Mindbody

"Learn It and Use It"

Pros: I can not state more clearly that Mindbody is the leader in what they do. They have their faults because of the way it was designed originally but they are working on those every day but no system on the market is better. I have a feeling that a couple years from now, they be much larger than what they even are now.

Cons: the old design structure of the base platform could use some updates, which they are aware of

"It is OKAY"

Comments: I think until recently we were thinking of switching to something else that is more reasonably priced. I stayed on and am now using the new marketing software. We will see if it helps automate our business more.

Pros: I like that it has an app and that our clients can easily sign up. Also, the billing makes it easy for a small business like ours.

Cons: We have been using MINDBODY for the last 3 years. I just think it is okay and think there are so many other products out there that have come out that might be better. My biggest gripe is the cost. I wish it scaled more with how big our fitness business is. We have a small business and don't do a lot of volume but in order to get the marketing features we have to pay a huge premium. I also was bothered that that they just increase costs by a lot after we used it for a year and never gave any training about the new features that we HAD to pay for. I don't like that their actual internal network and app don't help get new clients. DON'T ever pay for that feature as it takes a percentage from the sale. You are much better off doing your own sales and marketing.

"my go to for staying active "

Comments: this app stays prominently on my phone's home screen because it's just that much of a necessity and it is easy enough to use to stay on top of my classes.

Pros: i really love the reach of this app in that so many companies are involved and it's quickly become a kind of search tool of its own to find specific workout facilities or such . i frequently use the map and search feature when traveling to find my go- to styles of studios and i regularly use the app to pay for class and passes for my favorite hometown studio. very easy to see class schedules to have multiple different payment options and to keep track of the classes you've gone to in the past.

Cons: i love that the home screen shows my favorites but i don't that it doesn't take me to my favorites' home page but instead their schedules and there is no easy way to get from the schedules to the home page to lets say purchase a class pass instead of booking a specific class. to do this i have to click through several pages from the home screen to eventually get to this goal.

"MindBody Software Suite with Branded App"

Comments: Overall experience was grueling and constantly defeating to my business operations. Joining Mindbody was a poor decision in many facets. The software suite works directly against your business by directing (through email marketing etc.) new members to use the "Non-Branded" app when you already have the Branded App. The Mindbody App sends deals from other fitness studios to your customers via the Mindbody App. This isn't good for retention. If a customer want to skate around your regular member prices, the Non-Branded App offers discounts to your already regular customer (not just new customers), creating instant revenue losses when trying to gain new customers. Customer Care/Service representatives knew less about the MindBody suite than I did since I have used the software longer than the representatives that were supposed to be assisting. The integrated software for payments which ease the use of processing and tracking is a "catch 22". If your card on file for Mindbody payments expires, which happens periodically; MindBody will just shutdown your site and you cannot operate in any capacity or function. No phone call message to let you know. If this happens, you will have an onslaught of fixes because the Mindbody system will disassociate your confirmation phone numbers with your customers and they will no longer be able to confirm appointments. You will have to manually push any missed autopays etc.

Pros: The best pert of MindBody was the Branded App. One touch at the fingertips for purchases by the customer.

Cons: Constant updates that caused issues for booking, purchasing and retaining customers. My email box was virtually packed with issues that MindBody caused from an update to the app. "A fix to fix the problem caused by the fix for a problem we fixed" could be the Moto!

"MindBody for Music Schools"

Comments: Studio automation is always a plus - if you haven't used Auto-Pay, you should really try it. Automated emails are really the best part. For us, it's slow, kind of clunky, and doesn't fit our needs as well as we had hoped. Them withholding our money was definitely the main impetus for our disillusionment.

Pros: Integrated billing/scheduling/contractor & staff payroll. Automated email messaging. Automated customer billing. A large variety of services thought to improve retention and conversion. Tech support is very knowledgeable, professional and helpful.

Cons: We've been using MB for over 7 years. It was affordable when we started, but has continued to increase in cost. It is now very expensive, by comparison to other offerings. The billing system is extremely complicated to set up and is difficult to train. It's really built for yoga studios, etc., and is not a good solution for music schools. The vast majority of the add-on products they promote are not useful to those that only book recurring appointments, like music schools do. They seem to be designed for pushing individual appointment booking, which is the opposite of what we need. There are constant "improvements" which always add more page loads - when we first started, you could go to any page on the site within 2 clicks. The daily tasks you need are now, all, at least 3 page loads away, if not more. In other words, their improvements always slow us down and don't add any value that we can perceive. The reason we're going to move to something else was cemented this week: On Apr. 1 our Auto-Pays ran like normal. On Apr. 2 they sent us an email informing us that 20% of what they owed us was being held to protect our clients due to changes from the COVID-19 pandemic. We were left scrambling for cash to cover checks we had already written. There was no warning that they were going to short us. They claimed that the "entire processing industry" was doing this, but I can find no evidence that that is true. It looks like they were holding back our money to protect themselves.