
b) You were made a desperate promise by a desperate sales person (after you played hard to get) to get you to plop down $199 or $299/mo for a month or two and may be entitled to your money back if you can prove it.
c) You misunderstood the money back guarantee with their Double Your Sales offer and didn’t live up to your end of the bargain and aren’t owed anything.
d) You started working with the software and realized it’s not some easy-cheesy auto-responder like Aweber or bulk email delivery platform and got scared and aren’t owed anything.
Growing a business is hard and the bankruptcy courts are replete with able-bodied technicians, competent middle-managers and/or super-duper big dreamers that didn’t know what it takes to build a list, market to that list and turn a profit.
Using Infusionsoft to its fullest is a lot of work. When you double your sales, you’ll be glad you learned it.
With their countless hours of demos, unlimited free support, 30-day free trial and 50+ resellers like me available to help entrepreneurs evaluate Infusionsoft’s solution I can’t understand why anyone would make a bad decision.
Good luck in growing your business. If a no-bullshit copywriter/trainer/marketer can help you reach your goals please drop me a line.
Wes
Wes – “Now if the rep you were working with offered a separate guarantee that’s between you and him” … ummmm not true. If the sales rep was an employee, he was acting as an agent of the company with almost anything he said. Yes it would be better to have it in writing, but not necessary.
PS – an email message would count as written evidence.
I have been using infusionsoft for two years now and I am a big fan. The only complaint I have is the cost. It is way to spendy. Other that that I love it. I think it is fairly easy to ues and I do a lot with it.
I also like Dan Kennedy and would love to have a pic with him. Even if he is not a model. I would prefer him to some empty head with a body. Thanks
I wish I had read your report prior to signing on with Infusionsoft. Infusionsoft has been a complete disaster for my business and the major problem is with their shopping cart which is a complete piece of crap. Besides the $7,000 I spent with Infusionsoft, I have had to pay my people another $5,000 in hourly time to try to work around all of the issues with the cart. When we contact infusionsoft, the common response we hear is the “It can’t be done”. My web sales since going with infusionsoft have plummeted because my clients get completely confused with the shopping cart and end up going to a competitor.
I have approached Infusionsoft with these issues and documented costs and loss of income in hopes that they would be like other businesses and try to make it right for the customer. Boy was I wrong in thinking that! They basically laughed at me and said that there was no way I would get any refund or credit and then they had the gall to tell me that “infusionsoft is the right product for my business”. In my 25 years of owning my own company, I have never worked with a company that disregards the client once they have you locked in. It feels like a total scam. I would love to bring suit against this company for damages and if there are other companies that want to participate, let’s get together and go after them.
Ben,
While I have heard a lot of people having API problems with large shopping carts with many SKUs (that’s one of the big reasons Jon started this blog) I just checked out your site and it seems to be working quite smoothly.
I selected a card, went back to “BUY MORE CARDS,” added a second card with my name and it brought me right back to the form to pay. Did I miss something?
How good are your API guys? With you only selling a handful of cards your shopping cart should have been set up much easier than what you are describing.
Wes
We signed up for the trial and did not notice that in one fo the 5 emails sent out upon signup that they would start billing our card after the trial expired.
Every message we have left has been ignored. Every email we sent was ignored. The only time you can get someone on the phone is to call the Sales department. Calling anyone directly gets you voicemail.
When I was able speak with someone (Marc Pilkington) I was told that they would refund the charges ( 3 months at that point) and would cancel the account. No refund and they are still billing our account.
So 5 months on we are going to have to close our credit card.
Will also be reporting this to the BBB (for what it’s worth) and also reporting this to or credit card company and their credit card processor.
Whew … what a forum. After reading through all this I think we’ll just extend our own software which is used for political campaigns. After a session on the phone with an InfusionSoft sales rep, I thought I’d do a Google search for “Infusionsoft” and I got this site pretty quick.
