TrekkSoft Pricing, Features, Reviews & Comparison of Alternatives

Pros
I have done demos on practically every software out there but nothing compares to the Trekksoft platform's versatility. The front end allows for so much more detailed information and descriptions that other platforms don't. One of the biggest pluses is the Add-Ons capability as our company offers unique, optional Add-Ons that really enhance the tours so they are incredibly important to showcase during the booking process. I especially like the gorgeous pop up lightboxes/booking windows that you can program into a BOOK NOW button for your own website or an agents/resellers site. The client clicks the button, then a pop up lightbox opens with either all of your tours with full details, which is ideal if you have this button on an agents website OR you can also program it for your own website so it opens with that particular tour only for that particular page of your site. The lightbox also allows for multiple languages and all the supporting backend documentation, which is really detailed and hefty, will be changed to the correct language and all sent out automatically to your clients. We have our automated documentation for example set up to send out a pre/post trip reminder/thank you via both email and SMS, as well as PDF's of the tours booked, tickets for each tour, our T&C, and a basket receipt. Electronic wallet is also activated allowing our clients to save their E-ticket to their phone. On the backend our guides then scan the E-ticket or paper printed version to check in clients for their tours and rentals. The Resources funcion is really handy too as it allows us to assign our resources, be it guide, vehicle, bike, scooter, etc...at time of booking so the system automatically keeps track of it all and never allows overbooking. Equally handy we can block out a resource for vacation, mechanical adjustment, etc...whenever we want. If you are on the Professional version (we are) then the customer service is excellent as we have a dedicated agent that answers all our questions within an hour usually, and we only ever have to deal with that person so it is not confusing and he knows already who we are and what we have asked before. This makes it really nice and we always feel comfortable that our needs are being met. The pricing for the Professional level I feel is well worth it as well considering all the hundreds of questions I've asked and gotten help with and the number of bookings that we receive monthly. They pay out on time and everything is clear on the invoice and you also have everything clearly shown on the backend electronically. The reports section is great as you can keep track of everything there and see clearly how you are doing from day to day, or year to year, etc...the Agents feature is awesome too. You can give a travel agent, other tour operator, reseller, concierge at a hotel selling your tours, etc...access to your backend Point Of Sale desk, which is set up to be really simple to use, via a login code and you can control how much access they have, what they see, etc...the system then keeps track of the commissions you own each agent so major time saver there and the reports also show it all clearly electronically. In addition to all of this, you can also have a separate Shop, where you can sell anything you like such as merchandise online. Business Intelligence tracks everything for you too. You can set the parameters for what it tracks such as Nationality or Age of the customer, etc...so you can see where your biggest buying market is, isn't and what works and doesn't anywhere in the world. It is really just a wonderful overall system that gives our company a ton of versatility and most importantly it allows us to sell and feel confident that everything going on behind the scenes is running perfectly.

Cons
Sorry, can't think of anything to complain about. This platform is just amazing and dynamic! I do see a lot of complaints here, but so many of them are due to operator error as far as I can tell. What I mean by that is that the person complaining doesn't seem to be learning enough about the system to understand it but rather just complaining that things don't work. For example; I see all sorts of complaints here about things that Trekksoft does provide training documentation for (they have an extensive documentation set for how the system works), or things that I myself have had questions about in the past, but found the answers to by reading the documentation, or asking my dedicated customer support agent about. I've seriously asked thousands of questions and my customer service rep. always responds promptly, efficiently and with the right answer. If he doesn't know that particular answer, then I immediately get an email from someone else in that particular department such as a technician, design expert, etc...who responds to the question directly. So paying for the Professional level per month is the answer here so you can get the best customer service and also access to all the extra things that the system does so you can take advantage of it and get the most out of it.

Rating breakdown

Likelihood to recommend: 10/10

Pros
The end result looks very professional. It allows for seamless integration of website and booking platform in one stylish package. The Admin functions are easy to learn and once you get the hang of it, you can begin quickly building your suite of activities and website together. The platform continues evolving, so new features are continuously being added. The business and technical support are very helpful and understanding of newbies and... I feel like I'm being heard when my enhancement requests are added to development lists for future versions. Finally, the price is more than fair given the overall power of the tool. After seeing how good the website can really be, we ended up abandoning our own WordPress site and simply redirected our URL to our TrekkSoft site to have everything in one place. So much easier, now.

Cons
The product has evolved over time and as a result there are some legacy evolutionary quirks. For example: there are a few tasks which are buried in strange places or almost hidden, which at the time may have made sense, but now just seem weird. These are few and are easily cleared up with a quick chat with support. Also... with any tool that does so much, it can be a little tricky to find your feet and to really find out about all of the features available. Many support videos are available and the number of support pages are growing steadily (and with quick feedback on comments), but I feel there is something lacking that helps pull all of these resources together into a really useful support library. But as with the rest of the product, I'm sure it will continue evolving and improving. They are generous with support calls to help get started and start building your tour empire. :)

Rating breakdown

Likelihood to recommend: 10/10

Pros
Two of the salesperson, are really nice and even try to help but many times it is a technical issue that they cannot solve, and that it simplifies having to send confirmation emails manually, or follow up emails and that we can create fields to get some information about our clients to be properly prepared for the type of guest coming.

