Xola

Avantages

I loved everything about the Xola reservation system. It made things easy and was not complicated to use.

Inconvénients

There is nothing to speak on as a con about Xola.

Avantages

Out of the three booking software platforms we currently use, Xola is my favorite.

There are many pros to Xola, but let me summarize by saying it is the combination of good-to-great design along with five-star customer service.

Inconvénients

The uncertainty regarding subscription packages. We have a "Premium" subscription that is a flat rate, which serves our needs very well.

If we do not have option to continue this package in 2020, we will have to switch to another booking software platform. Which would be a shame because Xola is my preferred booking software.

Alternatives envisagées 

Pourquoi passer à Xola

Avantages

Very disappointing, horrible customer service and support.

Inconvénients

Very disappointing, horrible customer service and support.

Avantages

Ease of use, we have been using this for some time now and have a great understanding of how to use the tool and get a lot of value from it. It has some great integrations, great text, email reminders for our guests and xola has invested in a lot of great improvements over the past 2 years that made our business better.

Inconvénients

Lack of POS integration, our business is moving to sell more onsite with our guests, pre gratuity is huge in our space and XOLA lacks features for pre gratuity except to do an ADD on which auto charges taxes and the booking fee on gratuity. reporting is still lacking, and dashboards, for performance, are also lacking.

Avantages

XOLA has incredible flexibility when compare to other escape room booking software I've compared it to in the 2+ years I've used it. I have comparison shopped all the other booking software out there and haven't found anything that compares to what you can do with XOLA. From the visual presentation to the customer, to creating coupons and discounts, to arranging pricing and schedules for rooms. Nothing comes close. XOLA is PACKED with integrations with other software and gives you access to data from your bookings that I haven't found anywhere else.

Inconvénients

I will admit I'm not a fan of the 6% booking fee passed on to my customers. Our bookings actually increased when we implemented it, and it does give me access to all of XOLA's features. Yes, Americans are conditioned to tacked on taxes, fees and other charges for online transactions, but that doesn't mean I have to like passing on cost to my customers.

Alternatives envisagées 

Pourquoi passer à Xola

Avantages

First thing I like is the willingness to listen to the customers for new changes and ideas. That makes both of us better. The support is always there to help.

Inconvénients

Unable to quickly block of certain tours at specific times.

Alternatives envisagées 

Pourquoi passer à Xola

Avantages

I love this software I use it every day for my Escape Room. It does everything I need all in one place to me it is exactly what I need for my booking software for escaperooms

Inconvénients

nothing least about it but one thing is the ability to stop negative reviews from being posted that's the only thing everything else I love it.

Alternatives envisagées 

Pourquoi choisir Xola 

Logiciel antérieur 

Pourquoi passer à Xola

Avantages

This is a product that is gorgeous and accessible on the front end, and powerful on the back end. The onsite booking is aesthetic and easy for our customers, and the back end is incredibly user friendly for my staff to use, and chock-full of useful resources. It is clear that the people behind Xola had both design and functionality in mind when creating this software, and it really shows! Moreover, their customer service is phenomenal - very quick, responsive, and helpful.

Cannot recommend it enough! Out of the many software services we use as a business, Xola is the one we are most impressed by.

Inconvénients

The pricing model seems to be changing soon, to one where the cost may be passed on to customers. We will enjoy extra savings, but we are not entirely sold on whether we want to do this. There used to be several pricing models, but it looks like this will be the only one.

Alternatives envisagées 

Pourquoi passer à Xola

Avantages

When it comes to ticketing, Xola offers great features
It makes online booking easy and has great calendar management features
Has also worked well for scheduling.

Inconvénients

No bad experience as Xola has the features we need.

Avantages

Very forward thinking company . Love the need updates and the easy access to customer service

Inconvénients

Sometimes when business is slow it can be a bit financially but no really cons for a monthly transaction

Avantages

Xola's streamlined booking is what I appreciate most.

Inconvénients

What I like least about Xola is its limited customization options.

Avantages

Xola has a ton of features that make it easy to keep everything a customer purchases all in one place. The gift card sales easily integrate with the reservation system so customers can redeem them themselves online, gift offers help us sell more of them, the CRM allows us to easily export customer info and send them targeted emails and global settings allow us to automatically send emails to customers asking for reviews or send a discount code for them to come back in. All around a great software, but many softwares have similar features. What sets Xola apart from other companies we've dealt with it their customer service. Someone is always available to answer questions in the online chat or you can easily schedule a call with a support person if you have more in-depth questions. I also appreciate that we receive emails when certain features might be down. We've used software companies in the past that don't let us know of potential issues until we are the ones reporting them! Xola pre-empts this and answers our questions before we run across any issues.