I met Dan Kennedy at a Gary Halbert seminar maybe 25 years ago when he was at the top of his game. The marketing “experts” at InfusionSoft are amatuerish. Check out their free marketing webinar where the trainer spends the first several minutes talking about his lovely family. Sheesh – I’m here to evaluate software. It’s like meeting a boorish person at a party who wants to corner you and show you pictures of his grandchildren. This nonsense seems to be typical of the Kennedy wannabes. The Dan Kennedy I met would never have written anything like that.
Thanks y’all for sharing your stories. I think you saved me some time and money … though I doubt they’d have sold me as it were.
Steve,
Are you looking for copy writing experts or an expert software platform to deliver your own expert copy?
Infusionsoft’s roots are in software development for overworked, over-tasked small business owners. Clate and the gang never said they were copy writers.
I, however, am a copy writer and I talk about my family in most of my presentations and it’s working out just peachy keenly. (But then again I’m just some displaced Redneck with Coon Ass blood that took a 9 year detour through the Air Force before cutting my sales and marketing teeth on everything from stocks and bonds to MLMs to mobile homes and “flesh peddling” and high tech [and I threw in a wine and cigar store for shits and grins] before laying new roots near my wife’s family here in SoCal where I’m successfully raising 6 kids (that I made the old-fashioned way: by sleeping with my wife of 14+ years) while teaching them how to not inhale “medicinal marijuana” during recess and how to stop, drop and roll from the F-bombs lobbed at us by “love-filled, tolerant” members of GLAAD that aren’t quite so tolerant when they see our “Yes on 8″ stickers on our gas-guzzling diesel 4×4 Excursion. But I digress.)
What I can discern from your post is that your current software is leaving you wanting for more.
If you are looking for a platform that delivers the ability to create and embed web forms, deliver follow up sequences, schedule those sequences, track open rates and even embed trackable links that stop and start additional follow up sequences I CANNOT IMAGINE another piece of software that will do that for you and another member of your organization for $199/mo.
Currently I am helping an individual do just this for a grassroots organization reaching out to a list of 1,200,000 and Infusionsoft delivers!!
Are there some young, immature, even pushy salespeople at Infusionsoft? Yes.
Is it fair to compare Gary Halbert, an entrepreneur and genius copy writer from another era, to a 20-something sales rep at Infusionsoft? Hell no!
If you’d like to make a truly informed decision by speaking with a copy writing, entrepreneurizing, sales training, political activist with 2 years of experience with Infusionsoft give me a shout Tuesday afternoon.
If I don’t hear from you (or if you call Monday) I’ll know you’re a bleeding heart liberal that likes to beat up young sales reps that are just doing what they’re told and it’s probably best we don’t speak anyway because I hate hearing grown men cry more than I hate smelling big dogs fart.
Best of luck…if you’re a bleeding heart liberal you’ll need it.
Wes
I use infusionsoft. I have been to their infusioncon for 2009. The software works well for sending out emails.
With that said their API support is a joke. You cannot get to the mysterious guy who is their API expert. You can get referred to some outside guys who want a mint to help you.
Their cart is difficult to use and their support stinks.
The reason I stay is that it will cost me a lot to leave. The sales folks are dishonest and I cannot recommend the company. They are neither moral nor ethical. SALES SALES SALES.
DO NOT buy their product. They sell and don’t deliver. I honestly feel cheated and they will do nothing to help remedy the promises they made. Try and get somebody in accounting and the phone will ring off the hook. Try to get the operator…. again, it rings off the hook.
POOR customer service.
Why do people make posts anonymously? Do you really want help or do you just want to vent? Jon Gales, host of this blog, is a great API guy. Does he charge “a mint” to help? (If he does he’s worth it.)
I’m not an API expert so I can’t speak to your issues but as a one-man show with 3 virtual assistants and two remote partners in the U.S. I can say the shopping cart is not difficult to use but, like all tools, there is a bit of a learning curve and they did just make some changes that make it a little easier to use.
