Sawyer

Avantages

1. I love that HiSawyer is specific to use for children activities and classes. I tried other booking plugins or websites that were a "one size fits all" (appointments for nail salon or doctor's office) and well... they didn't quite fit for my business.
For instance, HiSawyer allows the possibility to see the age and birthdate of the kids, having an "older sibling discount", adding semesters or multiple locations, specially because our class doesn't have only one location... Bookings are specific for a kid's class, and it's awesome.

2. Very easy to use! All what can be done in point #1, is very easy to set up!

3. Professional look. Some other plugins I had tried before look very outdated and amateurish. I love HiSawyer fresh and professional design.

It's exactly what I was looking for for months until I bumped into HiSawyer.

Inconvénients

I really love everything about it. If I had to really look for perfection: it would be awesome if there was an app. It might be just me, but checking it from mobile can be a little bit frustrating sometimes. Nothing out of this world, not bugs or errors, just think about checking social media from a web browser in your phone.

But other than that, I love this!

Avantages

I love that I can add and change my classes and transfer students easily. I also like that I can get paid within 24 hours of my clients purchasing my classes.

Inconvénients

I wish I could also add adult classes to my options as well. I also would like to have an invoice option.

Avantages

Sawyer is easy to implement and their customer service is helpful at first.They might be good if your customers all use the same main stream web browser (whichever one happens to work that day) and they are registering kids for classes without parent involvement or too many details.

Inconvénients

There is no option to add a second adult/parent to a family account.The program doesn't work with Duck Duck Go or many web browsers consistently.

Avantages

I absolutely love the ease of using Sawyer. We have a team that inputs the information when students register for camp. That information is very crucial to a successful camp. I like that all I have to do is check my participants in and then check them out each day. I also like that it allows the parents to contact me if necessary and vice versa.

Inconvénients

I have no complaints to report as I love everything about Sawyer.

Avantages

I like the way it looks and functions. It's super helpful for our small company to be able to centralize all of our customer info, rosters and class listings.

Inconvénients

It's pretty pricey. I know that I would spend a lot in admin to pay someone to do all of the work that the platform does, though. I do hope that it doesn't get more expensive. We will consider building our own registration system into our website if the price continues to climb.

Avantages

Sawyer is the best tool in the game - I’ve tried them all from Square to Activity Hero, and this tool is the most streamlined and easy to use. Customers appreciate it and I can build kid-centered client accounts, robust scheduling and semesters, and easy checkouts.

Inconvénients

By far the most expensive tool in the market and there was no free trial or setup window so the expense began before I had enrollees.

Avantages

Sawyer has been a blessing! It’s allowed the company to have all the registrations, tickets, forms and payment online. It’s great being able to see the finances all in one spot and create coupons, refund or cancel/transfer bookings. The classes and camps are easy to set up and modify. Clients do not have issues registering for events. There is an option to create financial reports and you can download email addresses for communications.

Inconvénients

Only one very small con. I wish we had the option change some of the wording. For example: instead of classes/sessions it’s events

Avantages

My customers can learn about all of our programs in one place and register for them easily. I can track registration at a glance and make changes as needed.

Inconvénients

Rosters are difficult to read when printed and it's an important part of our camps.

Avantages

I like that the system streamlines my registration process for families. It's helpful to have the attendance lists generated from the registration process. I like that I can communicate with families individually, or as a class with messaging. I like that the system sends me confirmations of new registrations.

Inconvénients

The wait period of receiving payouts, and not receiving payouts on the weekends.

Avantages

Its ease of use. Many concepts make sense. To be able to assign teachers and increase parent communication. *** Please add ability to attach files *** and please *** update your form software for custom forms - it is terrible right now ***

Inconvénients

This summer Chefsville had over 30 camps. The normal training schedule for Sawyer didn't allow for us being out working those camps so getting trained was twice as hard for Mollie.

We actually had to test, play and figure it out until she advised us and we could follow.

I still have no idea of what an acknowledgement/registration confirmation e-mail looks like and have customers calling me asking when there next payment is due and what dates our programs are.

I have a great email that I use, but I can't use that when I am trusting your software to do it along with payment receipt.

We still are not trained and know that your software does more than what we know. Mollie has been out and schools started for us this week. So we are having to scramble to find information.

We still need help with our form, our form asks several questions that your profile automatically does. I need to find where and how to get this information, change our form so it asks only one time.

Website Widget - we have no control of it! I had to figure out the coding to modify the short code to show Semesters and not camps. I did ask for help, but by the time customer service got to me, many people passed our programs over because they couldn't see how to register by changing "Camps" to "Semesters". I think your clients need to have more controls on their WordPress.

Avantages

Easy to use
Cost effecrive
Customer service

Inconvénients

Add ons dont always line up with what we need

Avantages

Sawyer has been a game-changer for us. We've used Brightwheel, ProCare, Eventbrite, and Google forms to try to figure out how to manage classes and Sawyer has been the best by far. Setting up the classes was so easy. The program is intuitive and offers all the features that we need it to.

Inconvénients

We wish Sawyer had an app that our community could download, create an account, log in and use as a communication platform between teachers and parents. This would be the cherry on top!

