The last week has been a bit bumpy to say the least, and I am extremely PISSED OFF about it. So pissed that I’m spreading the word to anyone and everyone who will listen… if you do business with InfusionSoft, BEWARE!
So here’s how it went down…
Several weeks ago I began testing some list building ideas using simple opt-in landing pages. I wanted to use single optin because my previous small tests with this stuff had shown that I might get 50 optins, but only 3 or 4 would actually DOUBLE optin, for whatever reason. I know a lot of people who use single optin, so thought I would give it a try too.
Very quickly, I hit success. From 1,000 to 2,000 optins per day, with spikes above that, on just two small tests. I built a list of over 60,000 email addresses in a very short span of time! When the people opted in, they immediately received an autoresponder written under a pseudonym, welcoming them to my newsletter and pitching a couple of products to them. Later I added a second message about a money-making opportunity to come 4 days later, but that’s all I did with the list.
Well what I didn’t know was that I had a “very” high spam complaint rate. A few weeks into these tests, I got a phone call from InfusionSoft’s abuse department, advising me of this. According to them, the industry norm for complaints is 0.1% or lower. That’s one-tenth of a percent. My complaint rate was 3.0%, EXTREMELY high. So they shut off my ability to email until they spoke to me about it.
“No problem,” I’m thinking. I’ll make some changes that they suggested, go double optin, and hopefully things settle down. I was advised that they have a “3 strikes” policy and that as long as I brought my complaint rate down below 0.1%, everything would be fine and my email would be turned back on the next day.
So I immediately implemented a couple changes, and emailed them with a question or two. No response. Another day, another email… no response. Over a 4 or 5 day period I sent 4 or 5 emails to the “abuse” department that I had spoken with. Never got a single reply. Then all of a sudden, I received the following email:
You are listed as the primary contact for the Infusionsoft account of niche. Please be advised that we are terminating your service effective immediately. The purpose of this email is to notify you that your account has been suspended due to violations of the Infusionsoft Acceptable Use Policy relating to email abuse. I have included a link to the Infusionsoft Acceptable Use Policy for your review. You will be allowed 14 days to retrieve your data before we permanently delete your account. Please be advised that this decision is final and that further communication regarding this matter, if any, must be in writing.
Thank you for your attention to these matters.
Sincerely,
Joseph Mask
Infusionsoft
josephm@infusionsoft.com
Needless to say I was stunned! I called them immediately and spoke with support, at which point I was advised that they could no longer speak with me and that all communication had to be in writing to Joseph, and Joseph alone.
So… I wrote to Joseph. Here is the entire transcript of our emails back & forth (starts at the bottom):
Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2009 09:37:36 -0800
From: “Jonathan van Clute”
To: “Joseph Mask”
Subject: Re: Notice of Termination of ServiceI disagree.
If someone opts in to my email list and I send them an auto responder,
that is NOT unsolicited. I accept that I was using single optin
which, now that I’ve tried it, I can see is really not a good way to
go. But they DID opt in. I was not importing lists of scraped email
addresses or anything like that. I was NOT sending UCE. I was
sending autoresponders to my single optin list.I can’t be the only person in the world doing this. I’m sure I’m not
the only infusionsoft customer doing it either. Granted I’m not going
to do it anymore since I’ve now seen that double optin is probably the
only way to keep the complaint rate down, but I WAS NOT sending UCE.So once again… I ask that you reconsider since your assertion that I
was sending UCE is incorrect.Jonathan
On Wed, Jan 14, 2009 at 8:29 AM, Joseph Mask wrote:
> Jonathan S.,
>
> I may not have effectively communicated that the reason your service is being terminated is not simply because the complaint rate was too high. It is because you violated the AUP by sending unsolicited bulk e-mail. The complaint rate is just an indicator of the violation.
>
> I appreciate your suggestions for making the complaint rate visible from within the product. We are working to get more detailed e-mail reporting into the product. But the fact remains that the line you crossed was not an invisible one, it is one that is clearly defined in the AUP — that sending unsolicited commercial e-mail is prohibited.
>
> Sincerely,
> Joseph Mask
>
> ________________________________________
> From: Jonathan van Clute
> To: Joseph Mask
> Subject: Re: Notice of Termination of Service
> Date: Mon, 12 Jan 2009 19:36:55 -0700
>
>
> Joseph,
>
> I had NO idea what my complaint rate was until I got a phone call last
> week. I had been running these tests for several weeks, why was I not
> told sooner??? I’m not even an email marketer, I just thought I’d
> experiment with general list building via single optin. I literally
> did not generate one cent in revenue from the entire experiment. No
> joke. Had anyone bothered to tell me I had a high complaint rate, I’d
> have stopped immediately! I began taking the steps recommended to me
> by the person I spoke with by phone, just minutes after speaking with
> him. But then nobody answered me until this termination. What kind
> of looking out for your customers is that???
>
> Frankly I’d be perfectly happy to delete the entire list that has
> generated complaints. There’s only one, and like I said I did not
> generate so much as a penny from it. I was NOT knowingly sending UCE.
> Every single person I sent mail to opted in and I have the IPs for
> them all. It’s not like I was importing junk email addresses into
> your system to mail to. Hell no! I did get people responding to me
> even seconds after opting in, saying that they didn’t… and I
> manually removed them as soon as they did so.
>
> This is beyond heavy handed, and is entirely unnecessary. You want me
> to delete the list, fine. But to terminate me without even ATTEMPTING
> to work with me, is just plain uncalled for.
>
> I have sung infusionsoft’s praises countless times over the last year
> I’ve been a customer. I have a very wide reach via my blogs, forums,
> and customers. I’m an extremely active affiliate marketer (just
> google my name) and have a sterling reputation in the community. Do
> you really want to lose me as a customer over this and have me rescind
> all the good I’ve had to say about your product? With “customer
> service” like this, I couldn’t in good conscience suggest anyone spend
> the extremely high dollars to sign up, knowing that if they step over
> an invisible line once, they could have it all ripped away from them.
>
> I’m asking you to work with me here. I am not unreasonable, am not a
> spammer, and have NO interest in being one. If I had known how to see
> my complaint rates and known there was this 0.1% mark, I would have
> stopped my tests probably within days of starting them, and this would
> never have been an issue.
>
> I ask you one last time to reconsider this and not lose me as a customer.
>
> Jonathan
>
> On Mon, Jan 12, 2009 at 5:22 PM, Joseph Mask wrote:
>> Jonathan S.
>>
>> I can understand why you would be upset. Termination of service is never a pleasant thing to have to deal with.
>>
>> We have the responsibility to protect the reputation and ability to reliably deliver e-mail for all of our customers through the Infusionsoft systems. When customers send unsolicited e-mail through our systems, it generates complaints, which in turn jeopardize our ability to provide high deliverability to our entire customer base.
>>
>> The major Internet Service Providers (ISPs) have a low threshold for SPAM complaints and are very quick to block the IP addresses and domains of the systems that generate them. When high complaint rates such as those generated by your recent “experiments” occur, we have to demonstrate that we are enforcing our AUP by terminating the offending customer(s). If we don’t work diligently to enforce our AUP and eliminate SPAM, we could lose our ability to deliver e-mail altogether.