The one click upsell is a FANTASTIC feature as well that you won’t find in most products and if you do it’s an expensive option.
I’m not sure why it would cost you more to leave than it is costing you to hang out on blogs and rant. Figure out what your time is worth, multiply it by the time you spend angry, angrily typing and angrier-ested dialing through Infusionsoft’s phone tree and you’ll know if you should stay or go.
Their support is fine and it’s free and it’s unlimited. Sure, there are some support guys with less experience than others and they have frustrated me from time to time but you know what REALLY PISSES ME OFF? Calling some hardware/software company and having to give my serial number, social security number, receipt, date and time of purchase, my mother’s maiden name, my wife’s blood type, my son’s 2nd grade test score on his 3rd test in 4th period only to find out I’m 23 hours out of the warranty period and do I want to spend $49 to diagnose the issue I’m having.
So I think Infusionsoft’s support is just fine.
Calling people immoral and unethical are strong words. “SALES SALES SALES” is not a bad thing IF you have a valuable product with a demonstrable ROI. For the RIGHT customer, i.e., the 1-25 person company with dozens to maybe hundreds of SKUs that doesn’t have the budget to bring on staff to grow it’s the best platform out there.
For someone with thousands of SKUs that are constantly changing it may not be right for you. Was it the salesperson’s job to talk you out of a sale? In a Utopian world, yes, it is there job to uncover your needs and not recommend their product/service if they deem it is not suitable for your needs.
Is it your job to truly test the software and ask tough questions before you buy it? Yes.
I haven’t had to deal with accounting so I don’t know about that but I do know that ALL of MY clients are happy with the product, the support (one guy bitches from time to time but he’s an old school software guy that has cashflow issues and is late with every other payment so he transfers his anger to them) and the staff.
Feel free to email me at infusionsoft[AT]thesaleswhisperer.com to see if I can help you get to the bottom of things.
Good luck.
Wes
Wes – ” The one click upsell is a FANTASTIC feature as well that you won’t find in most products ” … ummm where do you find it in Infusionsoft? Are you talking about the lame – suggested item link in the shopping cart?
We have used Infusionsoft for the last few years, it did exactly what we wanted it to do. I have to agree with the expensive part, but not with the support, anytime I have ever had any issues, they were rectified immediately and professionally.
I set up Infusionsoft for a company and I think the solution worked out OK for them, not great, but I do think it served them ($$$ ouch! but it does get the job done)…next I had another client, so I gave it a try for them, it was bad timing for them for this project so I canceled that install, – Let the nightmare begin:
– I canceled on time, was told it was all good – but no…charged two more times before they stopped — and now, 4 months later, after a bunch of emails and calls (that NO ONE has TIME for!) – no sign of my $400.00 (2X$199 wrongfully charged) AND I AM A GOOD CUSTOMER ON ANOTHER ACCOUNT?
- now my sales rep won’t call or reply to my emails. I think the company is maybe growing too fast or?
I have never complained about any company before in my life – but I am so disappointed I can’t tell you.
Ya know – with technical issues – I can understand, everyone has a different level of need and technical understanding, that can be a volatile mix in the expectations department –
but billing issues like mine – nope… sorry – infusionsoft is just a business that does not really care (or has no time to care) about its customers.
Now, if I look at what infusionsoft is trying to do, hey, they have taken on a mighty task to have this unified platform…
but here is the result: …….. (wait for it…) ~ FAIL ~
Why? cause the technology sucks? maybe, maybe not (don’t know, I am not a API programming super guru like others on this blog) – it is a bit clunky UI but it does do ALOT – they fail in my mind because they say one thing and do another – Infusionsoft = crook…
Oh, you’re not stealing my money— OH? Really, then where is it? Oh, I will get it in 30 days – when the next accounting reconciliation is done, OH, Really – why is that? Because you care more about how your system works for you, than how your system doesn’t work for me…Hey! Thanks! – I am so glad you are driving the internet revolution… straight into the ground. Nice work!
