The most outstanding thing about The Studio Director is their customer service. They are thorough, polite, helpful, and knowledgable. I get an email response typically within just a few minutes of asking my questions and the response includes step by step instructions on how to proceed. Their advice is invaluable.

Being a performing arts studio that offers both group classes and private lessons, my main complaint would be that I have to create 2 different seasons for both. Because of this, I have to do a little extra work when I want to send a group email or offer discounts to students who take classes in both seasons.

I have worked in many corporate databases, and I have to say that I was pleasantly surprised when I started using The Studio Director. The dance studio I work for had already been using it for quite a few years when I became the studio manager. I was able to figure almost all of our daily functions in less than two days! The software is user-friendly, dynamic, and has great technical support! The staff are always friendly and prompt and have some kind of solution for most of our questions.

This software is dynamic! It lets us manager our studio store items and sales, our dance classes, seasons, and performances, our online client portal, our families, students, and communication methods - all in one program!

Setting up seasons can be a little complicated, depending on the various types of class set-ups we may want to offer - in the summer we have multiple 1-week camps, a 7-week session, grouped dance intensives, etc., and all require some real thought to make sure they are set-up correctly for the right dates, charges, and so they make sense to the client in their online registration portal. In addition, there is no good way to pick and choose clients to email out of a group - you can only email the whole group or an individual family, unless you can figure out which clients are which by their email address and delete them individually from the "to" line - which is near impossible!

I started with The Dance Academy 3 years ago so that is how long i've had studio director. I have a feeling studio director has awesome functionalities and capabilities but my biggest obstacle is that i don't know how to use them and i don't know what i'm not using. For day to day, the software is great. Reliable, relatively user-friendly, and makes registration easy for me. Here are a few areas i think could be improved: -building emails and email campaigns, i know there's a drip campaign feature but i tried and could not figure out how to use it. To pre-program our emails to send automatically would be super helpful -I do not want my clients to be able to click the 'do not send me emails' option upon registration because they end up missing out on important communications from us -i had to manually go through and delete over 1000 families from the system recently, could not believe i couldn't just filter a group via a tag and delete them all in bulk... instead, this took hours and hours of my time -From a customer perspective, registration experience could be easier, better looking, and i want control over the emails a customer receives upon registering. -Would be great if i could automate a customized 'welcome' email as well as an email that automatically goes out to everyone 1 month and one week before class starts to prepare them for class. My main wish would be for a studio director consultant to sit down with me, analyze our current use of the software, listen to everything we do, everything we wish we could do, and then teach us how we could be using the software better, show us things we don't know, and just make sure we are operating as efficiently and effectively as possible with the product. Sort of like a nice, thorough audit of our current usage followed by a tutorial to improve future use.

The customer service is AMAZING. They alway get back to me fast, are patient and kind, and willing to talk by phone or email any time of the day. I REALLY appreciate this and it is pretty much 60% of why i'd recommend Studio Director.

It's a bit clunky at times, report pulling should be easier, emails should be better (take a look at mail chimp, THAT is a top notch email software), there are some major inefficiencies i've experienced, I have a feeling i am utilizing maybe 30% the software capabilities so as great as the software may be, there's definitely a lack of awareness/education would like help using it more and better.

Overall we were satisfied with our use of The Studio Director. We changed to another software for functionality that was more important for customer satisfaction. There were things that the Studio Director does better than competitor tools, but there are gaps in most products in the market.

Love the ease of setup of our seasons, classes, billing and charging customers. Most functionality is there for running a dance studio or similar business.

Could not successfully list classes on our website with links directly to enrolling. No way to track private lessons and studio room usage to have a complete studio availability calendar. Not as user friendly as other studio management products.

The program is user friendly, and keeps us organized. I am so thankful for Studio Director. I mostly use and appreciate the following: the attendance, pro-rating abilities, cancelling classes, keeping track of substitutes, being able to send quick emails is easy, keeping track of who owes, who is in the performances, making charges for fundraisers, late fees is simple, the list goes on.

I can't print labels by class 1 per family only with students name it it. or sort labels by class to help organize information to be passed out in class. Sometimes the reports are tricky.

Studio Director works well as the main database for our non-profit dance education program. We track over 600 family accounts, and this system has been working smoothly for us for about 4 years.

The customer service is key - whenever we come across an issue, we get immediate support. The reports and texting features are a few others that we use frequently and have good success with.

There are reports that would be useful to us that simply do not exist. There are many choices that work well, but it's not always customizable when you have specific needs that correlate with grant fund reporting.

When we first started using the Studio Director, it was easy to figure out, set up and start using right away. Their customer service is excellent- always helpful answering questions with explanations or choices. My studio is organized and profitable with the help of their program. It has a lot of functions/features so it can be customized to fit my studio needs. I highly recommend the Studio Director.

tracking of attendance, family and student information, charges and payments.

sometimes the reports do not add up right or find all the people who owe a certain fee.

Mobile access for staff and clients

*Online Enrollment option *Date Specific Schedule option *Email Templates *Email History *Mobile accessible for staff

*Online payment SPLITS do not appear on payment detail for the day after they are entered *inability to make partial payment with Autopay feature *inability to apply SPLIT payments with Autopay feature *inability to select ACTIVE, INACTIVE, or PROSPECT for each family/student (which results in paying for inactive students)

Ease of communication with instructors, students and families. Keeping track of family balances. Comparison of year to year reports.

Sometimes the dashboard reports seem to fluctuate or not make complete sense month to month and I'm not sure if it's because the information is not entered correctly . For example our enrollment showed 10 people dropped out in the past 2 months and we know that didn't happen.

