Zen Planner Reviews

I left for about four years because I felt like the software was missing some integral parts for my business. Now I was needing something different and looked at Zen Planner again. The​ changes they have made over the past four years has been amazing. This is not a company that sits idle and is content with the status quo

The system is a little complex but I believe it's more to do with the novelty of it and all of its features.

Thanks Paul! We appreciate your feedback and are happy to hear you are enjoying the new features and updates!

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!

Glad to hear you're happy with Zen Planner, Diane! We appreciate the feedback.

I really didn't like anything about it. It was overly complicated, redundant and the same glitches existed for years.

It was hard to maintain an idea of what our client base actually was. Some clients were counted twice. We had to check 3 different areas to make sure our billing was going through.

We had challenges with paysafe integration, and [SENSITIVE CONTENT] stepped in to fix, I am running a busy studio plus teaching/coaching and she was a dream to work with ( I was not), such an asset to Zen,

color schemes, and the time it took to imput information that was just not a skillset i had, I learned and I am glad it took time

It makes it simple to manage the most important tasks at my gym without over complicating things.

a few auto emails could improve/be added

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...

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easy to use- straight forward set up lots of customizable options

like everything it takes a little while to get familiar - layout and set ups are different but this is not a negative it's just part of the process

Thank you Raeleigh, we'll pass your kind words to our support team!

Reporting is excellent, the best I've seen. I like the fact you can create your own reports. After learning how to use the system we have been able to create any reports we need. That is definitely not the case for Mindbody or Wellness Living. The Kiosk application is nice to have and our clients like it, but needs some improvement. The Front Desk and Kiosk Applications are easy to learn which is helpful as we have 10 teachers at the center.

The POS system does not work like all other online systems (choose what you want, put in user info, payment info then press complete or check out and credit card is charged), and works differently in their different interfaces. The Front Desk software does not allow for discounts (that is being addresses in a future release). The Dashboard processes the sale, then you have to process the payment separately...

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Thanks for the feedback, Beth!

Reporting. It's easy. The front page overview of each member. I can quickly see the data I need. Love the alerts, notes and tasks. Very useful. Love the ability to email a template to a set of members with a click of the button. The configuration of the software is good. The help files are pretty good. I have found a few broken links - and some explanations seem to be a bit outdated. Love the dashboard. Love the ability to click in and get the relevant supporting data.

I wish "students" was changed to "members". It confused the hec out of our staff (who are 98% volunteers). I would like to see the support tickets be answered with the original support request data. There is no place for me to see what ticket number was written for - so if the email thread contained the original text - it would be easier. The new "Z" in the bottom right hand corner is always in my way. I have to make an effort to not touch it. When you have a LOT of members (>350) it's a pain to always click people or students - and do show all. I'm panicked about using keytags for this many members- but we need to track all usage of our fitness center and classes.

We've used Zen Planner in our gym for six years, and it's been pretty uneventful overall - which is what you want with such software. It does its job with a minimum of drama. Any issues we've had have been dealt with in a timely fashion. We do not use the workout programming feature (we went with SugarWOD for that), so I can't comment on that particular feature.

Zen Planner is good about making constant improvements, but there have been some things over the years that are a bit clunky and not necessarily intuitive to use. It's likely a function of building incremental improvements into existing software rather than starting with a clean slate.

Thanks for the feedback, Colin!

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...

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Data entry, membership retention, payment plan

Couldn’t refund client right away after credit card payment mistake. Had to call a different company that dealt with the credit card transaction.

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.

Extremely user friendly. I could figure out how it worked quite easily and i am not a tech Wiz which I found to be quite pleasing.

the common problems that happens with all of the software like it. when the whole system goes down. It is not unique to ZP it has happened with others as well.

Thank you for the good words, Gavin!

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

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...

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

Thank you, Penny! We think our customer service team is pretty great as well!

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.

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.

This software is easy to learn, implement and user friendly. Super easy integration and the customer service is outstanding! They are regularly updating and upgrading features and respond positively to feature requests and feedback. Easily have the best software on the market in my industry and I'm not sure why more people do not choose Zen Planner.

Some minor limitations such as color typology features on the mobile app have been limited and app functions such as calendar syncing and calendar default settings restricted.

Glad to hear you're happy with Zen Planner, Marlene! We appreciate the feedback.

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.

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.

I liked how wonderful, helpful and prompt the customer support was. I found them very easy to talk to and easy to get ahold of.

I was calling customer support daily, I took over the business from someone else who left a very messy zenplanner for me to sort out. That could be the reason I was constantly calling, but another reason is that some of the features that I thought could have been easier to use were not. I ended up switching to a different system because we were having a lot of issues with the money, one time zenplanner held our money for 2 months, when we finally found out why, the process to reclaim that money was ridiculous.

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...

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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.

Zen Planner has a lot of good features. Billing, client tracking, scheduling, and integration into our website are all pretty smooth.

As a gym, we cannot select which members see what programming. Example, if we have 2 different programs available, all members can see both programmed workouts. We have had some inconsistency in emails being sent out. Sometimes emails to our members don't send in a timely manner through their system.

Ease of use; simple to find information

I wish the same type of exercises would always come up together in the library. Occasionally when I go to the library to look up a specific exercise multiple of the same come up and I have to click in and out of them to see the results.

Thank You Elizabeth!

Takes a little getting used to but works as advertised. Once you have it set up, makes day to day operations easy. Able to access on all platforms- PC, IOS, smart phones etc. We are using the virtual class set up to keep our students training during the pandemic. This is an excellent member database

Not intentionally designed for martial arts studios but they are continually working to accommodate these needs.

Thank you for the review, Vic!

Zan Planner makes it easy to sign up for crossfit classes. It is also a great way to edit payment, etc. I like the feature of being able to see who is specifically signed up for class as well. Extra motivation to attend class!

Sometimes it can be glitchy and somehow signs me out of a class I already reserved. It has happened 2-3 times in the past 6 months.