Zen Planner Reviews 332

Solid membership system, very flexible & easy to use!

Love it.
Can't recommend enough.

Zenplanner makes it simple for our business to track client activity and property staff.

I have yet to fully deploy Zen Planner and need a good degree of help to do that. I am hoping to get that assistance today!

This is a great and informative experience.

Hello, I just quite ZenPlanner after EIGHT years of membership. I wanted you to know how ZenPlanner will most likely treat you when you leave. Their company used to be small and honest, but they have changed. Couple of things you should now.

1. They have continued to increase rates and change credit card processing companies forcing us to change as well, for higher rates with preferred vendors.
2. If you want your customer data when you leave, they charge you $200 to export your data. Their program does allow you to export, but only one person at a time and only limited information such as one telephone number. If you want to cancel, transfer or backup your data, you will need to pay $200. When I initially signed up and was helping the developers to fix bugs, one could export the entire database with one click from the menu. I asked them what happened to this feature many years ago and they said I could contact them at any time to get a backup file.
3. They are not a month to month program as mentioned in their ads. They now require 30 days notice to cancel so that they can bill you once more.
4. After eight years, they spiked our monthly fee by over 100% and then told us that they would refund the difference if we signed up for 12 months.
5. THE WORST! The person in charge of their collections uses only the name Nick, he will make talk of using lawyers to advise him on your account and he will not talk to you over the phone. Before attempting to cancel my monthly membership, I asked to speak with billing over the phone to discuss the changes to pricing, merchant account, ect and “Nick” said he was too busy and due to “schedule” and “meetings” it would be best to talk through email (even though I am available 24/7 and I never made mention of even a time to talk, yet he was too busy all the time for an eight year customer). They do not answer their telephones.
6. Currently, as I contacted the company before the month was up and cancelled my subscription, they are now hounding me saying that I owe them almost $400 and they are seeking legal advice. What a joke!
7. ZenPlanner is a dime a dozen software membership program. There are a ton of other programs out there. Since being acquired by a large software company, this company treats members as though they are signing up themselves for a gym membership and hold your data hostage, increase rates over time, and try their best to gain more profits when you are leaving.

Since I cannot respond to Zenplanner response below, I'm adding to first response here..... this BS company actually responded to me that they have a Customer Success Team?!!!? What a joke!! Been with them for 8 years, they are full of it! They never answer their 800 number, DO NOT BELIEVE ANYTHING this company tells you.

I am a big fan of Zen Planner but I have to say the payment platform with who they partner with is absolutely terrible. EasyDebit/PaySimple really let's Zen Planner down with exorbitant fees, delayed processing (then they charge a big dishonour fee to my customers) and an archaic user interface. I really think it's time that Zen Planner ditched EasyDebit and switched to Stripe or another payment gateway with more reasonable fees, immediate processing and an easy to use app that makes for easy refund of customer money if needed.

The customer experience with Zen Planner is superior. As a fitness center owner, I value accessing a knowledgeable Zen Planner team member when I have questions and when issues arise on my end. They are generally ALWAYS available and very interested in solving my software issues. For me, that's critical. Hopefully the emphasis on knowledgeable, friendly, and accessibility to live humans will always be paramount.

The customer service alone is THE BEST EVER.

I opened my commercial business under 1 year ago and Zen Planner has been an integral part of the company's set up and day-to-day operations. The customer support has been AMAZING. Due to the nature of my business I do not have time to learn code or research videos and 'how-to' tutorials for certain topics. Occasionally when I can't figure something out, or when I can't completely understand an issue and I call for support, the issue is explained and resolved quickly. Feedback that I have had for the company is taken seriously and responded to immediately and I am looking forward to having more appointment options with this software. To date, I am very happy with this software. Since my business relies on repeat sales / service it is integral that my clients are also happy with the software and they too have given Zen Planner good reviews!

Here is my FB comment copied and pasted:

I feel like I was thoroughly DUPED by this company. I literally just signed up and am now learning that I am not receiving what was promised by the salesman (big surprise). I own a fairly small gym, so I purchased the option for having up to 50 members. I was told that we would have the option to sign up multiple family members under one membership and have it count as one membership toward my 50 cap.-for example, I have families of 2-4 under one FAMILY membership for $125/month. I just found out during our last conference call, that information is incorrect and even though they have purchased one membership at my gym, it counts as one membership PER PERSON. so a family of 4 under one of my memberships is essentially 4 memberships in the system which counts toward my 50cap. I was also told we would have the ability to check in customers by way of scanning an ID. We have found out during the conference call that they are also discontinuing that feature. I have wasted countless hours studying the system so that I could get my gym transitioned over and now that I have learned the system, it looks like I will be using one of the competitors. Thanks for nothing. Sincerely, irritated gym owner.

I don't even know where to begin with this company. The POS system is crap. It's very difficult to do discounts on anything. Their front house version of their software is crap. Their customer service is terrible, they basically tell you that there isn't a way to do what you are asking. Mind you, I'm not asking things that are really random, but things that most martial arts school owners need to do.

Then when you cancel, they require a 30 day notice and then steal one more month of cost but don't give you any service for that last month.

Use a different service, just not ZenPlanner.

My company has been using zen planner for just over a year. The system can be a little hard to understand sometimes, but the customer service is AMAZING!!!! Everyone who picks up the phone is very knowledgeable and willing to stay on the phone with you for as long as you need in order to figure something out. I would share the names of the people who help me, but it's seriously everyone!

I highly recommend this software for you gym or fitness center.

Great pricing, great functionality, good look and feel!

We are small fitness studio and find ZP's customer service tops! They are incredibly knowledgeable of their system and have the patience of Job when dealing with my colleague and me who are not always so swift with these things. LOL Although we may not navigate quickly through the software, we do find it relatively user-friendly when we're trying to figure things out on our own (before making the call). ;) The software font and esthetics are quite pleasing to the eyes as well.
Thanks ZP!

Zen Planner is not geared for small business. Their contract was not clear and hard to cancel. I would not recommend Zen planner for smaller business. with fluctuating student numbers
The following is what customer service told me when I was finally 'allowed ' to cancel.
"Yes, you've read that correctly. You can choose whether you would like additional access to Zen Planner through 10/26/18 with this final payment, or you can make the payment and close your account immediately"
This was after I tried to cancel outside of their special cancellation window, they wanted to to charge me $499 cancellation fee for cancelling 1 month early. Not a happy customer.

Zen Planner is an awesome software to manage a business and provide great customer support to go with it!

When I started my fitness studio in 2013, I did not want to take on an additional expense and was hesitant to sign with ZP. I knew I had to automate so I decided to give ZP a try. It’s now 2018, I could not imagine running my business without them. They are a must have for any fitness studio. Also outstanding customer care! You won’t be disappointed unless you don’t decide to sign up with them, then perhaps you will be. Go for it!!!

Best Customer Service and Experience. This is the reason I joined 4 years ago was because of how helpful they were in the process of setup and any time I had a question they figured it out. This still stands now and keeps getting better. Thank you

As a small business owner, you where a lot of hats. Zen Planner's support team helps me save time and is straight to the point in helping me solve an issue in a short amount of time. I'll always recommend Zen Planner