Xola Erfahrungen

Smooth operator, but there's definitely room for improvement and new features

Kommentare: Overall the experience has been transformative. However, we're coming from basically no booking software at all - before XOLA we had just implemented an extremely rudimentary home-grown solution in an effort to organize our burgeoning business and a significant shift in our business model that was producing a much higher level of traffic (and revenue.) As a result, we've been able to capitalize on these new channels and really bring our business to another level. There's hiccups, as with anything, but we've seen the software maturing and changing to accommodate and scale up, and we're very happy with the results. I recommend this software for any small to medium-sized business that is looking for a solid, smooth booking experience. As the software improves, I believe there's a very good chance that it will become a best-of-breed app and is absolutely worthy of consideration.

Vorteile:

Without a doubt this is a smooth app that knows what silk feels like. The UI has gone through some great improvements that have improved the silkiness to a degree even silkworms would be jealous of, but it's clear that they're taking the time to listen to their users in the development process and that's important. Performance is more than just good, it's Tony-the-tiger great. Smooth and well executed interface. It's missing features - some of them might be important to you, it's hard to say - but the devs do a great job of listening to feature requests and we've seen real, significant improvements all around. That's the sign of a maturing application. Is it best-of-breed? Hard to say, and I'm sure there's arguments for and against, but I'll give them this: their support is out-freaking-standing. That alone is worth a few awkwardly implemented features or some gaps in how things are executed. If there's a problem, you connect to a staff that takes their support work seriously. I'm surprised they don't hop in a plane and come to your computer and help you out - they legitimately take every step just shy of that in an effort to find a solution. It's impressive and it outshines any downsides you might find in the app itself. Is there always a solution? No, that's unrealistic. But they often find a workaround and if they can't they'll make sure the devs know there's a gap that's been discovered and that needs to be looked at. Great, great support team.

Nachteile:

There's feature gaps. Depending on any number of factors the software just doesn't quite fit - but it's close. Usually close enough - there's often a workaround that is... well, good enough. And you hope the devs close up the gap or shore it up and it won't get any worse. For the most part that happens, but when there's a 'feature release' you hold your breath and a lot of times you're left thinking to yourself "what? there's so much better things to have spent man-hours on than that..." To be fair, I've often found the implemented features to be useful once I've worked with them but there's still features - things I would consider fundamentally necessary - that haven't been implemented. It's a fail, but a relatively minor one. At least, for us - ymmv.

Xola for sailing charter bookings

Kommentare: GREAT responsive customer service available via online chat. I've been using it for many years and they are constantly improving it.

Vorteile:

Xola was the best option for booking a mix of trip types with a single vessel. With the software I can list both public and private options for both day and overnight offerings. When a trip gets booked it automatically stops listing options that could potentially double book the time slot.

Nachteile:

The system has an option allowing you to send an invoice to the customer for full payment....I wish I could send an invoice for just the deposit or let the customer choose how much to pay over a minimum to reserve the trip.

Disappointed with Xola

Vorteile:

This platform is definitely affordable and in the beginning the customer service was great. From a clients prospective the interface is user friendly and visually appealing.

Nachteile:

We started using Xola over 2 years ago and although a rough start, the service was on point and customer support was helpful and speeds when it came to fixing bugs and problems. Since then it seems as if they have restructured their company drastically. Getting customer support has become a challenge. In the beginning they assigned account managers, which was great. When you called Xola you could speak directly to your account manager who knew everything there was to know about your account. Fixing problems was straight forward and right to the point. Now, it's a bit different... You can either call a get an answering machine or someone who has little to no experience or you can chat online with an agent they have outsourced in a foreign country. Regardless of who you speak with you must first catch them up again on everything you're trying to accomplish. This part is the most frustrating, When speaking to the 4 person I found it easier to just copy and paste the previous chats we had rather than trying to explain. We have been having trouble with our buttons implemented by Xola over 1.5 weeks ago. Meanwhile our clients have not been able to book online. Through pages and pages of correspondence and having the luxury of catching at least 6 of their employees up to speed on my issue. They might "might" have it done by tomorrow. We're talking about simple buttons. I would definitely do my research before plunging into a commitment with Xola. Very frustrated so far with this experience. If it wasn't so time consuming setting up a whole new platform, I would have switched to Fare Harbor long ago.

