Great 24/7 customer support for me. Easy interface for my guests. Makes setting up new products and automating my web bookings very simple.

The Xola sales system works fantastically well. Yes, it does take a little bit of time to familiarize yourself with all of the bells and whistles, but thankfully they have 24/7 live support that is actually there and are fantastic. Not only can they explain to my dumb ass what actions I need to accomplish in order to toggle product listings and calendar settings, they will do it for me when I am confused or lazy. I love XOLA.

Xola is made primarily for Tour Operator style businesses offering experiences and doesn't offer quite as much dynamic customizability for selling merch to the people buying tickets from you. Yes, your customers can "Add-on" an item like a T-shirt to their ticket purchase before checkout, but the Xola software doesn't give you the chance to (a) provide a product image for "Add-on" items and (b) retrieve preferential information - like Shirt Size and Color - for "Add-on" items. If your goal is to sell extra promotional merch to your clients, Xola may not be right for you. But if your goal is to make the online reservation process a breeze for your clients so that they can easily self-serve their own booking needs, Xola is HANDS DOWN the best and most intuitive I have seen.

Overall, I would say the software is good-to-great (four star) and I really appreciate the five-star customer service.

Out of the three booking software platforms we currently use, Xola is my favorite. There are many pros to Xola, but let me summarize by saying it is the combination of good-to-great design along with five-star customer service.

The uncertainty regarding subscription packages. We have a "Premium" subscription that is a flat rate, which serves our needs very well. If we do not have option to continue this package in 2020, we will have to switch to another booking software platform. Which would be a shame because Xola is my preferred booking software.

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.

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.

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.

I like everything about it and love the Bots that run specials. This has worked well with us. Also, I like the integrated waiver with Wherewolf.com..

Cost is high unless you do the one where it basically passes the % charge onto the customer. I wish it had the ability to assign more than 1 bike to a time slot so that both of my bikes could run the same schedules and we did not have to have a bike 1 and a bike 2 schedule.

Best customer service ever User Friendly In comparison to Fare Harbor and Peek Pro - Hands down best!! Love the Loading screen phrases. They always make me smile Rescues are the stuff

not being able to use same guest email twice not being able to delete guest emails affiliates are not alphabetized in settings not being able to have more than 1 code on a reservation

We need to have an online booking system for a variety of services and the program accommodates those needs. I have tried a few other programs prior to Xola but have not had the need to look elsewhere since using them.

Ease of use. Setting up the new listings is fairly easy, even if there is a lot of details to fill in each time. Customer service is top notch and usually always available on chat!

No option for more POS style bookings. We have a lot of walk in customers who combine different activities but when making a booking for those though Xola at the counter, we have to creatively enter the activities. We have an arcade setting with Escape Rooms. Our arcade are is Virtual Reality with booth space rentals with various time slots. It is too difficult to create a time slot for each time and booth.

Xola's technical support is great. Every representative has been knowledgeable, timely, and friendly. I can't say enough good things about their support.

The software is very robust and satisfies all of my needs.

I wish they had more display options on the frame that shows on my website.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

Slicker guest interface as well as a more intuitive and cleaner user interface for staff.

My favorite thing about Xola has been the extremely knowledgeable and speedy support staff always being at the ready via email, phone or 24hrs a dang day via chat. I can not tell you how key it is to understand that hours of need to not happen between 9-5 somestandardtime but can happen at anytime. To me, having someone there to bounce questions and issues or even just log a feature request is key compared to the many other software companies that offer lame "help/knowledge bases" or "video tutorials" you can search forever and still not find what you need. I also appreciate that they are not resting on their laurels when it comes to updates and feature additions. Since I have been using Xola since Jan 2017 they have released many updates that actually have workflow function compared to "Wow.. we made it so you can add emoji's to your email signature" type of stuff I have suffered through as "function upgrades" on other platforms. Lastly I really like that the software has the ability to be cross platform and mobile and you can still have full functionality. It is helpful that they are working towards upgrading the app as they go so more actions can be tackled through there as well.

The mobile app for android at least could really use a "refresh" feature like on the web so I can swap between company accounts easier than restarting the app. The guide management is a growing feature so I hope more develops there sooner than later which is more about my personal workflow needs than anything else. Lastly, it is not something that has as much to do with Xola as it does with Google in that the subscribed calendar feature Xola offers does not work well with the way google imports them so I would love to see a push style calendar notification instead so those not on apple products are not left with inaccurate calendars. Again more a Google screw up than Xola but I really really want xola to rework the calendar notification option so it can integrate better cross-platform.

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.

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.

-- Online Ticket Booking Platform -- Online Scheduling System

-- 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.

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!

-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.

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.

Advance purchase and daily ACH deposits are great. Having client emails will be helpful too.

The software is easy to use and mostly intuitive. Over the past few years a number of features have been added to make it more user friendly. Customer service is very responsive. Site has very few "down" times and only the occasional issue with international customers having interface issues. Overall, we are pleased.

There is still room for improvement. The two most annoying issues are: occasionally clients make errors entering contact email information. I cannot edit the email to help customer if they are a return client (we have a 70% return rate). System will not allow edit to a preexisting email address. Second, have have 40+ guides. There is no way to alphabetize the list of my guides when assigning them to tours. They are listed in order of joining my team. This ends up making guide assignment cumbersome. Finally, Xola is expensive. I am reluctant to have customers pay a 6% additional fee and absorb cost myself. That cost is significant and concerning.

We're a TO in Europe and have more or less had a good experience with Xola with no plans to jump ship. They began working with outward bound service providers in the US and when we arrived with dozens of complicated walking tours, we tested them. Xola have listened to us and made some improvements, but several are still pending and have been for 3 years. Their CEO has been notified about these service limitations (how to price private tours, how to store age banded price ranges for future time periods with 100% flexibility, and others...) and we hope he'll get on it. In general though, Xola is a big thumbs up against the weaker providers like Rezdy and Trekksoft which are both inferior to Xola. Chat support is first class (Milos, in particular).

Xola have hired some poor account managers in the past. They need to improve on this although I am referring to former staff who were at Xola in 2016. Now gone and all ok). Xola have a free account for start ups with only a few tours. This is only available for US customers and it's unfair. They must offer this to customers in all countries.

I started a small tour company this year and I needed a professional-looking solution to manage reservations, communications, and payment. I did not want to spend a lot of time learning and implementing. I checked around with a few vendors and picked Xola. I am delighted I did!

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.