If you want to keep all of your choices in the same location, this is an excellent choice to make.Sabre is an excellent choice for serious travel agents who are prepared to devote a substantial amount of time to learning and becoming proficient with a booking platform. It provides agents with excellent functions such as the ability to find flight availability and pricing in real time, the capacity to hold flights for up to 72 hours, and the capability to book with a secure and well-known system. The primary issue is that it is geared toward the needs of agents; as a result, it is EXTREMELY challenging for a new user to pick up and become proficient with Sabre.
I've tried some of the other online booking services and while there were good, they didn't have all of the features that Zoho Bookings does and since I'm already a Zoho One subscriber, it doesn't cost me anything more. I think virtually any type of business can use Bookings as it's not geared to a specific industry but can be customized for use in any type of industry. I would love to see salons use it as I think it can be truly a way for them to better book clients than using a paper calendar which I see many using. I also think massage therapists would also benefit but using Bookings. If you are a solopreneur or have a sales team, there's no way you can't benefit by using Bookings for your phone appointments, Zoom/Video meetings, or in-person meetings. There is also a resource function which allows you to block out conference rooms and other resources.
Sabre Red Workspace is constantly evolving to keep up with technology trends. For example, it is now available for agents to download on their iPads so that they can work from anywhere.
Sabre Red Workspace offers a suite called Red Apps which has many categories of useful apps that can customize your experience (some at no extra charge) and help simplify workflows.
Sabre Red Workspace provides a comprehensive library of every format or command that an agent could ever need to do his or her job.
It still needs more robust features and customization, like workflows and such. I'm confident they'll continue improving it, but some particular customization settings aren't available, in terms of triggers, content, look and feel, but it is mostly very detailed and particular. If you're ok with adapting to it, it is an excellent tool.
In my 14 years of using Sabre Red Workspace, their software support desk has always offered top-notch customer service and professionalism. Their representatives are extremely knowledgeable, and there has never been a time where they weren't able to quickly and accurately resolve our issues or answer our questions when we called, and we have never been charged for their assistance.
A lot of things are not great as this is a new tool, but they fix it relatively quickly. They don't have a direct phone number, but Zoho support has good service overall
I found the integration with the two above is great if you're a Google Calendar user which we are not. While with Zoho Calendar we can have two way integration with Google Calendar there wasn't a need to do so. With Zoho Bookings which also integrates with Google Calendar we didn't have to worry about that as the integration with our Zoho Calendar was virtually automatic. There was also the cost consideration as the two above have a free version it was limited and didn't have all the bells and whistles we needed. Zoho Bookings provide us with everything from a single sign-on web browser and mobile app
Overall for the business, it allows us to profit on international flights, where outside of Sabre we would not earn anything. We can earn percentages on certain international flights for booking or add commissions to base prices not posted elsewhere.
Sabre creates a barrier to entry for new agents and keeps agents from committing to the business.
Sabre gives base prices for agents that are significantly less than those found to a normal user, searching for a flight. This allows for sometimes very high added commissions (upwards of $500 per ticket) while also providing a lower cost to the customer, keeping them working with you in the future.
