Neon CRM Reviews

Good system for the money that practices continuous improvement

Comments: Overall, it is a robust system. The help center is very functional. For a new non-profit I would recommend it. For a larger staff, I would be hesitant.

Pros:

I have used and recommended NEON for a few years. For the money it is a robust system. The event management is one of the easiest to use and you can set up multiple programs levels easily.

Cons:

The reporting is difficult, except for getting event registrations out. To create a custom report is extremely frustrating.

Fundraising, Event, and Contact management for Non-profit

Pros:

The built-in fundraising, event registration, and contact management features have allowed us to keep everything inside of NEON. Previously we were cobbling together data from separate systems with quite a lot of Excel exporting and importing in between.

Cons:

The built-in email template creation tool is powerful, but the learning curve is a little greater compared with other platforms which specialize in email marketing. After a little effort, we were able to recreate what we needed in NEON.We have not found a straightforward, built-in feature to put multiple contacts into a dedicated group for one-off purposes. It can be done, but one higher level of organization of contacts would make contact management almost perfect.

Too Complicated for Non-Technically Inclined Users

Pros:

The original salesperson was cheery and optimistic! [I could never find him later when I had questions.] The website designer was terrific. [When I tried to do revisions myself, there was no access to how to work on website revisions/additions.]

Cons:

Customer service was slow and non-responsive to my specific questions. They were interested in other more technical questions that others asked when I went on their "open" sessions. The outrageous cost of using their payment system! Our members pay $325 for dues and NEON took $15 out of each payment! The weird complex "payout" system where I could never find the name of who the payee was! The lack of support for website learning and the general dismissal of our small organization's problems.

Pros & Cons

Comments: I like Neon but in general it's a bit too complicated and confusing. We encounter more problems than we'd like. We also learned recently that one of the main reasons we started using Neon is going to be disabled soon - having a web theme that mimics our WordPress theme. We wanted visual continuity from our website to our Neon forms and pages, and that's not going to be possible any longer, so it really throws a wrench in why we chose to use Neon in the first place...

Pros:

I appreciate all that can be done in Neon. There are so many options, things I didn't even know we could keep track of. I also appreciate that there are a lot of customization options.

Cons:

There are almost *too many* options and possibilities. It is also not always intuitive and a lot of things take multiple steps across multiple sections to implement. I have to submit tickets often because things aren't working as I think they should or I'm confused by something...

Simple and Straightforward

Comments: Overall, Neon CRM is a great product for the cost. As a smaller nonprofit, most of our budget goes directly back into youth programs.

Pros:

Neon CRM is a simple, straightforward tool. It's easy to use and there are a lot of resources and tools to help onboard new users. It's cost-effective for our nonprofit and enables us to track donors, volunteers, and donations in one place.

Cons:

A feature that could be improved at our subscription level is the ability to automate workflows. As it is, we have to manually pull reports to see if donors need to be contacted, moved along the pipeline, etc. It would be a huge improvement if Neon CRM offered a budget friendly alternative that enabled us to set contact on a pipeline and receive reminders when it's time to move them along.

It's OK - needs to be modernized

Pros:

Neon has some powerful, fast database capabilities. We find it quick to respond when looking for records, generating reports, or soring data. It's also very capable at handling duplicate records and the searching is very good. It's also stable - seems to be built on a solid foundation and performs well.

Cons:

Much of Neon seems to be cobbled together from older generations of development. There is a lack of consistency in the admin interfaces, and I find myself lost trying to do the simplest thing (like updating a system email) ... and I took a year of computer science as an undergrad. The emails are not responsive for mobile, and the custom web pages are nearly impossible to present to our members because they simply don't match our brand at all. The event lack any sort of presentation in a calendar view. Neon updates their platform each month, however, IMHO, they're focussing on the wrong thing. I would expect the development team there to streamline the admin interface, make the basic tools like emails, events, and member sign up pages more modern and mobile-ready. I find myself wanting to head over to a WordPress solution to consolidate everything, but we've invested time and money into this already so we're going to ride it out for a while. If you go with Neon, I suggest you budget time (and money) for tech support and have someone on staff or on call who can wrangle the harder parts of the admin interface for you.

Thank You For Keeping Us Organized!

Comments: Educational! I love tuning into your live webinars and monthly updates. Getting to know some of the Neon team virtually has been fun as well. I have learned a lot about what goes into keeping a nonprofit organized as well as keeping donors motivated/engaged, and I owe that to tinkering around with Neon and learning from you all.

Pros:

The extent to which it is able to keep our entire nonprofit organized.

Cons:

No option for live-help. As the resident not-technologically-trained IT support in our organization, I am very thorough when trying to find answers to my questions before I ask for help. Plus, sometimes my questions have very quick fixes, and it's not cost-effective for us to purchase time to receive help for these quick fixes. I think it would be helpful to receive a certain amount of live-help each month, even if it is over chat.