Love this company

Kommentare: Xola's technical support is great. Every representative has been knowledgeable, timely, and friendly. I can't say enough good things about their support.

Vorteile:

The software is very robust and satisfies all of my needs.

Nachteile:

I wish they had more display options on the frame that shows on my website.

Pub Cruiser Bikes

Vorteile:

I like everything about it and love the Bots that run specials. This has worked well with us. Also, I like the integrated waiver with Wherewolf.com..

Nachteile:

Cost is high unless you do the one where it basically passes the % charge onto the customer. I wish it had the ability to assign more than 1 bike to a time slot so that both of my bikes could run the same schedules and we did not have to have a bike 1 and a bike 2 schedule.

Jousting over the Cliffs and the Ocean

Vorteile:

Best customer service ever User Friendly In comparison to Fare Harbor and Peek Pro - Hands down best!! Love the Loading screen phrases. They always make me smile Rescues are the stuff

Nachteile:

not being able to use same guest email twice not being able to delete guest emails affiliates are not alphabetized in settings not being able to have more than 1 code on a reservation

Everything I need and Quick Support

Kommentare: We need to have an online booking system for a variety of services and the program accommodates those needs. I have tried a few other programs prior to Xola but have not had the need to look elsewhere since using them.

Vorteile:

Ease of use. Setting up the new listings is fairly easy, even if there is a lot of details to fill in each time. Customer service is top notch and usually always available on chat!

Nachteile:

No option for more POS style bookings. We have a lot of walk in customers who combine different activities but when making a booking for those though Xola at the counter, we have to creatively enter the activities. We have an arcade setting with Escape Rooms. Our arcade are is Virtual Reality with booth space rentals with various time slots. It is too difficult to create a time slot for each time and booth.

Best in class

Kommentare: Saves a tremendous amount of time with this easy and simple user interface. Saving time equals more time for more important stuff.

Vorteile:

Xola is the simplest booking software out there. I have tried several, and this is hands-down the best there is! Easy to understand and a breeze to navigate through. One of the strongest points is how easy it is to train your staff on.

Nachteile:

I wish there was a way to customize things a little bit more than what is available.

Xola is great for tour and activity management

Kommentare: Xola is useful for us to collect and manage all bookings from a single platform with really low commision rates. So far we enjoy it a lot.

Vorteile:

It is great to manage all our events at one place and accept bookings from all online distribution channels that we are present. Google Analytics integration is extremely useful to follow the success metrics directly from Google Analytics panel.

Nachteile:

Xola works definitely perfect for us, so far we haven't experienced any problem that deserves to be noted here. We are extremely satisfied with our experience with Xola Online booking System so far.

Easy to maintain booking system

Vorteile:

Tours and calendars were easy to setup in a new platform.

Nachteile:

Limited connections to other tools, making it harder to sync calls with appointments

XOLA is amazing for many reasons, but they need to speed up their process for fixing bugs

Kommentare: XOLA excels in many ways at many things, especially customer service, helping you learn, and ease of use. However, when there are things that don't work well for you, it feels like you are up against a wall and you just have to deal with bugs, and they give the impression that these things won't be changed for a long time, and maybe never. You just have to love it for the awesome things it does and accept the frustrating things it doesn't do.

Vorteile:

The best part about XOLA is their customer service. You can instantly chat with somebody at all times, and if you need to call and talk to a real person that is easy too. I cannot stress how amazing this is, as we have all spent hours going around in circles with customer service with other companies countless times. Sometimes for me to the point of frustrated tears. XOLA sets the standard for how reachable and friendly and helpful all customer service should be! XOLA also makes certain things incredibly fast and easy to do. You can tell a lot of thought has gone into functionality and usability, such as navigating through the site.

