Mixed Feelings About NinjaPipe
Overall Impressions:
The platform looks clean and is easy to understand how to navigate. While I’m still getting familiar with the CRM, I’ve noticed a few areas that could use improvement:
1.Onboarding Screen Issues:
Upon onboarding, the first screen provides steps to get started. However, the dropdowns under "Invite your team members" don't seem to work properly. This may be due to slow loading times, which can lead to users clicking multiple times out of frustration, potentially impacting website performance. After a 30 seconds they seem to load and start working.
2. Platform Navigation Speed:
Every time I move around the platform, it appears to reload from scratch rather than caching previously viewed sections. This slows down the overall experience, making the platform feel sluggish, especially for users who need to work quickly.
3. CRM and Sales Tab Flow:
When switching between the CRM and Sales tabs, the system first redirects you to CRM before returning to Sales. This flow feels unintuitive and can be confusing for users.
4. Sales>Products/Customers Import Process:
When attempting to "import all from NinjaPipe CRM" under Sales>Products/Customers, an error occurs if the CRM section hasn’t been populated with users. It’s not immediately clear that you need to go to CRM > Contacts > Add new contact or Bulk import first. Providing more informative error messages would be helpful.
5. Link Navigation:
It would be better if all links on the platform opened in a new tab, allowing users to stay in the section they’re currently working on. For example, the link under CRM > Contacts > Bulk import > "learn more here" redirects to the support center, which feels out of place, plus once you get there, it doesn't assist with getting your file ready for importing.
6. Mapping Fields During Import:
When uploading an Excel/CSV file, the platform directs you to the Map Fields section, but nothing is displayed. Clicking "add" results in an error, "Please map with the required field," but there's no visible option to do so. Providing a pre-designed Excel template with basic predefined fields could make the process of importing your first contacts easier and get you started. I kept trying with other excels and I was only able to import one field, the name, which leaves a manual work to upload the rest of the data that wasn't mapped. Note: There is no easy way to delete contacts, you have to go inside each client.
7. Team Member Role Assignment:
When inviting team members, there’s no option to select their access roles—everyone defaults to superadmin. Additionally, there’s no way to delete a role, only to deactivate it. Am I missing something here?
8. Chat section:
When you choose a person to chat with from the contact section, it doesn't save the person you chose and sends you directly to the chat where you need to select the client again. If you have a contact with no phone or email or any form of contact, it still allows you to write even though it is not really contacting the client.
Final Thoughts:
I’ll continue using the platform over the next few days and provide further feedback. However, the current response delays are concerning and could be a deal breaker.
Having the apps is a great idea and adds value, but I wonder if they might be diverting resources from improving the web platform. It could be worth considering which platform (mobile or web) is more critical to prioritize. Just something to think about! :)
Dinuka_NinjaPipe
Aug 3, 2024Hi there 👋 I really appreciate the honest feedback and deciding to stick with it for the next few days. Here's my action plan for anyone who's reading this + the reviewer: We are new and which also means we have a lot of features to catchup on since CRMs are a massive massive software category. There's a lot to be iterated on and it will take a solid 6-10 months to make sure we nail every single angle. We've been in business for 2 years and slowly scaling up without going too fast and killing the company and we will continue that pace.
I love the feedback and the suggestions and we've actually already fixed some of the pointers here as you may notice in the current versions. The team is working non-stop to make sure all the Sumo-lings are heard and supported through this launch on AppSumo! We love the community and we are here to stay so I'll do everything in my power to make sure we get all of these points above right. We are also very public about the growth, updates and stats as you may notice from our FB and Discord groups.
I am so pumped for what's coming in the next few weeks with all the new updates we've built on top of the feedback we've received! Thank you for giving us a chance and for trusting your business ops on this. I hear you and I'm here to improve improve improve. Speak soon 😊