StarChapter Erfahrungen

StarChapter for Non-Profit Organizations

Kommentare: Starchapter has saved our organization a lot of money by reducing the subscriptions we had into one program. Setting up the website was easy to do with the SC support team, there were a few add-ons that we didn't anticipate that cost a little bit more, but we still saved hundreds by switching to StarChapter. Our organization is super excited to enhance our online presence with our members and sponsors through StarChapter!

Vorteile:

StarChapter combines a lot of separate programs we previously used into one easy to access program. It manages email forwarders, displays sponsors logos on our website, and automatically updates based off of when the sponsor has paid through. StarChapter also allows us to setup email templates that are automatically sent to new or lapsed members which eliminates the need for our membership chair to constantly have to remember to check our rosters and compare them month to month.

Nachteile:

The administration side of the website turned out to be a little more challenging than we originally expected. Some of the functions and website design aren't as intuitive as we would have liked and has required additional training for the less tech savvy members on our board.

StarChapter

Vorteile:

As far as software systems go, StarChapter is easy to learn and yields a great product/website/management system. Our association's website looks clean and professional. We can do all functions of association management in one place--membership management, event planning and registration, reports, newsletters, invoicing, etc. It's really simple and saves us time, energy, and money.

Nachteile:

StarChapter doesn't have immediate call in support available, so although the help techs are extremely knowledgable and can always guide and "fix" an issue, it does take a few days to schedule a call/screen share. So if there is a pressing question or issue you need addressed, know it isn't going to be resolved that day. Note: There is an extensive knowledge base where many answers can be found, but if you're not the most tech savvy, sometimes it's easier to talk to someone.

Cheap but not worth it

Kommentare: I’ve used it for over 15 years. Overall it works ok. But more functionality would be good, better email management and financial management. You have to use their merchant which was cheap and now is more expensive than authorize.net.

Vorteile:

All in one service, except for financials- quickbooks has been rumored to be added but that was over a year ago and it’s still not working.

Nachteile:

Email design and reporting, selecting who you are sending them to is not as good as constant contact.

Great Association Management Software!

Kommentare: I have really liked the ease of use and great support

Vorteile:

This brings all of the other services we us into one application and saves us money

Nachteile:

I think the startup cost is still a little high for small non profits but it is worth it.

StarChapter user review

Kommentare: Overall it has made operation of our Association much easier with a volunteer staff

Vorteile:

Ease of use sending bulk emails to association members and non-members alike

Nachteile:

Sometimes operation details are somewhat confusing, not sure if they are updated or sometimes miss a step in the process

TCEL

Kommentare: Without a consultant to help with the process it would have been more difficult.

Vorteile:

I had used it before. Not sure what else you want me to say.

Nachteile:

The email system, it is the worst part of the system. the new system is very un-user friendly.

One stop platform for managing an organization

Vorteile:

The website is very professional and helps get members engaged.

Nachteile:

We had some hiccups on setting up our email side of the system. But was able to get them worked out. More of a "I didn't know this about" kind of situation.

StarChapter review

Kommentare: It is a great BASIC service for organizations that do not need more than basic functionality and features and do not have a web wizard on staff. I believe there are better services out there, but the trade-off is expense and experience/knowledge in working with websites.

Vorteile:

Ease of setup and updating the site with current material

Nachteile:

We have not had some of the functionality that other competitors provide; batch membership dues processing/payment, integration with member ID badges to swipe and log attendance at events, no ability to send automated "attendance certification" email to members who attended an event (we could do this initially but was lost during a recent update to email functions). There have been other features that we would like to have but don't recall right now.

Works well but is not the easiest platform

Kommentare: Overall the system works well but it is very temperamental.

Vorteile:

Maintains membership records and provides an efficient email system.

Nachteile:

When putting in descriptions and the body of the email there are too many codes that get put into the format. Not easy to make the body of the email or meeting description look appealing.

Clunky clunky

Kommentare: On a scale of 1 to 10 I give it a five.

