Xola

4.7 (577)
Write a Review!
Booking, marketing and distribution platform

Overall rating

4.7 /5
(577)
Value for Money
4.5/5
Features
4.4/5
Ease of Use
4.6/5
Customer Support Software
4.8/5

96%
recommended this app
Sort by

577 Reviews

Jennifer
Jennifer
Overall rating
  • Industry: Entertainment
  • Company size: 2–10 Employees
  • Used Daily for 2+ years
  • Review Source

Overall rating

  • Value for Money
  • Ease of Use
  • Customer Support Software
  • Likelihood to recommend 10.0 /10

Easy to use, fast responsive trouble shooting

Reviewed on 2020-06-27

The professional look, automated emails, easy to use customer facing links really set my business...

The professional look, automated emails, easy to use customer facing links really set my business apart from competitors as looking professional and organized.

Connectivity with 3rd party sites makes my life easier.

I use several 3rd party vendors and have to set up back end calendars on places like Viatour, Expedia and AirBnB experiences; these companies use booking software that is so cumbersome, redundant and/or incomplete its like using caveman software in comparison to the ease and speed of Xola's software. Its also easy for my employees to use, everyone gets it 1st time you show it to them.

Pros

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.

Cons

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

Alternatives Considered

Bókun

Reasons for Switching to Xola

Recommended by a friend.
Pelin
Overall rating
  • Industry: Hospitality
  • Company size: 10,000+ Employees
  • Used Daily for 6-12 months
  • Review Source

Overall rating

  • Value for Money
  • Ease of Use
  • Customer Support Software
  • Likelihood to recommend 10.0 /10

Xola is great for tour and activity management

Reviewed on 2020-11-26

Xola is useful for us to collect and manage all bookings from a single platform with really low...

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.

Pros

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.

Cons

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.

Alternatives Considered

Bookeo and FareHarbor

Reasons for Choosing Xola

ResNexus was a better alternative in terms of the number of integrated booking platforms.

Switched From

ResNexus

Reasons for Switching to Xola

Online booking platfrom coverage of Xola was better then the others.
Caitlin
Caitlin
Overall rating
  • Used Daily for 2+ years
  • Review Source

Overall rating

  • Value for Money
  • Ease of Use
  • Customer Support Software
  • Likelihood to recommend 5.0 /10

Excellent interface and usability but rigid in its features and customization

Reviewed on 2018-05-03

Easy to train staff, nice mobile features.

Easy to train staff, nice mobile features.

Pros

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

Cons

- 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.

Response from Xola

Hi Caitlin!
Thank you for the candid feedback. We really appreciate customers like you who give us the feedback like this so we can grow. I wanted to address your concerns and reach out to you over some of them as well. We have some new features that I believe your company will benefit from and I am going to make sure they are turned on for you and that you are aware of them. Our Support Team is based out of US as well as Europe so we can give 24 hour support. You can reach out via chat, email, or phone anytime of the day and there will be someone available to help. I look forward to connecting with you to talk over your feedback soon! -Jessica

Lance
Overall rating
  • Industry: Leisure, Travel & Tourism
  • Company size: 11–50 Employees
  • Used Daily for 2+ years
  • Review Source

Overall rating

  • Value for Money
  • Ease of Use
  • Customer Support Software
  • Likelihood to recommend 10.0 /10

Just Use It.

Reviewed on 2019-12-13

Pros

The best software on the market for tour bookings and management. I’ve researched over 20 other competitors- don’t waste your time if you’re shopping around- get Xola.

Cons

It doesnt have some of the nuances we would like to see, and they changed their booking layout in a way that I think is not an improvement. However, I think they will continue to make improvements

Response from Xola

Hi Lance,

Thanks so much for your kind review. We're glad to have your continued support and will continue to make improvements!