>>
>> Normally we do follow a three strike policy with customers who are slightly over the accepted complaint rate in order to give them a chance to fix their e-mail practices and lower their complaint rate. But there are always exceptional cases of extremely high complaint rates or blatant abuse that require us to immediately terminate service without going through the three strike process. This is done entirely at our discretion and this is how we arrived at the decision in your case.
>>
>> You may contact our billing department if you would like to request a refund for services you may have recently paid for but did not receive.
>>
>> Sincerely,
>>
>> Joseph Mask
>> Infusionsoft
>> josephm@infusionsoft.com
>> http://www.infusionsoft.com
>>
>> From: Jonathan van Clute
>> To: Joseph Mask
>> Subject: Re: Notice of Termination of Service
>> Date: Mon, 12 Jan 2009 13:39:43 -0700
>>
>>
>> Joseph,
>>
>> I am extremely upset to be receiving this email!
>>
>> I understand that I may have received too many spam complaints due to
>> my recent experiments with using single optin and building generic
>> lists. Fine, that’s what the email from the abuse department last
>> week and subsequent phone call were for. I spoke with someone, he
>> helped me understand the problem, gave me some suggestions, and I
>> IMMEDIATELY set to work implementing them. I have sent 5 emails in
>> the last 5 days asking for clarification on certain things, and how to
>> set up certain things regarding double optin, etc. I have not
>> received a single response to any of those emails.
>>
>> I was told specifically that InfusionSoft has a “3 strikes” policy.
>> Well this is strike one! Why am I being terminated after my first
>> EVER problem with the company?
>>
>> I have been a customer of Infusionsoft for about a year now, and
>> haven’t had any trouble. In fact I just added the affiliate module
>> and paid a chunk of cash and am STILL paying it!
>>
>> Please contact me immediately to discuss this, I’m extremely upset for
>> obvious reasons and I want to resolve this so I can continue using my
>> application.
>>
>> Jonathan
>> 408-xxx-xxxx
That was 2 days ago… no response until today when I just received this:
Dear Jonathan,
We have processed your request to cancel your monthly services with Infusionsoft. Please retain this email as written confirmation of your request to cancel.
Please note that you should remove or back up any data in your Infusionsoft application within five business days of receiving this email.
You will receive no further invoices from Infusionsoft. If you have an outstanding balance, please contact our Billing Department by calling 1-866-800-0004 x3.
We wish you much success in your future endeavors.
Sincerely,
Infusion Software
866.800.0004
MY REQUEST?!?!?!? When exactly did I request to cancel my service??
Now for those of you still with me that don’t know what InfusionSoft is, it is a VERY high end system that does a LOT of stuff. It is incredibly powerful, and I like it a LOT. It’s also not cheap… I paid over $4,000 just to get it plus $300 per month for almost a year. And then a month ago I added their “affiliate module” (which I had thought I already had…) and that was ANOTHER $1,000 plus another $100 per month. So this ain’t no $20/month aweber account we’re talking about here!
And now, they have made it very clear that this matter is CLOSED and they will not speak to me again.
3 strikes policy? Apparently not. I was given no chance to correct anything (despite being told I would by phone), and never knew I had high complaints until it was “too late.”
Is this any way to treat a customer? Now I get to attempt to get my affiliate module (which I really never got to use) refunded, and I’m going to go for a chargeback of everything else too. I don’t know if it will fly, but at this point I’m almost willing to do it just out of spite.
So anyone using InfusionSoft and playing with “aggressive” marketing strategies… BEWARE!! You could have your business shut down instantly with no recourse. I’m very fortunate in that email marketing is not in any way the primary focus of my business.
InfusionSoft, for a company that makes “Customer Relationship Management” software, you need to learn a lot about how to treat customers!
Jonathan
P.S.
I just attempted to log into my InfusionSoft account so I could download the data that’s in it, and I’m greeted by this (new?) policy I must agree to (red emphasis is THEIRS!):
Email Acceptable Use Policy
Email, Email, Email!
Infusionsoft is dedicated to getting your email delivered.
To do this we maintain a positive email reputation by requiring that our customers abide by all email laws, industry requirements, and best practices.
By agreeing to and following these email best practices you help to ensure that your emails make it to your customers’ inbox.My email sending complies with the Acceptable Use Policy.
I have Permission to send email marketing to the people I plan on marketing to.
I can verify the opt-in of each person I plan on marketing to.
I did not buy, rent, or borrow any of the email addresses I plan on marketing to.
If I am reported for Spamming my Infusionsoft account could be shut down without any refund.
If you are REPORTED (whether you actually did it or not???) for spamming you could be terminated WITHOUT REFUND?!?!?!
So now I’m nervous… if I agree to this, does that mean they can now staunchly (and rightly, in their minds) refuse to give me any refund??
WTF?!?!??!?!?!?
This really is unblieveable and crazy. You didnt spam. Those people opted in. Hello!!! Does a company that hosts optin lists not know what an optin is?
Thanks for the warning on this company.
I have reposted it in other places so others wont have these problems.
Interesting, and thanks for sharing. I am actually in the market for a system like Infusionsoft, and have been leaning towards going that way. They’re on my call list for the next few days, but after reading this, i’m not taking a chance.
It’s one thing to terminate you if you did indeed breach the user agreement, but I don’t believe you did. And worse, they treated you disrespectfully and won’t listen to your arguments. No way I’ll do business with them.
Jonathan,
I’m sorry to hear about your disappointing experience with us. First, I want to thank you for sharing your disappointing experience with the blogosphere and us. Like many companies, we’re in a tight situation when it comes to enforcing regulatory guidelines, industry best practices and empowering clients to grow their small business. I appreciate your passion to grow your business with our company, but after researching the matter further, it may have been best that we terminated services between us.
You raise several concerns that I’d like to address. Admittedly, we haven’t been very transparent about how we address clients who don’t conduct themselves within our guidelines. I’ll respond to the points that you elevate in your entry. Forgive me for not going into detail, as I respect the privacy and the needs of you and your business. In a similar vein, I authored a blog entry addressing concerns people asked us about our anti-spam enforcement. I would appreciate if you would spend a few moments and check it out at http://www.infusionblog.com/company-info/spam-got-you-down-we-dont-like-spam/ .
I’d like to clarify the reason why we terminated services with your account was not regarding unsolicited e-mail; rather, we suspended your account due to excessively high complaint rate and terminated the account due to the disagreement to correct marketing activities. Our primary concern was that the pretext that people opted into your marketing did not match the expectation that the landing pages provided.
You mentioned that you were in the midst of a variety of marketing tests. I’d like to point out that we provide great software that enables people to capitalize on their creativity. However, because of the marketing test that you’ve performed, the broadcast e-mails earned an astounding 4% complaint rate. Our tolerances are reasonable — below 0.5%. E-mail Complaint Rate is the reason why your email services were suspended. We suspend email services in an urgent effort to correct your email marketing practices. Additionally, the content of the e-mail themselves was questionable at best, not to mention that the opt-out hyperlink was buried well below the message with several new lines.
I understand and can empathize with your concerns regarding the lack or the drop-off of contact between us. In my experience, it’s very frustrating when you aren’t able to pitch your perspective to the decision makers in an equal stance. However, I hold that against the ability to be reasonable, listen and learn from the proven experts in the field. Our Email Compliance Team was willing to assist you to improve your e-mail marketing practices, but you declined that opportunity. When J. Mask isn’t tending to rebuttals from suspended clients, he is overseeing the spectacular uptime on our servers, ensuring all clients have their marketing sequences run properly and as expected. The four days of no response was due to a holiday weekend, and for that, we apologize for the delay. Likewise, this all comes back to my point of being reasonable.