Nachteile:

My biggest complaint is also about customer service. You can easily talk to somebody and they will help you figure something out or teach you how to do something. However, sometimes I need to do things that XOLA is not capable of, and I feel that being able to do them is extremely important. In this case they simply say they will forward your request to their development team, and maybe someday there will be a meeting about it and it might get changed in the future. Sometimes when you tell them what you need to be able to do they disagree with you, which is odd, because they are not the ones actually using the software to run a business! One example is I need to be able to remove credit card numbers attached to people's accounts. This is very important for many reason, one of which is sometimes they belong to an ex-spouse, have been cancelled due to fraud, are cards they don't want you to charge any more, etc etc, and when collecting a balance it adds tons of time and correspondence with clients to figure this out. This is one example of many things that you can DO on XOLA, but you can't UNDO. Like when you accidentally enter a person on the questionnaire, you can't delete that person. I just think when you tell them things like this that seem really logical and practical they should be able to change them, or at least make you believe they understand it is important to your daily functioning and that they will try to change it.

Extremely easy and streamlined interface.

Kommentare: Our experience has been tremendous. We tried researching a few other options and none of them compared. Just based on customer service availability alone!

Vorteile:

I had use this product when I was an employee of another company. When I started my own company, I searched at other booking solutions and none of them compared to Xola. The interface, the booking fees, the ease of setting things up. The walk-throughs and most importantly the customer service chat feature that’s available around the clock is invaluable!

Nachteile:

NO GROUPON INTEGRATION… and to be able to get more in-depth through the iPhone app

Generally good - but not the very best

Kommentare: -- Online Ticket Booking Platform
-- Online Scheduling System

Vorteile:

-- 24 hour customer support available by chat -- Clients stay on my website while booking tickets for my escape rooms using Xola -- Automated reminder e-mails -- Ability to customize questionnaire and booking requirements -- A salesperson quoted me a price and stuck to it -- Report Features -- Great Credit Card processing rate (through Stripe) -- Ability to integrate with Google Cal so staff can see when they are scheduled to work -- Instigation with Smartwaiver (limited, would like more)

Nachteile:

LIMITED CLOSING OPT: You can set sessions to have cut off times. This is important but when I used FareHarbor it allowed me to keep sessions open if the session was partially sold. I would like this feature on Xola. Currently there has to be a hard cut off time -- or I have to keep the session open until it's start time. LIMITED INTEGRATIONS//NO CRM CAPABILITIES: The system doesn't integrate with MailChimp, it integrates with Smartwaiver but on a limited basis. For example if Joe books 6 tickets Xola captures Joes information. His 5 friends information is added on Smartwaiver but then I have to dig into Smartwaiver to find their info. I doesn't turn them into a customer profile even through Smartwaiver waiver is connected to Xola. It doesn't integrate with Trip Advisor Review Express -- so I have to manually enter each customer e-mail between Smartwaiver and Xola. BUGS & UPDATES: They are constantly making changes. Sometimes I log on and have to look for something in a new place (updates are always accompanied by e-mails) however, I would prefer to choose if I want to update features or not. Sometimes these updates and improvements cause bugs -- At one point a bug was impacting my settings. It took them over a week to solve the problem and I didn't get any kind of update. I always had to ask for it. I feel like complaints and requests go into a long report that no one reads. They have come out with lots of updates but none that I have requested.

Great software - Paints a Clear Picture

Kommentare: Great, we've been using it for a few years and now we're roughly 50% online sales/50 over-the-phone sales.

Vorteile:

The ease of use is high. The dashboard makes it easy to know what's going on with a quick glance. Online bookings are straightforward for customers and allows easy communication of vital information (i.e. confirmation emails, waivers, etc.)

Nachteile:

There is not an easy way to change minimum booking quantity without changing the product listing itself - it would be nice to have a quick override for this.

Great Product, Superior Customer Service

Kommentare: I started a small tour company this year and I needed a professional-looking solution to manage reservations, communications, and payment. I did not want to spend a lot of time learning and implementing. I checked around with a few vendors and picked Xola. I am delighted I did!

