Zealous Reviews

Unexpected Experience but a Smooth Sailing in Scoring Competition with Zealous

Comments: I had so much fun and hoping to use this in the future.
Worth every single pennies I spent.

Pros:

Considering this a scoring platform, but take it as an automation software which made everything essential, from organising your judges, assigning the scoring to the judges, and even calculating your average scores with an easy UI and commandable UX. It takes some time to learn but the best thing is the customer service themselves helped by assisting me with detailed walkthrough (through Microsoft Teams), and countless email of questions to which they assist me very well. The application and the scoring data can be downloaded easily as csv files, and even all applications can be in PDF forms. Truly appreciate it especially if you have to manually assign later on. I'd like to appreciate too how the team helped me initially when we encountered problems with my card (I couldn't pay through the website), but they invoiced me the payment (through email) and everything went well.

Cons:

I really wish that sub-categories can be introduced because mainly categories only might not be sufficient for the data. In example, Category A and sub-category 1 (instead of separating them into categories only). Another thing is, you may need to cater your own tutorial (but it's not really difficult) for the judges considering the level of understanding and literacy.

Functional and usable but small changes could make a big difference

Comments: Overall our experience with Zealous was positive - the platform is easy to use, the low pricing allowed us to forgive some of the (very small) annoyances and the excellent customer service throughout was also a strong bonus. We appreciate how welcoming they were of feedback and their desire to make improvements and changes to the functionality accordingly, so would definitely recommend Zealous and would be happy to use the platform again going forward. Our application numbers were up on the previous year.

Pros:

Overall, Zealous was a good platform - it was relatively straight forward to set up and use and served it's purpose (in our case, collating entries for an industry awards event). The pricing structure was a huge improvement on the platform we had used prior which compensated for some of the features we lost by changing platforms. However, the best thing about Zealous is their customer service. Their team are very warm and friendly, no query is too much trouble and they are quick to respond to any queries. They also invite feedback in a way which made me feel that they really do want to continue improving, not just as a box-ticking exercise, and I have already been informed that some of our suggestions are being actioned which is really encouraging. It makes us feel valued as customers and makes it all the more likely that we will return year on year.

Cons:

It would have been good to have been able to fully customise the forms - some of the language didn't really suit our audience (it is quite arts-centric) so we had to be creative in how we made the obligatory fields work for our applicants. It would also be great to have greater control over comms sent via the platform, i.e. reminders of application deadlines etc, which currently can't be sent en masse to those with applications in progress (they had to be done individually) and also can't be branded to our company. Both of these would be great features to have.

Zealous User Experience Review

Comments: Thankfully there was excellent customer support that helped our problems be resolved

Pros:

The public voting feature is a great tool for competition organizers

Cons:

Sadly that there were some bugs while the public voting is live

Excellent competition portal and submission management

Comments: The Zealous team has been really great at helping us manage our competitions and addressing our feedback. They are quick to respond and clearly value us even as a small customer.

Pros:

We've been using Zealous for our Creative Future Writers' Award competition for several annual rounds. It's fairly easy to set up, quite customisable, and provides an excellent portal for us to collect and sort submissions. Initially we were hesitant about the potential for people submitting having problems with it, having to mediate their technical problems and/or hiccups, but these have been nearly non-existent. Previously we had an in-house portal on our website and as submissions rose year on year (from 300 to 1,500) it was really clear this wasn't working at all, and the level of manual administration was totally eliminated by transferring over to Zealous. From a user-end standpoint, it's very professional looking and incorporates all of our branding. Previously we received a much higher proportion of e-mail/postal entries and these have probably gone down significantly due to the ease of entering via Zealous.

Cons:

We have found Zealous really flexible and easy to use. There are only a couple of minor aspects we're working with them on (scoring before the closing date and processing optional entry donations)--and Zealous is doing all they can to address these. Occasionally we've found submissions slow to load when reading them but I gather this has been fixed.

Outstanding Judging Platform with equally outstanding Customer Service

Comments: I cannot express how delighted and thankful I am with the Zealous product and the Zealous team. The platform is extremely easy to use for the administrators, entrants and judges alike. The process saved hundreds of hours as the site organizes the project, presents options for the contest as well as provides options for judging. The team at Zealous is extremely supportive and has a sincere interest in ensuring the event is structured in a way to ensure success. The contest was an essay contest for a US High School, and ease of use was a critical need. The number of entries received were double what was expected. This success is highly correlated to the professionalism of the platform the users saw, and the ease of use for High School Students is a very big deal. This essay contest was for students to document how Covid-19 has impacted them, in 2020. It is likely the essay contest would not have taken place had it not been for Zealous. Thank you [SENSITIVE CONTENT HIDDEN] - you are rock stars! If you are deciding on a platform to use for your contest, stop here and use Zealous.

