What is Constant Contact? Constant Contact is one of the pioneers in the world of email marketing that was founded in the USA in 1995. Over the years, it has broadened its services beyond traditional email marketing and expanded to become also an event and social media marketing provider. Today it caters to a diverse range of clients all over the world and keeps one of the leading positions in terms of market share. Despite its long-lasting history and generally favorable reputation, Constant Contact is not without its challenges.
This article aims to look into some of the common issues faced by platform users and provide some possible solutions for existing Constant Contact problems. Understanding the issues experienced by users is vital for other potential service subscribers looking for their perfect software out there. While users can improve their customer journey, companies can use user feedback as a free source of valuable information for advancing their service and, by doing so, enhance customer experience even further.
Difficulties with Account Canceling
Surprisingly, one of the main Constant Contact problems that arises in various forum discussions is the one related to difficulties with canceling an account with the provider.
Users find the process to cancel their subscriptions overly complicated, often unable to do so via the website. These tactics, often described as “dark patterns,” are meant to prevent users from discontinuing a service by making the process of account or subscription cancellation overly complicated.
Customers report that the Constant Contact software does not allow for easy online cancellation. Instead, users must call during specific hours, which can be inconvenient for many, especially when calling internationally.
Real-life examples
Complaints typically revolve around issues, such as not being able to unsubscribe from Constant Contact services or to reach support neither via chat nor phone, or having to navigate through multiple customer service representatives who may use retention tactics such as offering discounts or questioning the reasons for cancellation.
Suggested solutions
While the dark practices are incredibly frustrating, unfortunately, even big namers are no strangers to them. To address these Constant Contact issues, users might consider sending a follow-up email right after phone conversations to have written records of their cancellation requests. This might serve as proof of cancellation intentions. In case of company no or late response, users might use it as evidence to avoid recurring charges. Public feedback on forums and directly to Constant Contact could also push for a more straightforward cancellation process, improving the overall Constant Contact reviews.
Market share of most popular email marketing platforms
Pricing Concerns
While Constant Contact is one of the oldest email marketing platforms with an overall favorable reputation, the question “What does Constant Contact do that justifies its cost?” regularly pops up on various forums and discussion groups. It, indeed, provides overall good email marketing services and might be more advanced in event marketing than its competitors. Nonetheless, Constant Contact’s cost structure is a significant concern among users, particularly as the business scales.
Besides, the pricing model is often seen as not aligning well with the benefits provided, shifting the perceived Constant Contact pros and cons towards the negative.
Real-life examples
The service starts at a seemingly affordable rate by offering its Lite plan, starting at just $12 per month. Nonetheless, the price escalates quickly as subscriber counts increase, which can be a preventive factor for growing businesses.
While the Constant Contact pricing model is based on how many emails you send, the price can escalate sharply as your numbers grow, even within the same plan.
While the cost for managing up to 500 emails on the Lite plan is $12 per month, it can go up to $430 per month in case the number of your emails escalates above 45000. For the very limited functionality of the Lite plan, the price seems to be unreasonable, at least.
Most popular email marketing platforms in 2023
Suggested solutions
Users should evaluate their ROI from using Constant Contact and consider negotiating with sales reps for better rates, especially for bigger businesses. Another option is getting promotional offers or coupons, available via Constant Contact or websites like Groupon or Couponfollow, which can help with expense reduction.
In case redeeming discounts via coupons is not your style or simply not enough for your business size, switching to alternative platforms, like Brevo, that offer an unlimited number of contacts on their plans, might be the best option.
Automation Functionality Issues
In Constant Contact reviews, users express dissatisfaction with the automation functionalities, considering them to be overall lacking. Indeed, in comparison with platforms that offer multi-channel automation, Constant Contact is focused solely on emails. For a platform that is specialized not only in email but also in social media and event marketing, that might be a particularly sensitive disadvantage.
When it comes to email automation, even those are limited on their lower-tier plan, further impacting the flexibility and efficiency of marketing campaigns.
The lack of sophisticated automation tools can hinder users from executing complex and more personalized email campaigns that are standard with other platforms.
Real-life examples
Overall, the main users’ concerns with Constant Contact automation are narrowed down to this feature being insufficient for creating dynamic responses based on user behavior. Limited to only one channel and not providing opportunities for customized automation, this might lead to users switching to other multi-channel platforms as they grow.
Suggested solutions
If you have an overall positive opinion about Constant Contact or are used to its interface and reluctant to get used to something new, you can try to explore integrations with other software that can complement the lack of Constant Contact’s automation capabilities.
Another strategy might be voicing your concerns in Constant Contact reviews. At some point, this might draw the company’s attention and prompt enhancements. Consider, though, that this strategy might be less efficient and does not guarantee a positive outcome anytime soon.
Finally, looking into other email marketing platforms is not a sin, especially if they provide alternatives that better meet your needs.
Decline in “Constant Contact” search term in Google over the years
User Interface-Related Challenges
The Constant Contact software interface sometimes presents usability challenges, which are understandably super frustrating, especially for users who are accustomed to more modern and intuitive interfaces or not able to switch to other platforms due to work-related reasons.
Real-life examples
When it comes to user interface usability and overall platform efficiency, issues range from glitchy behavior during campaign setup and an unresponsive interface to Constant Contact being buggy while creating a simple newsletter.
Other reviews sometimes highlight an overall difficulty with platform navigation, which can slow down marketing efforts and lead to errors.
Plus, users report that certain features are buried under complex menus in the system, which makes the overall platform not very intuitive.
Suggested solutions
In the case when an overall platform interface seems to be buggy or slow, the main solution lies on the side of the provider. To resolve the issue, the only solution here might be narrowed down to regular updates from Constant Contact, which can make the software work faster and produce fewer glitches. Providing detailed feedback through Constant Contact reviews can help the company prioritize these improvements.
To Sum Up
In this article about Constant Contact, we provided an overview of some of the most frequently mentioned issues experienced by its users, which do not seem to be that numerous. And that definitely speaks in the platform’s favor! The same goes for the number of unsatisfied users, which, while mentioning some problems that appear in the process of interaction with the platform, also notes many Constant Contact advantages.
If you experienced any challenges with the platform yourself or just feel like sharing your experience, good or bad, you are welcome to do so in the comments to this article.