Zen Planner Reviews

Very Helpful Customer Service!!!

Comments: 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.

Pros:

The software is very slick and versatile!

Cons:

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

Customer support is outstanding

Comments: 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.

Pros:

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.

Cons:

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.

7 year user

Comments: I've been using it for over 7 years because I haven't had a need to find something "better".

Pros:

The simplicity to have everything for my management in 1 place.

Cons:

Occasional network problems. But, when there is a network problem it's usually resolved pretty quickly.

Terrible Customer Service / Worst Features and Updates

Comments: Awful experience, please save your business and stay away from Zen Planner.

Pros:

Nothing, they caused us incredible stress whilst using this platform.

Cons:

Terrible customer service, no loyalty, charged after cancelling subscription, deceitful about updates, not functional.

A must for managing martial arts studios

Comments: 10/10 would recommend. We have had a great experience and enjoy using the software.

Pros:

We have been supported the entire way with their superior customer service. Everything from set up to troubleshooting tech issues, the staff at Zen Planner have been there to support and guide us in our day to day operations.

Cons:

We had an issue with a tablet that wasn't able to be resolved. However we found a work around and now have no problems whatsoever!

Keeps me organized

Comments: I'm not the most organized person and doing all admin, billing as well a coaching my clients, Zen Planner helps to keep the back end of my business organized and running smoothly. The automations are great if they're set up correctly. Their customer support is amazing!! Not much waiting time and my issues are always resolved. When I started, they're pricing was pretty competitive. Although, they've gotten much pricier over the past year.

Pros:

Having automated billing, emails and scheduling. Being able to pull billing reports at a moment's notice to see where my finances are is a plus.

Cons:

Having so many options for reports and automations. It can be very confusing at times and sometimes having two steps to accomplish a task isn't clear.

martial arts use

Comments: The customer service has been great in helping us resolve issues and work around systems that aren't quite what we need.

Pros:

We like that we can track student count/growth, attendance, belt ranking, finances, and appointments all in one place.

Cons:

The calendar is not easy to use and often leads to errors if you don't follow certain steps.

Zen Planner is the best gym software I have found.

Comments: We have had it for over 5 years now and have always been well supported.

Pros:

Easy to use and questions are answered quickly and follow up is appreciated.

Cons:

I struggle with retail, combining retail with other charges.

Great customer service, full of options, bit of a learning curve.

Comments: Positive, when I have reached out for help, they are quick to respond with thorough answers.

Pros:

It holds a lot of features that can make day to day and planning far less hassle.

Cons:

There can be a steep learning curve for many of the features and options. Sometimes the options can be confusing and there is almost too much to just get up and running.

Good program

Comments: pretty good app. Gets the job done. Would recommend

Pros:

Easy process to enter members. Gets the job done. Check in process is very easy

Cons:

trouble shooting. When there are bugs in the system and merging

Zen planner does an ok job

Comments: Would not waste my time with this software, they don't deliver on their promises, invent fees to access your data, don't follow through with their support. It took me 3 months to get them to finish my cancelation as they kept sending emails to students saying they owed because their payments failed AFTER I switched to another system. Very unprofessional and rude.

Pros:

It was quite a bit less per month then any of the other software I checked into at the time. It did an ok job for doing parents nights out.

Cons:

On the surface it looks like it will do a good job but in reality it is buggy, poorly implemented and just didn't deliver on the promises it was supposed to.

Modern Interface with lots of flexibility

Comments: The onboarding process was thorough. I did have to be persistent in explaining some needs that were different from what they expected.

Pros:

This product can be customized in many ways to meet the specific operation of your business. The interface is slick looking and makes good use of screen real estate. The interface is fast and responsive. The universal search button lets you get to what you need quickly.

Cons:

The mobile app features are quite lacking. Although it is customizable in most ways, there are some ways it is not, and when you mention these to support, they can't fathom why you'd want that. There is a feedback option to submit feature requests, and they always reply to them, but it seems the dev cycle is VERY long.

Amazing

Pros:

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.

