Customer

I signed up for three-month trial with three calls scheduled at a time to get real feedback from fellow entrepreneuers because I had been using ChatGPT as my resource until that point and it made no sense. I got some really great advice from several impressive entrepreneurs. The reason I had no interest to renew was that after several video calls, there wasn't much more advice to gain and I went several weeks without scheduling a call, which was a waste of budget. Also, while some mentors come with a lot of enthusiasm and advice, others seemed disinterested and just wanted the call to end. Several require payment which makes sense for their time, but then it gets expensive to pay both a membership and an individual's fee. I also never booked anyone twice because I didn't see a reason. This may be better for networking than for mentorship but there is real value. I'm glad I joined GrowthMentor but wouldn't return.

Bigin is excellent for my small business. I was new to selling and my sales process was disorganized. I was trying to use a spreadsheet and it just wasn't working. When I started on Bigin, I could scale my sales outreach easily and track everything from their platform. I like that emails are sent in their platform so I can stay there. I reviewed a lot of CRMs and ultimately didn't move forward with any because I couldn't find what I wanted. I now spend most of my day in Bigin and I'm grateful that Zoho decided to offer it because I wouldn't otherwise be interested in their main CRM. It's not perfect but if you're not skilled at sales and need to grow, it's worth a look.

This company’s customer experience is disorganized and frustrating. I didn't received my trade-in gift card by email, and when I contacted support, they brushed it off as a “spam folder” issue, which wasn’t the case. They couldn’t resolve the problem directly because they rely on their partner, Costco, to handle it. They need to explain this up front and get a better system. I've never experienced a business that pushes customers to another company to resolve service issues. After a few calls, Costco finally provided the trade-in code, but the process was anything but easy. Also, the trade-in credit was lower than what other reputable trade-in providers offered in cash.

Not only do they fumble customer credit refunds and customer service, but they also expose customers' personal identifying information (PII) on TrustPilot, which the BBB tracks. (See any of the replies to negative reviews and how they expose anonymous customers' full names. Expect to see mine against my approval and permission.) This is to deter customers from submitting negative reviews, even though they push for TrustPilot reviews through their email automation sequence. Since they can't be trusted to keep PII confidential, why does Costco align their brand and reputation with them?

I remain a loyal to Costco. But just as Costco recently switched from Pepsi to Coca-Cola, I hope they will reconsider this computer trade-in partnership and align with a more professional, trustworthy provider.

My email signatures have never looked better or been more functional. I've worked for companies for years that have non-uniform email signatures and it looks unprofessional. This solves that with great options like links and metrics.

I was eager to switch to MailChimp from another ESP. I had the day in my calendar to make the switch, but after my free trial, I'm not moving forward. The UI and tools are great. It feels modern and while there is a slight learning curve, it's worth it. I was glad to join. Setbacks were: Support is not up to quality. I was pushed into an onboarding call upon starting my trial. It was focused 100% on setting up my account which I can do on my own and requires me looking up sensitive private information. I asked the help desk person to skip the setup and focus instead on using our time to review features, but he said he couldn't so I abandoned the call early. Here was an opportunity to get me excited about the platform and educate me but that wasn't the plan. The followup was I got a standard email saying things come up at times, like it was my fault. I started the SMS process not realizing it was a paid add-on, then had to wait a few days and then they billed me without any warning or opt-out option. Kinda shady. Lastly, I need a strong tool for prospecting to coincide with cold email, LinkedIn outreach and a newsletter. They said their email platform is only to contact my existing customers which wouldn't help me or my clients. So while my impressions of MailChimp are lukewarm, I can definitely see myself using it again some day for another purpose. I'm extremely interested and can look past their undertrained staff, questionable upcharge efforts and strict policies. I want to explore it more.

I had great experiences with Instantly.ai. I had tried two competitors unfortunately first — Snovio and Apollo. They were confusing and didn't offer what I wanted with a simple UI. I like Instantly because it's really intuitive. However, I can only give 4 stars because after multiple sequences, I did not get any positive results.

I've had a really positive experience with Dripify. It does the services that it promises. For me, I'm using it 100% to run LinkedIn sequences — add connection, message connections. At a worst case, my LinkedIn connections have significantly increased from high profile execs I was targeting — not just any LI profiles. This makes my LI network more valuable. The automation works. I've only secured one quality lead but I'm not complaining and it's 100% more than other email automation platforms. I blame my content. Leads don't seem to know I'm running an automation either. My only concern was giving over my LI login info, but that allows it to run 24/7 without me opening my computer. I don't take the time to write many positive TrustPilot reviews but Dripify is solid.