There was a time when I could recommend infusionsoft (and did) – that time is over – for those looking to other options, I actually really like Email Marketer by Interspire. Get response, One shopping cart, Aweber, Send pepper, Sales force are good too ( yes, I know – they are not all the same as Infusionsuckyourtimeawaywithfollowupyoushouldnothavetodojusttogetyourmoneyback.com ). I have used all of these other services for myself or for a client. Guess what – none of them have ever screwed me over a billing issue – well, once I had a billing issue with Aweber – you know what happened – they fixed it, in like 10 minutes (and it was MY fault LOL)
Needless to say, I have a few other accounts I am responsible for still on Infusionsoft – ahh, that is till Monday.
BTW: I think Wes brings up a good point – am I venting – Yes! Did I post anonymously – No – why not? Because I want my money back – so Infusonsoft, if you are listening – please refund my account and send me an explanation why Marc Pilkington can’t seem to get this task done – and I will gladly do a follow up post – I am here because the support system at infusionsoft does not work for billing issues.
Best,
Ted
Low and behold, social media works… Infusionsoft got back to me. It’s too bad that it takes a blog like this to make it happen, but I did get a very helpful call from Clay Jeppsen. He did his best to explain the rapid growth that Infusionsoft is going through and was truly apologetic that the situation had gotten out of hand. Thankfully, this is a step in the right direction for them. He was very compelling in his effort to do right by the future Infusionsoft customers.
Best,
Ted
Great to hear they did their best to make it right. This isn’t Infusionsoft’s favorite page on the web (and they have let me know that!), but it’s great to know they are trying to improve.
I would also recommend everyone to stay away from Infusionsoft – they DO tolerate SPAM!
John,
Why do you say that? I know of an Infusionsoft CMAC whose account was shut down immediately (in the last 3-4 months) for emailing a list of dentists and it was a small list (under 3,000 if I remember correctly) but he had something like an 18% complaint. He is no longer a user of Infusionsoft.
Wes
I’m in Sales Force hell right now with support horror stories that have cost me and my company months of lost marketing time and I don’t know how many thousands of dollars. A few of the people at Sales Force are great. A few of the features of Sales Force are great. But there are not nearly enough of either to justify the money or the nightmare I’ve been through!
Any one ever used Commence or eSalesTrack?
Mary,
I’ve been an SFDC user and certified trainer since 2004. I’ve been an Infusionsoft certified rep since 2008. Shoot me an email if you’d like to discuss getting the most out of either of them.
Wes@thesaleswhisperer.com
Wes
I have been following Infusionsoft for a year or so. From this blog, they seem to have a very spotty reputation…even called a scam by some. Have they gotten better? Are they legit? I’m a solopreneur trying to build my business and really need automation. Seems like a great product to unify things, but just not sure. Jon Gales – in your opinion do they still “suck”
Any alternatives that are cost effective for a low budget are appreciated. Thanks!
It really depends on what you’re trying to do. It tries to do a lot and is better at some than others. The eCommerce portion is pretty solid if you don’t mind the order form being hosted off your site. General contact management is also pretty solid. I’ve heard of issues with email deliverability and know several people who use Infusionsoft but then email with other services. My complaint that started this post was about the API and while some things have changed since then it’s still not what I would call stellar.
Thanks Jon. Basically, I am using a variety of tools (mostly low cost or free) to run my business. Microsoft Small Business for my website, Google Apps for email and calendar and expense tracking, Zoho for CRM (oppty mgmt, contacts, invoicing), Vertical Response for email marketing. I use PayPal for some web payments.
I’m looking for tools that will combine CRM with email automation and drip campaigns/autoresponders. API not important at this stage of my business.
Trying to simply and automate as much as I can for the lowest cost. Thank you in advance for any ideas/suggestions or comments regarding Infusionsoft or alternatives.
