Booker

Pros

Good rescheduling and ease of identifying customers with orders

Cons

The existing payroll is not comprehensive and this prompts us to use other programs and pay more money

Pros

Very complete with so many features, marketing and reports.

Cons

Charger are very, very high.. around $350/month plus the 3.5% and some flat fee cents on top of it

Pros

The reports and ease of onboarding employees, setting security levels and booking appointments.

Cons

Once we moved to Booker v2, we found the software to be completely unusable. Constantly freezing, unable to check out clients without crashing, unable to view past transactions easily. Version 2 was completely unusable and we were told there was no way to return to version 1. We lost all of that data and ease of use.

Pros

Data from clients, calendar views, appt reminders, cloud

Cons

Lack of access to my client data. Wording in set up making it where my software was my own worst enemy- keeping seeking clients from booking available appointments I wanted to fill. My membership tracking and usage was difficult to track.

Pros

It was far more capable than our previous scheduling software. It is fairly integrated solution that does client management, scheduling and POS.

Cons

Dealing with Booker reps. They are not genuine and you get the runaround a lot. There is a lot of turnover in the company. They are very pushy with their acquisitions like Reach and Classpass. Neither are worth your time.

Pros

the have a great couple massage systerm. d

Cons

a lot thing, like getting locked in a contract, event the sytem wasn't working for us we weren't able to dowgrade. They make it really hard for you to not cancel or downgrade.

Pros

The software keeps up with what rooms a service can be performed in as well as items that may be needed to complete a service, and that are available in limited quantity. They also recently came out with an AI receptionist feature for online booking. Which is why I switched over to them however non of the features work very well and with the credit card processing regularly not working I regret switching. They also flat out lied about the functionality of Booker to get me to sign a contract.

Cons

Their sales team is awesome but once you sign your contract, the customer service is garbage they do not care about you or the issues the software has and it is very apparent. Credit card processing is arguably, the most important aspect of any business and there’s is not working properly. It hasn’t been for years apparently, and they do nothing to fix it.

Pros

Text confirm and remind
Online booking

Cons

Customer appointment history is glitchy and sometimes dose not show history and notes as needed

Alternatives Considered

Reasons for Choosing Booker

Switched From

Reasons for Switching to Booker

Pros

the starting point seems to be settling with each of the modules, campaigns, contacts, sms, scheduling, automation...but the instanve one get into it, its a sticky mess

Cons

crashing features, dated modules, lack of common features, displaying itself as a market automation tool. Silly customer support

Pros

E-commerce and online booking options are great, easy to use and customer service is very responsive.

Cons

Price is high and software does not have built in clinic insurance or client record management. Doesn't integrated with Moneris unless you pay for a 3rd party gateway

Pros

running payroll reports there is pretty much nothing else.

Cons

It is impossible to get it set up appropriately, after 4 months of phone calls, I still never got the appropriate credit cards to run internally. I was able to set up an acct with their third party processing but could never actually link that to closing appointments. It was a full time job to communicate with customer service and after 4 months this was never rectified.
Their rates doubled from when I signed on and are now even with mindbody yet the service and function is not as good. I am open seasonally and so when I signed on I very clearly asked if I would not be charged for the months I am closed and was very clearly told that I would not be charged. When I went to put my account on vacation mode I was told this is not an option.

Pros

Ease of use so, easy to train. In the Day Spa industry front desk turnover is frequent so it is nice to be able to quickly show a new gal how to use the system.

Cons

We were previously Salon Iris customers and I am a programmer. With access to the database on that system I could run queries on anything in the database. Booker does not provide access to the SQL database so that is not possible. I do however have all of the reports that I need.

Also, it would be nice to have the ability to set access a little more granular. For example, if I give a gal access to look at gift card balances, I will also have given her access to modify gift card balances.

Alternatives Considered

Reasons for Choosing Booker

Switched From

Reasons for Switching to Booker

Pros

Ease of scheduling, quick to learn/intuitive platform, broad range of reporting options.

Cons

The customer support could be faster and more helpful. The client end of scheduling could be easier for the client.

Alternatives Considered

Reasons for Choosing Booker

Reasons for Switching to Booker

Pros

You can be very thorough in booking your appointments. Especially like the details tab where you can add notes for each client & can even scan pages into their account. Can easily see their appointments & past orders.
We like the add ons to the software, as well - [SENSITIVE CONTENT HIDDEN]

Cons

Sometimes, when you make a mistake, it's hard to back out of it, especially with payments. You just have to force other transactions to make the outcome that you needed in the first place.

Alternatives Considered

Reasons for Switching to Booker

Pros

Organized appointments for our customers.

Cons

It is sometimes confusing to use for our customers.

Pros

The easy ability to manage booking routines and customer interactions and marketing activities

Cons

after free trail ends, it's quite pricy!

Pros

Easy to navigate and use. Easy to teach new employees how to book appointments - keeps inventory accurate, and payroll is easy access.

Cons

The worst part about Booker is usually you get an experienced person to help although when you really need it you have someone helping doing what you can do , read off their online support. So frustrating!
The worst part about this software is that person- such as STAFF should not be able to look at persons full history or personal information . The quick check in box at the top of appointments that is available to everyone allows all access. Just simply type in a name and here you have it . History, address, pros and cons about client likes and dislikes for everyone to see. NO privacy with this app . Therapist can look up past appointments - and its not their clients . There is no privacy with Booker -anyone can see everything no matter what settings you restrict. Cant wait to change this system to something more owner/ (HIPPA complaint- would be nice) friendly, so employees do not have access to private information. Anyone looking to prevent client information access , watch out for this app. Also continues to use other cc on various accounts, blaming it on whatever internet service you use, funny everyone says the same we all use something different- how can it be us- the business. We continuously have to call customers and apologize . Read other reviews same complaints.

