What is most valuable?
The API. We have a custom CRM in office and whenever possible we like to keep the employees within the the CRM so they don't need to go to another system or website. Message Bus has a well documented API, which was a requirement for us. We needed a solution which would allow us to integrate into our current systems.
How has it helped my organization?
It has allowed us to more easily manage our mailing list without having to worry too much about how emails are sent.
We also use the bounce features to understand why mail bounced, etc. The reporting features also help us to uunsubscribe clients who aren't answering our emails or no longer have valid email addresses.
What needs improvement?
The template system could possibly be a little better, but it hasn't caused big issues for us.
They add new features periodically and it works well.
What was my experience with deployment of the solution?
No issues with deployment.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
No issues with stability.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
No issues with scalability.
How are customer service and technical support?
Customer Service:
Very good. They have always been very responsive and fixed any issues quickly. Our emails get answered right away!
Technical Support:
Very good. They have always been very responsive and fixed any issues quickly. There were a few times where something didn't work well and they fixed things right away.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We previously used Mailer Mailer and Constant Contact but Message Bus has more flexibility and it was less expensive too.
With the previous solutions we used, all of your contacts live in their database which means that you need to upload them to their platform. We keep our own database of our clients and we wanted to be able to do fine grain filtering when we send out an email.
When filtering, we look for various items such as what the the user has searched for on our site, etc. in order to get an exact list of the people to email. We didn't want to transfer data between systems. This is why one of our main requirements was the ability to manage our database ourselves and not on an external platform. The Message Bus API is simple; we can manage our own database. We generate the list of users in house, create a template, store the code with Message Bus and when we want to send emails using the template we reference the ID they provide.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
SendGrid, Mailer Mailer and Constant Contact.
What other advice do I have?
Message Bus works well and the price is right. We like the product.