Cheers,
Sophie

Jesse
Overall rating
  • Industry: Leisure, Travel & Tourism
  • Company size: 2–10 Employees
  • Used Daily for 6-12 months
  • Review Source

Overall rating

  • Value for Money
  • Ease of Use
  • Customer Support Software
  • Likelihood to recommend 10.0 /10

This made my life so much easier

Reviewed on 2019-12-11

Speed of money flow and updated accounting is a breeze. The ability to adjust hops with minimal...

Speed of money flow and updated accounting is a breeze. The ability to adjust hops with minimal key strokes and everything automatically adjusts to our website is a life saver. And overall, the customer service is top notch.

Pros

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.

Cons

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

Response from Xola

Jesse, we are so glad Xola has been useful for your business. Thank you for the feedback on private tours. We're always seeking to improve our product and service so your feedback is super useful!

Randi
Overall rating
  • Industry: Entertainment
  • Company size: 2–10 Employees
  • Used Daily for 2+ years
  • Review Source

Overall rating

  • Value for Money
  • Ease of Use
  • Customer Support Software
  • Likelihood to recommend 10.0 /10

Satisfied

Reviewed on 2019-12-06

Pros

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

Cons

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

Alternatives Considered

Bookeo

Reasons for Switching to Xola

I liked the rep that I spoke with, and found the Software to be user friendly

Response from Xola

Hi Randi-
So glad you find Xola easy to use. Thanks for taking the time to write a review!
Best,
Sophie

Joann
Overall rating
  • Industry: Consumer Services
  • Company size: 2–10 Employees
  • Used Daily for 1+ year
  • Review Source

Overall rating

  • Value for Money
  • Ease of Use
  • Customer Support Software
  • Likelihood to recommend 2.0 /10

Refunds and customer support

Reviewed on 2020-03-23

The only benefit is ease of booking

The only benefit is ease of booking

Pros

It is pretty easy to use. There isn't much I like about it.

Cons

I don't like the refund process the summary especially
The fact that they take there 3% right after a booking
Customer support at other places wil do things for you

Joseph
Joseph
Overall rating
  • Industry: Maritime
  • Company size: 11–50 Employees
  • Used Daily for 2+ years
  • Review Source

Overall rating

  • Value for Money
  • Ease of Use
  • Customer Support Software
  • Likelihood to recommend 6.0 /10

Need more customization for coupons campaigns

Reviewed on 2018-07-20

Overall with some work around it's bee useful for our company. They have been steady on feature...

Overall with some work around it's bee useful for our company. They have been steady on feature updates and made some great improvements over the year. Their customer service is great and willing to take advice on potential updates and limitations of the software.

Pros

Easy to use, higher level GUI that makes it easy for non-computer savvy users. Customer support has always been great, quick chat feature allows me to work in Xola and resolve simple and complex problems. Web based cloud service works great in real-time bookings, availability.

System is fully able to handle online bookings, agent bookings, all within the scope of our services. It automates the confirmation emails, processes payments and sends reminders

Cons

We offer kayaking, super simple but we need 3 options. Single Kayak, Double Kayak and a seat in a Double kayak. To fix this we constantly have to check and double check. If we we're able to offer seats and still use shared inventory correctly we could offer cheaper rate options for budget concerned customers.

We use coupon campaigns to represent 3rd party tickets / vendors. I really wish we had a backup database in case a campaign accidentally gets deleted or corrupt.

Heavy RAM usage and can cause delays when we have a robust calendar and multiple tours / shared inventory

System crashes when pricing is updated. Users need to log off and back on to resolve this issue.

Response from Xola

Thank you so much for your candid review! I would like to reach out and get more information on your business and the features you would like to see. I will be reaching out soon and I look forward to hearing from you! -Jessica

Wes
Wes
Overall rating
  • Industry: Entertainment
  • Company size: 51–200 Employees
  • Used Daily for 2+ years
  • Review Source

Overall rating

  • Value for Money
  • Ease of Use
  • Customer Support Software
  • Likelihood to recommend 10.0 /10

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

Reviewed on 2019-01-04

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

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

Pros

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.