Pros

Right now, nothing. I'm so beyond frustrated. NOBODY IS N EVER AVAILABLE FOR CUSTOMER SERVICE!!

Cons

IT NEVER WORKS AT ALL!!! CUSTOMER SERVICE IS NEVER THERE TO HELP! DO NOT USE!!

Pros

Admin backend is solid and reliable.
Lots of options to customize. Too many at times since finding just the right setting can take 15-20 minutes or require a phone call to customer service.

Cons

Customer front end is weak and confusing. Booker does not allow certain booking options (CF2) to be used in iFrames. This forces you to send customers to a 3rd party website (not yours) to make appointments. Fixes and feature requests come slowly if at all.
If you are interested in using Booker be sure you know what you are getting into before you commit. It is very difficult to get 100, 500, or thousands of customers to move to a new appointment system if you later decide Booker is not what you expected. Get used to what Booker looks like now and be okay with that for the long haul. Don't plan on being able to add a feature of even getting Booker to fix bugs. Booker will show you a long list of "fixes" and revision numbers of updated software. I have never known any of these updates to address a bug of concern we had with the SaaS. Customer requests are ignored and bugs are described as features. Yes, they really are! For example, in some places staff names are sorted by first name and in other places they are sorted by last name. This does make it feel like you are using different software products and will infuriate you at times.
Different interfaces all work differently. In other words, they all feel like different products. We use the admin interface, the Booker iOS app, the Booker customer app, CF1, and Facebook app. That seems like lots of great options until you realize how disjointed and different they all are. You are not merely learning one software package, you really have to learn them all.

Pros

I liked the notion of what they "sell" to you. not what they actually deliver. I guess I like that it's a cloud based system, which you can't say for Millennium.

Cons

Booker is going more towards a multi-industry platform & removed many of its spa related functionality. No longer can you create spa packages, for example.

Much of the customization they sell you on doesn't exist at all. It used to on their old platform, but new customers don't get to use that anymore, so your gift card site & the online booking site will look like a Kindergartner designed it in an extracurricular activity.

You don't have the ability to customize categories for your services/products. For example, if you do hydrotherapy, there isn't a category for things like vichy showers. You do have auto repair available though... so congrats.

If you're looking to have a smooth experience with onboarding, you'll be disappointed. The data "expert" we worked with missed his deadline by 4 weeks and then just disappeared. We had to start completely over and then the new "expert" imported the wrong data and we had to start over again. We worked with onboarding for almost 5 months and never got live.

There's no ecommerce capabilities, even though their web site promotes it and their sales people promote it. At this point, it's a flat out lie. Doesn't exist.

You have to work with a 3rd party for your POS system (Clover). We signed up for a special and were supposed to get 2 set ups for free, but they came back to us after we signed up and said "nope, sorry, we were wrong, you can only have one." And, then they sent us 2, except one was incompatible with Booker.

Pros

Booker is so great. Everyone of my staff has their own logins to look at their schedules at any time. My accounting department (that is in a different building) has access to check balances....my HR department can also access it to do payroll....making it easy for us all to stay on the same page of the business. At any time my GM can look at the dash board to see where we stand any any given time of the month. The clients love it because they can make appointments on line and they love the text reminders for their appointments. As the director I want to make sure clients are happy...I get feed back from surveys that let us know if we are doing things right or if we need to improve on things. Bookers Customer service used to be a little frustrating but I feel like they have really stepped it up lately. Thanks Booker for helping us do our job in a very efficient way!

Cons

I wish we could add specials or notes to certain days...their really isn’t any place for that. We end up putting notes in someone’s schedule so it shows up on the day...it works but not ideal.

Pros

Booker is one of the more intuitive to use softwares on the market, and I've used them all. It is easy to find your way around even without training which makes it great for new employees still learning

Cons

It's constantly broken, ESPECIALLY for enterprise level clients that have 'Brand' accounts with multiple locations. Their outage record is deplorable and now that theyve been bought out by MindBody Online, they've made themselves the highest price product on the market by a HUGE margin with nothing to back it up. We have signed contract pricing with booker and they are now refusing to honor it after the acquisition. Customers all just got hit with HUGE new bills, are pissed, and are leaving in droves. Us included and we are taking all of our locations. Bye Booker. Dumb move.

Pros

Booker was a good software for the first few months but has been nothing short of a nightmare for the past 2 years. Promise after promise to improve the platform and engineering reasonable redundancy and diversity have all been unfulfilled. If you decide to use Booker, I promise you will experience long outages (sometimes over 2 hours). If you visit the Booker Status Page the day after an outage, it will be as if it never happened. Poof!

Cons

Booker has not changed or improved since the acquisition by MindBody. My guess is that it will take them months/years to undo the mess created. I feel for the Booker Customer Support team having to make their best efforts to support clients when they often have no clue what the root cause of an outage or system issues is.

Pros

Booker makes it easy to book clients, review accurate data, see clients shared to a membership, easily manage gift cards and online certs, easily view status changes of a membership, provide great auditing capabilities...

Cons

The customer support is extremely lacking. We also couldn’t get all the reports we needed and had to use a custom developed Stage 1 reporting system that was insanely slow. Our franchise switched systems to a MUCH inferior system due to the poor customer service. The Booker company doesn’t seem interested to work to improve the system based on the client needs. It’s got a great core but there were several bugs that would go on for years and the typical response would be a time consuming workaround, rather than addressing this issue and providing timelines.

Pros

The ease of scheduling. It is simple to teach new people and services just pop up when you start typing them. I like that.

Cons

Sometimes the system can be a little bit slow. It is truly only difficult when there are lots of people waiting on you.