Likelihood to Recommend 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
Read full review I think any business can benefit from Acuity Scheduling. In my experience, however, and maybe I just haven’t found the correct settings yet, it’s been difficult to manage 4 business schedules with multiple employees and varying hours that change day-to-day and week-to-week. So I definitely would recommend it to more simple business models with set hours, as it seems like it would have all the functions one might need. I still would recommend to more complex businesses like mine as well, but also include discussion of some of the potential drawbacks.
Read full review It's well suited if you're on a budget, don't want to pay a recurring fee, and need a way to automate appointments. However, when I get around to it, I think I'm going to look for a more reliable tool. It's really less appropriate when appointment setting is "mission-critical" -- that is, your business is entirely dependent on a reliable appointment setting system -- for example, if you're a hairstylist, dentist, etc. I believe there are many other tools out there specific to these purposes.
Robbin Block Creative Marketing Strategist, Instructor, Moderator, Author
Read full review Pros 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. Read full review Clicking on the link opens up my calendar, which has an uncluttered look, making it easy for my prospects and clients to review their options and make their choice. I am able to customize my schedule, the types of appointments I want to offer, and even decide how many appointments I want in a day. There are so many details that I can customize. I can customize how my calendar and emails look for my prospects and clients so that I come across professional and coordinated. I want the look of my business, website, etc. to have a polished, cohesive, and interesting presence. I love that there is a workshop/class/series option for my workshops. My attendees reserve their place and pay upfront. I can duplicate these events or add future dates. It's wonderful. This saves us a lot of time and is so convenient. I haven't had any trouble with my scheduler. It works flawlessly, so I don't have to take time out of my day to fix, troubleshoot or call customer service. I love that I can add questions for my prospects to answer right away before booking a call. This means 3 fewer steps for me. 1. They answer these questions without an email from me. 2. They make their reservation and get a follow-up email, right away. 3. I customized the follow-up email with more details and actions to take to prepare for our call. Read full review Customized schedules for each employee. High degree of customization possible. Set-up doesn't require coding skill (even HTML). Read full review Cons 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. Read full review Administrator interface is tricky to use. It is not easy to add new types of meetings or edit the settings on the current types of meetings we have I'd like to see them send out more reminder emails leading up to the meeting scheduled to reduce the number of no-shows and reschedules Make it easier to customize the confirmation emails-- easier ability to add videos and customizable text Read full review I find the interface to be a tad clunky and not that intuitive. I don't love the look and feel. My goal was to use TimeTrade exclusively for prospecting calls, which I gave a specific name. (e.g. Fall back in love with your business coaching session). I scheduled these open appointments for specific time slots when I'm available. I was surprised to discover that people could schedule different types of appointments at any open time in my calendar, not just the time slots I prefer. Read full review Likelihood to Renew Because I'm so familiar with it. I'll definitely reconsider.
Read full review Acuity Scheduling has been very reliable. If you don't believe me, check out
their status page here . They do a pretty decent job maintaining their app. To be fair, it's a pretty simple tool so they shouldn't run into too many hiccups given it doesn't feature near as many options as other applications on the market run.
Read full review Usability 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
Read full review It's just very intuitive once you get the hang of it, which won't take long. They try not to make complex things very complex and they provide explanations for everything with a greyed-out question mark icon next to the function. Also, I love that they encourage people to just get live help when they need it.
Read full review Support Rating 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.
Read full review Every time I had a question on how to do something or had any issues with Acuity Scheduling, mainly in the very beginning, when I was learning the platform, customer service was excellent. They were prompt to respond, friendly, and very helpful until I had the right solution.
Read full review Their support team often gets back to us promptly and is very helpful.
Read full review Implementation Rating As far as I know, implementing Booker into our business was fairly easy.
Read full review Alternatives Considered 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.
Read full review In the case of Schedulicity, the system was awesome (very easy to set up and had some nice features) but did not offer the functionality and flexibility that AcuityScheduling does. In the case of SimplyBook.me, they offer lots of functionality but the interface is extremely complex and you pay a la carte for features so you're going to pay exponentially more for the same set of features as compared to AcuityScheduling. Their customer service was also lacking, in my opinion.
Read full review TimeTrade has been my favorite way (that I've discovered so far) to organize meeting attendees from different organizations and coordinate a time that works for everyone.
Read full review Return on Investment 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. Read full review Minimizing no shows Giving me back time by taking tasks off my mind/to-do list to focus on bigger more important things Payment management (it helps me make sure I receive my payments/recurring payments and follow up with clients if a payment has failed) Honestly just saving me from scheduling nightmares and headaches Timezones! It does it for you! (I work internationally) Read full review Saves me time by automating appointments. Low-cost, so little to no impact on budget. Robbin Block Creative Marketing Strategist, Instructor, Moderator, Author
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