Cons

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.

Response from Xola

Thank you for the feedback! We are glad to see you are enjoying Xola. Our team is constantly working on new features and reporting is one of them. We recently came out with our Custom Reporting tool, that I hope is helping you retrieve more data. I will be reaching out soon to get more feedback from you on what you are wanting to see so I can report this to our team. Look forward to talking to you soon. -Jessica

Luis Jared
Luis Jared
Overall rating
  • Industry: Sports
  • Company size: 51–200 Employees
  • Used Daily for 2+ years
  • Review Source

Overall rating

  • Value for Money
  • Ease of Use
  • Customer Support Software
  • Likelihood to recommend 9.0 /10

Need some extra features - Great App

Reviewed on 2019-01-11

We have been working for years with Xola and everything goes great, we love it! If only we can have...

We have been working for years with Xola and everything goes great, we love it! If only we can have this extra info in the booking detail it would be cool.

Pros

Is easy to use, my customers find it useful and the best feature for our business is to get Google Analytics data and the new Xola custom reports.

Cons

We really need to show more info in the booking detail not just day picker. Maybe some custom fields like a map, conditional inputs, description, etc. I know we can get this info in the questionnaire after booking, but we believe that displaying questions like "you need pick up?" "are you arriving in airplane or cruiser?"

Response from Xola

Thank you for your feedback! We are happy to see you and your customers love Xola. I am going to put your feedback about the booking details page into our features team. If they have any questions they will be reaching out. Thank you again for your feedback!

Jennifer
Overall rating
  • Industry: Entertainment
  • Company size: 11–50 Employees
  • Used Daily for 6-12 months
  • Review Source

Overall rating

  • Value for Money
  • Ease of Use
  • Customer Support Software
  • Likelihood to recommend 9.0 /10

Come for the booking software, stay for the customer service.

Reviewed on 2019-12-07

Positive experience, nice team, good software.

Positive experience, nice team, good software.

Pros

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.

Cons

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.

Alternatives Considered

Peek Pro

Reasons for Choosing Xola

We had major issues with Springboard VR's booking widget where customers would make a reservation through our website, the software would take their money but not make their booking. Or it would take their money and them immediately refund the charge back to their card. It was a mess. By the end of the summer (over the span of about 3 months), we had over $7,000 in refunded charges from customers, which just caused mayhem for us, our bookkeeper and CPA. Every time we contacted Springboard support about the issues, they couldn't give us any answers and basically told us there was nothing wrong showing on their end. They made it seem like it was our fault that their software wasn't working properly, so we tried everything on our end to get it to work. No luck and no offer to help or compensation from Springboard. It was a terrible customer service experience. After a couple months of this, Springboard finally determined it was an issue between their system and Square. They suggested we switch our entire system to Stripe and that wasn't really ideal... To be fair, Springboard is not a booking company. The booking widget was an add-on to their normal service, which is arcade management software for virtual reality centers. We're much happier with a company that focuses on booking.

Response from Xola

Hi Jennifer,

Thanks so much for taking the time to leave this review. Really appreciate your thoughtfulness and sharing about your experience!
I'll be having someone reach out to see if we can solve the issue around the buttons re-directing but it may be a limitation with your CMS.

Thanks,
Sophie

Susie
Overall rating
  • Industry: Sports
  • Company size: 2–10 Employees
  • Used Daily for 2+ years
  • Review Source

Overall rating

  • Value for Money
  • Ease of Use
  • Customer Support Software
  • Likelihood to recommend 10.0 /10

Responsive to needs and continually improving the software from my feedback.

Reviewed on 2018-02-02

All booking info in one place and so easy to keep on track of what is coming up for both myself and...