Inconvénients

Because this software is very flexible and there are so many options, some of the back office features can be tricky to use. For example, when you need to process a refund for a customer, you have three options to select from (reduce booking value and refund, refund only etc.). They do a good job of labeling things with descriptions, but it can still take some getting used to and training. Also, the page that Xola takes customers to when they click Book Now on our website is all Xola-branded. It would be awesome to allow customization to this page to include our logo so that customers trust they are still on the correct website.

Finally, I'm not a fan of 6% fee they are charging every customer now. This is a recent transition from a paid monthly subscription from us to an additional fee paid by our customers. After some research, it seems like this is the industry standard now, but we hate that we have to charge our customers an additional fee to make a reservation with us online. We want to encourage our customers to make reservations online so our in-store staff isn't bogged down with taking reservations over the phone. Additionally, Xola is making quite a bit more money off of us and our customers by tacking on that percentage compared to the monthly fee we used to pay. This is one of the only cons to the software.

Avantages

Ease of Use and Customer Support -- I looked at many companies and did demos prior to making my decision to go with Xola. Xola is, by far, the easiest to use of all the companies that I demoed. Inputting product, making changes, updating info is all easy and very intuitive to use. When I can't easily figure something out, Xola's 'chat' feature is AWESOME! There is always someone there to quickly guide me through with very little or no wait time. They walk me through the process via chat and once even offered to call me, instead, so they could more easily guide me through how to do something. If I have a need that Xola can't fulfill, they immediately send that to their development team and in most cases, I get an email or call saying the feature (or a similar one) is now available.
I've had offers from other companies that may be less expensive - but am so impressed by Xola's customer responsiveness, that it would take a LOT before I would make a change. VERY happy overall with my choice to go with Xola!

Inconvénients

Calendar does not show multi-day events (only the first day shows). Also - only allows for 'group' or bulk discounts on same item. I would like a way to have the system give "Xth purchase free" - for example - so once someone has booked 2 items, it could prompt them with a "Buy one more and you get a free one". I saw other companies with this capacity, BUT then they had other things that I did not like. Overall - Xola has more Positives for me, than negatives.

Avantages

I started with Xola back when the booking software genre was almost nonexistent. Back then there was Bookeo and that was about it. Now I get a sales call every week from competitors. Peek Pro seems to be the only software that is more feature rich but they are pushy and spam your customers if they get ahold of your data base so beware about them. Xola has an easy and beautiful interface. Non-pushy sales people. Help when you need it. Great ability to manage customers IF you never have to reschedule. The cost is lower than other companies if your doing volume greater than 5K a month. A good choice but you need a dedicated reservationist if you are offering an experience were rescheduling is common.

Inconvénients

When pricing out a booking software company for your business consider the cost of an employee to manually have to reschedule your customers if your experience is prone to cancellation i.e. rain, wind, snow etc. and add it to the monthly cost of Xola to get an accurate idea of the true cost. The point of having a booking software is so you can concentrate on running your business and making it grow. Playing secretary is part of owning a small business but when it takes from R&D, marketing, quality of life it can kill you. Xola only allows your customer to book and reschedule themselves prior to their scheduled date. If you cancel the day of the adventure the customer has NO ability to reschedule if your experience is cancelled due to weather. If you are in a tourist area where you don't have an option to reschedule people because they are on vacation or the experience that you provide is indoor and cancellations rarely occur Xola is a great choice. If your experience is subject to weather and you take the entirety of the experience cost in advance, Xola has fallen behind severely compared to the the other big name in booking software. I provide Hot Air Balloon rides in an area that is prone to strong winds and rain during the season. My demographic is local and I sell my experience to customers that can and know that rescheduling is normal. I leave a recorded message the day of the flight and if the flight is cancelled there is no way in Xola to email the passengers a link to reschedule! Xola allows the customer to select another date prior to the experience and you can set those perimeters but after the customers first date choice, if it is cancelled, that is where you are left back in the 80's. In order to get your customers rescheduled on another date you need to do it over the phone and manually move them in Xola and online for it to move in real time. Xola has completely missed the boat for the experience provider that has to cancel for environmental reasons. I have submitted this feature request for two years now and it has shown no movement. They said it is not a common feature request and told us we could give the customer a "store credit". A credit sounded good until we realized that the customer would have to put al their personal detail starting with their name again to go that route. That is just not an appropriate thing to have your customers who are paying good money have to do and it looks unprofessional. I know for a fact two other operations left Xola for a booking company that offers a solution to the common problem of rescheduling for us outdoor providers. I think that they perhaps specialize in the hiking tours, or biking tour company that goes wind, rain, or shine and just refunds their customer if they cancel. Perhaps most of Xola's merchants operate in tourist areas where the customer does not reschedule because they are going home from vacation. The irony is that they offer our customers a great option to reschedule themselves prior to their first date. Why not extend that availability to after the date in case the experience is cancelled and the customer doesn't want a refund or via policy has to reschedule.