Avantages

The Sawyer system is easy and intuitive for my families as well as for myself as a center director. Easy registration as made a big impact on my ability to bring new families into my program, as well as keep my current customers re-enrolling every new semester. I have been using this exclusively for years, and I've absolutely loved the improvements Sawyer has made. They are open and responsive to their providers, and the customer service is top notch.

Inconvénients

I would absolutely love to see the Sawyer Marketplace grow within my local area, in the suburbs of Houston, TX. I believe it would be an excellent resource for parents in our massive metropolitan area, and would be a more effective tool in promoting new business for my program. The membership function is excellent, however I personally haven't figured out to make it work for my program. I would also love to have more creative and expansive email options- such as tags and targeting marketing email features. Also, a way to easily generate a birthday report for children.

Avantages

For our company, Sawyer is critical for student enrollment, being private lessons, group classes or productions.

Inconvénients

One thing that is not included is the ability to uncheck a student once it has been checked in.

Avantages

I like the process to integrate the parents to the classes. Easier and quickly!

Inconvénients

They need to put also the Spanish option because we have many latin families.

Avantages

It is so easy to use and I appreciate all the helpi hot yo set it up

Inconvénients

Nothing at all. I have been in business 39 years and wish I had done this years ago

Avantages

The thing I like most about Sawyer is all the information that is accessible without too much effort.

Inconvénients

I really have no complaints about Sawyer.

Avantages

One of the things I really like about Sawyer is how it saves your previous submissions for Class Notes. I use Sawyer for review sessions and letting parents know what the class was about and often times, I reuse lesson plans, so Sawyer saving previous submissions is really useful.

Inconvénients

One of the things I would change about Sawyer is that in the previous submissions, it changes the format and puts it in one big paragraph. I wished it kept the format of previous submissions, but it's really not that big of a deal.

Avantages

Because I was not a web designer and didn't have backend experience, I needed a platform that I could basically input information into, I wish however it was more customizable. I also was drawn to Sawyer because I wanted to create memberships as well as classes and this gave me the opportunity to do both.

Inconvénients

There are more things I dislike them like unfortunately. Some of them small like wishing I could customize the color other than red, some of them huge in that the forms are rigid meaning I can't have a different form intake for a member from my students. I need more flexibility and options for my businesses I was hoping everything could live under one umbrella. I find it almost impossible to navigate and find things with ease, it is not user friendly and various features are buried inside other futures and I'm constantly going back and forth trying to find things. I get super frustrated with having to pull up FAQs and directives online. The window doesn't stay open when you move from one area of the website to another so I constantly have to keep it searching for the same information. Some days it's brutal and I feel like I spend way too much time on this program.

Avantages

I started a new business this school year, and I am very pleased with the ease of use and tools available to me through the Sawyer system. It has been remarkable!

Inconvénients

The hardest part is not having quick access to a live person when I am having an issue that is not on your training rubric. When money is involved, the anxiety gets high. So, having customer service people we may actually talk to would be my biggest hope. Or not waiting 24 hours for a response for help.

Avantages

The look of the user interface - everything is on one page with a photo.

Inconvénients

We have many glitches which are never addressed. Also, you have to enter each class separately every semester - there is no cloning function. There is customer support but nothing has ever been done about ANY of the glitches or issues we have had.

Avantages

Let's start for the basic: It's a software specifically for booking children's activities, which is my exactly what my business does, so every single feature in Sawyer is just perfect for what we do.
I had tried 5 or 6 different software companies and all of them are for other industries (spas, gyms, consulting businesses), so they weren't ideal to use. I love Sawyer has children-activity-specific features such as camps, semesters, drop-ins, sibling discount, caregiver needed in the class, ages for the class, etcetera.

Also it supports different locations, gift cards, and most important for us: a widget to add the registration form to your website.

Inconvénients

Sawyer keeps improving and adding new features, I've run into tech problems when they just launch a new functionality but I consider this normal and I appreciate they keep improving their product. Tech support always replies fast when there have been issues.

Avantages

I loved working face to face (via zoom) with the Sawyer Team. It was nice being able to put a face with a name. [SENSITIVE CONTENT] was extremely helpful and eager to solve my problems. I appreciated that Sawyer did everything, including tidying up my website a little. All I did was answer questions and give approval and Sawyer did the rest.

Inconvénients

I have a different class/session schedule than most outside educators. In order to make my sessions work for my clients we had to wiggle somethings around and call somethings different from the terminology I had previously been using. For example, All private lessons can only be found on my kids page, even if you're an adult, and there is no way to request a semi-private lesson for two people. I also have clients who only want to take one month of sessions confused when they have to go to the "Semester classes" page. I also wish there was a way for clients to pay Venmo or Cash without ME having to be the one that fills in their registration forms.

Avantages

Ease of registration, ability to track clients & finances, reliability of having this online vs manual

Inconvénients

I would like to be able to customize the reports we can draw from he software, there is critical info that we need to resort to manual methods for, which I know could be accomplished through our registration info. We would like to be able to customize some other aspect of the registration portal

Avantages

As the [SENSITIVE CONTENT] of my business, I appreciate having support in the business end of things. Sawyer understands what parents/caregivers want when searching and register for programs for their children. Platform is easy for customers to use, and easy for me to learn to administer. Excellent support from Sawyer staff.

Inconvénients

Sometimes I have trouble uploading photos to my account because they are in the wrong format.