Avoid Neon

Comments: Not intuitive. Functions scattered all over and difficult to locate. Any time I use online or email help their response starts with "we are experiencing high call volumes...your issue is only urgent if it stops you from completing transactions..." Basically - don't bother us, you're not important and we don't care.

Pros:

Horrible, nearly nonexistent customer service, even when urgent, real time work stoppage happens. They do not care about customers or their success. The system is clunky, difficult to use, inconsistent and very frustrating. We are moving away from Neon as fast as we can. Do not buy this system.

Cons:

Horrible customer service. Ticketing function was not working, couldn't get help for over a week, by then it was too late.

Great Potential - Still Learning - Want More Effeciency

Comments: I'm still fairly new to the system (only a few months on my new job) and am hoping to build out more workflows and automation to help us be even more efficient with our limited time as a small nonprofit with a handful of employees.

Pros:

Having almost all of the critical data in one place and the ability to run reports, create forms for data collection, and track funding efficiently. I look forward to learning even more about how to use it to the full potential.

Cons:

Cannot view a form completely without going into fill it out; unclear at a given time what our package includes as far as apps, integrations, and updates; and excessive data points on profiles/accounts from various forms (we need to do a lot of data cleaning). The cost to ongoing support and build-outs is a bit prohibitive as far as I can tell.

Save yourself a Headache

Comments: Absolutely horrible! We ask for basic functionality like integration with Paypal, Square, not have our event drop off the calendar day of event, or a dynamic token for events and the answer is always the same, we do not have that functionality please put it in our suggestions portal.
Visit the suggestions page and there are requests going back years that have been un touched. What ever you do, do not use this CRM as it will be quite painful if you make the migration.

Pros:

Can't think of anything positive about this CRM.

Cons:

Integration with POS like Square or Paypal. If you want to use these other POS systems for re-occuring memberships/doners its not possible. they force you to use Neon Pay which does not even have NFC tech capabilities or work on a IOS or Android device.

Thoughts & Enhancement Suggestions.

Comments: I do like this program for its donation and I love the Neone ONe Library with videos and self-training. However, this product does not fully meet our needs, and I am having difficulty convincing Board Members to use Neon One. Some will not log in.

Pros:

I love that almost everything is in one place.

Cons:

I am upset with the increasing yearly pricing. It is becoming too expensive for our needs. We must separately pay to use Quickbooks, perform Board Management, locate an electronic Membership Card service, and pay for additional training to customize our experience further.

Neon CRM for a very small non-profit.

Comments: As a very, very small non-profit, we had been using a patchwork of (mostly free) digital products to manage client lists, event management, registration, and fundraising. For a modest cost, we have now integrated all of those functions into a single online system - which has saved us countless hours of time and provides vastly superior access to meaningful, and accurate, data.

Pros:

We started out using Neon strictly as an event management and online registration system. We thought it might take a year or so for us to get fully comfortable with those features before we were ready to add fundraising and other features. Instead, it went so smoothly that after a few months we were already shifting to Neon for online donations and fundraising activities.

Cons:

Some of the communication features are still being developed, so it takes a bit of training to understand how to efficiently develop and manage things like email campaigns - but those are all improving rapidly and continue to get better.

Exceptional Software for Building a Seamless Donation Process and Positive Donor Experience

Comments: Upgrading from an Excel donor database to Neon has brought our organization to a new level that I didn't anticipate. Beyond safely organizing donor information and easily exporting donor reports (expected), we now have a seamless donation process that allows us to quickly thank donors and keep in contact with them, showing our appreciation and cultivating long-term donor relationships (i.e., beautiful online donations forms, automated acknowledgement/thank you emails for donors, easy-to-use email marketing builder for donors and e-list subscribers).

Pros:

Donor/donation information is well organized and easy to navigate to. We've used the custom online donations form feature for receiving donations through our website, as well as a temporary crowdfunding campaign, and it's intuitive to build out professional-looking forms that rival national and international non-profit forms.

Cons:

It can be tricky to get customer support for questions and issues that arise. I would prefer to have quick, direct access to phone conversations with agents to work through things and make suggestions for improvements.

Duplicate accounts

Comments: I have had good experience overall. Please fix the issue of creating duplicate account with the same email addresses!!

Pros:

it has great features for registration of classes, except for the duplicate accounts that can be created by a single user with the same email address.

Cons:

I do not like that customers/donors can set up an unlimited number of accounts in the system with the same email address. I can't think of any company that allows this. If you register with the same email, it should tell them that they already have an account and to recover their account with a password reset and not allow for duplicate accounts. Not having this feature creates a lot of work for the back end user. It would not seem to be very difficult to fix this issue.

Neon CRM: Good experience

Comments: Overall, good experience. We use it for donor, grants, volunteer, campaign, and event management.

Pros:

Ease of use. The monthly updates recordings/webinars are so helpful!

Cons:

Ease of finding a voice to talk to for a simple inquiry instead of using the Neon One Academy.

I Like Neon CRM But There's Always Room For Improvement

Comments: I like Neon. The CS team is great, but, like I said, I wish I wouldn't get the "no service representatives are available" recording when we've paid for phone support. We also had to drop the Web integration. Only one support person at the time.