For customers booking online, selecting a date and paying is seamless. The merchant can customize a checklist for the customer i.e. what to bring, what's included, a map the meeting point. We receive just the odd phone call asking for clarification and payment is quick. On the other hand we need to hire staff to answer the phones just to rebook our customers on days it is raining or too windy to fly. On average another 40 hours of phone calls and talk time is added to our expense because of the lack of a customizable reschedule link we could send our customers so they could reschedule themselves. Customers like not having to leave voicemails if we are on the other line and %95 of customers would rather NOT wait to speak to a reservationist to go over dates that may or may not be filled. It's really frustrating and I do not believe we are the only one or one of the few merchants that need or would find a simple reschedule feature useful as they have implied to us.

The only other con is that they now leave the price on the gift certificates when a customer buys one. This was not always the case. Xola has a mailable and printable gift certificate option which we utilize heavily and you can now offer experiences at a discount but they for some reason notify the recipient of the price. We have been told and agree with several of our customers that leaving the price on the gift certificate is tacky. It has not always been that way, just with the recent update. I understand if you are giving a cash card to someone, you would need and want the recipient to know the price to avoid an embarrassing moment at a store or restaurant but who leaves the price tag on a gift? Xola gives the recipient a code so the recipient can book only and that process is easy but it's clear how much nanny spent and loves them the moment they get the printed gift certificate or email.

We went from chasing a couple hundred bucks a week to help pay for a hobby we love and turned it in to a serious 2 person small business with gross income in the six digits, well 3 person and income in the 5 digits because we need someone to handle all the manual reschedules. Feature requests do get noticed but at about 1.5 year turn around. It's been two years since we have been asking for this. We have grown and enjoyed Xola, we just for their sake since the booking software market is so competitive now want to see them be #1 and have the client base Peek Pro does as they are a lot more ethical but we fear they won't if this feature isn't added and if the feature turnaround isn't quicker.

Our review may appear negative even though we enjoy most of Xola. We understand all businesses have their little intricacies but we have been an experience provider for over ten years now and have offered many activities, rescheduling is a part of booking management no matter what adventure you provide, we and we are certain most other experience providers agree, just understand you will NOT have that option with Xola. Xola could be the best by far with just a couple more features.

Avantages

We love the different dashboards and views. It's versatile but very user-friendly.

Inconvénients

There is no SMS feature for employees. The scheduling is outdated (have to schedule one activity at a time). Xola Kiosk is only available for admin use which is a big security risk. Can't use for brick and mortar AND mobile.

Alternatives envisagées 

Pourquoi passer à Xola

Avantages

Xola has really streamlined the booking process. It has made it easier for us, in the office, to manage bookings coming in and see when trips and courses are happening. If we are booking private trips or courses that are not listed on our website, we have built our backend system to allow for us to do this quickly. Xola keeps our customers credit card numbers on file in a safe and secure manor making it easy for us to take deposits and final payments prior to a trip or course. Our customers seem to find the booking process easy and user friendly. We have also integrated the use of Smartwaiver with Xola which has made tracking waivers much easier and taken the need of our guides to do it away. Our guides are still learning Xola but Xola has made it so the guides can quickly access the client information without having to send it in a seperate email.

Inconvénients

The biggest thing that we wish was different was that on the calendar, during booking and on the backend, that Xola showed the length of our courses. It only shows the start date, and although this hasn't been a problem, it would be something that would be a nice addition to make life a bit easier. Along the same lines we have courses (single courses) that run Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday & Sunday and would like to be able to show the custom schedule of that course in some capacity, even just on our backend calendar to see the overlap with other trips.

Avantages

It's intuitive for basic, everyday needs: making reservations, taking payment online or at the door, making coupons, rescheduling reservations, etc. Most of the functions are self-explanatory. To refund someone, you click the "refund" button. To make an additional charge, you click the "charge" button. Nothing too complicated and nothing too difficult to find.

Inconvénients

Behind-the-scenes stuff can be difficult to access. For example, I can't see all the people who were originally scheduled for a specific date in order to determine how many people reschedule away from that date. I also can't filter my tag searches. I want to be able to search for "all bookings with [X tag] between [Y date] and [Z date]." To do that, I would need to download a full report (which is NOT an intuitive process) and then manually search for these tags.
There is also not an intuitive way to split payments! If the reservation has a coupon or a non-standard ticket price and they want to split payments at the door, we need to have a calculator on hand and god help us if someone on a reservation with a coupon wants to pay for more than one ticket.
When a customer's card doesn't work on a payment, it won't tell me why. Which means we can't tell the customers why and there are five extra steps they need to take which is inconvenient for all.
Also: it's buggy as hell. I can't refresh the page because it will log me out. I can't click the back button because that takes me to the first Dashboard (where only the dates and times show up and not the reservation names) no matter what page I am on. Two computers cannot take payment at the same time. The capacity changes don't always take. Sometimes, the website won't scroll.

