
This program offers many tools that a photo management program should, all under "one roof." galleries, calendars, and workflows are all right there and relatively easy to use. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.
The setup can be strenuous. Customer service can help with basic questions, but an implementation team might be worth it for Sprout Studio. Other than that, there's just a basic learning curve with the tools and features offered. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.
Their booking proposals are pretty nice. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.
Where do I begin?
1. Site speed: It takes FOREVER to load anything. I just sat for literally 2 whole minutes waiting for an email drip campaign to load. It takes about 30 seconds just for your active shoot dates to load. It takes about 20 seconds to search for a specific client. It is truly mind blowing how slow it is. This should not happen on a website in 2024. We have 1gig fiber internet and this happens on every computer at every location for all of our employees.
2. Bugs: they have bugs all the time. The #1 thing you need in a CRM is trust that there will be no bugs. What if a shoot date just disappeared? That hasn't happened yet, but we have no faith that it won't, considering how often other bugs pop up. Their latest was to send out a marketing email to every single email address that has ever contacted us. People whose weddings were years ago, weddings that haven't happened yet, freaking those couples out, people who decided not to use us, etc.
3. None of their workflow items are dynamic and update in real time across the system. So, if you have 100 shoots coming up and a questionnaire is set to go out to them 6 weeks before the wedding, and you want to add a question to that questionnaire template, that added question will not update on all 100 of those current weddings... it will only apply to any NEW bookings after the change is made. So any critical changes you want to email templates or questionnaires, etc basically are always a full year behind in implementation LOL.
4. Customer service - they often take hours to respond in the chat. When they do they rarely have answers for you that are helpful, and they clearly do NOT care about their clients at all. They don't actually relay any of the feature requests you want and instead focus on new features that are totally unnecessary. They have no system of voting on feature requests like other CRMs, so they just choose to work on whatever THEY like the most, not what their PAYING CUSTOMERS actually want. They just recently had a huge email blunder described above, and when I gave a simple solution for how they could send us the email addresses that were affected by it using ChatGPT they literally told me they weren't allowed to use ChatGPT to help us out.....
I could go on and on. Do yourself a favor and avoid this company at all costs. On the surface it will look like a good option when you're shopping around, but trust me you will regret it down the road, and it is a huge hassle to switch CRMs once you're all set up with one! Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.
Primarily, I've been impressed by the intuitive user interface that Sprout Studio presents. In the world of design software, it manages to stand out with a blending of both powerful features and built-in user-friendliness. Navigating through SProut Studio is a breeze, whether you're an experienced designer or a newbie exploring design for the first time. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.
Though it does come off as being mostly user friendly, I have found that the learning curve for some of the advanced features is a bit steep when endeavoring to delve into some of the more intricate offerings. Enhanced tutorials or tooltips could smooth the learning process and flatten that curve somewhat. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.
This is a very good CRM tool if you are a photographer. You can send invoices and contracts to clients and you can automate many things. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.
You don't have many filter options and it's a little bit expensive but it does the job. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.
When it works, it's an good to middling client manager with a decent set of tools for managing shoots. Those tools are hindered by many issues.
The interface looks really good but it hides a dark side where things just stop working or where the same buttons does something different depending on the page you're on.
Support are always available, but rarely have answers, instead will open a ticket with tech and that's the last you'll hear about it. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.
It's buggy, and laggy and since the latest update, it's been even worse. Fix one bug create 10 others and zero communication around there fixing or time scales, it's highly frustrating.
I know of issues that have been reported by many people, a long time ago that so haven't even been addressed. It's like they want to hide behind a nice interface, which it is. It's a lovely interface. But I'd impractical on a day to day basis, like I said, laggy, slow at times and just stops loading on occasion. The amount of times I've lost work is in calculable.
What it is isn't, is a CRM.
With no 2 way email or in fact any 2 way communication with clients, it fails at the first hurdle of being a relationship manager.
You're limited to auto creating a single contract, for a single client on a shoot. Production staff contracts all have to be created manually for every shoot.
Questionnaires are only auto sent to the primary client, imagine a big team that needs covid questionnaires per person, that's a fully manual job.
The system can't auto create a blank gallery.
Calendar integration rarely works properly.
This has been reported time and time again on the fb group but over 2 years down the line and nothing is better. Shoots and leads fail to save to google calendar and because it Diane import the calendar correctly double bookings happen often. Their advice, disconnect and reconnect Google, every week!
The thing about the system is, it'll take you so long to setup that, first off all you won't want to switch and secondly you won't find all the issues until it's fully setup by which time you've increased so much time and money into its setup, you're stuck with it. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.
Used to love this CRM but the new update drives me freaking crazy. It's no longer user-friendly and it randomly glitches out but works fine for support apparently. Currently looking into other programs. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.
I HATE that I have to click on all the stupid tabs where before the upgrade I could just glance at the page to check what I needed (like if a client had opened their emails, etc). The tabs are laggy and it takes longer which gives my ADHD brain waaaayyyyyy more opportunity to get sidetracked and forget what I was supposed to be doing. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.
User interface, Client Portals, invoicing systems and booking system. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.
I'd love it if there was a task management system that wasn't attached to a client. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.
This software not only does all of your client experience management, but it also does accounting, payment processing through most major processors, and it has really fast support. It's very easy to use, unlike a lot of photography management softwares that have a big learning curve. I got all of my studio setup within a few hours. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.
I really can't say that there's anything I dislike about it, at this point. They have a great Facebook user group, where you can make suggestions for new product features and find out about new features they're implementing. So if there is anything you dislike, you can always suggest improvements there, and they ACTUALLY LISTEN. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.
The Sprout team is always ready and willing to work with/for their customers. The features are all beautiful and work well! Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.
I sincerely have no complaints about Sprout Studio. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.
I like that it is an across the board answer for photography business as opposed to them being discrete and having such a significant number of various frameworks to learn. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.
The periodic bug that handicaps efficiency is the main ruin other than that it's near flawlessness. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.