Closely

Closely has a lot of promise, but I've been struggling to get most of the functionality to work the way it is supposed to. Customer support has been very responsive, but we quickly get to a point where they need to "transfer this issue to our devs and provide you with an update as soon as we receive it."

Like most users, we want a multi-channel solution that enables LinkedIn and Email campaigns to use personalized messages for outreach. I currently have 4 outstanding support requests that I have listed the titles to below. If any of these are deal breakers for you, I would encourage you to look for a different solution at this point.

1. OPEN: Failed Custom Variable-LinkedIn Connection Request
I was "adding a note" to LinkedIn connection requests, and Closely substituted my custom variable (which showed correctly in the preview) with "custom_9483" in the actual message that was sent to a prospect. This clearly gave away I was using poor automation, and it is embarrassing.

2. OPEN: Bcc not working on sent mail from Closely
Followed the steps to set this up. Bcc's are never sent.

3. OPEN: HubSpot Integration creates duplicate entries and does not sync emails or LinkedIn messages
Integrated with HubSpot. Every campaign creates a duplicate entry, and Closely never syncs any message (email or LinkedIn) despite that option being checked.

4. OPEN: Letter case issue for built-in variables from a field in CSV
Imagine sending a message to a prospect saying "Since you are a <job_title>....". This is a common outreach strategy. When you use built-in variables, Closely will use upper case for the first letter, and then lower case for all the other letters of the value. I've tested this on company names and on job titles. If my CSV data has "CFO" as the job title, I get "Cfo" in the message; "VP" translates to "Vp". This obviously is a problem. Imagine a message that references the company name "BBC", but instead, it will say "Bbc"...it just sends the wrong impression.

I'm giving Closely 2 tacos for trying, but I would highly recommend only using it for non-personal outreach and test everything very carefully before ruining your reputation.

Alex, I'm happy to get on a call with you and demonstrate some of these bugs. I've submitted reproduction steps and screenshots with each one, so your support team and dev teams will have these as well.