Inbound14 is right around the corner and we’re excited as ever! HubSpot usually takes advantage of the conference to release new features and let everyone know about upcoming improvements. While we love HubSpot, there’s always a little room for improvement. Here are the top 3 things we’d like to hear announced at this year’s Inbound14 conference.
1. Hierarchy to the COS
HubSpot’s Content Optimization System (COS) is truly amazing. It contains all the features of a content management system (CMS) and all the benefits of a custom, personalization engine for marketing. It’s completely customizable – templates, modules, if you can dream it, you can do it with the COS. So with all this potential, how could there be any downside?
The problem the COS suffers from is a lack of hierarchy. Look, we get it, the old structure file system is disappearing for new and better structure. Google has revolutionized e-mail by eliminating folders and replacing it with labels and search. And there’s no question the search works great in HubSpot as well. The problem is that, for large sites, it’s not enough.
For websites that have 30 pages, it’s not a problem. The issue is that some of our clients have sites that are five or six hundred pages deep. We need a better way to organize this so we can take advantage of the amazing benefits the COS can provide.
2. The Ability to Sort Customers By Close Instead of First Touch
Currently, when you go to the Sources report you’re able to run some pretty fantastic reports. Main sources are broken out into organic search, email, referrals, social media, paid search, direct traffic and other campaigns. You can even customize the report based on dates, domains, and marketing events. It’s a very valuable resource, especially if you realize the importance of marketing metrics.
There is one major improvement we’d like to see to this area and that’s the ability to sort your customers based on the date they closed rather than the date they first appeared in the system. Currently, the “customers” column only shows data for the first month the customer entered the system. Making this configurable, so you can show the customer in either the closed month or the first touch month would make the reporting much better for us!
3. No More Unannounced Updates!
I truly admire HubSpot. Many companies will send out announcements months, weeks, and days leading up to a new release. They let you know it’s coming well in advance and give you every opportunity to prepare and, in some cases, voice dissent. HubSpot doesn’t. They’ve got a plan and they’re moving forward with it. And most of the time it’s not a problem. You log into your dashboard, click on a feature you’ve been using forever, and boom – new options.
The issue arises when changes that are made for the good of everyone else break systems you’ve got in place. Let me give you a more specific example. HubSpot made a change a few weeks back to the export feature on their forms. They included a list of export options, but they changed the way drop-down lists are exported. In a drop down list, you have the visible value or “name” that the customer can see, and you have the actual “value” (sometimes these are the same) that is saved when the form is submitted. Previously, the export had been including the “value” in the export, but this latest change used the “name” instead.
It’s a simple enough change and it’s easy to see why it would benefit some users. The issue is, there was no way to tell it which one to export and no way to revert to an older version. A client of ours was using that export as a feed into their in-house CRM and this change completely broke the import. Many might look at that and say no problem, just use the API to import data. However, it is a problem because not everyone has the budget to make a move like that quickly. Additionally, they’re tasked with manually importing the data until they are able to come up with an in-house resolution.
Again, I’m not arguing the change was bad, I can completely see the value in it. But with no warning and no ability to choose, the change increased the costs and time for this particular client. All we’re asking is for a little advanced notice and an opportunity to configure wherever possible!
In the grand scheme of things, these are just little nits. We love the power HubSpot is able to offer us and our clients. We also have no doubt that additional features will be announced the absolutely blow our minds! We’re looking forward to it and can’t wait to see everything at Inbound14!
Have some changes of your own you’d like to see? Let us know what they are in the comments below.