All booking info in one place and so easy to keep on track of what is coming up for both myself and my employees. Also, easy reporting to see trends, end of month reports, etc.
I can access the info from anywhere - even when away on vacation.
Also, I believe more customers will book, when it is right there with a "book now" button - they don't need to call, or email and so they do more impulse scheduling. I even use the feature to be able to contact those that don't complete a booking and it almost always results in a booking, once I've had the chance to contact them and answer the questions that may have stopped them from booking on their first impulse. Without Xola, I would never have even known they were considering booking....that results in more bookings and more satisfied customers.
My customers all rave about the ease of booking - Happy Customers means repeat customers.

Pros

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!

Cons

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.

Response from Xola

Hi Susie,

So happy to see that both you and customers enjoy using Xola! Your feedback helps us improve our software. Cheers!

-Kris

Verified Reviewer
Overall rating
  • Industry: Airlines/Aviation
  • Company size: 2–10 Employees
  • Used Daily for 2+ years
  • Review Source

Overall rating

  • Value for Money
  • Ease of Use
  • Customer Support Software
  • Likelihood to recommend 6.0 /10

C'MON features!

Reviewed on 2017-12-18

Pros

I started with Xola back when the booking software genre was almost nonexistent. Back then there was Bookeo and that was about it. Now I get a sales call every week from competitors. Peek Pro seems to be the only software that is more feature rich but they are pushy and spam your customers if they get ahold of your data base so beware about them. Xola has an easy and beautiful interface. Non-pushy sales people. Help when you need it. Great ability to manage customers IF you never have to reschedule. The cost is lower than other companies if your doing volume greater than 5K a month. A good choice but you need a dedicated reservationist if you are offering an experience were rescheduling is common.

Cons

When pricing out a booking software company for your business consider the cost of an employee to manually have to reschedule your customers if your experience is prone to cancellation i.e. rain, wind, snow etc. and add it to the monthly cost of Xola to get an accurate idea of the true cost. The point of having a booking software is so you can concentrate on running your business and making it grow. Playing secretary is part of owning a small business but when it takes from R&D, marketing, quality of life it can kill you. Xola only allows your customer to book and reschedule themselves prior to their scheduled date. If you cancel the day of the adventure the customer has NO ability to reschedule if your experience is cancelled due to weather. If you are in a tourist area where you don't have an option to reschedule people because they are on vacation or the experience that you provide is indoor and cancellations rarely occur Xola is a great choice. If your experience is subject to weather and you take the entirety of the experience cost in advance, Xola has fallen behind severely compared to the the other big name in booking software. I provide Hot Air Balloon rides in an area that is prone to strong winds and rain during the season. My demographic is local and I sell my experience to customers that can and know that rescheduling is normal. I leave a recorded message the day of the flight and if the flight is cancelled there is no way in Xola to email the passengers a link to reschedule! Xola allows the customer to select another date prior to the experience and you can set those perimeters but after the customers first date choice, if it is cancelled, that is where you are left back in the 80's. In order to get your customers rescheduled on another date you need to do it over the phone and manually move them in Xola and online for it to move in real time. Xola has completely missed the boat for the experience provider that has to cancel for environmental reasons. I have submitted this feature request for two years now and it has shown no movement. They said it is not a common feature request and told us we could give the customer a "store credit". A credit sounded good until we realized that the customer would have to put al their personal detail starting with their name again to go that route. That is just not an appropriate thing to have your customers who are paying good money have to do and it looks unprofessional. I know for a fact two other operations left Xola for a booking company that offers a solution to the common problem of rescheduling for us outdoor providers. I think that they perhaps specialize in the hiking tours, or biking tour company that goes wind, rain, or shine and just refunds their customer if they cancel. Perhaps most of Xola's merchants operate in tourist areas where the customer does not reschedule because they are going home from vacation. The irony is that they offer our customers a great option to reschedule themselves prior to their first date. Why not extend that availability to after the date in case the experience is cancelled and the customer doesn't want a refund or via policy has to reschedule.

