I like this program. I really do. I mean, that to-do list is so handy not only in theory but also in practice. The features make the program so easy to use and the fact that there is support on hand to explain any issues that the training videos did not cover is such a big bonus. We’ve had times during training where we were unsure of the functions, but one quick call to support cleared everything up. We feel like pros! However, the cost almost negates the good features. We are a small business and it’s difficult to justify the cost when there are so many cheaper or free CRMs available. Maybe they’ll come out with a small business version that isn’t quite as expensive but has the features you need to run your day-to-day tasks.
Pros
I absolutely love the to-do list. It makes it so much easier to assign tasks to my employees. I always prefer to have tasks written down to verbal tasks, so this program helps so much in that aspect. I also really like the clean, efficient look to this program. It makes it very easy to use and is not as cluttered as other similar programs. I loved the training videos that helped my employees learn the ins and outs of the program. The fact that there is tech support readily available is also a plus. I hate having only email or only phone support available, but Insightly has both!
Cons
It’s rather pricey. The free version does not provide all of the features that make this product worthwhile over the competitors’. To get all of the features, you have to pay more, which makes sense, just not for small business owners. The fact that a higher plan is required to forward emails is a big minus. It’s something that almost all businesses need but paying the amount for the professional version is not necessarily a cost that can be justified. I believe that if this program were a little bit less expensive it would be more useful for small and new businesses.
Rating breakdown
Likelihood to recommend: 9/10
Ease of Marketing and Sales process. Total contact management software that include picture of person. What a plus. Great training videos to guide all level of users. Wonderful opportunity to scale the software as the company grows from startup to height unknown. Pricing is fair and Insightly is not living on past accomplishments it is improving product continuously.
Pros
They offer a free version to evaluate. Since it is without a time limit I used it and gradually became totally dependent on it. During a planning meeting with staff it was determined we could increase our efficiency by adding the professional version that includes email marketing tools and an easy interface with MailChimp. Now they have my paid business. It is with confidence that I agree to pay them for a monthly service that will be used by all members of my company. The program can accommodate the growth curve in a company such as mine. We started out simply needing contact management software. Later as our sales and marketing needs became more our focus adding these features was an easy decision. There are many videos to quickly bring a new user up to speed. The experienced user can use the videos to explore the many functions that may yet be used by a company as needs and goals change. The reporting function has recently become important as we need to know the results of our marketing and sales efforts. The tool is there and ready for us to implement. I think the more our company commits to using Insightly the more our communication between owners and employees improves. We openly share information on Insightly and our feedback has been positive. In the past before Insightly, communication was dispersed informally and sometimes led to bad feelings due to the inefficiency of word of mouth. Insightly is constantly making changes and updates to its software.
Cons
Its not visually pretty. I know that is silly but staff has to look at it all day and they like pretty.
When a new user/employee first looks at program they make the mistake of thinking it is an old program. While I am able to bring them along and show them it isn't true, their first impression is a temporary detriment to their learning curve and acceptance of the program. In order for Insightly to be the awesome tool it is, requires employee and leader acceptance. Everyone on the team has input and others depend on that input to do their job. Sloppy work seems to come from lack of acceptance. Part of this is my responsibility as a leader to insist everyone use the tools as intended but again, if the program had a new interface and pretty colors it might make a difference. Personally I always choose function first and then presentation but input from staff is a factor I have to consider. One other area I would mention is the difference between leads and contacts. They are not intuitive to some people and I think a better explanation and reinforcement in training videos would make it easier for the new user. This confusion has lead to some mistakes by my users that require a bit of corrective action by more experienced users. There is very little for me to find wrong with Insightly that isn't based on personal style and preferences.
Rating breakdown
Likelihood to recommend: 10/10
Pros
Having worked with clients using a variety of CRM’s we’ve seen the good, the bad, and the ugly. I often times refer to insightly as the sports car of CRM’s because it allows companies to manage sales, contacts, projects, opportunities and client fulfillment in a very clean, efficient and user-friendly way. Some of the features I love best are their pipelines and activity sets. For companies that are managing lots of clients at different stages of fulfillment, Insightly’s pipeline feature helps all the players involved know exactly what they need to do and when.
The client profile makes it easy for me to link contacts to organizations or note other important relationships. The ability to save my email communication and related tasks to a contact has become an essential part of how we use Insightly and it’s intuitive ability to save any attached files I send is another feature I love.
Other favorite features are their mass emailing tool within the CRM. I can send a personalized email to a group of clients without having to write individual emails. A task management feature that allows me to see on one screen what I’m working on for each of my clients and in all areas of my business. With one click I can see what each of my employees is working on, what’s been done. You can create custom tagging systems to easily sort and find clients in your database. In one place see all of the projects you’re currently working on and where they are in the process of completion. Insightly’s Gmail gadget makes it easy to assign tasks, create projects, save emails, add or update contact email easily from within your email. No more switching back and forth from program to program. Insightly University provides a good training source for new users in addition to their highly responsive customer service team. I also have to mention all the strategic partnerships that makes using Insightly with other programs really seamless. For example, Mailchimp, evernote, DropBox and Google Apps for Business to name a few.