Who cares about the looks when running your studio is the main part. When talking to studio owners and dance teachers they tend to realize that running this business is a more difficult task than jumping on stage. This application gives you alot for not a really big fee. Schedules, presentations, costumer relationship (a.k. parents), and even merchandise selling. Whether its online or on your mobile phone, it's always available so you can stay connected and watch your business grow!

A simple idea behind a big solution... a dance studio owner or director is nowhere near of knowing the big administrative task of persuing their dream of teaching young ones. Alot of funtions for running their business and even taking care of payments and schedules... it even tastes like your running a big school all within this app.

Design is not their biggest attributes but who cares when everything starts to work together.

I appreciate the ability to easily pull student and family account data reports, as well as keep our dance classes and seasons well organized and archived.

The interface is clean and easy to navigate. There are various options for customizing account pages to suit your needs, for example adding custom fields for information. We utilize the Reports feature daily, which gives easy to use data that's easily transferable to Excel.

The only snag recently is trying to get families enrolled in the texting feature. I wish there was a way to send texts directly to phones with the family's opt-in code, instead of manually looking it up for each person.

The customer support at The Studio Director is amazing. We are very grateful to have live people available and ready to help when its needed.

customer service user friendly we love that we can see if email has been read

cost not sure how to personalize certain things - for example, we have recital fees based on how many dancers there are in a family. So 1 dancer is $. 2 dancers are $, 3 dancers are $, 4 dancers are $ etc.

We are still discovering new and helpful features. There are many tracking, managing, and reporting options that we use daily to help our programs run more efficiently.

The reports don't always generate exactly what I'm looking for, but with so many choices I can usually find something close that will work.

Ease of use! Lots of reporting features - I love that I can request new reports and they are usually implemented.

I wish promo codes would allow users to receive a discount when they enter the code and it could be deducted from the payment due.

As a new dance studio this program has really helped me put a lot of important information together in one spot. I have been able to focus on running the business and getting more clientel because I don't have to wait for people to call so I can register them they register themselves on line and can control what their child is doing. This has been extremely helpful in that everyone is in the correct class in the computer and everyone is able to access any information they may need. The program is fairly easy to set up, even with my computer illiteracy I could manage on my own.

That the parents control their own accounts and can get the information about tuition and dates that their child is in class through their account. It is nice to be able to handle other business without needing to worry about this.

Managing discounts for classes could be easier, it was not simple to find where to insert the information and when I have made adjustments to students tuition the discounts that should automatically change don't.

It won't take long t receive an answer from this company. I am so impressed with the return calls or emails to help me out whenever I need them...and with the speed that's amazing. They are always available to make the corrections whenever I make the mistakes!

Ease

Can't calculate for my taxes- especially my expenses each month. Would really like to have it all in one place. Wish you would add that feature.

Pros: Easy to use & great to be able to send emails. Cons: Requires too much information for Prospects, sometimes we don't get address, email & phone numbers from potential clients, so it won't let me enter them in the computer unless I have all that information. Details: Customer Service is always very quick to respond and accommodate our requests.

LOVE LOVE LOVE this software!! I used another very un-user friendly before finding Studio Director and I couldn't be more thankful!! It does so much and more!! If I can't figure something out, I can always count on getting an answer quickly with a return call or email. I HIGHLY recommend Studio Director!!

Ease of Use!

Nothing!!

I went with Studio Director when I opened my dance studio almost 7 years ago. Back then, there weren't as many choices for software. However, even as newer programs have emerged, I have no need for anything else. Studio Director meets all of our needs. I love the ease of use from both our login and the parent's. I love all the reports to help streamline and find things. I love the costume ordering help. I love the inventory and ability for an online store. I love the recital/performance planning ability. And, I love the customer service. I don't even use all of the features, but know that I could should I need to. I also think it is great that they are constantly updating it to make it better. I honestly don't think that there is another program that does this much, so easily, and with such great customer service. I highly recommend it!

I was in love with the ease of use of this software immediately! It is very user friendly and I didn't feel like I had to have a degree in computer programming to operate it. I had been with another program that was highly rated for tow months. The customer service couldn't always help me. I would call hoping to speak to an individual but got a recorded message. Instead of them calling me back, they sent an email. This happened time and again. Started using Studio Director, got into a jam, called and they actually returned my call! They helped me in layman's terms and I was able to continue working in the software. It took me over two weeks to set up the previous software, but only a week with Studio Director. Mind you, we have a small studio. Anyway, I am very pleased.

The many features it provides. We love the emailing feature from the software. We also love how it keeps everything we provide in one place including inventory.

The payment ledger can be a bit confusing. We are still learning about the software so we will see what else arises, but so far we love it.

User friendly navigation and set up. I appreciate the ease of reports and the look of the software. I've been using the software to set up for an upcoming opening of a new studio my company has started.

I frequently have questions on the best way perform various functions in the database. Customer Service is consistently knowledgeable and timely in their responses. I sincerely appreciate the lengths they go to in making sure the customer understands how to get the most out of the system. While the system is relatively user-friendly once you know the basics, having Customer Service there to help for the specialty functions is really helpful - especially Steve, Sharon and Pam.

When we switched over to Studio Director I was worried that I wouldn't have support in changing my system of billing and running my studio. I shouldn't have worried because Studio Director has the most responsive support people ever. They always get back to us within a couple of hours and they help us understand things in a timely manner, which is very important to a busy studio. Thank you Studio Director!

I am very happy with Studio Director thus far and do love the improvements. With the latest update I have to comment that the colors are bad for me as very light and difficult to read for us in the office. If we could change those ourselves that would be great but I can't find a place to do this.