For customers booking online, selecting a date and paying is seamless. The merchant can customize a checklist for the customer i.e. what to bring, what's included, a map the meeting point. We receive just the odd phone call asking for clarification and payment is quick. On the other hand we need to hire staff to answer the phones just to rebook our customers on days it is raining or too windy to fly. On average another 40 hours of phone calls and talk time is added to our expense because of the lack of a customizable reschedule link we could send our customers so they could reschedule themselves. Customers like not having to leave voicemails if we are on the other line and %95 of customers would rather NOT wait to speak to a reservationist to go over dates that may or may not be filled. It's really frustrating and I do not believe we are the only one or one of the few merchants that need or would find a simple reschedule feature useful as they have implied to us.

The only other con is that they now leave the price on the gift certificates when a customer buys one. This was not always the case. Xola has a mailable and printable gift certificate option which we utilize heavily and you can now offer experiences at a discount but they for some reason notify the recipient of the price. We have been told and agree with several of our customers that leaving the price on the gift certificate is tacky. It has not always been that way, just with the recent update. I understand if you are giving a cash card to someone, you would need and want the recipient to know the price to avoid an embarrassing moment at a store or restaurant but who leaves the price tag on a gift? Xola gives the recipient a code so the recipient can book only and that process is easy but it's clear how much nanny spent and loves them the moment they get the printed gift certificate or email.

We went from chasing a couple hundred bucks a week to help pay for a hobby we love and turned it in to a serious 2 person small business with gross income in the six digits, well 3 person and income in the 5 digits because we need someone to handle all the manual reschedules. Feature requests do get noticed but at about 1.5 year turn around. It's been two years since we have been asking for this. We have grown and enjoyed Xola, we just for their sake since the booking software market is so competitive now want to see them be #1 and have the client base Peek Pro does as they are a lot more ethical but we fear they won't if this feature isn't added and if the feature turnaround isn't quicker.

Our review may appear negative even though we enjoy most of Xola. We understand all businesses have their little intricacies but we have been an experience provider for over ten years now and have offered many activities, rescheduling is a part of booking management no matter what adventure you provide, we and we are certain most other experience providers agree, just understand you will NOT have that option with Xola. Xola could be the best by far with just a couple more features.

Josef
Overall rating
  • Industry: Leisure, Travel & Tourism
  • Company size: 51–200 Employees
  • Used Daily for 2+ years
  • Review Source

Overall rating

  • Value for Money
  • Ease of Use
  • Customer Support Software
  • Likelihood to recommend 8.0 /10

Xola: Almost Perfect, But Definitely Worth It

Reviewed on 2022-04-08

Xola has helped us integrate all of our booking solutions into a single dashboard and streamlined...

Xola has helped us integrate all of our booking solutions into a single dashboard and streamlined the process of connecting with customers and letting them book our product easily and efficiently.

Pros

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

Cons

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.

Alternatives Considered

Peek Pro and FareHarbor

Reasons for Switching to Xola

The pricing and customer support.

Response from Xola

Hi Josef! Thank you for the review and the candid feedback! Your CSM is aware of your feedback and will continue to advocate on your behalf to our product team. Lots of new things coming your way from Xola, and I believe most of your cons will be turned into pros! Please continue to give us your feedback as it helps us grow as a company!

Verified Reviewer
Overall rating
  • Used Daily for 6-12 months
  • Review Source

Overall rating

  • Ease of Use
  • Customer Support Software
  • Likelihood to recommend 9.0 /10

Xola has streamlined our booking process and made it easier for customers to sign-up online.

Reviewed on 2018-05-03

The overall ease of the booking process for our customers and even on the backend has been a huge...

The overall ease of the booking process for our customers and even on the backend has been a huge improvement in saving time and being able to track all of our customers bookings.

Pros

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.

Cons

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.

