I went with Spectora origionally because, though they were young, they made a lot of promises in the begining that I was excited to see happen, and I thought at the time they were the only home inspection software that seemed to be constantly innovating and looking to better the experience for their end users. So despite a few issues out of the box, and the fact that they are by far the most expensive software company for inspectors, I had faith what they promised was coming would make the expense and road bumps worth while. 2 years later I can't look at the word spectora without my blood pressure raising because I can't believed I got suckered so badly. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.
The least helpful thing about spectora is the support. Regardless of what platform you are on, regular or their advanced business platforms, there is zero phone support. The best I could get when joining advanced after writing into chat for help and going over my advanced account to ensure I have set it up in the best possible way and to see if I could do anything better was a link to schedule out a call 3 - 4 days later. I had that day off and the time to do it right than. I had inspections to conduct over the next few days, not to mention I'm paying them hundreds a month to be the backbone of my inspection company, handle the scheduling, follow up, payments, reporting ect, and the best I can do is chat with someone? Are you kidding me? There is abosolutely zero flexibility in the platform.
For example, I have a license and a friend thats an inspector I'm helping start up has a license in his account. I was going to have him come with me on a few inspections while he got his feet wet and to get his confidence up, and maybe in the future when we were doing 10k sq ft houses and over utilize him as a second. Despite him paying $99 already for his license, I needed to pay another $89 on my account plus what we both already paid so he could join me on a few inspections a year.
As I have mentioned I have had countless things that have gone wrong, the reporting system that has been stuck in the sandbox for the past year plus we were told was going to be made permanent and the old platform phased out, the updates to that platform you have to approve to get into your report and than, whoops, it starts crashing constantly making it oh so tedious to do your inspection. Despite all of that, not being compensated anything, and the list could go on for awhile, they couldn't figure out a way to make something work. In fact the supervisors had the stones to tell me we don't give products away for free. I didn't see it as asking for a free product. Because of the limitations in your software someone paying you full price for a license can't utilize it with another inspectors account. Where is the love for the loyalty? Instead you acuse me of trying to cheat you? Me paid license, him paid license, him using a license on one of my inspections another 89. So greedy. I would understand fully if he wasnt going to be paying for a license already.
How about when advanced launced and was touted vs the ISN and we should utilize spectora advanced because it was cheaper and you could have everything on one platform. Oh wait, than spectora launched the email platform and they are so greedy they are charging $25 a month for it. Guess who is now a lot more expensive than the ISN. They are. Guess what else, ISN come with the email platform to their customers, and from what I hear amazing phone support. But hey, with Spectora you can have chat support during operating hours only. Yes, chat during operating hours only, not 24-7, operating hours. I would say it they have yet to find out what QA is as well based on some experiences.
The chat support will literally can just not respond if they aren't sure about the answer, not say a word and come back hour or so later with some lack luster response. I have moved on by than but I see the pop up or email later when I log back in. When in the field if chat is the only way to get ahold of you, and I need help right now, you better be on that. It will drive you crazy waiting 5 - 10 minutes or longer in between answers for the simplest of questions.
I recently signed up for repair pricer and home binder. For over 3 months plus now the integration with Spectora hasnt worked properly. When I talk to repair pricer or home binder they both say Spectora doesn't get back to them, and they are a nightmare to deal with. Meanwhile, I guess I kind of have the products and services, sort of at least until the integration gets fixed and I can start utilizing them to their full potential.
The repair request builder is pretty cool to show your real estate clients and have them use. The format seems to be better than most of the competition out there now as far as what I have seen. Is this worth 2 - 3 x what I should be paying elsewhere, I doubt it. I would love to help any of their top competitors get some of their weak points ironed out so they could come back and crush Spectora. I can't stand being loyal and fairly patient with a company to ultimately not receive any kind of consideration when I ask them for something, than be told maybe we just arent for you. Boy we sure would like to be, but we just arent for everyone. I love how they would sure like to be, but make no concession, compromise or anything really outside of these weak hallow apologies around their shortcomings. Though I'm sure ultimately due to people just staying where they are comfortable they will retain a good number of the folks with them because they are so deeply tied in with their software at this point. I can tell you software giants like Bob Parsons or someone who I have seen transform companies Bob Olsen would flip their lids if they heard about this being their customers experience with their company. It would get fixed with a quickness and you would feel valued at the end of the experience, not like they could care less if they retained your business or not. I won't mean anything when I leave, but if they keep treating people like they did me, pretty soon things will get skinnier than they can imagine. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.
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