Vorteile:

Getting a meeting set up and sending out an email about the meeting and figuring out who is attending and making badges

Nachteile:

It’s very cumbersome and I don’t feel it’s user-friendly at all. It’s not intuitive.

Great association management system!

Kommentare: We now have ONE platform that we use for all our needs. We have ONE list to manage with all our member info. It's a turnkey system, and has made things much easier for a board that changes every two years. We're very happy with StarChapter!

Vorteile:

This checks all the boxes for us. We needed a platform that let us send comms to our members, manage our membership list (including sending invoices for renewals and new members), manage event registrations, post news articles, allow our members (and non-members for a fee) to post job openings, and more...and this fit the bill! It was affordable, easy to use, the initial set-up was simple (StarChapter is a HUGE help and does a great deal of the work), and we've found their support team to be very responsive and helpful. We're very happy with our switch, and now all our data is managed in one place - which was the ultimate problem we set out to solve with our previous website.

Nachteile:

There are a few little nuances we've discovered, such as not being able to use multi-byte characters (emojis, etc) in subject lines of comms and not being able to export ALL comm data (must be exported individually). I think the biggest thing that could stand to be improved is the comm data - you can get open rate, but that's pretty much it. You can't see what links are clicked on the most, or other data that other email-specific platforms offer. That said, it wasn't a deal-breaker for us.

StarChapter Review

Vorteile:

The features I like best about StarChapter are: ease of administration, swiftness of launch, good value for your money. It's great for smaller associations.

Nachteile:

Reporting is what I like least about StarChapter. Historical information isn't easy to access.

Horrible customer service and glitchy system

Kommentare: Our onboarding experience was HORRIBLE! Zero support, zero expectation management, and the SC team linked our membership page TO THE WRONG WEBSITE > as in, visitors to our membership page were redirected to another chapter that is in our geographic area and is OUR COMPETITOR. When we let our customer service lead know and asked her to fix the error, she responded with a one-word answer - "done".

Vorteile:

I thought we would like that it was an all-in-one solution, but even that isn't worth the headaches of trying to use it.

Nachteile:

Too many pros to list here but this box is requiring more characters . . . it doesn't integrate with any other tools, the website design options are incredibly limited, outdated and stale looking. Check out their website and have a look at the one positive testimonial listed - if you visit that site, you will see they are no longer using StarChapter!

StarChapter = Success

Vorteile:

StarChapter is an easy and effective event management system. Entering meeting details is a breeze and downloading related reports. We also utilize StarChapter for membership management and website updates.

Nachteile:

The backend for website management is a bit more complex that WordPress but having it integrated into one software is a nice touch.

StarChapter review from Stateline SHRM

Vorteile:

Members are able to renew their memberships, pay for meetings easily. The website management with the event planning flows smoothly. Communicating with members via StarChapter is great as well.Payments using StarPay has worked out well for our chapter too.

Nachteile:

Our biggest complaint is not having immediate customer service with an individual we can talk to available if we have a quick question or are having a problem. Needing to submit a ticket and wait for a response to set up a time and day to talk with a StarChapter representative has taken sometimes 3-5 days.

Star Chapter has been very beneficial to our Association

Kommentare: On the frontside, the website is beautiful and very user friendly. It has made us stand out from the other chapters and looks very professional. On the backside, it was more difficult to implement than I thought - I didn't understand when I signed up how much of the site I would actually have to create myself. That being said, now that I've been using it for a few months, it's quite easy to maintain.

Vorteile:

It streamlines a lot of the processes we were doing through multiple platforms.

Nachteile:

The turnaround time for support. When I'm stumped, I have to fill out a support ticket and it often takes 48 hours to hear back via email. It often isn't what I was asking and then it takes another 48 hours for the correct response. The functionality is usually there but sometimes difficult to find. It would be amazing to actually be able to speak with someone or at the very least, online tech support.

Major upgrade for me!

Kommentare: Overall, this is an exceptional software with supportive customer service and knowledge base library.

