Apptivo CRM Software Review

Apptivo Review
4
4 of 5 stars 1 review
  • Pricing
    (4)
  • Features
    (4)
  • Support
    (4)

Summary

Apptivo has features that big corporations look for, such as advanced customization options, white-labeling, and SLA-backed priority support.

Comments Rating 0 (0 reviews)

Pros

  • Affordable and scalable pricing plans
  • Over 50 different functionalities
  • Robust CRM features
  • Useful financial, project, and customer service management tools
  • Highly customizable
  • User-friendly interface
  • Good customer support

Cons

  • A moderate number of integrations
  • Weak inventory management tools

ABOUT

Apptivo is best known as a cloud-based CRM application. However, to limit its nomenclature to just that would be to do it a great disservice as the software has a host of business applications. These include everything from CRM and project management to customer service and procurement, with a good bit in between. It is an amalgamation of over 50 apps all rolled into one neat little package. The application is the brainchild of Bastin Gerald, a mechanical-engineer-turned business graduate and software developer. Gerald spent years working for companies such as Oracle and CashEdge, developing ERP packages for enterprise-level organizations.

This experience seeded in him the idea of developing a business management platform for SMBs too. The engineer bounced this idea around with friends and colleagues, even going so far as pitching it to a venture capitalist. However, all and sundry said that it would be near impossible to build a cost-efficient SMB platform. Not one to be easily discouraged, Gerald set out to build it himself and, along with a team of engineers that he hired, developed, and launched Apptivo. That was in 2009. Since then, the software has been widely used by SMBs in close to 200 countries worldwide. At present, it helps over 150,000 companies run their business processes.

Who Is Apptivo For?

Unsurprisingly, Apptivo’s target market is the SMB segment. Everything from the software’s pricing plans to its ease of use point in that direction. Apptivo has a free plan that solo entrepreneurs, freelancers, and micro-businesses will find useful. Besides, its paid plans are scalable so that businesses can start with the lowest-tier offering before moving on to the more feature-packed ones as their business needs grow. This flexibility does not mean enterprise-level corporations cannot use the software. Aside from a custom plan for enterprise businesses, Apptivo also has features that big corporations look for, such as advanced customization options, white-labeling, and SLA-backed priority support.

PRICING

Aside from a free plan, Apptivo has three paid plans. These come with monthly and annual subscription options. The company offers a discount of 20% for subscribers to the annual plans. Importantly the software has a generous 30-day free trial for which no credit card information is required. On the free trial, you get access to all the software’s features. Apptivo is a pay-as-you-go service, so there are no cancellation fees for both monthly and annual subscribers. However, don’t expect a refund if you cancel a yearly plan.

Here is a comparative look at Apptivo’s four plans:

Plan

Starter

Premium

Ultimate

Enterprise

Users

Up to 3

Unlimited

Unlimited

Unlimited

Price/User/ Month

Free

$10 Billed Monthly

Or

$8 Billed Annually

$25 Billed Monthly

Or

$20 Billed Annually

Custom Prices

Contact & Deal Management

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Project Management

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Invoicing, Estimates & Work Orders

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Help Desk

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Standard Reports

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Custom Views & Filters

Yes

Yes

Yes

Workflows

Yes

Yes

Yes

Multiple Sales Pipelines

Yes

Yes

Yes

Mass Emails

1000

3000

5000

Marketing Automations

Yes

Yes

Yes

Call Center

Yes

Yes

Yes

Custom Branding

Yes

Yes

Yes

Custom Reports

Yes

Yes

Yes

File Storage

500 MB/ Account

3 GB/User

10 GB/User

15 GB/User

Email Sequence

Yes

Yes

Territory Management

Yes

Yes

White Labelling

Yes

Dedicated Account Manager

Yes

FEATURES​

1. CRM

Apptivo boasts of a robust CRM feature that includes everything from document management to sales planning and automation. The software’s contact manager is a well-developed tool that allows you to store a good bit of information on your customers. This includes their contact information, social media accounts, and even hobbies and interests. It goes above and beyond being just a centralized data storage unit, though. Within it, you can also view and manage any activities related to your contacts and store documents and notes on them too. What’s more, if the plethora of default fields that the software offers aren’t enough for you, you can create custom data fields that are unique to your business as well.

The software’s sales pipeline management is similarly comprehensive. Apptivo’s Leads app allows you to capture leads from various sources such as emails and web forms. Once leads are obtained, the app automatically qualifies them by assigning a score to them. This score effectively prioritizes your leads and helps your sales reps to focus on prime ones. Helpfully, you can set up the software to automatically assign leads and contacts to team members based on criteria such as geographical location, follow-up activity, or department.

