Revenue was slow in the initial days but now, it is bigger than ever. The last two months have been our best months in the last 10 years and I believe part of it is because of Bookee.
I have been teaching pole dance since 2013. I think I was one of the first ones to start teaching dedicated pole dance outside dance studios. Although I was traveling and teaching, I wasn’t very sure of how a pole dance studio would work.
Since I had a small client base, I started a boutique studio.
I had no idea whether to take drop-ins or memberships or unlimited. Slowly, we figured out and settled on selling a spot or a pole instead of unlimited memberships.
There were a lot of challenges that came our way, actually:
Mindbody
Their software is not business-friendly unless you pay a really high price. They put you amongst all the other businesses, and advertise other businesses over yours making it extremely hard for people to find your business.
Plus, it is clunky and not at all clean.
Another big part was the user experience.
I do a lot of bachelorette parties. It is a golden cookie for my business. I charge almost $350 for 5 people for 75 mins.
For this, I need the experience to be top-notch. It was very difficult for my clients to book and I could never integrate Mindbody on my website in a pleasing way. So, I started using Square Space but then I had to pay extra for it. After they would schedule the class, I had to add these clients to Mindbody for emails and recording purposes.
Some of them wouldn’t get added and some of them would get double booked. It was a whole mess.
The breaking point was the price that Mindbody was charging.
Additionally, they were starting to charge a 7-9% processing charge on a few cards like AMEX. I wasn’t okay with this.
I remember that I loved the website integration that Bookee was offering.
Also, I saw that there were other pole studios that were using Bookee which was helpful.
The team went the extra mile to help with the onboarding process.
I had a very personal experience right from the beginning which I still value.
And the price of Bookee is very suitable for the value that they offer.
I looked at Wellness Living and Glofox. Didn’t find them too impressive.
Apart from booking and scheduling classes, I do a lot of online classes, travel camps and bachelorette parties.
I have used zoom, courses, camps, and all the other functionalities, honestly.
Yet to use videos, I think it will be really good for the business.
The customer app that Bookee offers is the highlight. Our clients love the app.
The software should be something that you can depend on and is easy. Bookee does a great job!
It is not too much. It is not too complicated. It is just perfect.
Last month I signed up for a friend’s class who is using Mindbody, it was very difficult and I just couldn't find her business on the app. I thought to myself that I don't miss this at all.
One way in which Bookee has really eased our life is by reducing the number of questions clients asked.
Earlier we used to get tons of questions about how to book or how to cancel a class because the software was very confusing. Bookee saves us a lot of time.
Revenue was slow in the initial days but now, it is bigger than ever. The last two months have been our best months in the last 10 years and I believe part of it is because of Bookee.