In addition to the 4% complaint rate, your e-mail campaign earned over 160 spam complaints from recipients, whom stated they never signed up. (Even if they did, they are reporting a rather unexpected e-mail). These circumstances are egregious in nature, which required us to take immediate action to address and preserve the integrity of our shared server environment as well as reputation in the email marketing industry.
We empathize with the fact that our marketing automation software was a substantial investment for you, which is precisely why J. Mask referred you to our helpful billing team to coordinate a refund, per your needs. You’re still eligible for your initial investment, as explained by J. Mask.
Because it’s not common for these situations to occur, all official contact is to happen between our Director of Technology and the client. The last thing we’d want is to provide a client with incorrect information, especially at the time of suspension (when their business matters the most). We apologize if this feels insincere or cold, but we must remain vigilant in these efforts in order to maintain our relationship with ISPs.
To recap this experience, it sucks. It sucks for marketers who market their products to cold leads, set the improper expectations, cross the line of permission-based marketing and who aren’t willing to adapt their marketing techniques to the standards of the industry. We aren’t for those marketers. Infusionsoft intends on serving the true small business with less than 25 employees, entrepreneurs whose business model consists of products and services. Our software isn’t fit for everyone and we acknowledge that. Personally, I find that our software is great for those who wish to follow up with their customers via email.
Again, please accept my apologies for the upsetting experience you’ve endured. I hope we can make this situation right and let you know that we genuinely care about our customers, even if they don’t like us. I hope you were able to get your contacts and relevant information from your application. If you need further help, please let me know.
Regards,
Joseph Manna (joseph.manna [at] Infusionsoft.com)
Community Manager, Infusionsoft
@Charles — We completely understand the purpose of opted-in email marketing. However, if the pretext is that the recipient will receive a free item, then is blindly marketed with how to make money on the Web … that defeats the purpose of opting in.
Permission-based marketing involves setting the proper expectations for the type of e-mail, frequency of e-mail, and confirming their request. Simply because someone entered their e-mail address on a Web page, it does not imply a marketer can irresponsibly blast them with any affiliate offer they see fit. It’s no surprise spam complaints flood in and companies like ours necessitate such drastic measures to prevent further abuse.
We did not close Jonathan’s account on the premise of UCE. See my comment above for a clarification on why. We hold our users accountable for the complaint rate, especially if they are embracing the best practices that we provide for them. We are even less forgiving when the client isn’t willing to adapt their practices to align themselves with the industry.
If you have questions, please contact me.
All the best,
Joe
@D — We revoked service from Jonathan for breach of our Acceptable Use Policy. Additionally, due to the excessive nature of the violations, we immediately terminated it. In exchange for the poor experience, we offered to refund Jonathan’s initial investment into using our software.
We must remain consistent, vigilant and straightforward when it comes to abusers. Especially with e-mail, it no longer becomes a customer service issue, it’s a legal liability/risk to house and interact with people who flagrantly violate laws and regulations.
I hope this helps, if you have questions, you’re welcome to ask me. 🙂
~Joe
You people at infusionsoft are the worst. They will make up things from thin air, and even talk about your personal info on open forms. Shut this company down.
Joseph, while I appreciate you having the courage to post your response publicly, you are absolutely incorrect.
Firstly, I IMMEDIATELY offered to correct whatever needed to be corrected. I sent FOUR separate emails asking questions of your abuse team regarding proper setup of double optin, etc. I got no answer to any of them. Would you like me to post those emails as well?
Secondly, you absolutely did NOT offer to refund my initial investment in the software. You told me that if I felt there were services I did not receive, that I could speak with your billing department.
That’s a WORLD of difference from offering me a full refund of the roughly $8,500+ that I have spent with your company.
Had you offered an immediate refund of my investment, I would have been seriously annoyed since I would rather have remained a customer, but I would have accepted it and just moved on. But that did not happen and frankly I don’t like you saying that it did.
On that note, I contacted your billing department yesterday. I was instead transferred to tech support, which tried to be helpful but ultimately just left a message with billing to get in touch with me. It’s been well over 24 hours now and I’ve heard nothing.
Again I want to make this clear:
NOBODY GAVE ME A CHANCE TO CORRECT ANYTHING.
I had ONE phone conversation with your abuse department, then I was sent into a black hole of no responses anymore while I tried to figure out if I was doing things correctly. Next thing I know, I’m terminated.
You keep bringing up my complaint rate… if I had had ANY IDEA what my complaint rate was, I would have changed my entire approach weeks earlier.
You may notice I was a customer since February. And in all that time, I never did any large scale email marketing with InfusionSoft. Honestly I could’ve just stayed with Aweber and there would have been no difference… but I wanted to grow into InfusionSoft over time. I began building this experimental list just a few weeks ago, which you can certainly see yourself. If you knew a few days later that my complaint rates were unacceptable, you merely had to call or email me and I would have been HAPPY to do whatever I had to do. Hell I’d have APPRECIATED the guidance from true email marketing experts, which I am *NOT*!
I take great offense at the suggestion that I was “unwilling” to correct my actions. That is pure BULLSHIT and I have the emails (and if you record your abuse phone calls, you have a phone conversation) to prove it. YOU as a company stopped talking to ME the customer, and therefore it was not POSSIBLE for me to correct anything.
You gave me NO CHANCE to fix anything. NONE. To suggest otherwise is a blatant lie and in my opinion is just to cover your own ass.
“Disagreement to correct”?? “Declined the opportunity” to work with you on this??? UTTER CRAP!!! I ASKED YOU FOR GUIDANCE AND YOU IGNORED ME!!!
I’m getting more angst-ridden as I write so I’m going to stop now.
What does everyone else think about Joe’s comments?
Jonathan
I’m confused. If spam rate is such a serious issue why wait until 60,000 optins to bring down the hammer? Wouldn’t everyone be happier if the list owner was warned after 1,000 optins? How about a tiny bit of effort to distinguish an honest, high-volume marketer from a spammer before terminating the account?
To Joe, Infusionsoft:
Your actions in this circumstance make no sense for the list owner, the list user, or Infusionsoft. The list owner is terminated, the list users got way more ‘spam’ than necessary, and Infusionsoft has a much higher spam rate than necessary. How do you plan to address this?
Jonathan,
I understand you’re upset, but please understand that I’m being respectful with our outreach to you and I’d appreciate the same. Our team reviewed the numerous complaints, quality of email sent and made the difficult decision to terminate our relationship with you as a customer. The behavior, (“experimental list building”), is too much of a risk to the business and we do not associate ourselves with such questionable activity. We’re not alone in this, ask any seasoned email marketing professional about it.
You bring up a valid point regarding the inability to know one’s complaint rate within the software — we’re in the process of publishing this on a per-batch, per-template basis. However, there are concerns regarding the accuracy of such metrics. For instance, if you send a batch (‘broadcast’) email to contacts, it could be weeks until everyone actually reads it and reports it as spam to their ISP. Thus, these metrics would be inaccurate to say that two days later, one has say 0.75% than the third day, 1.5% or even by the fifth day, 0.2%. It’s variable and would be difficult for us to quantify to customers. We base our complaint rate (now) purely from the ISP feedback loops (FBLs), compared to the volume of emails sent.