David and JG –
1) You don’t have to have infusionsoft host your order form. All you need to do is go to your order form page and grab the html, give it to your web-guy (if you have one) and he can treat it just like webform code. (be sure to test! If the wrong part of the html get’s jacked up, the form won’t work). You will need to get your own SSL Certificate for the page you’re hosting it on (like 10-15 buck a year).
The benefit of this is a TREMENDOUS upside is designing your own sales page as opposed to working within the parameters in IS.
2) As for email deliverability… this is a HARD subject to talk about because NO ONE KNOWS!! We are all dependent upon the service provider to deliver stats, whether Aweber, Icontact, IS, or whatever. Even then, just because something got ‘delivered’ doesn’t mean it didn’t get ‘delivered’ into the spam box!). So other than just going by their word, all we are left to measure by are RESULTS (open rates (which are notoriously unreliable across all providers, another subject matter itself), click through rates, and ultimately opt-in and sales conversion rates.)!
So again, the only way to accurately compare and contrast objectively is by the conversion rates from your emails call to action. Sadly, a lot of things can affect that number aside from deliverability, things like; did it deliver to the spam box or their inbox, did the html get stripped out (known to happen, but again un-measurable), link load time (a few fractions of a second here can drastically hurt conversions), tactics like passing name and email through to the next page (which you can’t with some but can with IS) which is known to increase conversions, and so on.
So in conclusion… nobody knows. Everyone is just speculating… but IF we all get sharp on measuring our conversion rates at every hinge point, then we might be able to get a clear(er) picture.
Hope that helps!
Oh and David, JG is right, going with IS depends on what you are trying to do AND also the scope of your goal and your resources (time and money). With Infusionsoft you are able to do things you simply can’t with any other one solution. You CAN bolt other apps together, but this is often dramatically more expensive and cumbersome… especially for a bootstrapping entrepreneur.
There are limitations and bugs with IS… as with all systems. But regardless of that, DO NOT BUY INFUSIONSOFT unless you are willing to USE it. I coach IM and Small Business elite on advanced behavioral marketing and many have been users of Infusionsoft for years, but yet when I go in to ‘check out’ their existing segmentation conventions, action sets, follow-up sequences… I kid you not, it’s like amateur hour in there!
So bottom line, if you get it… USE IT! It is a lot of work, but it is the right kind of work to be doing if you want to build an actual business. If this is a ‘hobby’ then don’t waste your money or time. Rather if you want to build something that can truly liberate you in the long run… you have to pay the price to ‘get it’ where it is working for you.
Absorb the strategies and concepts behind the technology. Bend that freakin’ system to your will… and you WILL have no only a stronger relationship with your “list,” higher conversion rates across the entire customer life-cycle, and enough automation to make Henry Ford jealous.
Cool?
Guys, I have used Infusionsoft for almost 3 years.
I would NOT buy it again. It is a pain to learn (I have done this) and it does give you the tools to follow up and segment. Plan to pay 100 per hour to get help from somebody who knows the system. Plan on getting lied to.
I am here because I wanted to see if others thought the company were a bunch of heartless jerks. I see that I am not alone. Management is terrible. MONEY MONEY MONEY…. not customer customer customer
Last month I decided to turn it off; but, after looking hard there is nothing at all which can do what they do for anywhere near the same price. I spent over $40,000 trying to do the same thing several years ago and, once it was built, I needed a near full time IP person. That was a worse pain in the butt.
So, if you get it realize that support is mediocre and pick up is slow there (but they do pick up), nobody EVER answers their personal phone, they are a marketing company marketing themselves. Remember that they have obligations to their financial backers who are more important than their customers.
But, I have decided to stay and be treated badly. There really isn’t anything better.. UNFORTUNATELY.
Apcorob
Same story as many of you… promised a refund, provided crappy service, and of course the “I don’t care attitude.” My suggestion, just run away from them.
I agree InfusionSoft is terrible. I was sold a bill of good when I talked with the sales team. They said it could do everything including make me coffee in the morning. For example, when I opened my account four months ago I was told by my InfusionSoft sales rep they had the capability to intregrate with UPS Worldship, but it was just set up a few weeks ago.