Vorteile:

First, while not important in the long run, the interface is elegant and clean. They actually thought about the design. Most important, it was super easy to implement. How easy, you say? Well, they have an option to spend something like $200 to get someone to walk you through the set-up. I thought this was a great option so I signed up for it. But as I was toying around with it, I realized that it was so super-easy that I actually had done the set-up. After set-up, it is easy to use and intuitive in managing my reservations for my tour company. What else?? When I don't understand something immediately, there are CS agents always at hand via chat. They are smart. Unlike some companies who hire someone to read through a flowchart of problem solving and often get stumped, these people simply know how the platform works from beginning to end. I have never had an occasion when I contacted support and did not have my problem solved immediately.

Nachteile:

Nothing! They are the best!! HAHA -- I have to write a longer review than the first line! Okay -- Really, they are the best! ;)

Customers need to reschedule? Better hire a designated scheduler because Xola camt handle it.

Kommentare: Online purchases, quick payout.

Vorteile:

I started with Xola. Used to have one on one support. It's pretty enough. You can find work arounds for most problems.

Nachteile:

If your in a business where weather can cause trip cancellations? Xola STILL isn't powerful enough to allow customers to reschedule on their own?!? So a reservation system where you NEED a human to reschedule customers over the phone. It's ridiculous. Xola has no desire to fix this giant hole and it's frustrating. They seem to cater to small guides and tours. My small business has theirvanilities taxed. The outsourced their help which is fine but I have no more ability to speak to anyone of consequence that can understand that it's insane to not allow customers to be able to reschedule them self's after a cancelled trip. I've spoken to several vendors who went back to peek pro over this feature and go for gift card software that does not have the amount put on it regardless if you like it or not.

Great service until they changed

Vorteile:

Great booking software with wonderful tools like invoicing, analytics, and customization. Customer service is also wonderful and prompt.

Nachteile:

It was about 4x the cost as my previous software but totally worth the cost until they changed their plan to get 6% of my customers money with their fees. I now pay “nothing” per month but my clients have to pay and I have to now switch companies since I don’t want to pass fees onto them.

Almost perfect! - But missing a crucial functionality.

Kommentare: It's been great - Xola is the clear choice for escape room scheduling and online booking payments.

Vorteile:

Xola's has pretty much thought of everything and makes it very easy to manage checkouts and payments for a modern escape room. Their support is always there and willing to go the extra mile. I've been in online business since before Google was a search engine - and Xola is flat out impressive!

Nachteile:

The only thing I can see that Xola can do better, is to allow the company (business owner) to redirect a customer to a specific page after the purchase has been made. That one feature would allow us to directly track all of of our Google AdWords and Facebook Conversions. ...Yes, I know that Xola has a "conversion tracking" setting... but it is not BULLSEYE accurate like when you are able to track your conversions DIRECTLY inside of your Google and Facebook Campaigns. I need to know "What ad triggered the conversion - what keyword did they click on - and then I know what is working inside of my ad campaigns." Pushing conversion tracking to Google Analytics (as Xola does now) does not allow me to do that. Let us redirect the user/purchaser to a specific page on our site - you'll give your clients insight into their advertising and they'll end up pushing more money back into Xola.

Have been with Xola for 3 years - Happy to recommend!

Vorteile:

We're a TO in Europe and have more or less had a good experience with Xola with no plans to jump ship. They began working with outward bound service providers in the US and when we arrived with dozens of complicated walking tours, we tested them. Xola have listened to us and made some improvements, but several are still pending and have been for 3 years. Their CEO has been notified about these service limitations (how to price private tours, how to store age banded price ranges for future time periods with 100% flexibility, and others...) and we hope he'll get on it. In general though, Xola is a big thumbs up against the weaker providers like Rezdy and Trekksoft which are both inferior to Xola. Chat support is first class (Milos, in particular).

Nachteile:

Xola have hired some poor account managers in the past. They need to improve on this although I am referring to former staff who were at Xola in 2016. Now gone and all ok). Xola have a free account for start ups with only a few tours. This is only available for US customers and it's unfair. They must offer this to customers in all countries.