The good news is that we’re currently setting a new mail server infrastructure that will provide better metrics, performance and enforce safeguards to prevent experiences such as yours from occurring.
It’s my understanding that J. Mask ceased contact with you after the degrading discourse within your e-mail interactions. I’ll share your feedback with him and the Email Systems Team so they can improve their customer service interactions. I’d rather not say this, but they aren’t customer service … they deliver customer service in the form of protecting our servers and email deliverability for all customers. Unfortunately, edge cases like this occur, and we’re sorry about that.
Thanks again for the feedback. We wish you the best with AWeber. They have an impressive reputation in the email marketing industry, but be warned that they too will shut accounts down for activity such as this. If there is anything I can help with, you can always chat with me.
~Joe
Degrading discourse???
I have absolutely no idea what that could possibly be referring to. The only “discourse” I had with ANYONE regarding this whole mess, was a phone call with someone in abuse (I want to say Adam? Can’t remember now…) that was pleasant and during which he assured me that we would speak again and that my ability to email would be reactivated the next day, but NOT for the problem list. I was totally A-OK with this and set about attempting to correct some of the problems.
Here are the ONLY other discussions that ever occurred about this entire issue (starts at bottom of course):
There was no “degrading discourse”. After the above emails went unanswered, I was formally terminated without so much as another response until I heard from you explaining why I was terminated, and which led to this post.
Do you have me confused with another client? I am telling you, you are completely and utterly mistaken. I did not get in any way “nasty” (if you could call it that) until this blog post, where I finally blew my stack.
Once more – you have terminated me unfairly and I believe that constitutes bad faith on your part. I was never given any chance to correct anything, and was never rude or inconsiderate to anyone in any way (again, until this blog post where I admit to have gotten a bit vulgar because I’m just THAT mad).
Your assertions about me and how I handled this issue, are 100% incorrect, as well as your statement that you offered me a full refund of my investment.
I’m still waiting for that promised return call from your billing department. I would like the full refund you now appear to have promised.
Jonathan
@Joe — Opting in isn’t the problem. We process hundreds of thousands of opt-ins on behalf of our clients. It’s the context into how they recipients opted in. They opted in for one specific free offer, yet received an unrelated offer and didn’t set expectations. Because of the viral, sudden spike in marketing campaigns a number of customers employ, an automated means of combating spam isn’t in our interest.
We have a talented group dedicated to overseeing the questionable activity from our users. We’re aggressive against data imports of old, purchased/rented/borrowed lists. In general, we are exploring additional solutions to mitigate the behaviors of old-school (spam) marketers who threaten the bottom line for all our customers. A revised AUP will happen in the future and additional documentation will aid our clients.
We advise all our users at the time of purchase, the time during setup and every time the client sends a batch email or imports a list of contacts. We don’t intend to damage people’s egos, but we must remain vigilant and strong in this respect to ensure deliverability is top-notch. I’ve taken screenshots of two examples of how we remind customers about the guidelines and AUP of our services:
Broadcast Email: http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3317/3215149573_b9d627a18b_o.png
Contact Import: http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3314/3215177133_e3a696e6bc_o.png
In any case, we have a great amount of trust and support into our clients. We’re just as much thrilled about them growing their business and doubling their sales as they are. We like to do it legitimately and ethically.
~Joe
Jonathan,
We have records stating J. Mask responded to your initial questions. It appears you wish to continue this in the comments. To respect the privacy of our clients, I won’t post the e-mail transcript, but I will include Mr. Mask’s replies. Sorry if the didn’t reach your inbox.
Here are the two responses Joseph replied with:
What I meant by the degrading discourse was that the e-mail dialog consisted of no more than requests to reactivate service. We apologize for being appearing blunt, cold or not caring. We have a very warm customer-centric culture and are focused on improving areas we need to improve.
Mr. Mask made the decision to immediately terminate your relationship with our company on the basis of several factors that we determine are substantial risks to our email deliverability for all customers.
~Joe
OK now I’m a bit confused… I assumed you WERE the same “Joseph” I spoke to before, no wonder I’m a little lost.
As for those emails… yes I did receive them, in fact they are quoted in my original post by me on this blog!
My point is that you (or the other Joseph, I’m not sure who is which at this point) have stated a couple specific things that are not true:
1) That you offered a full refund of my investment into InfusionSoft.
2) That I refused to make changes to my marketing methods when asked to do so.
Those are both absolutely false statements, and THAT is what I’m so upset about at this point.
I have thoroughly documented every bit of conversation I have had with InfusionSoft on this matter. I did request several times that you reconsider my termination because your reasons for doing so did not match with what I was told by your abuse department – namely that this was the first of “3 strikes” and that my email ability would be re-enabled the next day.
Once more I want to be very very clear here:
InfusionSoft staff NEVER discussed any changes with me beyond the one and only phone call I had with abuse, wherein I completely agreed to make any and all proposed changes.
NO other effort was extended to me whatsoever, to correct the situation.
In “polite society”, when someone breaks a law the first time, they are typically given a reprimand and advised to change their ways. All is then well provided they don’t offend again, at which time penalties get more severe.
This was my very very first problem with InfusionSoft (unless there were other issues that nobody ever told me about??) and I was effectively given “the death penalty” over it. How does that make any sense??
Also, as someone else mentioned… why wait until I had sent so many emails? Why was I not notified weeks earlier? I understand a bit of delay in collecting data… but weeks?? No way. There is no sensible explanation that I can imagine, for my not having been told to change what I was doing BEFORE it became such a huge problem.
Lastly, I have already attempted to contact your billing department to request a refund. It has now been roughly 48 hours and nobody has returned my call (I left the message in person with someone in support who spoke with someone in billing who said they would get back to me).
Do I just keep calling? How much effort do I have to expend to chase someone down about this, especially in light of being told that my only allowable communication at this point is in writing?
Jonathan
Jonathan,
Again, we’re very sorry for the poor experience you had. I agree we were relatively impersonal about the whole thing. The comment stated by J. Mask and reitered by me regarding a refund was incorrect. He was under the impression that you were a new customer, which isn’t the case. The initial investment go toward the one-on-one business consultations and onboarding.
However, due to the situation at hand, I’d be willing to advocate for the past month of service in your favor, to assist you to get connected with a different email marketing provider.
To maintain our relationship with the numerous ISPs whom are aggressive against spam, we regret to share that we can no longer retain you as a client. We appreciate the passion and creativity you put into your marketing campaigns, but that isn’t allowed here because of the severity of the violations.
I’m not sure who advised you of the three-strikes policy, but that is not the case. We MAY enforce it that way, but we assess the situation, the client, and the overall marketing practices to determine if a strike will amend future instances or if it’s in the best interest to immediately halt further activity (and risk).
I’d love nothing more for you to continue to be successful with affiliate marketing and for you to help others through your blog. However, I want you to look objectively at this experience from our perspective. We have a zero tolerance on spammers — we can’t house them, nurture them or otherwise safe-harbor them from ISPs. A famous co-location company, McColo, was found to be safe-harboring about 90% of the spam sent from the US.
If you have questions, you have my e-mail address. I appreciate your time and effort you’ve invested into this. I only wish it could have worked out better.