Response from Xola

Thank you for the review! I hope that you have found our new calendar features useful and hope they address your concerns! We are glad to see you find Xola easy to use!

Laurel
Overall rating
  • Industry: Entertainment
  • Company size: 11–50 Employees
  • Used Daily for 6-12 months
  • Review Source

Overall rating

  • Value for Money
  • Ease of Use
  • Customer Support Software
  • Likelihood to recommend 6.0 /10

Great for simple stuff

Reviewed on 2018-10-19

Overall, Xola is great for everyday transactions. But it's incredibly difficult to get the...

Overall, Xola is great for everyday transactions. But it's incredibly difficult to get the behind-the-scenes data we need about those transactions and the website can be buggy as hell.

Pros

It's intuitive for basic, everyday needs: making reservations, taking payment online or at the door, making coupons, rescheduling reservations, etc. Most of the functions are self-explanatory. To refund someone, you click the "refund" button. To make an additional charge, you click the "charge" button. Nothing too complicated and nothing too difficult to find.

Cons

Behind-the-scenes stuff can be difficult to access. For example, I can't see all the people who were originally scheduled for a specific date in order to determine how many people reschedule away from that date. I also can't filter my tag searches. I want to be able to search for "all bookings with [X tag] between [Y date] and [Z date]." To do that, I would need to download a full report (which is NOT an intuitive process) and then manually search for these tags.
There is also not an intuitive way to split payments! If the reservation has a coupon or a non-standard ticket price and they want to split payments at the door, we need to have a calculator on hand and god help us if someone on a reservation with a coupon wants to pay for more than one ticket.
When a customer's card doesn't work on a payment, it won't tell me why. Which means we can't tell the customers why and there are five extra steps they need to take which is inconvenient for all.
Also: it's buggy as hell. I can't refresh the page because it will log me out. I can't click the back button because that takes me to the first Dashboard (where only the dates and times show up and not the reservation names) no matter what page I am on. Two computers cannot take payment at the same time. The capacity changes don't always take. Sometimes, the website won't scroll.

Response from Xola

Thank you for the candid feedback! We are always striving to make Xola better for our customers. I am going to reach out and get some more information from you and see if we can't help out with the behind the scenes stuff you mentioned. I believe we have some features coming out soon that may interest you and your business. Look forward to speaking with you soon! -Jessica

Brian
Overall rating
  • Industry: Tobacco
  • Company size: 11–50 Employees
  • Used Daily for 2+ years
  • Review Source

Overall rating

  • Value for Money
  • Ease of Use
  • Customer Support Software
  • Likelihood to recommend 9.0 /10

Xola for Small Tourism Business

Reviewed on 2019-12-11

Fantastic! I encourage you to look seriously at them - they are the best fit by far for us and I...

Fantastic! I encourage you to look seriously at them - they are the best fit by far for us and I have interviewed and ran trails with the major competitors.

Pros

Allows for tours that have minimums - Our tours require 8 person to sign up in order for a tour to go (minimum). Xola handles this portion far far better than any of the other competitors and I have met with a number of them. If you do minimums, and care about customer communication, this is a must use.

Software works with many options
Very strong amount of features
Very strong customer support
Reasonable competitive pricing
Great analytics
They will listen to and often times implement feature requests
Good integration with booking site (Yelp / Google / TA)

Highly recommended!

Cons

App on Android can be a bit buggy and frustrating - not a deal breaker. Sometimes you may have to click buttons a bunch before it responds or have to shut it down and reload it. Won't allow you to take a call and check the app when roaming (this does work if you have active internet).

Would like to see further integration with hotel and other booking companies

Alternatives Considered

Peek Pro, FareHarbor and Bókun

Response from Xola

Hi Brian,

Thank you so much for taking the time to leave a thoughtful review. I'm so glad Xola works for your business needs and you are happy with the integrations! We're always looking to improve and appreciate your feedback about the Android app! Stay tuned for more updates in 2020!