Vorteile:

I love the fact that everything is in one software. I used to have to use multiple ones and now I have everything in one, easy to use, functional place. The membership tracking, the payment processing and ease of website updates are amazing.

Nachteile:

There is limited customization after a certain point. If the field hasn't already been created then in some cases you cannot create it. Some things cannot be made mandatory and there is a limited way of filtering member reports.

Room for improvement, but outstanding product & service

Kommentare: The ACFE has 188 chapters world wide. I'm the Vice President of the San Diego Chapter and a member of our National Leadership Council of 12. I'm asked routinely throughout the US about StarChapter and sing your praises for the outstanding job you do. In hindsight, I'm hoping StarChapter does get the opportunity to begin showing signs of growth and maturity in their website platform and processes. I'm saying this from a truly humble place myself as I've just taken our own local chapter from 26 members (7 of which were board members) to now over 100 by biting the bullet and making the changes necessary to move us forward.

Vorteile:

Although there's much room for improvement in certain functionalities, StarChapter provides an outstanding product & service and their tech support staff has always been extremely professional and well versed in all things website maintenance.

Nachteile:

1) Somehow your organization needs to find the budget for true novice to intermediate tech support to handle incoming calls, assisting with the rudimentary or emergency items. Currently, Customer Service Agents solely manning the phones to either set up Tech Support Tickets or redirect customers to go online followed by a 24 – 48 hour wait time for an initial response. By the time the client receives their email answer or online chat meeting, it could be 3-6 business days later in total. Remember, your client’s bottom line is priority #1. If there’s a problem with either of the following (to name a few), you’ve just caused your client unnecessary setback and frustration: • A problem with their payment gateway connection. • A problem with their membership or event registration processing correctly • A problem with email blasts going out correctly 2) Update your website portal to include proper “how to” instructions. I'm sure you feel you’ve already done so but 80-90% of the time, this is not the case for those clients that are self-doers. 3) For 3 years I’ve been working with StarChapter and must have suggested at least a dozen good suggestions for your website engineers to create/fix and still have not seen the changes produced. I’ve even offered to pay out of pocket for these changes and yet still no further action is available.

Great integrated product

Kommentare: I've had a great experience with StarChapter.

Vorteile:

BEST:An integrated website, membership database, calendar/event schedule, event registration.The ability for other admins with different levels of access. The knowledge base.The ability to design the page content and event emails using html or wysiwyg. Document storage for meeting minutes.Tech support is very helpful.Registration list viewable to attendees.

Nachteile:

REQUESTS: #1 The ability to print out or pdf a professional-looking directory for those wanting to save it offline. #2 There needs to be a customizable .ics calendar-type feature that users can download once registered that includes the full description of the event, Zoom instructions, etc. #3 Include the calendar entries in the event list to have a single calendar and event listing. #4 In surveys, the ability to choose more than one checkbox option.#5 The ability to edit the Registration "receipt" template (and why is it needed if there is a registration confirmation template?)#6 The ability to incorporate meeting photo galleries in different parts of the website other than the home page slider. #7 Better sharing link to Facebook, LinkedIn, and Instagram. #8 A separate database section for business partner sponsors with access options.

Star Chapter for a small Professional Organization

Kommentare: Overall, it has improved MANY of our organizational functions. We can manage our membership much better, find the meeting functionality to be a vast improvement over what we were doing and it does help us manage our finances better. As we have no paid staff, maintaining does seem to fall to one or two volunteers, which is going to get old. The is more of an organizational issue though. I would recommend the program for people like me that have a basic tech savvy, as overall it is easy to use. I find the online support database to be far too basic and at the same time hard to find information, so I tend to send in customer support requests a lot and they are excellent in that type of support.

Vorteile:

I liked that they provided the initial set-up and conversion from our previous web-site. I like that over-all it is easy to manage the site and to update content. Please note that I do NOT have an IT background and learned everything from scratch. We are looking at an organizational name change, so it will be interesting to see if I still hold this view once I tackle that project. I have always had great customer support when I have a question, even when I pose something that the program can't do.