Regards,
Joe
InfusionSuck SUCKS… I tried them 2+ years ago. I signed up at a Dan Kennedy seminar.
They follow the Dan Kennedy / Bill Glazier model to a ‘T’…
Over Charge And Under Deliver! They are GREAT at it!
I was a customer for more than a year and had nothing but problems, and their customer service was the absolute worst.
I have been steering anyone and everyone I know thinking about Infusion… away from them for over a year.
Oddly enough, I remember telling Jonathan I wouldn’t use them.
To Joseph Manna, Infusionsoft:
The reason I mentioned the optins is it was my understanding that Jonathan was using an autoresponder to follow-up and those emails where causing the high spam rate. The point is…how many ‘high spam rate’ emails were sent over what span of time before your ‘questionable activities group’ did something about it? Couldn’t this have been caught sooner?
I’m starting to understand why Aweber has a better deliverability rate…
Jonathan,
Keep me up to date on if you get a refund from this company.
If they don’t I will push this out to my lists and we will get
public exposure over this gross mistreatment.
I have heard of InfusionSoft and fully planned on using their
services in the near future. As well as a company I consult
with – however in light of this information. I will not only
retract any positive comments, but I will publically inform
my partners, subscribers, and readers about this situation.
Some companies forget their roots when they feel like they’ve
made it.
Contact the owner – maybe he still cares about his company’s PR.
C.
Hell, Frank Kern uses InfusionSoft and his emails aren’t usually full of quality info, just an affiliate link. They’re some touchy socialists.
The comment above links to a video I’ve just posted to further escalate this matter.
http://tooltrainer.com/tools/blog/video-to-infusionsoft/
Jonathan
Jonathan…so sorry you went through this. I have been using infusion for a while now and have become very dissatisfied. they promise power…then deliver a very unstable product, horrific customer support, and all the while smile while telling you to your face that you must be the problem. the product had so much promise…
i’ve had campaigns just stop working due to ‘updates’
i’ve had affiliate records disappear
i’ve had reports be grossly incorrect
after using them for a while I have to say that they are definitely not what you would call enterprise class software…nothing you should bet your business on.
soon to be ex-infusionsoft user
Joseph, Joseph, Joseph…. OK maybe there is only two of you. 🙂
Stop it…the longer you talk the more credibility you lose. Good grief! It is getting funny. I know your job is “damage control” but you are gonna have to get a LOT better at it.
You see…you have a problem…
MANY, many, MANY of us know a lot about Jonathan from his working with the internet community. He is fair, reasonable and perhaps MOST important in this discussion has ethics that are outstanding. I find that refreshing in this day and age.
Quite frankly it is really getting funny seeing your attempted “professional tone” when your own comments and actions are full of discrepancies and confusion. (full and partial refunds, wait until a list grows to 60K before complaining, reasons for suspension, acceptable percentages of complaints and apparently not wanting to post emails that Jonathan had already posted that you hadn’t read.) Can you guys not READ?
Hmmm………
OK so I know Jonathan to be high quality individual, honest, ethical, yada yada and hear numerous complaints on the internet about overpriced, unresponsive, uncaring InfusionSoft.
I wonder what we should do? Well….
Well I, for one, won’t be getting an InfusionSoft account. At least not with THIS management in place. I will stay away from such an overpriced, bloatware, solution with gestapo customer service tactics.
Rex
PS. Joseph(s)…let me help you guys start your next email to the public. You can split test these headlines. “If he sinks he must be a witch!” or “He must be one of those commies!”
OK I am LMAO now…
This fellow at
http://productmanagementtips.com/2008/07/09/infusionsoft-spam/
accuses infusionsoft of SPAMMING him.
Ya gotta luv it don’t cha?
Guess that “permission marketing” is just rhetoric that applies to “other people”. They can do what they want.
Cheers,
Rex
Hi Joseph,
It is very interesting to see how you are telling your customers that spamming is bad. It is but it is appalling to me that InfusionSoft is preaching from this position, when it itself was guilty of spamming me to no end when I had not opted in to receive any correspondence from it.
See my blog post at http://productmanagementtips.com/2008/07/09/infusionsoft-spam/
Your CEO Clate Mask wrote to me apologizing for this and to admit that mistakes were made. Your email content was a joke – see my blog post for details. So InfusionSoft can make mistakes and correct itself, but if your paying customers makes one, you hit them with a sledgehammer.
I hate spam and it is possible that there was a mistake made and as far as I can tell the customer apologized and tried to work with you guys. And you don’t want to, that to me means only one thing you have become ARROGANT and have lost sight of the fact that customers need to be treated right.
I agree that future customers need to be aware of Infusionsoft.
should have just asked me on how to increase the double optin rate. would have been the way to go rather than switch to single optin. and there were also ways to decrease the spam complaints from single optin too.
but regardless, you got the shaft. that sucks dude
big jason
@joe aweber certainly does not have a higher deliverability rate across the board. both have issues
We are also going to be an ex Infusionsoft user as soon as we can set up an alternative cart and mailing system.
I’m just amazed more people aren’t posting negative comments about them as they’re system stinks. It is VERY buggy and yes, there customer service does stink.
I think the only reason people aren’t saying more is that they don’t want their customers and affiliates to know that the system they are using sucks – big time. That, and quite a few of the ‘gurus’ are earning great commissions recommending them.
The only people I would recommend Infusionsoft to are our competitors. I’d love it if they all moved over to the Infusionsoft as it would be sure to damage their business in a major way – lol.
To be fooled by the hype. These are a bunch of con men who will gladly take your money, but deliver nothing by misery. Stay well clear!
Infusionsoft sucks!
Hi Jonathon
That’s is a real shocker I am using infusion soft now and will be discontinuing the service as soon as I download the data.
If you are going to terminate the service then give the man a FULL refund every penny paid that’s the right thing to do.
Another example of a company just forgetting who the customer really is, with tough economic times ahead for most and the most expensive software around for marketers – makes you wonder who will be terminating who in the long term…
Let me know Jonathan if you get a full refund if not that’s another 300 bucks a month they wont get from me!
Leigh
http://www.wowreels.com
Good Luck Greg on becoming an ex – customer, here’s a little of what IS happening now.
I joined in december ’08 with a very special $500 start-up, they said end of the year quotas and all that.
Well after seeing there inefficiencies and customer service I never installed my system or set it up in any way. I asked that they terminate my account in January since I haven’t used it yet.
Then my credit card got hit with a couple of thousand dollars and change which I didn’t expect at all. I had several hundred dollars in fees from bounced checks because they did that – of course they do it on weekends right? So i couldn’t call right away.
So on monday I called they said they made a mistake and would refund me by sending me a check in 30 – 60 days! I said totally not acceptable.
They said sorry it’s our policy on refunds.
Then I got charged again a week later and never got the refund.
I contacted my bank to get the money back and start a dispute because I NEVER USED THE SERVICE. So they did as a temporary thing until they investigated.
Well just today I see the $2200 back as a debit to my account!
Infusionsoft is trying to ruin me or something!
Now I saw above that Joseph said “I thought you were a new Customer” concerning the refund request.
WELL I AM A NEW CUSTOMER WHERE’S MY REFUND??????? I would also like a return on my banking fees.
