Zen Planner Reviews

I was the primary account administrator, and I could fix just about anything retroactively. Once you really know your way around, it's got almost everything you could think to want.
There are a lot of customization options for emails you can send your customers, and it was easy to check which emails an individual had opened.
The reports were great. Best reporting I've seen, and it's pretty much the only thing I'll miss.
Support was good - very responsive, with multiple ways to contact them. I also appreciated the discounts they gave businesses at the start of the COVID shutdowns.

The software was very difficult for customers to use, so much that about half of our parents (and a couple of our coaches) just wanted me to do everything for them. Doing so on my end was time-consuming.
Zenplanner offers some options to integrate with our existing website, but it didn't work in every circumstance. What customers could do from our primary domain was pretty limited, and it wasn't easy to switch back and forth between our site and the ZP site.
Zenplanner does not offer automatically-applied membership discounts, so we had to have customers use offer codes. Membership discounts (such as on retail or private lessons) are pretty standard in fitness businesses and not having that option was a major pain.
There was no way to easily see which coaches had availability at which times.

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.

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.

The customer service and ease of use, especially that everything you would essentially need is included with ZenPlanner, unlike MindBody or Triib. It's also cheaper because of PaySimple's merchant integration and I don't think most fitness businesses need the add ons that MindBody has and that you would pay for. I think being a good business owner, setting clearly defined roles and tasks for employees, and making sure they do them will lead to more sales than a email/text bot from MindBody.

I think the client facing side of signing up for memberships could be a little easier, for instance: you can't have a ACH only membership option, you do need an iPad or computer of which to then use ZenPlanner's Front Desk for, but I do know ZenPlanner is teaming up with PaySimple to possibly release a device to use instead of an iPad or computer.

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.

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.

I have used this program at 3 crossfit facilities and have enjoyed it for viewing WODs, signing up for classes, and storing workout information and PRs. I enjoy the leaderboard feature and the support you can give your gym mates.

I wish you could add features like workout videos for various exercises that are scheduled. I find some gyms do not utilize all of the features correctly, and that can make the app rather pointless. If you are not using this app to sign up for classes, log workouts, not using the leader board feature, you really aren't getting your money's worth.

THAT IT MAKES MY JOB EASIER BY AUTOMATING PROCESSES

DOESN'T HAVE ALL THE FEATURES I NEED. ALSO TOO HARD TO LEARN ALL THE FEATURES SO I'M NOT MAXIMIZING IT'S FEATURES. THERE ARE LIMITED ON BOARDING SESSIONS SO WHEN THEY STOPPED, SO DID MY LEARNING

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.

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.

At first the software fit most criteria's that our business needed. They had great integration to our existing merchant. Great membership customization, billing, customizable charts, and belt promotion system.

Software had a bland, early 2000's look to it UI. Very outdated. Our member's portal lacked tons a features and many of our members disliked having to go into their app to setup or alter anything. Signing up a new student or trial lesson through the tablet was a mess. It lacks customization and the overall UI would not work well with our tablets. We reverted back to having our student's sign up on paper and later be added manually to the system through an administrator. Completely eliminating our paperless needs. I can keep going on about their very weak waiver system, email templates, customer support and lack of any regular updates, however, the overall reason we had to let go of the software as a whole was that they no longer supported our existing merchant. At the start of it all they were fine with us keeping our existing merchant. They charged a small $20/monthly fee for "maintenance" which I guess we were fine with paying. However, after a year or so of using we received a noticed that they were completely removing the option of us keeping our existing merchant unless we wanted to pay more than double our existing overall monthly bill. Not only were we not satisfied with the software, we were being charged more than double to keep it.

Overall we would not recommend this software. It seems as if the team behind it has lost heart for the program and isn't keeping up with the competition.

It's simplicity. It's not overly complicated and buttons are easy to find.

Reports and the filters within it can be confusing; sometimes I'm not sure what terminology or keyword I need to use to produce a report I need - or if I'm supposed to use a whole number in a text box or spell it out...

Simple to learn and easy to use. It has everything you need to manage a yoga studio. Multiple reporting options. Easy access for my students.

The only thing I would like is a lower price.

