Brilliant Directories

Amazing directory platform with rich set of features

Commentaires : We are a large institute with 1000s of private tutors. We wanted to showcase our member teachers and also encourage our students to review and rate them or hire them from our website after evaluating the profile of these teachers. For this purpose, brilliant directory comes extremely handy.

Avantages :

Most Impactful features: Membership management , automated emails at different stages of membership lifecycle, getleadmatched, SEO and there are many out of the box impactful features.

Inconvénients :

For the new bees with no technical background, learning curve can be little steep. But with the guide documents/videos for almost everything and very helpful support, this is not a major issue.

The Best Directory Software Out There?

Commentaires : I've just spent two months working on a Brilliant Directories site for a client and it's been both enjoyable and educational. Compared to my previous experience of directory themes and plugins in WordPress, Brilliant Directories was an absolute breeze to work with!I love that all the essential features are available right there out of the box for member listings, event listings, classifieds, payment processing etc. in fact too many to list. I also love that it's highly customisable and easy to tweak to your specific needs too.I think most directories will need to purchase a couple or more Add-ons which are paid for annually. These seem to be offered at various discounts throughout the year. I like buying software outright, so the lifetime directory deals that Brilliant Directories offer are great value. However, I don't resent Brilliant Directories generating income from the Add-ons either. In fact I'm glad they are generating ongoing revenue so they can continue their development and high quality of support.

Avantages :

Brilliant Directories' support is outstanding and possibly the best email support I've experienced in many years. The help portal is comprehensive - I found googling 'Brilliant Directories' plus what I need to find a little quicker than searching in the portal directly - 85% of the time it yielded the answers I needed. The rest of the time I emailed support and got an answer within a day from a real human who'd read and understood my query and gave me the solution I needed.Why did I need support? Well, Brilliant Directories has so many features and possibilities to cater for various directory uses, I often needed to know what's the best way to do something for our use case. In almost every case a solution was immediate, whilst a couple of requests specific to our needs were logged and implemented as a feature. I couldn't really ask for more.

Inconvénients :

The WYSIWIG editor Froala used for adding content to pages is a little quirky and sometimes the edit point jumps in sentences. The pre-made content blocks, e.g. image + text, are based on html tables which is a little old school although fine for email templates. Thankfully Froala allows quick switching to html editing which is excellent if you have a little html knowledge.

Overall Good but Functionally Lacking

Commentaires : I rated overall low because after a year and a half we still don't have full functionality. Our issue is with the built in Payment gateway. Though my present state of our directory I should have realized would be an issue because when I bought the directory Dennis had to invoice me through "PayPal" as the payment gateway would not process any of my cards, not once but twice. When we first bought it was monthly, then I bought the life time and each time my payment would not process through the directory payment gateway. Only though PayPal was I able to make payment. I had a number of potential members complain about the same. We had to stop taking membership. I brought this issue up to BD and they said they were looking into it. Then in December 2014 they announced integration of WHMCS into the directory. Here it is June 25th, 2015 still no WHMCS integration. I joined or bought BD in December 2013. I have thousands of dollars invested and cannot count the number of man hours invested. Only to be held up by the inability to take PayPal payments for membership. Customer service keeps telling me they are working on it and will notify me when implemented. In all fairness I believe BD has great potential but functionally can be lacking because, I believe, they have made it to good, if there is such a thing. Given we cannot get into the back end it is hard to evaluate, my IT person said WHMCS integration shouldn't be that complicated given all the other functions within the directory itself. He said setting up a PayPal gateway shouldn't be that complicated but because we are limited to access to the back end of the directory our hands are tied. I have said this before. Looking good and being good is two different things! This customer has had about enough of being told it's coming. Six months now!

The Membership Directory Builder "On Red Bull & Steroids"

Commentaires : Brilliant Directories was recommended to us & after reading many positive reviews we decided to give it a trial & very pleased we did. We found the scale of the software a little overwhelming at first, but after digging in we carved out a way for BD to give us the functionality our business idea required. (Developer Licence Advised) Depending on your needs BD may not do exactly what you want right out of the gate, but should you have a clear vision of what you aim to build & wish to achieve then BD is the best platform we have came across on our travels.

Avantages :

The sheer number of possibilities offered within the BD platform is quite mind boggling, in fact, mind blowing when choosing the VIP"Add Ons". BD has the flexibility to build either a vertical exact match, broad base or local directory. Support is "on the ball" & your questions are answered swiftly. Fortnightly webinars (often recorded) & an active FB Group also help to provide a comprehensive all round support package for members. Most features you would expect to see in a modern online directory are either already baked in or available as modular addons.

Inconvénients :

As new users to Brilliant Directories we felt that a short onboarding call could have been offered to help guide us through the maze of features. Although lots of video, webinar & responsive helpdesk support is available, nothing really beats being able to ask an expert directly. (FYI Paid coaching is available.) There is a fairly steep learning curve if you want to maximise your BD install. At the time of writing this review BD does not support any of the popular integration hubs, but Zapier is due to come online soon & hopefully this will pave the way for many others too. (Pably, Integromat, Konnectzit, Sync Spider etc)

I Didn’t Think It Could Be Done – How Wrong I Was

Commentaires : Some of my previous directory software had some features but were either not very well supported, were not reliable or were out of date. Brilliant Directories look after and update every single feature-packed section of their platform which is very encouraging. Support is very fast and knowledable.

Avantages :

I’ve been ‘looking’ at running a directory for some time now. Using Wordpress, JVZoo and Warrior Plus products and services but NONE have given a satisfactory result. My local community enjoyed my local website for a number of years but it never really turned into something I was planning to do with it. Other directories I’ve managed suffered from lack of support or even the vendors going out of business. So, I needed a format from a vendor I could trust that had first class support in place, a reliable website with an engine that was updated regularly and, also, had to be easy to use. I didn’t think it could be done but, how wrong I was … enter Brilliant Directories. Absolutely everything one could wish for seemed to be included in their offering. Getting started was a breeze as everything is laid out in a sensible order with help every step of the way via text documents with images and or short training videos. I needed to contact support on occasions and they got back to me in a timely manner which did impress me. I now have a clear roadmap to how I can monetise all the features that Brilliant Directories brings to the table. Yes, it’s a big deal to get from starting to the finished article and it won’t be done overnight but, the way everything is presented inside each directory makes it so straightforward and intuitive that any of the usual roadblocks are simply not there. I’m pleased that I came across this software (and the vendor as their track record has b

Inconvénients :

Some features are niggly to set up but not because of Brilliant Directories but places like the Google developers section and Facebook Apps which are very complex for a non-techie person. However Brilliant Directories had text and image help files and videos on each step so softened the frustration. Also, support were able to step in to help very quickly.