Booker vs. Phorest

Booker is very user friendly with videos to help our staff who are setting up schedules. It has very robust features that our school district didn't really need when we piloted it. It has a great option for widgets to be added to websites, whether district or school site. We find that the more widgets are available, the more appreciative our parents are. This is definitely a product that is used in the business world and not in the school district world so it doesn't really have the personalization we need as a school district or a school sites. Should the site change its potential customers, it would be a great fit for us because scheduling is very challenging in a large school district, be it at the district level or at individual school sites

Incentivized

It's well suited if you own a salon and are looking for a software to manage all of your needs - stock/inventory, staff schedules, client bookings and rebookings. It's more salon focused than clinic focused (e.g. if you have a wellness center it's not ideal for consent forms for example). Changing staff price offering is a bit time consuming.

• Booker does very well as a point of sale program. From front desk check out to back end report generation, Booker gives us an accurate daily picture of business activity.
• Booker is very good at tracking gift certificate activity. We have a large number of gift certificates and are able to find, edit and void with ease. We are also able to look at the history for each individual certificate or series which helps in troubleshooting.
• I do not work with scheduling myself but staffers have found Booker to be a valuable tool for managing rooms and therapists.

Incentivized

• Appointment scheduling
• SMS Reminders
• Rebooking SMS
• Support
• Managing Clients

• Booker has had some system failures recently that have caused a hard time for us.
• Sometimes Booker updates reset certain features which cause us to have to reset everything.
• The Booker app does not have the same features as the full site which sometimes does not make it easy for us.

Incentivized

• Better UI/UX - more intuitive to use
• Better customer service support
• Would prefer more hand holding during onboarding experience

Because I'm so familiar with it. I'll definitely reconsider.

Incentivized

It gets the job done but is overly detailed and has many steps to do a simple task. Reports are continuously being archived and discontinued. As soon as I get used to one it is no longer available

Incentivized

Booker is not always that quick to respond however, I will say, they do research the problem before getting back to you which I do like. Overall, they are kind and helpful in their responses. Though one big concern is that when there is a larger issue, they are not the best at circling back and contacting us to let us know if or how it has been resolved.

Incentivized

As far as I know, implementing Booker into our business was fairly easy.

Incentivized

When we tried Micros, though it has robust hardware and software, It is not meant for salons. Square again the same thing, it is meant for small non salon and non service oriented businesses. Booker is by far the best of all salon softwares we have used.

Incentivized

Phorest is a more modern software, although it can still be more intuitive to use its much better than other options out there. I feel it works great for someone who has been using salon software for many years and wants to upgrade to something more modern, or for someone who is switching over from pen and paper to manage their appointments

• Notifications are a great way that communicates to the customer their appointment confirmation, and appointment reminders.
• Increased employee / staff communication, they can now log in and see their schedules.
• Entering credit card at time of appointment reservation is helpful to us since we have a cancellation policy and keeps the client accountable if they are a no show or cancel last minute.

Incentivized

• More organization
• Helped with business processes