Cons:

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

Very poor software with appalling customer service

Comments: We are a martial arts school who used the software for 3 years, on the basis that while the software didn't do everything we were looking for they were putting in product feature requests to make improvements, and to fix the many bugs in the software. After 3 years they finally came back with: "I do not have a timeline for release on features that you have suggested. Any changes or additions we make to Zen Planner need to be commonly requested, and fit into the Product Team's vision for our software. As a result, some features you have requested may never be implemented." However I have seen many other martial arts schools request similar changes. So after initially promising everything to get you signed up, they then back track if you keep following up with them trying to get a straight answer. Continuing to try and hold them to account results in: "Zen Planner is not for everyone, and it's important that you find a system that works for you. This message is providing you with notice that your Zen Planner account will be closed" and I have also heard from several other users that this has happened to them as well. So they misrepresent their software, then promise to get it working, take your money - and you invest a significant amount of time setting it up, and then more time every week doing manual workarounds waiting for a fix they never intended to make. Then they just cancel your membership without giving you enough time to transition everything, particularly changing over your billing for members. Some of the issues are: parents signing up their kids for martial arts classes is very difficult and confusing for members. They can't use the same email for their children - who can be too young to even have their own email - and then automated emails don't send as there is no email for the member. When they try it often results in an error and they try signing up multiple times, bloating the database with duplicate registrations and memberships, which are tedious and difficult to combine, that cause errors while completing. I ended up doing more admin to fix this than signing them up manually. Then booking classes for kids is so difficult I ended up doing it manually for parents. Also a main feature they promote is be belt progress skill tracking - this is designed for entering a single workout for a cross fit box, and so trying to enter results and comments for a grading against all the skills is totally unusable.

Pros:

For existing members, once you have gone through the lengthy set up process, it processes payments automatically for you, but making changes is very difficult. It is easier to just use the payment gateway provider directly and use a manual system to track it. They did have financial reporting - but I found them to be more trouble than they were worth, but I am a Chartered Accountant and might just have standards that are above minimalistic offering available on Zen Planner.

Cons:

It is extreemley difficult for parents to book classes for their kids, especially for more than one child, for more than one day - as the calendar defaults to the parent -with no classes as they don't have a membership. They need to change to the first child then click on one class then reserve a place, then go back to the start for the next class & child. Also for automations to work the child needs an email entered, and you can't use the same email as the parent, or link them to the parent. Apparently this change is too difficult as many members asked, but they won't fix it. When the automations don't work, parents think there is an error and start another registration, which creates many duplicate records in the database. Manually combining them, updating profiles, and manually sending the "automated" emails takes more time than just doing it manually. The skill tracking system is also very badly designed, it is almost unusable, and takes a huge amount of time to enter if you want to record results against all the skills a martial arts student needs to know in a single session, such as a grading or pre-grading. Members can't even see what skills they need to pass if no results are previously entered, or a summary of their skills.

Zen Planner is great - PaySimple is shit - They really need to find a new way to take payments.

Comments: As I said, Great but at the end of the day I can't handle the ridiculously overpriced dishonour fees that EziDebit charges and I am afraid I am already looking for a new software system. I dread the change but unless Zen Planner ditches EziDebit/PaySimple - I just can't support them anymore. I think I will move to Glofox.

Pros:

I love the easy to use back end and the app is something that my students absolutely love - it is so easy for them to book into classes. Plus it is great being able to do pay reports for my teachers through the back end.

Cons:

I am a big fan of Zen Planner but I have to say the payment platform with who they partner with is absolutely terrible. EasyDebit/PaySimple really let's Zen Planner down with exorbitant fees, delayed processing (then they charge a big dishonour fee to my customers) and an archaic user interface. I really think it's time that Zen Planner ditched EasyDebit and switched to Stripe or another payment gateway with more reasonable fees, immediate processing and an easy to use app that makes for easy refund of customer money if needed. Also can't make the reports as specific as I would like - e.g. see income per month for a specific income category which is frustrating.

Awesome and they continue to work to add new and wanted fuctionality

Comments: One stop shop for managing my business. Automation. And the ability to do a lot with little or no staff.

Pros:

Easy to use, easy to manage. It has a great modern look and they don't try to bundle everything in one app. They have different apps for sing in, staff use, and member. I love the reports, and the face check in. Easy to find athletes by their face. Great for when you have new staff. It truly is a great bundle for workout tracking, integration with current website, and integration with marketing emails. All things other companies charge extra for. I would and have recommended this software to other gym and martial art owners.

Cons:

The apps are great for managing but missing some fuctionality such as being able to schedule privates on the app. They where missing staff clicks in, retail sales but they have recently added those. Hard to find much I dislike and what I do they don't seem to be standing still, adding new function all the time.

My review 10-10-22

Comments: I think ZP does a great job with support. That to me is super important!

Pros:

Billing and scheduling is made easy through ZP which is my only function right now.

Cons:

This is not a email system that is all encompassing so it makes it hard to set up a nurture program. Having it integrated with Mailchimp in a cleaner way would be great. It's not easy to manage.