Bruce Gelerter
Boy Bruce, that really sucks. I wish I had something to suggest to you, but I think the best I can do is to share with you the email address of Aaron Stead, their head of customer service:
aaron.stead@infusionsoft.com
Apparently he’s the only one who can make refund decisions.
As for my situation, they are staunchly refusing to refund me ANYTHING AT ALL based on their claim that they did deliver the service and the “consultation” or whatever they call it. Basically they say the first $5k is for your orientation phone calls.
THOSE ARE THE MOST EXPENSIVE PHONE SESSIONS I’VE EVER BEEN INVOLVED WITH!!!
I’m going to attempt to appeal to Aaron one more time, but I suspect he is going to tell me to go jump in a lake.
Looks like it will be time for a chargeback as far back in time as I’m able to go.
Jonathan
Jonathan
I’m glad I read this since I was going to talk to my partner about moving from 1 shopping cart to InfusionSoft next month.
But they treated you like a dog and you never did anything wrong.
We add over 400 new people to our email database everyday with 1SC and they are all single optin.
My feeling is if they want the info they will give my there email address and if they don’t like my emails then just remove yourself from the list.
InfusionSoft seems like they don’t even want to work with you at all.
I’m going to make a point to blog about this post and make sure other people see it.
Thanks
Charles Kirkland
Thank you for this information Jonathan. I will not be using this horrible company at any time in the future of my business.
Best of luck to you though in finding an exit through their crap customer service.
I too had a horrible nightmare experience with InfusionSoft too. After paying them thousands of dollars and spending many months, they were unable to meet my data migration needs, which they said would be no problem doing. So I never got up and running.
They balked on the refund.
This spinmeister from InfusionSoft writes as if from a template with no consideration of what was documented by Johnathan. It’s like when you see a politician asked a question and they answer it by spinning it in a completely different direction.
I don’t even want to buy from marketers who use InfusionSoft anymore.
Hey guys…
I want to get out of Infusionsoft ASAP. I just can’t stand it anymore.
What are some good alternatives to Infusionsoft?
I know there’s 1ShoppingCart, but are there any others out there that are at least partially similar?
I’d like the customer database, auto-responder, and shopping cart features in the least.
Any ideas?
I HATE INFUSION SOFT!
Its piratically built by programmers. They didn’t bother to think about the end user. Its difficult to use and clunky. I had to do something simple and called the infusion soft help support (sucks) and they walked me through it. It took us nearly 10 minutes and almost 20 steps to complete it. I told the support “there was no way I would have been able to do this by myself” and he just laughed. I will discontinue my service immediately.
So I get to cancel Infusionsoft, yeah!! This message is from them:Hi, Cynthia. I hope things are working out. If it’s not, you can give our customer care team a call at 1-866-800-0004 and reach extension 0020. Otherwise, you can still give me a call and I can connect you. Wishing you the best,Joe (I just called and got a recoding. HA. HA. It says someone will call me back in 48 hours LOL now you know Y I am dumping it!!!!)5 minutes ago – clear
@Leigh — I can respect your opinion on the matter but the bottom line is if we refund violators of our Acceptable Use Policy, we’d be expected to make refunds in all other cases of abuse. I’m sure you can understand our perspective … if we were liberal with issuing refunds during instances of abuse, we’d attract the Web’s most scummiest spammers. I hope as a current user of our software, you have a chance to check our our Email Resource Center.
@Bruce — Our company has already reached out to Bruce on a solution and looking forward to things working out. That said, we understand emotions and quick decisions can run high during the recession and we know that. Thanks for sharing your concern, Bruce.
@Charles — Thanks for sharing your perspective. The meat of the issue isn’t about SOI; it’s about the expectations and the subsequent behavior resulting in an excessive ISP complaint rate. How is the deliverability at 1SC? I’ve heard some less than positive feedback from ex-1SC’ers, but would love a refreshing view. Thanks for your feedback, it helps us strive to become better.
@Jason — Sorry you feel that way. I hope you had a chance to see both the reasons and the perspective our company has. Likewise, I can respect your decision to not support our views. I wish you the best!
@Dissatisfied — Sorry to hear you dislike my responses. I’m just here to help and give others a sense of what we think of this feedback. I’m not trying to spin anything; only putting it in perspective and be human about it. With respect to your issue, we have a talented data migration team who are tasked with importing data from thousands of users; it appears they hit a major stumbling block in your case. Additionally, I want to add that Infusionsoft now provided a ‘Double Your Sales Guarantee’ in the event the system doesn’t work for you, you can reclaim your initial investment (with a few requirements). I know that doesn’t help now, but we did make a step in the right direction. Thanks for your feedback.
@Ron — Sorry to hear you want to leave. I don’t know of any other solutions out there that do what we do. However, if you find one, let us know. We can export your data in nearly any way that you need. For PCI compliance, there are more steps involved to export credit card data, but we’ll be happy to work with you. Thanks for letting us know. If you have questions on canceling, you can reach us at 1-800-866-0004 and speak with the customer care team.
@Adina — Yes, our software is developed by very talented programmers. We actually have a user experience team wholly dedicated to improving usability of our software. I’ve used other email marketing solutions and I have so say that we have very impressive usability. That said, I know that we have big opportunities, too. We’d love your feedback on our product by submitting new ideas at http://ideas.infusionsoft.com/ , our PM team frequently uses that to integrate changes into our product. Also want to apologize if the lighthearted approach from our support team was misunderstood … we want to demonstrate that we’re human and can empathize with your concern. We appreciate your feedback since we’re always looking to improve.
@Cindy — I’ve already reached out to you and was there every step of the
way when you had questions. It’s a bit odd that you’re so upset at us, but either way, I appreciate the time that you spent trying to use our service.
~~~~
I hope I provided some type of justice for the lack of response on here. I understand people can be critical of us, primarily due to the passion they have to succeed in small business. Our company has made a number of mistakes, but not without making a number of advances. We hope that some folks understand that and we’re always striving to move forward as an organization and truly serve the small business and entrepreneur our there. Our company has five ‘Core Values’ which we demonstrate to our users and the small business community: Entrepreneurship, Authenticity, Integrity, Passion and Compassion. Admittedly, some of these shine darker than others, but we aim to provide stellar service for hundreds of thousands of entrepreneurs.
Wishing you all the best,
Joe Manna, Community Manager for Infusionsoft
Thanks all for the great feedback on Infusionsoft. I was about to sign up…won’t be signing up now! Nothing like real life experience to weed out the crap. In saying Jonathan I feel for mate. I guess Infusionsoft forgot to read their five ‘Core Values’.
Two thoughts:
1. This is why I no longer use hosted services. I’m done with letting anyone else control my list or any part of my business. Besides, deliverability is NEVER as good when you’re sharing IPs and servers. You need your own mail server with a dedicated IP.
2. This is part of why I left Arizona – lots of dishonest shysters all over the place, and I first chose not to sign up for InfusionSoft when I saw that they’re in Arizona.
Anyway, I’ve heard from others that InfusionSoft isn’t worth the $$$ and you’re just another person who can back that up.
Thanks Jonathan!! I will cross Infusionsoft off of our list too. As was mentioned earlier, and from personal experience I know you to be a well respected and upstanding individual. The responses from “the two joes” were canned, disrespectful and lacked any consideration whatsoever to the actual facts presented by Jonathan in this blog. We will not use infusionsoft, we will not recommend infusionsoft to our customers, and we’ll make sure that our clients are made aware of the disrespectful way it treats its soon to be ex-clients!