We are opening a brand new Jiu Jitsu academy and this has been a whole new experience for us. I’m not very computer savvy, but EVERYONE at Zen Planner has been so helpful and made this so easy for someone like me. I’m very happy with this company.

I have had nothing but good experiences with Zen Planner!

Have been with Zen Planner since 2015, it is very user friendly. Costumer service was not bad up until something started to go wrong.

Unfortunately they have some flaws that for some reason sometimes they multiple charge my students or don't charge at all. It will happen once in a while and when that happen, their customer service become very slow and dismissive, they will send you to the processor and the processor will send you back to them. For instance, now, I have been asking to talk to a supervisor for days and they simply don't call and when I call to reach someone no one is ever available. It is very unfortunate because as I said the system is very user friendly, but they are not trust worth.

Following up:
Zen Planner gave me notice of cancellation after I refused to remove this review. Based on the problems I have had with them, I already had in mind and was searching for a more reliable system. Unfortunately I was forced to do it rushed, I have been trusting all my billing transactions and contacts to Zen Planner, and this transfer process does take a long time. one of the supervisors dealt with this situation very unprofessionally, focusing on make me remove my review rather then fix the real issue, treatned a few times and finally just gave me notice. I have never seen this before... I can't stress enough that you can't trust such important information for your business in such hands.

Best Support Team!!! they seriously rock and has helped me trouble shoot all issues I've had over the phone or over quick emails. Anything i didn't know how to do they were super helpful and worked so hard to help me implement their software and making things very easy. Allows me to filter my classes, students and programs very easily. Beautiful Website integration (similar to mindbody but easier to use for customer) Keeps track of how much a client owes me and allows me to create a parole for my employees. I own a Holistic wellness center that does everything from Yoga and martial arts to acupuncture and energy work and zen planner allows us to manage everything smoothly while keeping track of all of our clients with ease. If your looking for a scheduling software i highly recommend this software. Has really taken a weight off my shoulders as a business owner and let me focus on more important thing.

The initial set up of the program is a little difficult, it was hard to navigate through at first but again, awesome support team that explained it very well.
Only other con is that the website integration is a little difficult and not as pretty on mobile.

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.

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.

All the tracking and reports you can pull.

It acts erratically sometimes.

This software has so many features. If you need it, it probably has it.

Work out logging lacks the bells and whistles.

This product was able to replace a lot of our ad hoc "systems" with one comprehensive platform. Through this, we have saved a lot of time and our members are able to simply and consistently sign up for classes without problems. Love this product.

I honestly have not faced any issues with this product that their customer service departments have not been able to address within a few phone calls. Probably one of the best customer service departments I have worked with in recent memory.

Organization of my client load, classes and able to schedule my staff.

Great to have a noticed if credit card were expiring so can not lose income or at least have to.hunt down clients down for new cc and payment

This is a very capable piece of planning software. Part of my business involves scheduling clients for multiple classes through the day. Zen Planner allows myself and my staff to keep track of class dates, times, client attendance, etc. It also allows for communication of cancelled or modified classes instantly.

Somewhat limited in the ability to brand with your company's logo or color scheme.

I like the having the chat for help. They were patient and solved my issues.

Some things I needed to do I thought were impossible because it's not easy to find in the menus, but the chat person was extremely helpful.

Easy to navigate and great customer support

n/a nothing to dislike! If there is something I'm confused or unsure of, I'm just an email away from having my questions answered. The customer service is PROMPT.

I love how easy it is to use and effective.

I wish there was more customizing options. I also do not like that I have to reset my password so often!

Easy to use platform for starters.

Beyond that, it allows me to create any reports that I may need. Note: there are already a whole host of reports already created that help me run my business.

very helpful, good Customer Support, great value for money, and Features & Functionality.
Zen planner has good Overall Quality.

needs to be more user friendly for the average person. Not good Ease of Use.

Ease of use and helpful/personable customer support! The tracking of students and financials has exponentially boosted our gyms ROI

I would like the reporting aspect to be more dynamic as I'm used to Crystal queries/writing. I continually find the Customer Support from ZP makes up for this. The always have an answer for any reporting hurdles I run into.