Xola Erfahrungen

The chat feature is indispensable, questions answered/problems solved on the spot. If the tech on chat can't fix or answer a question I get connected with someone who can solve the problem within 24 hours.

The updates are pretty much instant, if I make a change, its on my site immediately.

I would like to be able to add more review links than just one on follow up emails.

The customization to suit the variety of needs for our little company. Once everything is plugged it only minimal administration is needed to keep everything flowing.

The inability to not be able to make a tour private and only accessible via a password for guests.

Easy to train staff on. If you can work an iPhone you can work on Xola.
Good mobile access for staff

- Very little customization available for unique businesses
- Limited accounting reports that take heavy editing in Excel to get the needed information
- Organizes by customer email instead of name, can create major problems.
- Europe based support team so finding a time to connect with them can be tough
- No ability for Admin accounts to make edits or corrections to individual sales, especially frustrating on the accounting side.
- No archiving feature for product listings. So old products remain on all active inventory lists, becoming very cumbersome to search through.
- Easy software for small/medium sized companies, not good for larger companies
- Limited marketing features and hard to customize
- The biggest issue for us is limited reporting especially on the accounting side. For database software, that is a huge drawback. I should be able to create and run custom reports on all of the info in the system but your stuck with a rigid structure that you then have to edit and narrow down in Excel, taking lots of extra time. We won't be able to stay with Xola as we grow unless this feature improves.

It is easy to use, easy to teach to staff, and I enjoy most features.

I haven't found anything I don't like thus far.

I really appreciate how easily you can customize and set specific details of listings. I believe it allows more different types of businesses to use Xola pretty easily.

Being able to edit bookings which use the split payment option would be SO ideal. I often times have to cancel the booking and rebook, which makes any refunds more complicated down the road.

I would really also appreciate the feature to type the number of guests into a booking made manually, instead of having to click increase/decrease for each guest.

In the purchases tab, the order it comes up seems pretty random. It would be incredibly helpful if all purchases/cancellations/guestlists/etc would appear in chronological order. It would also be helpful if you could filter it via cancellations, etc.

There's a random glitch I'm noticing recently where the guest will input their email and phone number, but when looking at their booking through the dashboard, their email shows up twice. When I go into the customer's profile, their phone number shows.

customer support, it is great that we get the software all set up and that there is a team to help any time. The software looking pretty.

if your client books 4 sessions, they get 4 confirmation, 4 reminder and 4 follow up emails, there is no option to just send them one email with all bookings listed there.
in our confirmation email, you should not advertise yourself. it makes us look like we are using a free software. no. we pay a lot to use our software, so get your logo off and stop advertise yourself to out clients for free. or if advertise yourself to our clients, then you should pay us, so reduce your price.
useless financial reports, useless invoicing . if a client has 4 bookings, you have to send 4 invoices only can be done from the back end.
The templates are no good for the follow up emails, asking for reviews, and you cannot alter them
Your mobile app is crashing all the time and doesnt give you the chance to put through coupon codes. It only can be used for checking if everyone has maded a new booking since you weren't looking. Only if you don't have your computer around. I am super disappointed

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.

Nothing! They are the best!!

HAHA -- I have to write a longer review than the first line! Okay -- Really, they are the best! ;)

Solid, very well thought out, very few issues and outstanding support.

Xola lacks Fraud control tools. Basic things like black lisiting customers & cards.

The best feature of this software is easily their Live Chat customer support. I have had only excellent and rapid responses to any question I have about the product. The Live Chat team is full of expert knowledge and friendly personalities, and is my favorite feature. I would recommend Xola for this alone!

There are some places where the language and architecture of the site are confusing. Any transfer of funds are labelled "refunds" and look like money is being returned to the customer, even when it isn't. The architecture of multiple bookings is tricky to navigate, and it is too easy to cancel entire multi-room reservations when trying to only cancel one. Fortunately, the Live Chat team is there to sort out the resulting messes.

The customer support is incredible and instant.

Xola is more expensive than some of the other options.

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.

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.

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!

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.

-- 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)

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.

Ease of use for updates to listings and schedules.

I do not like the updated pricing structure of 3%. I do not like the idea of "passing" this costs along to my guests, so I am stuck with this large cost increase.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

Staff's support and interest in "my" software needs. Put this way, I'm constantly hounded by other company's booking software guys to "look" at their software and I keep telling them..."Nope, I'm using Xola and they serve my needs just fine!"

For whoever reads this review, I want them to know that I have used Xola for several years and I really appreciate how they have constantly kept up with my growth needs and seek to improve the software to help me grow. As we all know, what works today is outdated tomorrow! THANK YOU XOLA!

Really? After what I wrote above, do you really think I have any "cons"?

For the record, ever since I first started using Xola I have received excellent support and anytime that I needed to "personalize" the software to meet my need, Xola was there to help me.

Xola has the BEST feature set, an amazing look and feel that your customers will love and they have a solid support team - the friendliest and most helpful ever.

In March 2020 they are rolling out a new mandatory pricing plan where they will take a large percentage of all bookings rather than a monthly fee. For us it means going from $200/month to $2K-$4K+/month depending on our sales and marketing.

When my company first started using Xola it was and is still easy to use. They have an easy to use app, a very easily navigated website, but what I appreciate most of all is their customer service.

One thing I don't like is I am not able to see as much information about my customers who book on the app as I am the website, but I am not a master a design myself so I'm just grateful for it in general. One other thing that is slightly annoying is I have to refresh the page or close then open the app to get it to refresh to see if there are any other bookings.

The overall structure of the back-end and UI is exceptional.

Xola promised a feature to handle varying degree of taxes that come with using discount vouchers like Groupon... That was 2 years ago.. Still haven't seen it and they fail to acknowledge that without it, my company must eat a percentage of the taxes. total fail.

Anyone new can learn the basics of entering an order. Its a very simple system that in a lot of cases is also intuitive.

It took a bit of time last summer to have some issues resolved. Also the recent price increases to pay for all of the functionality that you might not use is very expensive.

Many features and easy to configure... Easy to merge booking buttons into website... Presents nice user interface to outside world... Excellent customer support and assistance for setting up the application... Many booking options available and easy to add and update... Add-ons feature works well for adding water toys which we rent with our boats... Incredibly flexible for setting up multiple outing and pricing schedules...Coupon feature works well for us... So far we have been able to do everything that we want to implement...

Wish there was a better method to look two or three weeks out and quickly see what boats (experiences) are booked or available each day... Wish there was a way to place an authorize only charge on a credit card... We have been able to define our boat rental experiences in the Xola App but it does seem that the system was designed to handle tour type experiences much easier than boat rentals... The many available features makes for a bit of a learning curve and setup can be somewhat complex...