I never get a call back and everytime I call I get voice mail. I have been in limbo for 4 days now trying to get an answer to simple question. No reply I even wrote one of the partners of the company and told him about my situation I didn’t even get a reply from him. Waste of time and money.
Well we use interspire email marketer and that does all the auto response and campaign management you would ever require.
Yep it doesn’t do e-commerce or fax or voice – but how many of you are using that – and best of all it comes as a full code hosted solution so you can get your fingers in the code after the initial purchase price – only ongoing fees are support 0- which is free for 3 month’s (when i last looked) and if you buy into the next version upgrade (the latest upgrade included surveys into the system)
and there’s no restrictions on how many in your list or contacts etc…
We just did a mail out to over 90,000 double opt-in customers and it worked flawlessly
http://www.interspire.com/emailmarketer/
I very nervously signed up for infusionsoft three weeks ago after reading these comments. After a few days, I decided to cancel my trial. (The program seems excellent, but is overkill for my small business). I did initially get the run around, and attempts to keep me from cancelling–however, my credit card was promptly refunded by infusionsoft within three days.
Perhaps they have seen the comments here. But take a look at the infusionsoft forums–hundreds of questions posted months/years ago with no answers, despite multiple, and increasingly annoyed requests. Also, the only way to speak to a live human when calling about your account is to press “1″ To Make A Payment”. They pick up the phone on that one. On the other hand, “Press 2 to discuss your bill” quickly puts you into voice mail.
Tthe best way t
Ive been using IS for about 4 years and its a love, hate relationship.
Ive had many problems.
1. Customers who had opted out of my email marketing where automatically double opted back in by IS – when I brought this up with support I was told nothing could be done, but after writing about the issue on their own blog for the world to see it was promptly fixed up within 24 hours.
2. On a major upgrade some years ago now, Australian customers who used Verisign payment processor had their entire shopping cart shut down – I was without my shopping cart for nearly 4 weeks. They kept blaming the merchant provider, but it was Infusion themselves who had changed certain settings that prevented it from working. Verisign is owned by PayPal and they just kept blaming each other for it not working rather then attempting to locate a solution.
3. My $5,000 entry fee – which was meant to include setup help came with no help. My rep continued to miss planned phone calls and I ended up doing the whole setup myself.
4. Countless marketing emails from them despite opting out of marketing messages – even their part owners abuse the system by sending the same email a number of times per day for a product Ive already purchased (they dont even know how to segment their own list with tags to stop this from happening).
5. I had a 2nd account that was cancelled due to a business restructure – emails ignored and phone calls not returned. Only when I threatened to close my other account was this fixed (and a refund was issued).
6. The support has always been dreadful, continues to be dreadful and I now dont even bother to contact them unless its absolutely mission critical.
But wait for it, despite all this – i would never leave (and I have looked at leaving in the past).
For the price it does EVERYTHING! There are other packages that are way more expensive, but dont come close to what it can do…
I have my opt in pages – that sign people up to free demos / webinars / downloads. As each person opts-in I have Infusion set them up within specific groups. I can setup campaigns for people who have purchased products A and C, but havent purchased B. I can track who clicks on links to my sales page but doesnt purchase to put them into different follow up sequences.
Then I have some great add-ons for it – I have a debt collector program, that allows people to change their credit card details automatically on-line – integrated membership site that drips the content to my customers based on time and I also have it integrated with GoToWebinar.
Plus I have a few different one click upsell tools as well – that have helped rack in the money.
I can understand how people become frustrated with it, I believe I have done well with it because I have a strong marketing background and understand the concepts behind the software and what IS are trying to achieve with it. Its the lack of understanding of these concepts where I believe many people dont receive the results that IS claim they should receive.
Personally I believe I can get anyone with any business to get it working for their business – it has its faults, just like any other software – and will always have its faults – I get frustrated with it frequently… But its just a tool that I use to my advantage. (Bearing in mind I dont attempt to use the API – I pay Infusion experts for this type of service), however the API is not required to improve the marketing in your business.
