Zen Planner

Very Helpful Customer Service!!!

Opmerkingen: Zen Planner software has enabled our company to introduce a program to our customers in a seamless fashion. Their customer service was vital in helping us with this process.

Pluspunten:

The software is very slick and versatile!

Minpunten:

There was a lot to learn that I wasn't familiar with.

Perfect for managing a martial arts studio

Opmerkingen: I was really impressed on how well they understand how martial art schools work. The software takes into account everything you need to keep your school running - from scheduling out classes students reserve for, to taking payments and setting up merchant accounts, to desk check-in software, to students having their own portal to track their membership and status. Customer support was very helpful during the onboarding.

Pluspunten:

You can tell this software was designed for martial artists. One of my favorite things you can do is designate belt rankings to students, and design your system in a way that when a student is ready to test for the next belt, whether its the amount of time they've been training with the studio, to achieving certain skills required, Zen Planner notifies you and helps you plan belt testing. I loved that they recognize how important it is for martial art schools to know where students rank. I was able to plan out all my belts, what skills are required and minimum of time with the school they need to have to test. Most gym software don't recognize all the small nuances that martial art schools need to track where their students stand.

Minpunten:

The apps for desk login can be a little buggie sometimes and require an update or reset the iPad to get the software to work.

Used it for three years - feature rich but hard to use

Opmerkingen: We switched from Mindbody to Zenplanner and used it for three years. Zenplanner is chock full of features (other than membership discounts, as mentioned above), but it's so full of features that it becomes clunky and hard to use. I could do just about anything from my admin account, but my fellow coaches who spent less time in it had a harder time working with it. Customers also struggled a lot. We have now switched to Upper Hand, and while it has fewer features and the reports aren't as good, our customers are actually booking their own classes instead of making me do it.

Pluspunten:

I was the primary account administrator, and I could fix just about anything retroactively. Once you really know your way around, it's got almost everything you could think to want. There are a lot of customization options for emails you can send your customers, and it was easy to check which emails an individual had opened. The reports were great. Best reporting I've seen, and it's pretty much the only thing I'll miss. Support was good - very responsive, with multiple ways to contact them. I also appreciated the discounts they gave businesses at the start of the COVID shutdowns.

Minpunten:

The software was very difficult for customers to use, so much that about half of our parents (and a couple of our coaches) just wanted me to do everything for them. Doing so on my end was time-consuming. Zenplanner offers some options to integrate with our existing website, but it didn't work in every circumstance. What customers could do from our primary domain was pretty limited, and it wasn't easy to switch back and forth between our site and the ZP site. Zenplanner does not offer automatically-applied membership discounts, so we had to have customers use offer codes. Membership discounts (such as on retail or private lessons) are pretty standard in fitness businesses and not having that option was a major pain. There was no way to easily see which coaches had availability at which times.

Amazing

Pluspunten:

I love how simple this software made it to do everything our yoga studio needed. It was also user friendly for our students. We love it overall.

Minpunten:

I do wish there was a cheaper option for small studios just getting started.

Customer support is outstanding

Opmerkingen: I'd give it a B- on a grading scale. The customer support is outstanding but any time you want to go beyond just keeping track of how many students you have, things become way too complicated.

Pluspunten:

Customer support really is top notch. The on boarding team is fantastic and truly went out of their way to ensure we had every available resource for success. Any little quirky issue or question we have is answered quickly and professionally by the customer support team. They are fantastic.

Minpunten:

The basics are great but it seems to go from "ok to use" to "I have absolutely no idea what to do here" the minute any complication arises. There does not need to be a "staff user" and a "kiosk mode" on the Ipads, it confuses everyone and wastes a lot of time. Converting reports to pdf feature should be a breeze, but doesn't convert the entire report and is useless. It should have a much easier pos system as well. No real way for instructors to leave notes for students, why not? Never use the mass email or text because its just too complicated-these things can be fixed if they gave it some attention.