Pros:

Knowledgable customer service, very helpful.

Cons:

Great customer service...when you can get them. We are paying for phone support but rarely get someone to actually answer the phone. Two to three days to get a response although the last few times have been better. (Note: I do understand that customer service staffing issues are an industry problem, but it is also an issue when you need answers but have to wait for them).Designing Mail Campaigns--We were actually told by CS early on that we may want to use MailChimp. Then you came out woth your new and improved version, but it still wasn't up to the design and functionality quality of MC to make it worth moving back. I wish it were, though. That is one reason we chose Neon, for it's 'one-stop shop' but we had to go outside.

Comprehensive and Efficient

Pros:

Neon CRM is able to track information relating to all major aspects of our business model, making it easy to consolidate our data. I also love how easy it is to run a custom report on any set of data collected by Neon; this allows us to answer specific questions about our donor base quickly and painlessly.

Cons:

I wish there were an option for clients to pay for event registrations via invoice. Not having this feature limits Neon CRM's functionality, especially because we often have companies register for events, and this always has to be done manually if the company plans to pay via check after registration.

Very Inclusive System

Pros:

Most options that a company would want are available.

Cons:

The reporting is cumbersome. I would prefer to just be able to select the database items that I want.

Not happy with Neon Support

Comments: Neon support is awful . Takes too long for a response. Our issues must be addressed

Pros:

The layout is easy Orr internal facing

Cons:

When we have issues it takes days for Neon support to te h back out to us

Great value for the money

Comments: the support team is always quick to respond and the company listens to suggestions

Pros:

ease of use and multiple users for the same cost

Cons:

Would like to separate out grants from companies

Essential “Brain” for Nonprofits

Comments: There is a learning curve, but once you get used to it Neon is like having several brains and arms.

Pros:

We love how all the important functionalities for nonprofits - from email marketing to contact storage - are all available through one platform. It eliminates the need for subscriptions to many different platforms.

Cons:

Sometimes Neon’s functions are limited; for example, forms are not easily customizable unless you know CSS or html code. But the help desk is very useful to get around hurdles like that.

Intuitive system that works effectively for donor management.

Comments: I inherited the system and at first it felt less robust than programs I’d used before. But once you understand, it’s a terrific tool!

Pros:

Ease of use. Intuitive and straightforward.

Cons:

Some of the auto options are tough to catch.

No Title

Pros:

It is easy to use. All of our constituents find it easy to use

Cons:

Canceling registrations and events not sure how to do that or if it is possible

Appears to have good functionality but the proof is in the details.

Comments: We chose this software because it appeared to be able to do everything we needed it to. However, when getting into it more fully we consistently run into obstacles.

Pros:

Good database function, automated emails, customized reporting.

Cons:

We utilize the event module extensively and find that the functionality is difficult. The WYSIWYG feature to build an event page is difficult, you can't build sub pages for an event, no ability to have event add-on items (register for the event and buy a shirt, etc). I've had to add them into the store function and then make all events appear in the store function so that the add-on items would appear in the shopping cart with the registration - but there is no ability to customize a store item (i.e. personalization). The registration function is very confusing to our constituents in that you have to provide all information for the registrant before making the registration/ticket selection. Then the only place to put the add-on/store items is in the event registration summary page. The social fundraising functions are not terribly user friendly and intuitive. When you want to do registration discounts you can either take $ off or % off of the entire order - not off each registration when more than 1 person is registered. When I have asked about these features it has been suggested that we use Eventbright for events. We left event bright when we purchased NEON because we could save the costs with the integrated functions in NEON. Eventbright doesn't do social fundraising so this looked like a better option. And finally - duplicate accounts are a problem - especially because pricing is based upon the number of accounts. Merging/deleting accounts is a time consuming process. And, you cannot simply two accounts that should be merged (because you know they should be) unless the system identifies them based upon duplicate name, email, etc. For example - if a person registered using her home email and address for one event and then the next time she registered as that person's name using her work email the system won't recognize them as potential duplicates - and you can't manually select them to merge. The login feature we thought was good but unless you have memberships it isn't great - folks just don't log back in the next time the visit the site - they just create a new account.

Neon is unmatchable

Comments: It is a core component of our business at this point, which we use daily. It stores so much information and organizes it in an extremely accessible manner. The various functionalities are used by our non-profit organization every single day. It seems like every aspect is useful and functional. As an organization, we have been able to eliminate other competing premium softwares and instead use Neon.

Pros:

The user interface is extremely intuitive and easy to learn. It's truly an all in one software that can do so much. It's integration with various other apps is seamless. We have so much data, and Neon can handle it all, and make it easy to understand, access, and analyze. Neon is honestly an essential must-have for any organization.

Cons:

I think the campaign email marketing part can be somewhat confusing. The components seem too separate, it needs to be more cohesive in one big step-by-step process instead of going back and forth between the tab's sub-categories. It works perfectly, I just think the process to sending emails can be a little more streamlined.