Pros:

The software was extremely flexible to use and was able to be modified to fit the needs of the Contest. The entrants are students, and some of the judges are also students, so anonymous judging was required. The contest was set up so the entrants would have minimal questions (i.e., distractions) to answer prior to entering the contest. We had a lower than expected drop out rate from initial review of contest to actual entry to contest, which is a huge win. The contest also required a large number of judges, from students, alumni of the school, and community members. This was also easily accommodated in zealous.co. The results of the contest will be posted on various local, state and ideally national museums and archives. A huge shout out to Zealous.co who has a flexible product that performs and is part of this historical process. Well done.

Cons:

Nothing. The product met the objectives of the essay contest with clear guidelines, and ease of use for administrators, judges and entrants, as well as the museums who will be archiving this information.

Zealous - the best platform to host artist call outs

Pros:

It has all the features we need (and some we didn’t know we needed!). It’s easy to set up and monitor our opportunities and the interface for judging and shortlisting is great. Really helpful that applicants can upload various types of media (images, video, sound, documents) into their submissions, which our judges can then easily view within the application. We received our highest number of submissions, an increase of 22%. The support from the Zealous team has been fantastic too - always on hand for questions.

Cons:

I had one little hiccup during the process where I made a change to our schedule in the system and in doing so deleted lots of data. The Zealous team were so helpful, and had their technicians retrieve all of the data for me really quickly. I suggested a warning pop up if a change would impact on current data, and I think this has now been implemented.

Great Program for Small Organizations

Pros:

Very easy to use and score artwork. I LOVE the analytics that come with the software.

Cons:

As you collect more submissions the pricing increases. As a company that is growing I found it annoying to have to increase the package every month.

Excellent submission portal and competition judging platform

Comments: Hosting our annual photography competition on Zealous was a revelation. The platform is incredibly easy to use at every stage of the process. Setting up the competition ‘opportunity’ was done in a matter of minutes even though we added a series of extra categories to customise the application form, and as submissions rolled in we were able to keep an eye on what we were receiving in realtime. Over the months we ran the call-out we received over 1,000 individual images, a notable increase from our previous competitions, in part due to the brilliant marketing from the Zealous team themselves. We had a complex judging process for the competition involving several rounds with different external judges, but on Zealous the organisation and management of this was relatively easy. All of the judges who took part in the process praised the platform for its sleek design, easy navigation and overall ease. We will definitely use Zealous again in the future and encourage anyone planning a competition or looking to collect submissions to try Zealous too!

Pros:

One of the best features of Zealous is the way that submissions are presented alongside their captions and the application form. When judging the competition, being able to easily click between views, selecting scores, and viewing scores in order, was incredibly useful. The automated messaging and rounds systems also saved us hours of administrative work and enabled us to focus our energies on the submission selections. But perhaps the biggest ‘pro’ of working with Zealous is the support that the team provides. Our internal team is not particularly tech-savvy and we had a lot of questions at the beginning, but no matter how many emails we sent, our account manager and the support team were quick to respond, friendly and just generally a pleasure to work with.

Cons:

We didn’t encounter any problems using the software, but it would be nice in the future to see more flexible scoring options and the ability to leave notes or feedback on submissions. But with all the updates Zealous offers, I’m sure it won’t be long until such features are available.

Very good awards submission platform with excellent customer service

Pros:

The customer service. We had great help from [sensitive content hidden] in choosing the right plan for us and explaining us how the platform works initially and through the process before any major things we needed to set-up. The live chat was always very efficient and Bethan helped me with any questions and issues I had. It is very rare these days to receive so much support form a service provider and for that we are very grateful.

Cons:

I would have liked to have a main opportunity where I set up all the dates and then go into each awards category where I set-up the questions only. This is something that I have been reassured that this issue is being addressed and the a new functionality of the platform will address this.

Fabulous software for running a competition

Comments: see above

Pros:

We were a small start up during during lockdown who had never used a platform like this before. Zeaolus is easy to use, has wonderful features and flexibility and beyond belief good customer support. Heartily recommend

Cons:

The site graphics are complex and it can take a little while to load

A great product, working hard to become an even better one.

Comments: We love working with the Zealous team and admire their commitment to making the platform work best for their customers.

Pros:

The Zealous customer service is second to none! [sensitive content hidden] has been our account manager for two years running and consistently goes above and beyond to support us. And when [sensitive content hidden] is unavailable, the rest of the team steps in as well. The platform is constantly evolving, and we were excited to see so many brilliant developments across the 12 months between using the platform for our Awards. The back-end is really simple to use and most sections have great personalisation options. And the price is really great!