New Report

Comments: Overall, fairly positive experience.

Pros:

Great for keeping track of students, Billing and tracking ranking for all students, contact info for all prospects, email to all in database with different filters

Cons:

Difficulty of getting proper fields to be in a report. Difficulty working with different age group migration (student moves to new group, conflicts and mistakes happen) Pricing is getting a bit high, gone up 50% in 2 years with no major improvements or features, and during covid, limited and slow response time for customer service, but....higher prices...

Best Customer Service I ever experienced

Comments: I run all my programs, classes and appointments. I also use it to bill my customers and record all my expenses. It is a perfect solution for a gym of sport facility, we are a fencing club with over 100 active members.

Pros:

It covers all my needs, but the best part of it is the Customer Service. They helped me for every step over the implementation and they have always been available over the 3 years I have used the SW to solve all my questions. It is not only about issues but also about functionality questions. They are super friendly and useful.

Cons:

The SW is very good, sometimes I would have preferred a few things to be organized differently but it is not a good deal.

Great System

Comments: ZenPlanner has been very reliable and does what we want it to except for the odd issue. Sometimes I get so frustrated I want to switch providers but then realize that the other providers still aren't as good as ZP so I just have to stick it out. If they increased their speed at which they fixed bugs and/or simple features then I would be a very happy customer.

Pros:

It's a great CRM for a small fitness facility. From reviews from competitors, it appears to be the best however I haven't personally tried the others. The Chat feature is great to be able to quickly message with employees when I have questions or concerns.

Cons:

They are very slow to fix bugs and/or simple features. It's almost like they don't even have tech employees to fix these things.

Ok but not great

Comments: I can do a lot with this software. Apparently does everything that Front Desk offers in their middle tier of pricing - for half the cost. I manage staff payroll and reserving classes, too. I can do analytics and reports. They have always been very nice on the phone (if unable to help.) On the down side, it's buggy and painfully slow. Plus it doesn't work very well on mobile, either for clients, coaches, or the business owner. My athletes often say they can't reserve class on their phones. Everyone wants to do everything on their phones but ZP does not accommodate this! The workout tracking was painful to use - they keep adding features like this but I wish they would just make the ones they have work better. Their much vaunted software improvements were a disappointing thin skin over the same stuff. Despite my annoyance I have learned to work around the bugs and stuck with them for many years. I will probably continue to wait for software improvements. Not a ringing endorsement by any means, but the software is functional and the price is right.

[SENSITIVE CONTENT] at ZenPlanner is Top Notch

Pros:

The customer service is stellar. Everyone I've spoken to is smart, friendly and efficient. [SENSITIVE CONTENT] did our transition to GAINS payment processing and I couldn't have asked for more warm, knowledgeable and efficient support. Her follow-up with me has been outstanding.

Cons:

It's not great for use with membership under 18; we do a lot of programming for children and need a way to have both parents as primary email contacts, need a way to communicate both with parents and with the 13-18 year old group. Grading (movement between programs and belt levels) is difficult.

Customer Support

Comments: Customer support is why I'm writing this review. Everyone I have talked with has been so respectful, patient, professional and knowledgeable. Plus, quick to resolve any issue I was having.

Pros:

The customer support that comes with the software is so essential. While there are many features, the customer support team helps to navigate through it all. One can tell this team is efficiently trained because they do not skip a beat when it comes to walking you through the system.

Cons:

So many features can be overwhelming. The webinar offerings are a good idea to tackle that obstacle.

Needs a better app

Pros:

Support team is great, and really helps in the on boarding process. They are very fast in response time and give many options for helping solve situations.

Cons:

Scheduling ahead of the current week is a little confusing. The calendar keeps jumping back to the current week whenever a new appointment is added ahead. Also cannot add appointments within the day. A little confusing and not the most efficient. The app is terrible. No ability to schedule clients (at least as far as I have been able to do) and is pretty overall useless to me.

Zen Planner...SMH

Comments: As someone who isnt great in the deep magical world of computers...Zen planner was supposed to make things easier.
My first appointment... the person was late for the on boarding (teaching me how to use software). They were also late for the second on but notified me this time.
There were small billing issues and the support I recieved to correct situations was beyond useless.
The relationship ended by them canceling my account out with only an email and refusal to get on the phone with me to explain themselves.
This sounds disgruntled ... I know. There are a few people I know who have had the same experience.
The company has a great base but didnt personally deal with me very well. My gym will close now because I have no way to bill my customers that dont come in daily

Pros:

The concept is good

Cons:

It difficutl to use cause the training on using it is very laxed