Nachteile:

It is not intuitive for someone that doesn't have skills in web design. I have to research and learn new options, not just pick them up along the way. I find some of the finance and accounting functions too basic, as well as only a basic reporting functionality. There also don't seem interested in updating and adding functionality, just maintaining what they have.

Review of StarChapter

Kommentare: This has really brought our organization to a one-stop shop. We had files everywhere, and when people would drop off the board, sometimes we lost information. This allows us to keep it in one place and make the transfer easier for the Chapter.

Vorteile:

It's a total package for our membership organization. It allows one program that can be easily transferred to the new board each year. No need to have separate files.

Nachteile:

Some of the areas for managing the website are not easy to find, but once you have done it a few times, it starts to get easier. It would be nice to see what the regular member sees when adding items.It's hard to get everyone on the board together to train. Individual training is fine, but it is more beneficial together.It would be nice to have a calendar that members could pull up by month and see the upcoming events. And allow us to add events to the calendar that aren't specific to our chapter but interest our members.

A great value

Kommentare: The customer service/tech support department is great. They are responsive and problem solvers. One of the great features of this software.

Vorteile:

I like the newsletter feature the most. I can create digital newsletters by template.

Nachteile:

The cons for the software are that it doesn't fit with how our association works. The software is more designed for "chapters" of associations as opposed to a single association. We have COMPANIES as members (we are a 506(c)(6) trade association), and staff of those member companies are also considered members. So the billing/invoicing feature doesn't work for us, nor does the online registration for the most part. I also don't use the mass email feature because we leave it up to our members to create their own accounts, and there are thousands of individuals who might do this. It is easier for me to use Constant Contact for an email database and I have a link on our website's home page that allows people to add themselves quickly to Constant Contact. I also use CC for online registrations. I use QuickBooks for all invoicing and for our membership database. The software witih StarChapter simply doesn't work in the direction I need for our type of association.

Great Product for our Organization

Kommentare: Outstanding support, great looking page, great tools

Vorteile:

This software transformed and streamlined our operations. We were able to save money by eliminating other IT platforms. We now can use the ticketing portal to directly sell tickets for our events.

Nachteile:

The mass email communication system took us a little while to get used to. Once we did a few communications, it was easy to use.

StarChapter Customer Support never makes me the fool

Kommentare: Having been with StarChapter for a couple years now, I really like the customer service experience. I've learned to check out the online videos (sometimes beyond my understanding), but I have learned that -- if things aren't clear -- submitting a Job Ticket gets a quick response. And unlike some other software companies I've used (but won't name), the people who talk to me or email back and forth with me until I understand NEVER make me feel like I'm the idiot who doesn't understand functionality. That's so refreshing! If you're a small one-person office like I am, with sometimes-help from college interns, I highly recommend StarChapter. They offer reasonable pricing with no long-term contract. They let you take your time in adopting the different feature capabilities. And once you're up and running, they're an awesome value for the monthly spend!

Vorteile:

Ease of learning how to do stuff for someone who isn't a technology nerd. Sometimes that means my current intern has to look at the video and then show me, but once the lightbulb goes on, I can do 'most anything.

Nachteile:

Some of their training videos have left me wondering what I just watched. That's when I reach out to a digital native / millennial to help me "get it." Or, I submit a job ticket.

Extremely difficult to use, but also cost effective

Kommentare: It is an incredibly frustrating site to use (and I have developed sites myself) but if you want an integrated database (again difficult to use), credit card processor and website at low cost, StarChapter fits the bill.

Vorteile:

You cannot beat the cost- we choose it because it is inexpensive and if you are trying to save money StarChapter will help you with that.

Nachteile:

It is very difficult to use. Everything requires multiple non-intuitive steps. It is almost impossible to get the site to look the way you want. It is supposed to be WYSIWYG- but is not. The leading is always off and you never get what you expect when making changes. I have had professional developers and designers try to help make the site look the way I want, but even they have thrown up their hands in disgust.