Sure, there are lots bigger more robust CRM’s out there, but I don’t want to drive a Mack truck every day. I like my sports car. :)
Cons
Insightly's calendar doesn't work for me, but I use google calendar and haven't missed it. I wish you could customize what you want to see on the home page. Right now it's just a running list of the activity on your accounts, but not super helpful in my opinion. Right now you have to manually advance pipelines. It would be nice to set them to advance to the next stage once all the activity sets are complete.
Rating breakdown
Likelihood to recommend: 8/10
Pros
Insightly is a very powerful toolkit, and incorporates both CRM and project management into the same application. This makes it easier to keep track of status, and gives a single list of tasks which can show everything that needs to happen organized by person or by project.
Insightly has more powerful sales pipeline management, strong task management, and integrates CRM and projects.
I use Google Apps for Business. Insightly has a direct integration with Google Apps. This makes user management simple, and allows me some "extras" because their tool works nicely with Gmail.
Cons
On the negative side, the permissions are more "liberal" than some competitors making it harder to block people from access to project information. You need to have a user account for every person working on each project, which may mean you have to buy a larger number of users than are in your organization.
Rating breakdown
Likelihood to recommend: 10/10
This is a product I wanted to like so much. We have been using Insightly for many years. We were attracted to it because it combined CRM and Project Management. Over the years they have improved the CRM aspect, but have left PM virtually untouched. Their support is haphazard and they often introduce new *features* which cause problems - like the day Google Contact Sync stopped working, or the day Google Contact Sync started duplicating contacts in Google etc. Because we signed up so long ago, we have an excellent pricing model. If we were paying more I would be really dissatisfied. Oh and they are just appalling at sharing their product roadmap. It's like driving a manual shift car as the mechanic is fitting new gears as you speed up.
Pros
Great CRM and Pipeline Management out the box!
Contact Syncing for Google is great - despite minor issues.
Good simple project lists.
Links nicely to Mailchimp and Xero.
Cons
Very very poor project management. You will need to use other packages for almost anything. No resource management. No Gantt charts. No visibility.
Email integration is rudimentary. Task integration is non-existent.
No Office 365 contact synchronisation.
Thanks for the feedback. I'll pass this on to our product team because all feedback helps us improve. With regards to exposing our product road map -- it's common that privately held companies do not make their product road map public. If you have specific questions on features please send an email to laura@insightly.com and we can let you know if they are on the roadmap. Thanks.
Rating breakdown
Likelihood to recommend: 5/10
Free:
$0 (Free for up to 2 users)
Plus
$29/user/month (billed annually)
Professional
$49/user/month (billed annually)
Enterprise
$99/user/month (billed annually)
In order for small businesses to grow and flourish, they need access to the best tools possible. Insightly is a CRM and project management application designed specifically for SMBs. The web-based solution enables its users to create strong relationships with their most loyal customers, so they can effectively maximize revenue and grow their businesses.
Created for organizations with between one and 200 employees, Insightly has integrated some of the most important features of a CRM platform—including flexible calendaring, automatic address books, file sharing, and notifications—with a project management system that uses tasks, milestones, and pipelines to keep organizations on track. Using Insightly’s linking feature, SMBs have the ability to create true 360-degree views of their complete networks. Insightly has all the functionality necessary for small business sales teams.
The purpose of Insightly is to provide SMBs with ways to build better relationships with their customers. In doing this, Insightly has developed a CRM and project management system that allows its clients to manage contacts, organizations, vendors and suppliers from within a unified system. Being able to link any object—such as a contact, organization or opportunity—to any other object is another way that Insightly gives businesses a complete view over their entire networks at a single glance.
Using Insightly should help SMBs streamline everyday processes for improved business efficiency, productivity, and effectiveness. As the name implies, Insightly provides its users with deep insights into how their customer relationships are influencing sales. As a result, many businesses experience an increase in sales after they begin using Insightly’s platform.
Insightly was developed specifically to fit the needs of small businesses, which the company defines as those having between one and 200 employees. Although Insightly may be used by organizations in any industry, the platform is especially useful for service businesses.
The company’s current roster of clients includes organizations in the business services, consulting, education, entertainment, media, financial services, food services, grocery, insurance, manufacturing, nonprofit, retail, real estate, security, technology, and travel industries. While Insightly is designed to be used by every member on an organization’s team, it is especially useful for those working in sales and marketing departments.
Insightly’s CRM solution gives you a way to see all of your customers and prospects in a centralized location. You can also use the flexible calendaring, notes, comments, and tagging features to keep track of important thoughts after getting off the phone with a client.