The next step in the pipeline is lead conversion. Apptivo offers users several ways in which to do this. For one, you can set up follow-up calls using the call-log feature. For another, you can reach out to prospective customers through email marketing. Whatever method you decide to use, you can set up a schedule or workflow for it, so nothing falls through the cracks. The software has standard workflows already set up, which can be tweaked according to your business requirements. Also, you can set up triggers that will automatically move leads down the pipeline.

2. Project Management

Apptivo’s project management feature is a well-built and hardy one. The software allows you to create and manage as many projects, tasks, and milestones as you want. A nice time-saving feature here is that you can create and save project templates complete with tasks, milestones, and employees for later use. This feature is a handy one for businesses that do a lot of similar projects. With each project, you can start by giving it a name, description, status, priority, due date, and tag. Also, you can define it as a billable or non-billable project and add a budget with a base fee, estimated costs, and billing method.

Similarly, you can populate tasks and milestones within a project with pertinent details and assign them to your employees. What’s more, for each task, you can create time estimates and dependencies. The software will then generate a project schedule for you based on those values. This schedule can be viewed using Apptivo’s interactive Gantt chart feature. It comes with an easy drag functionality that allows you to edit tasks and dependencies with a minimum of fuss. Importantly, if you change a task’s timeline, the software automatically adjusts the entire project schedule accordingly.

3. Finance Management

The software’s suite of financial apps ranges from ones that help you manage your fixed assets to those that take care of invoices, estimates, expense reports, and payments. Each of these features is easy to use and interconnected. For example, you can convert an approved estimate into an invoice or assign it to a project or task with one click. Also, Apptivo allows you to set up recurring bills for regular customers or service providers.

Furthermore, the app has plenty of payment gateways you can configure to accept payments and pay your suppliers alike. These include cash, check, online, and card payments. Helpfully, when you email an invoice to a customer, you can include a ‘Make Payment’ button in them, an excellent way to facilitate prompt payments. And if your client defaults on their dues, you can send them payment reminder emails from within the software. These can also be configured to go out just before a payment is due.

4. Marketing Tools

Apptivo’s marketing tools allow you to send out the standard and bulk campaign emails. The software has a few themes to choose from when building an email. These can be customized using the drag-and-drop template builder that allows you to insert as many text boxes, images, links, and social-share buttons as you want. Helpfully, the campaign builder has a ‘SpamAssassin Score’ feature that ensures your emails don’t get categorized as spam. The app’s ‘Targets’ feature allows you to quickly build targeted campaign lists using advanced filters and custom criteria. What’s more, you can set up the system to automatically add new contacts to a target list based on your set values.

Another notable marketing feature is testimonials tools. This feature not only helps you collect customer reviews and testimonials but also enables you to showcase them on your website. The app generates a plugin that you can then insert onto your website, inviting customers to review your business. Importantly, the software gives you the option of approving or rejecting a customer’s testimonial, so you have control over what appears on your site.

5. Customer Service

The platform’s customer service tools give users comprehensive help desk capabilities, from setting up service intake channels to creating and resolving tickets. With Apptivo, you can configure multiple ways for customers to get in touch with you, such as calling in, email, and online through a live chat application. The software’s help desk collects all the tickets from your support channels into one central location, so you have a clear picture of your customer’s problems.

The ticketing system is a priority-based one that you can set up to automatically categorize, prioritize, and route tickets to agents according to their status. Importantly, agents get a comprehensive history of the customer’s interaction with the company inbuilt into every ticket they are assigned. The app’s workflow system allows managers to track customer inquiries from start to finish. Similarly, customers can also be in the know-how through Apptivo’s client portal. The portal enables them to view the status of and the responses, if any, to their ticket.

Besides these, Apptivo also has the tools to help you set up a knowledge base for your business. You can use this to create articles, blogs, or FAQ sections. Besides, you can set up a search bar and categorize your articles using tags and keywords to ensure accurate search results, both within your site and the wider search-engine domain.

6. Procurement

Apptivo offers users a basic inventory management feature. With it, you can keep a list-like record of your inventory. However, aside from an item name, SKU number, and the quantity, there is not much else product data you can store. It also does not have an alert system that notifies you if your stock levels are low. That said, the software automatically updates inventory count if an item is sold or restocked. It also allows you to maintain a comprehensive supplier database and create detailed purchase orders with just a few clicks. Besides, you can directly turn a purchase order into an invoice and send it to your customer for billing, another feature that highlights the app’s user-friendliness.

7. HR And Employee Management

This platform’s HR features are not as comprehensive as most of its other tools. Even so, it gives you some recruitment functionalities. You can create a job position, complete with the professional qualifications and the competencies needed for it, along with the compensation offered. As the resumes come in, you can maintain a list of potential candidates filled with comprehensive information on them.