Cons
What I like least...here is the list: -No quality customer service or person to speak to (especially on weekends which are our busiest days) -A little mistake can be nearly impossible to fix easily without having to do HOURS of work to fix it. -The calendar online fits HORRIBLY on an iphone (where most of our bookings are done) and many of our customers say they cannot book, but it's just likely that it is not obvious that you have to scroll or click. -Tons of bugs that have prevented customers from booking. -Guests tell us all the time they cannot book -Paypal doesn't work sometimes -The app has to be shut down and reopened to be accurate -The app has TERRIBLE and limited functionality -We see people that are trying to book all the time and don't - but we have no idea if it's because they can't or just get frustrated and give up. -I don't think that anyone from the technical department asks for feedback from non-trekksoft users who aren't accustomed to how the app works (try asking people to use it off the street) -Clients complain that confirmation emails go to spam Honestly, with all the issues we've had, I am surprised they are in business. To me, all the problems we have had is completely UNACCEPTABLE for a business that is supposed to help augment and simplify your business process. I have to CONSTANTLY do test bookings and be monitoring to be sure there are not problems. This takes hours per week of supervision and creates sooo much stress. The worst part, is no one probably has any idea how much business they are losing unless you spend all your time monitoring it. Don't waste your time or money with them...do your research and go elsewhere.

Rating breakdown

Likelihood to recommend: 2/10

Pros
Easy and fast experience for clients on the front end with great visual appeal and seamless integration with my own website. The booking process for clients is really easy for the most part and I also like that TS provides a free website on their own so that I keep both my own website up on our client computer in our sales office, but also another tab open with the TS site showing our tours and rentals as well. The TS site focuses on showing the tours in a boxed setting so it is super easy to find the one you are interested in on just one page. The two sites working together make is really easy for clients to find what they are looking for. I also looked at at least a dozen other platforms before choosing TS, and one of the biggest problems I found with other sites was that they didn't allow for Add-Ons at all, or if they did, they didn't allow for them to be showcased with photographs and full description. TS beats everyone out when it comes to best possible showcasing of any item you have for sale. TS also allows you to include those Add-Ons easily and simply during the booking process, which makes our up sale of all our Add-Ons a sure thing for almost every booking.

Cons
I would like to see a few more back end features for the tour operator personally. Such as having the print out of the booking contain all the items purchased by the clients for easy record keeping, such as the Add-Ons. Our company uses Add-Ons heavily so our clients have a more immersive touring experience. We offer 3 different kinds of picnics, hotels on some tours and even entrance fees for some of the tours, though these items never show up on the email that is sent to us to show the booking has been completed. It doesn't list the Add-Ons so we must therefore go back into the system as an extra step, click on the details button and then scroll through the list to see what other items may have been included. Though not a deal breaker by any means, it is inconvenient and time consuming. I would like to see in the future live people available to answer questions on the fly, rather than having to wait one or two days for them to get back to you after you've left a message on the chat line. If I have a question, it is usually involving a sale in that very minute so having to wait several days to even have someone acknowledge the question is frustrating as that means I must put my own clients on hold until TS gets back to me. A live chat person, at least during normal business hours in my country, would be a wonderful improvement.

Rating breakdown

Likelihood to recommend: 10/10

Cons
The pre sales people will do everything they can and promise you everything to get you on board - but after that you will not received the same level of response again. - The actual technical setup of the site causes lots of SEO issues and google to penalize you giving you no chance of doing well in rankings. You are very limited on what you can do to make changes to help this. Our sales dropped 60% when we switched. - The tech support is just a system to fob you off with next to no support at all. They have a "helpdesk system" chat type interface right in the admin , you ask a question and it will take min hours but more likely a day or so for someone to reply but that reply will usually not be an answer but just "we will pass this onto the support team" . So basically can take days to just have you request passed to support. From there your lucky if you get a response in less than a week , often taking many weeks for a reply. -The checkout cart is extremely bad and has extremely high abandonment rates. Also the fact that you can only book one product at a time loses lots of sales or puts people off from booking at all - The payment processing fees are very high, and that is on top of an already expensive fee you pay for the system, charges for refunds, placing bookings (even for offline bookings there are fees!). - The checkout cart currency conversion system is a ripoff that just annoys your customers and results in lots of complaints about you over charging them. Basically , by default it is set to have Trekksoft handle the conversion and they rates in their favor to make more money - it is possible for the customer to choose to have their bank do the conversion but this is not obvious and no one does, so they only find out when there are excessive charges in their bank account. So make it worse a problem we experience on several occasions (and i reproduced this , reported it and was told it wasnt a problem / brushed aside)) is a double conversion - example using a credit card in USD to pay for the products priced in USD on our site the customer have teh payment converted to a non usd currency (incurring charges by trekksfoft) then it was presented to the USD credit in the non USD currency , therefore incurring conversion charges again. Basically for USD priced items with a USD credit card was doublely charged for currency conversions! - some tours that showed as being authorized had problems in the trekksoft gateway back end resulting in us not being paid. When we queried these we were given random excuses trying to fob us off and avoid paying (never resolved). The issues go from top to bottom - CEOs and senior management have been included in email complaints about them not responding (several emails over a month period) to my request for answers regarding the many thousands of USD they owe us but we get no response. Last email informed them of impending legal action and it receive a swift apology and a promise it would be investigate by a support manage , with a follow up response the following day. That what several days ago and nothing so I have no choice but to take legal action against the company now.

Rating breakdown