Thanks,
Sophie

Kasy
Overall rating
  • Industry: Entertainment
  • Company size: 11–50 Employees
  • Used Daily for 2+ years
  • Review Source

Overall rating

  • Value for Money
  • Ease of Use
  • Customer Support Software
  • Likelihood to recommend 7.0 /10

Corky’s

Reviewed on 2022-06-09

Is a well developed platform and always room to improve

Is a well developed platform and always room to improve

Pros

System is user friendly, clean and easy for backend users

Cons

Partner fees are costly. Unable to tire pricing in one listing for separate days

Alternatives Considered

Checkfront and FareHarbor

Response from Xola

Hi Kasy, Thanks for the review! Glad to see you enjoy using Xola and find us easy to use. We do have a way to tier pricing for different days in our schedule creator. I am going to have your Customer Success Manager reach out to you to discuss this further and get it set up with you to your liking.

Matt
Overall rating
  • Industry: Consumer Services
  • Company size: 2–10 Employees
  • Used Daily for 2+ years
  • Review Source

Overall rating

  • Ease of Use
  • Likelihood to recommend 9.0 /10

Very easy and convenient to use

Reviewed on 2018-10-26

I am an employee of the owner who uses Xola for Buffalo Pedal Tours. I really like that as I'm...

I am an employee of the owner who uses Xola for Buffalo Pedal Tours. I really like that as I'm headed to a tour I can just open the app and within 5 seconds I'm looking at the name of the person who booked and it only shows tours that are booked for me. I really like that I don't have to "check the schedule" to see when I work, like restaurant staff, since sometimes tours are booked only a day in advanced. The notification system through email ensures I'm not missing any tours I've been booked. So overall its a great piece of software. Keep up the good work and keep improving!

Pros

-I love that with my tours I can just go onto the app and check without having to keep track myself of what days I work.
-The app is intuitive, clean, and easy to use.
-I like that I can see my bookings on the desktop site and sync the calendar with my gmail calendar.
-I like that when I get booked a tour it sends an email to me.

Cons

Improvements that can be made:

-The desktop site does not allow me to see see the Questionnaire. I have to reference the app to see what the customer wrote.
-I don't have the need for a credit card reader, yet the app asks me every time I open it. Once I accidentally said "yes" while wearing headphones and thought I may have gone deaf when I high pitch tone assaulted my eardrums.
-I can't confirm a tour through the app. Its inconvenient because then I have to find the specific email and then enter my login thru a web browser. In-app tour confirmation would be much less hassle.

Response from Xola

Here at Xola we are always trying to improve our software for our customers! Your feedback helps us do that, so thank you!

Sean
Overall rating
  • Industry: Recreational Facilities & Services
  • Company size: Self Employed
  • Used Weekly for 1+ year
  • Review Source

Overall rating

  • Value for Money
  • Ease of Use
  • Customer Support Software
  • Likelihood to recommend 10.0 /10

First-rate support

Reviewed on 2020-03-22

Pros

The strength of this company is the fantastic support it provides for its clients. This is both at the set-up stage, and also after implementation has started. It is available 24/7, and if the on-line platform is not sufficient to solve the technical issue or the user-end challenge, a telephone conversation can be easily scheduled.
This was even the case at the beginning of my using the platform: I was unfamiliar with the product and needed a lot of help to navigate the site initially. This is natural, of course, but what surprised me was when I had not used a particular function after a period of time (and so I had forgotten how to perform a specific function), the support team was extremely patient with me and with my rather elementary question.

The support continued as I made non-standard bookings for my bicycle tours - each time I contacted them, the support team walked me through the necessary steps. They were helpful, polite, and understanding. Sometimes I felt embarrassed by my requests (oh, of course - duh!) “I’m sorry for bothering you” I would say afterwards, but they never made me feel the question was unjustified.