What’s nice here is that you can convert a potential candidate into an employee with just one click. This way, you don’t need to re-enter all that data. Additionally, you can email important documents such as contracts and employee guidelines from within the software itself. Apptivo also allows you to segregate your employees into different departments or groups and assign varying roles and user permissions to them.

INTEGRATIONS

With around 30 integrations, Apptivo has a modest number of third-party connections. There are a couple of reasons for this. For one, the software natively accomplishes a host of business functionalities in-house, so there’s little reason to look elsewhere. Their list of available third-party integrations is simply a reflection of the features they do not provide. For another, the platform’s developer API allows you to design custom integrations of your own.

Here are some of Apptivo’s important integrations:

  • G Suite
  • Office 365
  • Slack
  • PayPal
  • Stripe
  • Authorize.Net
  • WordPress
  • Xero
  • Quickbooks Online
  • RingCentral
  • Dropbox
  • OneDrive
  • API Calls

More About Apptivo CRM Software

Set Up And Ease Of Use

Given that the platform is an integration of over 50 apps or features, setting it up could have been a time-consuming and daunting process. Thankfully, the software avoids this problem by adopting an all-you-can-eat buffet approach. You can add each one of the 50 odd apps the software offers (or the ones your pricing plan allows), but as with a buffet, you don’t have to. This way, businesses need to add and set up only the features they require. Helpfully, once you enter in some necessary business information, the software recommends a set of apps to get you going. You can either choose to follow their recommendation or install the features you see fit.

The software’s user interface is similarly hassle-free and straightforward, an achievement in itself given its sheer number of features. The main menu is a horizontal one that hosts whatever functions you have enabled along with a search bar and a shortcut to the software’s app store. Each feature has a drop-down menu that lets you access its different components. There is also a vertical menu on the left side that displays features such as your calendar, call logs, notes, tasks assigned to you, and so on. Once again, this could have proved to be daunting. However, when you log in for the first time, Apptivo greets you with little pop-up information boxes that help you find your way around.

Device Compatibility

Desktop Browser App

Android App

iOS App

Windows Phone App

Apple Watch App

X

X

 

While Apptivo’s mobile apps do not include every feature, they still provide a lot of on-the-go functionality. You get its full array of CRM, financials, project management, and supply chain management features. Besides, you can also use the software’s help desk functionalities to address your customer’s issues no matter where you are. The apps also have the same user-friendly and intuitive design as the desktop version. Importantly, data between the mobile and web applications sync automatically.

Customer Support

Apptivo’s customer support services are dependent on your pricing plan. The free plan users get 8/5 and 24/7 email and live chat support, respectively. It upgrades to 24/7 email and live chat support along with 8/5 phone support for the Premium plan users. The support is the same for subscribers of the Ultimate plan, with the exception that they get 24/5 phone support. Finally, Enterprise plan users get 24/7/365 priority support along with a dedicated account manager. In addition to these, Apptivo boasts of a robust and comprehensive self-help resource section that has plenty of starter guides, user manuals, and FAQs. Furthermore, the software also has a handy collection of in-depth video tutorials you can access through its YouTube channel.

Online Security

The company has put several security measures in place to ensure it is a secure online platform. These include:

  • SSAE18 SOC2 Type II, GDPR, and EU-US privacy shield certifications
  • 256-bit SSL data encryption
  • Data segmentation between accounts
  • 1-hourly data backup for each business account
  • Daily malware scans
  • Single sign-on
  • SAML authentication for enterprise clients
  • Role-based access controls
  • Audit logs

PROS AND CONS

PROS

  • Affordable and scalable pricing plans
  • Over 50 different functionalities
  • Robust CRM features
  • Useful financial, project, and customer service management tools
  • Highly customizable
  • User-friendly interface
  • Good customer support

CONS

  • A moderate number of integrations
  • Weak inventory management tools

CONCLUSION

There is not much to dislike about Apptivo. It is a robust yet easy-to-use application that packs a punch with most of its features. The software has undoubtedly fulfilled its founder’s vision of developing a business platform for SMBs. One can even argue that due to its flexibility and customizability, Apptivo has exceeded that vision to include corporates of all sizes. While the non-inclusion of payroll and accounting services stops it from becoming a real one-stop solution, it is very nearly there. Perhaps the only department the company could improve is the integrations wing. Those little nitpicks aside, there is little to fault with it. Given its rich feature set, it will undoubtedly be worth your while to take advantage of Apptivo’s free plan or 30-day free trial to see if it is worth the hype or not.

Related Protucts & Services

USER REVIEW

Leave a Comment

User Review
  • Pricing
    Sending
  • Features
    Sending
  • Support
    Sending