Before you can start managing contacts from within Insightly, you’ll need to add a few of your clients or prospects to the system. Import contacts and notes, or manually add the information for each new client and prospect you come across. In addition to including basic details like name and email address, Insightly provides you with space for including personal details and linking to the contact’s social media accounts.
Lead management is an integral component within Insightly. By setting up leads, sales teams can keep track of anyone who appears interested in their products or services, but hasn’t actually verified his or her interest in the business. These individuals can be added to a company’s Insightly account through the Leads tab.
Regardless of how your leads are obtained (purchased contact lists, website forms, trade shows, or other marketing efforts), you’ll want to turn on the Leads functionality to enter those leads into your Insightly account. When you determine that a certain lead is qualified, you can convert the lead by linking the contact and organization. (Insightly doesn’t convert related contacts and organizations until leads are converted into opportunities.) You can manage the status of each lead, along with the source of your lead’s information.
Insightly’s Tasks feature can be used in a number of different ways, including making to-do lists, logging meetings and phone calls, and creating email reminders. The most common way to use this feature is by creating a list of all the tasks that need to be done before a certain project will be complete. You also have the option to set reminders on tasks, which means you’ll receive an email notification before the task is due. Tasks can be linked to contacts, opportunities, projects, organizations, and emails.
Click on the “Task” tab from the dashboard page to begin the process of adding a new task to you list. Insightly gives you the option to assign the task to a particular colleague and set a due date. You can also set the priority level and status, and update the progress-percentage as the task gets closer to completion.
Insightly now offers a way for business users to compose and send email from their Insightly accounts. Just select the lead or contact to communicate with and get started writing the message. Setting up email templates is one way that many Insightly users have found to make writing email messages even easier.
Send a new email message to a single lead or contact by clicking on the Actions menu when viewing that lead or contact, and then selecting Email This Lead or Email This Contact. You can send a new email from a template or compose your own from scratch. Although Insightly offers you the ability to send emails directly through its web-based platform, you also have the option to compose and send emails from your default program by clicking on an email address link in Insightly.
Insightly is one of the only CRM solutions that provides its users with a way to create a true 360-degree view of their networks. By linking together objects—including contacts, organizations and opportunities—with other objects, users are able to clearly see how relationships are impacted by certain actions.
Click on a contact and scroll down to the “links” section. To add a new link, type in the name of the contact, organization, or opportunity that the contact is associated with. For example, in addition to noting that Contact A is associated with Contact B, you can also include information about how those two prospects are related.
A pipeline is a linear series of steps, which Insightly lets you define for projects and opportunities. Users can view pipelines to see their progress along a path. A pipeline should include all the anticipated stages in a workflow, up through the completion of the project.
To create a pipeline, visit the System Settings, choose a pipeline name, and click the “Edit Stages” link next to the new pipeline. Insightly will draw the pipeline stages for you above your stage list. The next time you create a new project, that pipeline will show up in a populated list for you to choose from, and you can select which stage the project is currently at.
Insightly’s reports are based on opportunities and completed activities. Reports can be filtered by date ranges, and quickly reformatted for printing. A few of the Opportunity Reports that users can choose from include: Opportunity Category Breakdown, Reasons For Losing Opportunities, Opportunity Pipeline Stage Report, Total Incoming Opportunities, and Value Of Opportunities.
To generate a report, click on the type of report you want to create and customize the settings based on the dates, pipelines, tags, and responsibilities you’d like to use. When those selections have been made, you can generate a custom report. If Insightly’s reports don’t meet a particular need that your organization is facing, you also have the option to export your records. This enables you to create reports using whichever outside tool you prefer.
Using Insightly’s mobile apps, professionals have the ability to take photos of business cards and automatically create contacts or lead records in their CRM. This action takes place automatically, and it is available to all paid Insightly accounts.
To start scanning business cards with your smartphone’s rear camera, the the + icon within the mobile app and choose the “scan” option. Insightly allows you to scan a certain number of cards each month. Once you’ve snapped the photo, you can add tags, background information, and select visibility permissions for each new contact or lead. Insightly will follow up with an email update on each card you scan.
Insightly integrates with a number of popular business apps and services, allowing users to connect their CRM and project management system to products like Google Apps, Google Calendar, Gmail, Google Drive, Evernote, Xero, Quote Roller, INinmail, MailChimp, Torpio, and Zapier. Insightly offers an Outlook App that provides enhanced productivity for businesses that use Office 365 and Outlook 2013. In addition to its integration with QuickBooks Online, Insightly offers an integration with Xero.
Free accounts are available for businesses with two or fewer users. Monthly pricing plans start at $12 per user, per month (when paying annually). Upgraded plans range in price from $29 per user, per month to $99 per user, per month (when paying annually).
CRM and project management solution for SMBs.
Enables businesses to create strong relationships with customers.
Created for businesses with one to 200 employees.
Integrates with many of the most popular business apps.
Linking feature gives users a 360-degree view of their business networks.
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