My business is a one man show that does $250,000 per year – which is double then what it used to be before I got Infusion. Infusion would love to claim that they are responsible for that increase, however the software did NOT increase my sales – I did. Infusion was just the tool that I used.
Infusionsoft will NOT increase your sales – only you can do that by implementing action, and when the shit hits the fan with a problem – stop laying blame and find a work around. When my shopping cart went down for 4 weeks I built the story into my sales process and processed the transactions myself manually – yes it was a pain and I shouldnt have do that – but I wasnt going to let IS ruin my product launch.
Do I recommend Infusion for the small business owner who is looking for the next magic pill to increase their sales, NO.
Do I recommend Infusion for someone who is willing to put in a bit of work to write your email templates, to put up a simple opt-in page and create a simple sales page (all of which are covered by Infusions webinars and training videos) – YES.
Guys; I was very seriously considering going with IS until I read all your comments. As A little fish in the big pond I don’t plan on just being a stastic because NOONE cares. Thank you very much for your input into how BAD IS is. Sorry you had to find out the hard way (money wise) At least I WON’T make the same mistake. I will be deleting their number as soon as I sign off, Good luck to all
Ed,
Reading your post and knowing they didn’t get your business is all I needed to hear! Glad you saved the headaches and lighter wallet than the rest of us. Way to go!
I just have to chime in here because I love Infusionsoft!
It has been from time to time a love-hate relationship for me too. However, I could never have built my business without Infusionsoft.
No, it’s not always the easiest thing in the world. It does advanced automated marketing. Some of it might be over your head at first but I know from my experience and the experiences of many other people that it works just fine after you beat it into submission.
We integrate like crazy to the API, there is a learning curve and no it’s not the most brilliant API in the world. It works fine though once you know what you’re doing.
The problems people whine about like not being able to send an email immediately through the API usually just take a little thought. Put your email in a followup sequence and the email will be sent automatically because the Action Set adds the person to the Followup Sequence immediately and the Followup Sequence does have the ability to immediately email the person. Problem solved. Quit your bitching.
The fact that Infusionsoft employees don’t know all this and tell you it’s impossible is frustrating I admit.
Infusionsoft does so much though that bitching about little issues seems a bit shortsided to me.
Good luck re-creating all that functionality elsewhere and have it be a more stable and integrated environment than Infusionsoft, it’s not going to happen.
Whine whine whine, the API takes several calls, I have to think for myself! Woe is me!
Infusionsoft isn’t magic, it’s not going to just wash all your dishes like Merlin in sword and the stone.
Infusionsoft is the dishwasher. Load it up, put in some soap, turn it on, and you’ve got magic.
Micah
Good call, Micah.
In a very, very positive, Infusionsoft has changed my life.
No other system is quite like it and I admit that changing over to Infusionsoft was frustrating at time.
Pretty much like Jon Gales, I had problems understanding the processes involved, the science behind the system. The difference between Jon and I is that I stuck with it.
To get everything out of it, I had to learn the ropes: read the manual, ask a few questions on the forum and slowly but surely, within a few weeks, I had my dream system set up and ready to go.
The only thing I disagree with is Infusionsoft’s claim that their system will double your sales.
Yes. It’s just not true. Within 6 months, my sales were up 10-fold and now, a full year later, they are up 30-fold.
Needless to say, that’s all I use now. For me, it’s the dishwasher, the soap and the auto-pilot all-in-one.
Best,
Bob
Glad you like it Bob, but the difference between you and I isn’t that you stuck with it. I complained, but went on to write the next gen version of the Infusionsoft PHP SDK and have become one of the most knowledgeable people on the Infusionsoft API around. I think I actually helped you and one of your customers troubleshoot an Infusionsoft API issue (turned out they had incorrect custom tag names or something similar).
Glad to hear business is booming.