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 $)’
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…
Dear Joe,
Whilst your attempts at pacifying this baying crowd are noble – you are on a hiding to nothing.
You are here taking the flak and your salary while Clate and Joe Mask are raking in millions. They swan around talking at big marketing seminars and make more in a day than you’ll make all year.
And you’re helping them.
You are obviously a very diplomatic and eloquent man – talents which will serve you far better if instead of trying to plaster over the ironically poor customer service performance from your CRM-owning taskmasters and put them to work FOR YOURSELF.
That’s right. Come over to the dark side and joint us in the land of entrepreneurialism, freedom and financial prosperity. Throw off your chains of oppression and start living your own life.
Just say ‘no’ to cleaning up other people’s sh!t and take a stand so that when you’re lying on your deathbed, you can look back with pride that you were a man who became all that he could be.
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.
They almost con me…..I sent clay a golden screw driver so Clay and his team can screw anyone at anytime.
unfortunately i didn’t read this blog before paying 4,000 plus 300 per month.
wish i had read it.
ATTENTION TO THE FUTURE INFUSIONSHAFTED:
did you know that you’re S.O.L. if you wanted to update your infusionsoft calendar & contacts if you’re out on the road?
did you know that most of the people at infusionsoft don’t even use their own calendar – ask them.
did you know that you can’t even use it with a blackberry?
did you know you can’t even print out your calendar (so it’s readable) so you can at least pretend that you use a 1970’s daytimer (like grampa did) as opposed to a $4000 buggy – ‘the apps is in development’ softyware.
NOTE: if they offer to hip you their big dvd package – tell em to keep it, it has grade 3 production values – no editing just a crappy, poorly shot video (oh yeah did i say no editing and shot like a grade 3ers) – and to think i could have signed up with salesforce for a fraction of the cost and a lot less money.
my message to you: stay away from infusionshaft
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.
Remember, Life’s too short for follow up calls.
I’m really surprised that apart from Wes’ reponse, the only positive tone in this whole thread is from Joe @ Infusionsoft. We’ve been using Infusionsoft for about 8 months now and it has transformed our business. I did a lot of research before taking the plunge and have not regretted it one iota.
Sure, there’s been some niggles but when have you ever bought anything that worked out absolutely, 100% perfect? It doesn’t happen. I’ve found the Infusionsoft team to be responsive, professional and committed to our success.
And anyone who would base a buying decision on one disgruntled customer’s complaints is probably not a good fit for what they’re not going to buy!
Just my two cents. Probably not worth much more than that.
Thanks for sharing your view Pete. The larger issue here isn’t so much that the software itself is bad… yes it has its issues but I’ve always maintained that it is still a very very powerful platform.
The larger issue is how their customer service in specific, handles things. It’s about how I was treated and how even though IS acknowledged that they made mistakes, they wouldn’t even attempt to come to any terms with me at all to keep me as a happily compliant user of their services.
I’m very definitely separating the software from their customer service, in this post.
Jonathan
glad I came across this… almost signed up… thanks for posting this… of all the posts that made me decide to run in the other was Joseph from infusionshaft… what a spackler
now that i’m not going with them… can anyone recommend a solution they are happy with?
WOW!
Very disappointing about InfusionSoft.
There’s a very, very big time marketer who swears by them and I have a close relationship with. He’s got hundreds of thousands of people reading his emails and blogs.
He’ll be interested to see this and I wonder how after he does, it will affect InfusionSoft.
Thanks Jonathan & everyone that made comments for the heads-up information abut Infusion. I’ll make a post in the PPC 2.0 Classroom forum leading to this link for anyone wanting an opinion (both sides) about Infusion. Very interesting insight.
Infusionsoft customer service is horrible and unorganized. The software is a huge dissapointment. I couldn’t recomend this to my worst enemy.
Infusionsoft customer service is worse than cancer.
Thank for leaving this post and for the comments everyone left.
I want to also thank Jonathan for letting us know that the software is good (although imperfect).
I think it’s sad that he was dropped as a customer for what he did. However, I think I’ll still give infusionsoft a try especially after what I ready from Wes above. I won’t be trying any unusual marketing experiments so I won’t worry about being dropped.
I need infusionsoft to segment some very large email lists. I’m not sure of any other system that makes that kind of segmenting as easy as infusionsoft does.
If anyone does know of such a solution, let me know and I’ll consider it.
Rodney
I really apppreciate your blog! I am in the market for a CRM solution for my internet business and had seriously been considering Infusion.
Thank God I read these posts first. I really cannot afford to get riped off of my hard earned money in this economy! The responses of the company to their customers is almost comical..until you consider the cost of this rip off to their customers businesses!
Jim
This blog is important. I have been jerked around, and wasted so much time and money because of Infusionsoft and their “customer support” it is embarrassing.
Can ripped off customers of Infusionsoft organize together for the purpose of having a more powerful voice in dealing with the lack of response and incompetent customer support?
I have been banging my head against the customer no-service wall at Infusionsoft for over a year now.
Eventually, unless you are an elite marketing and technical guru, you will likely spend a lot of money trying to figure out this software.
I would appreciate a response concerning becoming more organized.
I was double billed by Infusionsoft, wrote them immediately and they apologized promising to get back to me and refund my card “ASAP”
Now its been 10 days, I’ve sent 5 unanswered emails asking whats going on
SO disappointed in what I thought was a very promising company and product
Will be cancelling all my Infusionsoft accounts ASAP
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 [at] live.com
Terribly sorry to hear about that Darren, that really stinks.
The unfortunate reality of the BBB is that they are NOT a watchdog group, and they aren’t obligated in any way (that I’m aware of) to do much of anything on your behalf. As a business you can join the BBB and it gives you the right to use their logo to connote trust and authority to your customers – deserved or not. We online marketers do the same thing with trust certificates all the time. As a consumer, the BBB makes us feel warm & fuzzy about a company because “Hey they’re in the BBB, they must be a better business!” when in reality it doesn’t mean a damn thing as far as I’m concerned.
I really don’t know where you would go to pursue this. I rarely ever pursue any legal claims over things like this because I value my time too much. I’ll spend a few minutes putting together a blog post to warn others, but I’m not going to invest days, weeks, months into trying to get back a few thousand dollars… that time is just better spent elsewhere.
If anyone else has any suggestions for Darren though, let’s hear em!
Jonathan
I want to thank you for setting up this and telling your story. It is unfortunate that companies like IS forget that how they treat customers is important at all levels and not just how they say they treat their customers.
There is nothing more disgusting than having a company ‘steal’ money from a small business through supposedly ‘trusted’ ongoing credit card monthly transactions.
What they will find out is that the internet is a very small and unforgiving community and it is very easy for us to tell the difference from an executive being truly upfront and apologetic or not.
None of us are asking for nor are we expecting perfect software nor are we expecting perfect support situations. What we all expect is that a company, no matter how big or small it is, own up to their mistakes.
Wouldn’t it be nice to find a Nordstroms or a Fedex in the IT industry. Instead we are constantly dealing with Canada Post(USPS) or UPS like companies.
I have a client who is looking at switching to IS and I am going to let her see this site and let her make up her own mind about going with IS.