Cons:

We discovered some issues with the accessibility of the platform, specifically for entrants using screen readers. However, we know that Zealous are taking the issue seriously and working to implement changes to improve this. We'd love p be able to personalise the automated emails further (something else I think they are working towards). Finally, because we have some public-voted categories and some Judged, we have to set up lots of individual opportunities so it would be great to have a dashboard that would show the progress of each opportunity in one place - rather than having to swap between each one when we wanted to check entry numbers etc.

Great platform

Comments: Really pleased! The platform is great and the customer service is amazing! [sensitive content hidden] in particular were so helpful and friendly!

Pros:

The platform itself is great, everything is in one place, easy to navigate and manage. However, for me, the customer service is what has really stood out. We had an unusual situation where I needed to take over the management of our account, and the team were amazing! They helped get me set up, hopped on calls to talk me through everything, were just on the end of the phone or an email away for any query I had and regularly checked in to make sure I understood everything. Really impressed!

Cons:

We had a couple of teething issues, as this is our first time using Zealous. I don't know if these are things we would have been able to do or if we'd need new functionality:A couple of our questions couldn't be formatted by the person entering the category, so they just appeared as one text block, rather than separated with line breaks.As this was a multi-stage entry process, the entrants didn't get an email notification when completing their finalist submissions.

Zealous - great for a competition

Comments: We set up an ran a photography competition with an older person's network based at a charity. No one in the group had any experience of running anything like this before. The Zealous team helped us to set up our competition online and it was really simple. We were able to achieve a much more professional look than we would have been able to if we had used our website to host the competition.

Pros:

Zealous is very simple to use. We used it to run a photography competition and were able to invite participants to upload images and judges to score them - some people had very little experience of using a remote platform like this but we didn't experience any problems at all as there is no technical knowledge necessary. The platform looks professional and has all the functionality you need. Scores get collated automatically and you can define parameters for shortlisting - so it all happens pretty automatically. The Zealous team were super helpful and really made sure that everything ran smoothly. During the Covid-19 pandemic this software is so useful - it enabled us to run a competition completely remotely and we hope to use it again for exhibitions.

Cons:

The whole process is super simple - I can't think of anything negative based on our experience.

A useful tool for awards/ competition management

Comments: We have saved a lot of admin time using Zealous. It has streamlined our judging process and given confidence to entrants who submit their work.

Pros:

I like the fact that judges can view and score all of the entries in one place and they can be allocated to judge certain categories/ entries according to expertise. The level of customer support/ service is very high and was especially useful in our first year using Zealous. It has saved us a lot of admin time and stress compared to our previous system.

Cons:

I would like judges to be able to add comments/ notes for each entry and it would be useful to be able to customise the email notifications that are sent out - I currently switch them off because they're not quite the right fit.

Amazing platform and support

Pros:

Really enjoy using Zealous for our artist call out opportunities - it's very customisable with the different functions/features to suit our opportunities. Also easy to invite other stakeholders as judges onto the platform and review submissions. Being able to save submissions on the account as well as exporting them is also a bonus. What really makes Zealous stand out is having an amazing account manager who can answer any queries and offer 1-1 support as a user. Happy to keep using Zealous for our future projects!

Cons:

Customisable automated emails for applicants would be great in the future.

Zealous effortlessly manages the Rugby Photographer of the Year awards

Comments: We had a very positive experience with Zealous. Apart from the platform just working and doing what we wanted it to do without any issues, the real bonus was the real time customer service. And not bot chat, but speaking to an actual person that had all of the answers and actioned them there and then. For me that was the real bonus to Zealous.

Pros:

The Zealous platform has ease of use at its heart. We used it for submissions to a photographic awards. We were easily able to set up multiple categories under one entry mechanism and make it easy for not only our own use but for applicants to use. We also saw a massive uptake in entries from our previous awards. We have to attribute that to the Zealous platform and the clear steps to making a successful submission.

Cons:

No cons to using Zealous. It did exactly what we wanted it to.

Ease of use and value for money

Comments: I am only on our second Call for Artists, but so far it has been the perfect tool for accepting and reviewing artist submissions.

Pros:

I have found Zealous very intuitive. Setting up a Call for Artists was easy and quick. And it is easy for artists and judges. Getting set up in the system doesn't require more than an email and password, and the instructions for submitting and reviewing are very clear. Customer service has also been very responsive.

Cons:

I would love to see more fields that are specific to public art, such as commissioning entity, location and project budget.