Avantages

Allows for tours that have minimums - Our tours require 8 person to sign up in order for a tour to go (minimum). Xola handles this portion far far better than any of the other competitors and I have met with a number of them. If you do minimums, and care about customer communication, this is a must use.

Software works with many options
Very strong amount of features
Very strong customer support
Reasonable competitive pricing
Great analytics
They will listen to and often times implement feature requests
Good integration with booking site (Yelp / Google / TA)

Highly recommended!

Inconvénients

App on Android can be a bit buggy and frustrating - not a deal breaker. Sometimes you may have to click buttons a bunch before it responds or have to shut it down and reload it. Won't allow you to take a call and check the app when roaming (this does work if you have active internet).

Would like to see further integration with hotel and other booking companies

Alternatives envisagées 

Avantages

System is user friendly, clean and easy for backend users

Inconvénients

Partner fees are costly. Unable to tire pricing in one listing for separate days

Alternatives envisagées 

Avantages

-I love that with my tours I can just go onto the app and check without having to keep track myself of what days I work.
-The app is intuitive, clean, and easy to use.
-I like that I can see my bookings on the desktop site and sync the calendar with my gmail calendar.
-I like that when I get booked a tour it sends an email to me.

Inconvénients

Improvements that can be made:

-The desktop site does not allow me to see see the Questionnaire. I have to reference the app to see what the customer wrote.
-I don't have the need for a credit card reader, yet the app asks me every time I open it. Once I accidentally said "yes" while wearing headphones and thought I may have gone deaf when I high pitch tone assaulted my eardrums.
-I can't confirm a tour through the app. Its inconvenient because then I have to find the specific email and then enter my login thru a web browser. In-app tour confirmation would be much less hassle.

Avantages

The strength of this company is the fantastic support it provides for its clients. This is both at the set-up stage, and also after implementation has started. It is available 24/7, and if the on-line platform is not sufficient to solve the technical issue or the user-end challenge, a telephone conversation can be easily scheduled.
This was even the case at the beginning of my using the platform: I was unfamiliar with the product and needed a lot of help to navigate the site initially. This is natural, of course, but what surprised me was when I had not used a particular function after a period of time (and so I had forgotten how to perform a specific function), the support team was extremely patient with me and with my rather elementary question.

The support continued as I made non-standard bookings for my bicycle tours - each time I contacted them, the support team walked me through the necessary steps. They were helpful, polite, and understanding. Sometimes I felt embarrassed by my requests (oh, of course - duh!) “I’m sorry for bothering you” I would say afterwards, but they never made me feel the question was unjustified.

In sum, I have only good things to say about the interpersonal contact I had with Xola. I would rate them 11/10 for this aspect.

The platform itself is a good one, although there are some minor limitations for my purposes that I experienced. A few little tweaks for payments and bookings would be good.
8/10 in this category.

Inconvénients

No difficulties, just a couple of limitations for payments and parameters for booking.

Avantages

Is easy to use, my customers find it useful and the best feature for our business is to get Google Analytics data and the new Xola custom reports.

Inconvénients

We really need to show more info in the booking detail not just day picker. Maybe some custom fields like a map, conditional inputs, description, etc. I know we can get this info in the questionnaire after booking, but we believe that displaying questions like "you need pick up?" "are you arriving in airplane or cruiser?"

Avantages

-Reasonable fixed pricing per location rather than pass-through costs to customer
-Responsive support
-New features regularly
-Great back end functionality and ease of use

Inconvénients

-Still missing some features specific to my industry (robust resource management and better guide assignment)

Avantages

-Pricing options for every size company
-Constant improvements/updates to their software
-Friendly, fast support. (A Middle Fork guide on staff.)
-Decent funding. Extremely committed to the long term.

Inconvénients

-Twice I came across minor bugs. I reported them, and they were fixed in a few days.

Avantages

I believe the best feature about Xola is its customer support. Their chat function is extremely handy when you've got a last minute question or need a quick tutorial on a feature. Plus the staff is very friendly and will always guide you through any difficulties you may encounter.

Inconvénients

The thing I liked least about Xola is just learning a new software but that comes with anything worth doing. At first it seems as it may be a daunting task to learn new software for your business but the ease of use is beyond amazing and again, customer support is second to none. Got questions? They've got answers!