Booker vs. Timely booking & payments system vs. Union Digital

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

I've researched a lot of salon software, and Timely was the top-of-the-line software that does it all compared to competitors. It has a friendly interface, offers easy ways to communicate with clients via text and emails, and provides insights and reports, so it indeed does everything you need for booking software. On top of that, it's cloud-based, so say goodbye to only accessing your appointment book through your computer at the salon.

Incentivized

• 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

• Integration with Google Calendar allows avoiding double ups
• Automatic appointment bookings with SMS reminders
• Xero integration and Automatic Invoicing, Payments and Partial Reconciliation
• Multiple Staff Members to be booked
• Facebook Integration, allows people to book from Facebook

Incentivized

• 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

• UI/UX
• Cloud based system
• Has to be more customer friendly

Incentivized

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

Timely is by far the most user-friendly and fun to use. It's got a great interface, works on iPads, and training is super easy for the team. Other software is clunky and takes too long to set up and train the team to use.

Incentivized

• 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

• Bragging rights, yes. Always cool to tell how automated your business is.
• ROI, no. In our case, it wasn't worth the time spent in integration into the website, system setup, plus subscription fee. However, take into account, that High-Value Professional Services is a wrong industry for this product.
• Convenience and confidence that there will be no double booking across G Suite and Timely was tested and were really handy at the times.
• No ability to use our own SMTP. If your server has Anti-Spoofing DKIM and etc., setting it up with Timely was a nightmare as support had no idea. So a lot of emails were going to Spam on the client's side.

Incentivized