Easy to Use, Great Customer Service, Could Improve on Reporting Tools

Kommentare: Overall, we've been very happy as a Xola client!

Vorteile:

Xola features a great online dashboard and an open API for easy integration. Customer service is fantastic; I've always gotten very quick responses via online chat and opening tickets with the company's IT team.

Nachteile:

The reporting and analytics tools have lots of room for improvement. Xola has a lot of data to work with, but clients can only see a limited amount of it via the online dashboard. Luckily the API is a great resource for retrieving data, but obviously not as easy to use as an improved reporting dashboard would be.

Xola Review June 2022

Vorteile:

It's easy to use and user friendly. It's easy to train people on the software.

Nachteile:

We had a card swiper that we used to use in conjunction with xola for walk in bookings. It would swipe the customers information and capture the numbers but it wouldn't get the CVV. People don't like to give their CVV once the card is swiped so we end up using our cc terminal instead. If we could keep all the captured payments in Xola and only Xola, that would be great but reconciling the credit card terminal isn't too complicated.

From paper reservations book to online office

Kommentare: Canʻt say enough good things about our experience with Xola. We have been with them almost from the beginning and they have grown and adapted to meet our needs perfectly. No more paper reservations book, writing in pencil so we can erase cancellations, storing of waivers in banker boxes for years on end... Xola took us from 20th century to modern day office, and allowed us to give the clients online booking options too!

Vorteile:

Xola has allowed us to have our reservations in the cloud, accessible from our mobile devices... allowing us to make adjustments to existing reservations or rebooking clients on the fly, in the field! And Xolaʻs prompt integration of Smartwaiver allowed our office to go paperless, which is huge! The storage that was dedicated to record keeping was swallowing our office up! Now we have space for the clients in the office, but they can also make their own bookings online through Xolaʻs html buttons, which we can customize to suit our needs!

Nachteile:

Sometimes the code can get a little buggy on small things, like scroll-bars in the windows. But any time thereʻs a big issue, Xola is prompt to resolve it!

Xola has made my business function with ease and automation!

Kommentare: Xola is feature rich so we have gained many benefits across the board for our company including enhanced financial / sales reports, better understanding of our customer demographics and most importantly increased sales / conversions via our website.

Vorteile:

The software is wonderfully coded and designed, but the on-going support and development are always on target for exactly what my business needs.

Nachteile:

We have a unique way of selling / booking customers and while we have been able to use Xola's rich features to make a work around I wish I could simplify our booking process with Xola. Sadly I know this is a developmental issue and only affects a very small portion of it's users like my company.

Excellent Booking Software -- I don't understand why EVERYBODY isn't using it.

Kommentare: Xola software has always been good, but recently it has become even better with lots of additional features. I don't need all of the capability, like 3rd party booking, because my business is not that large. Other software always seems to force new features on your business model whether you wan them or not. Fine if we are talking about computer games. But when it's software you and your business have co-evolved with it, it's ding-dang annoying when somebody wants to change what you have perfect just because they made an update. Xola does NOT do that they. They just invite to do a quick thumbs up or down reply when they add a new element and let you get back to work. VERY refreshing! But it's nice to see Xola keeping pace with the competition.

Vorteile:

Xola booking software allows for maximum customization. I've grown so comfortable with it, tweaking little time-saving things for myself and my customers that it feels like they wrote the code with my exact tourism business in mind.

Nachteile:

It's a little more expensive in terms of booking fees than some of their so-called competitors, but I pass the cost on to the consumers - so no big deal.

Great experience with Xola - highly recommend!

Kommentare: We do not pass fees on to customers and we have a clean and robust booking system. Reliable and innovative, I really like the Xola team and customer support.

Vorteile:

The focus on customer interface. We are customer-first in everything that we do and it is apparent that Xola is as well. They innovate quickly and their team is great.

Nachteile:

Their reporting and tracking is average, but improving. We requested a few things as we are growing, some of which have been addressed, while a few have not.