Wow, thank you for posting this. I was about to sign up and will definitely look for alternatives now.
Not even considering the ethics here, from a business standpoint, InfusionSoft has lost (and is losing) far more in business in handling this the way they have than would even compare to a fraction of what a refund would cost…silly.
Anyway, I would like to hear of any alternatives people can suggest besides 1ShoppingCart that integrate email / affiliate tracking and can segregate lists based off of actions (such as purchases or clicks.)
I use Aweber and 3rd party affiliate scripts/services now, but would like to combine the two…
I’ve been an infusionsoft user for about 5 years now, I was a legacy client who paid nearly 10K for the program.
I truly believe that the concept/vision of the company is GREAT but the execution is far less than acceptable.
I am in a similar business, so I understand the complexities with developing software and customer service.
Over the years I’ve dealt with the inadeqacies that were related to infusionsoft BUT now I’m completely at my breaking point and realize infusionsoft is NOT the end all solution and it probably is a better idea to have multiple solutions that interact than have an “all-in-one” that doesn’t work.
We all know email deliverability is not consistent with Infusion, although it has improved – it’s certainly not even in the same hemisphere as aweber or constant contact.
Now.. what’s thrown me over the edge- Infusionsoft reporting DOESN’T WORK! My team has spent HOURS with support trying to figure out why the reporting #’s aren’t congruent. Recently there was an update made to the projected revenue report, and it doesn’t include a substantial amount of data. The old report was way too high in estimations, now the new report barely counts anything…
BUT.. that’s not what’s forced me to write this.. we’re getting ready for a boutique event tomorrow and we’ve been going through our list of attendees to ensure everyone is paid (daunting task for my team.. but had to be done).. Ops manager was puzzled why an individual who is setup on autobill wasn’t billed (not the first time a massive problem like this has happened with billing)… So back to Infusion customer service… who after having to go back and forth for assistance 8 times finally came up with the problem…
Our system was setup to stop autobilling on clients whose outstanding invoice is not paid for “ONE MONTH” (how it was labeled in the system). So if a payment has not been made in a month then the invoice would automatically be marked as inactive and would NOT autobill… The problem is ONE MONTH to infusionsoft = 30 DAYS.. What happens in a 31 day month you ask????
Well… What happens is all outstanding invoices in a 31 day month get marked inactive and no autobilling takes place…
Tech Support was kind enough to email us an excel sheet of all invoices that were effected by this.. good thing it was only 84 invoices totaling 38491.37
… YEP $38K…
Now.. if they had any type of substantive reporting we could have caught this months ago…
I will say a positive thing along with the negatives… although I will never refer another one of my members to infusionsoft – I do believe it’s their intention to do things right BUT they are stuck with poor execution on the details..
I’ll likely have to stay with them for a while as we create a system to manage the issues we have BUT I am severely disappointed…
The above comment by me, was the first time that I’ve ever written a blog post about a company – positive or negative (that I can remember).
What I can say is this- Infusionsoft responded rapidly to an email that I sent- they quickly are working to resolve the issues. I am satisfied at the response I received form infusionsoft, and agree that the issue that pushed me over the edge was a shared liability.
Both Infusionsoft and I could have prevented this, so I cannot pin the “blame” directly on them 100%.
I look forward to new updates and enhancements that I’ve been notified of. I truly believe in any company that responds to adversity as well they did.
If you’re thinking about using Infusionsoft, don’t let my opinions change your thoughts, we have a unique business with unique needs that always align with everyone else s.
Well, I used Infusion”SUCKS” for about 2yrs before I finally gave up. Over that period of time I went to numerous trainings both in person and online. The bottom line was that no matter what steps I took to get people to open my emails, they never did and from my customer service calls found out they were usually in the junk folder. I don’t know the reasons because the support team always had pat answers that never seemed to make sense to me. My last effort to make the system work failed miserably I sent out another batch of over 200 emails both single and double opt in and only had a handful opened. However, I did receive a number of automated SPAM complaints. The last straw was when I went to clean out my junk email folder and saw the copy that get’s sent to the sender. I had made sure that I double opted in even after all the work spent to minimize this result for my clients, Infusionsoft couldn’t even make it to my in box.
While they talk a good game, I wouldn’t recommend this product to anyone. There are just too many other providers out there that can actually deliver. Unfortunately I learned the hard way at a very significant cost but, you don’t.
This is a warning to all small business to business companies that are thinking of using Infusionsoft- Buyer Beware. Infusion soft will not return any money you give to them. Every payment is a donation regardless of them not providing service to you. We got roped into their start up package $2000 up front and then $250 a month. That got us 1 hour a week for 8 weeks of consulation service. We were to do all the design work, planning gathering, layout, testing. We were told this was a proven succesful system that would increase our business. It wasn’t unitl our final consulation that we found out the system doesn’t work with quickbooks or ACT. And if you were planning on buying a leads list that is not allowed. Complaints go to an answering machine that states it will call you back the next day, which they do. The person you talk to doesn’t care it is his way only and no you are not getting your money back and no it is not our fault. Check out everyone else before trying them if you are a small company wanting to do business to business sales, they are not set up for your type of business. Just ask for a ROI or BtoB case study, they don’t have any.
I’ve been using Infusionsoft for nearly three years. I can’t **in the least** identify with any of the rants found here.
We all make mistakes. Some mistakes are bigger, some are smaller. Jonathan clearly made a very big mistake when he tried to BS the system – and got caught. Okay, so he had to suffer the consequences, as we all do when we make conscious decisions that turn out to be wrong or, in this case, illegal.
As adults, it needn’t be said, we need to consider consequences **before** we engage in certain activities.
There are too many of us who are deeply invested in Infusionsoft’s ability to safely and consistently deliver emails. For that reason, we expect , even demand, from Infusionsoft to protect our investment. Allowing a few bad apples to put the rest of us at risk is simply not acceptables.
I know Joe Manna and Joseph Mask. I can tell from the way they have formulated their messages that terrible things must have happened back in 2009.
This is good, powerful and efficient software. The people running it are just as good.
Give it a try. You won’t be able to build a spamming empire, but you will be able to build a highly automated and successful business.
Best,
Bob
Infusionsoft is a real joke. I should have listened to websites like this but fell for their pitch and great features. The sales rep verified that they would set up EVERYTHING for me including order pages on my own domain, upsell pages, etc., for a $2,000 setup fee. What I really got for my $2,000 was a series of “coaching” calls with a total moron who didn’t know how to use Infusionsoft himself!
Finally I paid a small fortune to one of their “certified” consultants. He set everything up, about 2 months behind schedule, and it STILL didn’t work!! I finally had to pay my own in-house programmer extra to get it working. It took him all of a couple of hours to read the docs and get the pages working.
Then I started taking orders and saw how screwed up it is, they have the world’s worst and sloppiest upsell system. They really can’t load-balance merchant accounts like they claim so I had to go and signup for a load-balancing gateway to get that done.
Finally I simply had my programmer build a custom system with all the features I needed, that way it’s on my own server, I don’t have to worry about InfusionSoft going down and taking my business with it (lots of people tell me it breaks all the time), etc., but then of course the cancellation experience is a joke, if you follow their cancellation instructions and use the phone # and prompts they tell you to use, you land in voice mail jail and never ever get a call back from a real person.