In sum, I have only good things to say about the interpersonal contact I had with Xola. I would rate them 11/10 for this aspect.

The platform itself is a good one, although there are some minor limitations for my purposes that I experienced. A few little tweaks for payments and bookings would be good.
8/10 in this category.

Cons

No difficulties, just a couple of limitations for payments and parameters for booking.

Response from Xola

Dear Sean,

Thank you for such a glowing review. We're so glad you love our support and we're always happy to answer questions and appreciate your honest feedback about our product.

Best,
Sophie

victoria
Overall rating
  • Industry: Leisure, Travel & Tourism
  • Company size: 11–50 Employees
  • Used Daily for 2+ years
  • Review Source

Overall rating

  • Value for Money
  • Ease of Use
  • Customer Support Software
  • Likelihood to recommend 10.0 /10

From paper reservations book to online office

Reviewed on 2019-09-17

Canʻt say enough good things about our experience with Xola. We have been with them almost from the...

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!

Pros

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!

Cons

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!

Response from Xola

Hi Victoria,
Thank you so much for sharing this glowing review! We're glad to have had you for so long and look forward to continuing to work with you and your team.
Thanks,
Sophie

Chris
Chris
Overall rating
  • Used Daily for 2+ years
  • Review Source

Overall rating

  • Value for Money
  • Ease of Use
  • Customer Support Software
  • Likelihood to recommend 10.0 /10

Xola has made my business function with ease and automation!

Reviewed on 2018-02-02

Xola is feature rich so we have gained many benefits across the board for our company including...

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.

Pros

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

Cons

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.

Response from Xola

Hi Chris,

Thank you so much for the review! We are happy to see that you are finding Xola to be full of rich features.

-Kris

Kevin "The Dark Ranger"
Overall rating
  • Industry: Entertainment
  • Company size: 2–10 Employees
  • Used Daily for 2+ years
  • Review Source

Overall rating

  • Value for Money
  • Ease of Use
  • Customer Support Software
  • Likelihood to recommend 10.0 /10

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

Reviewed on 2020-03-23

Xola software has always been good, but recently it has become even better with lots of additional...

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.

Pros

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.

Cons

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.

Response from Xola

Dear Kevin,

Your kind words always make us smile and we appreciate you taking the time to share such a glowing review publicly.

Cheers,
Sophie

Nicholas
Nicholas
Overall rating
  • Industry: Entertainment
  • Company size: 11–50 Employees
  • Used Daily for 2+ years
  • Review Source

Overall rating

  • Value for Money
  • Ease of Use
  • Customer Support Software
  • Likelihood to recommend 9.0 /10

Great experience with Xola - highly recommend!

Reviewed on 2018-07-24

We do not pass fees on to customers and we have a clean and robust booking system. Reliable and...

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.

Pros

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.

Cons

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.

Response from Xola

Thank you so much for your review. We think our team is great and we are glad to hear you do too! I would like to reach out to you and see which issues with reporting that have not been addressed. Look forward to talking with you soon! -Jessica

Mário
Overall rating
  • Industry: Hospitality
  • Company size: 2–10 Employees
  • Used Daily for 1+ year
  • Review Source

Overall rating

  • Value for Money
  • Ease of Use
  • Customer Support Software
  • Likelihood to recommend 10.0 /10

Wine Tourism

Reviewed on 2022-04-04

I've been using XOLA.COM for more than one year, and it's been an outstanding experience. All the...

I've been using XOLA.COM for more than one year, and it's been an outstanding experience. All the features that you need to run online sales are present.
The support is excellent.
Overall, after using Regiondo, Bokun and Fareharbour, I found the app with exceptional features

Pros

The software has all the features you need to accept online bookings, as well marketing tools.

Cons

The only thing to improve is the translations.
It could have more OTA's connections.

Response from Xola

Thank you for the review! We are glad to see you are loving our Software! Please reach out to us anytime with your request for OTA connections and we can see what we can do.