Zealous

Comments: They have been fantastic and are always there to help and assist should be have a query. They listen to our feedback and incorporate changes and accommodate our needs whenever possible. This has allowed us to expand the size and scope of our prizes, to the benefit of all those involved.

Pros:

It provides a user friendly interface for artists to use and upload their entries. It enables judges to easily compare entries and mark in their own time and it is customisable so suits the needs of our different competitions.

Cons:

It can be a little slow to load and it would be helpful for us to be able to close out previous competitions without having to complete the entire process as stipulated by the Zealous program.

Highly Recommend Zealous

Comments: [SENSITIVE CONTENT HIDDEN] and his team provide the ultimate customer service and more. Their technical ability is second to none, [SENSITIVE CONTENT HIDDEN] is patient, solution focused and always find the time to listen. Our Awards event was hugely successful thanks to Zealous. I would highly recommend them and in fact will be contracting Zealous for the forthcoming awards event we have planned.

Pros:

Quick, efficient, and effective. Clearly designed and thought through from a users perspective. It is streamlined and felt risk free. Uploading data is a step by step process made simple and allows for flexibility and manipulation before going live. Being able to add corporate branding is key as are the various media that applicants can use to upload their entries. The active demo was very useful and being able to view and download data pre, post and during the event was extremely helpful. The cost is also very reasonable.

Cons:

I cant think of single thing I didn't like.

Zealous

Comments: Zealous made the organization of this competition easier for everyone involved. There is another, similar competition to ours which used google drive and a number of people said how much easier they found the whole experience because of zealous.

Pros:

The ease of navigation through the different entries. We had nearly 400 entries across 14 different categories, and the fact that with a unique number I as administrator and all the judges could access the correct file within seconds. It also created spreadsheets we could use for sharing of information amongst the judging team.

Cons:

The search function would only work with the assigned number from zealous. If you were searching for a student by name this could be a little hit and miss.

Lots of Praise for Zealous!

Comments: Thanks for helping us up our game with a much enhanced submitter experience, easy to use platform for judges, and all around huge time saver for us as administrators. Your customer service, and specifically Diana, went above and beyond for us.

Pros:

Having the submissions and judging housed in the same platform was a gamechanger for our 4year old global competition.

Cons:

There a still a few features that we wanted that were not available to us. We found some work arounds but look forward to seeing the new enhancements before our next competition comes around.

Using Zealous for our annual Art Competition

Comments: Using Zealous has simplified the admin and logistics of running our annual art competition. It was great to be able to do everything on one platform, from entry submission to judging. It has saved us huge amounts of time and is certainly something we will continue to use in future. The Zealous team were absolutely brilliant from day one - incredibly helpful, always on hand to answer questions and ensured our transition to using the platform was a smooth process. Thank you!!

Pros:

The software is very easy to use. We were able to set up our competition in no time at all. Many of the admin tasks associated with running a competition (e.g. processing entries, reminder emails to judges, collating scores) is taken care of automatically which saved us hours and hours of work. We were also incredibly impressed by the level of support received from Zealous from day one.

Cons:

It would be helpful if judges could add comments/feedback to the entries (I think this something they are working on!)

Great form function

Comments: Zealous is facilitating the operations of the Swiss Cultural Fund UK. Its form function allowed us to gather more systematized information and to assess it better.

Pros:

The functions linked to the application form are the functions that are the most useful. It allows us to work easily with the applications and to get the right type of information.

Cons:

As we are project based, it is not 100% intuitive to submit first the CVs and budget etc. and then fill in the application form, for both the applicants and the judges.

Excellent customer service

Comments: We used Zealous for launching an open call for free exhibition. Most of other platforms do not charge for free opportunities since they gain subscribers who need to register before they enter the opportunity. This was a little disappointing to receive a warning that we have reached the free trial limit and our account was going to be frozen. Zealous should make it more obvious that the service is free to only certain extent. Their quote on the website "It costs you nothing to be part of Zealous and it never will." is missleading.

Pros:

We really like the quick response we got from the customer service. The staff dealt with our issues very quickly, suggested several improvements and were overall very helpful.

Cons:

It wasn't clear that launching an unpaid opportunity within the free trial was limited by only six submissions. However, our concerns were resolved with the customer service to mutual satisfaction.

Great for awards submissions

Comments: It’s been great working with Zealous. It streamlines the whole submissions process, from taking submissions to judging.

Pros:

• It significantly reduces the admin work around award submissions. • Easy to judge. • Additional exposure of the award to Zealous' subscribers. • Helpful team.

Cons:

• Nothing that the team hasn't been able to help solving