When my wife started a dance studio in 2018, we never considered adding online class booking or appointment scheduling to our website. Despite my IT background, we thought it would be too complex and difficult to maintain.
That was until we found a solution in the market that could meet our needs at the time. We dove in, and settled on a booking software that we used for several years.
MISSING KEY FEATURES, HARD TO USE, NOT IN OUR LANGUAGE
The only issue was that the software we chose was missing key features that were indispensable for our company, like a simple point of sale function, a sign-in kiosk, commission management, payroll reporting, multi-location management, and lots more. And don’t even get me started on their customer support….
We also faced issues regularly with usability, both on our side, and with our clients. Our solution worked—barely—but we knew we needed something better.
We explored other solutions, but in terms of features and affordability, nothing worked.
SO I DID SOME HACKS
I spent weeks (months, actually) building custom modules on top of our existing software. Using rudimentary (and perhaps questionable) coding and automation techniques, I hacked in a sign-in kiosk, a payroll reporting solution, commission management, multi-language support, multi-location support, and more.
It worked fine, until we realized that I was the sole point of failure for my wife’s entire technology stack. And even with all of my hacks, we still didn’t have quite the system we envisioned.
WE STARTED OVER AND BUILT OUR OWN
Over the course of the past few years, I’ve learned more than I’d ever care to know about the unique set of problems associated with running a service-based business. More importantly, I’ve learned how to solve those problems with AOT.
AOT is the culmination of more than 8 years of hard work, grizzly experience, and on-the-job learning. It is the solution we will use as long as we run our business.
So rather than trying to “hack” your way to a semi-usable appointment scheduling and membership management solution for your company that doesn’t quite meet your needs, take it from somebody who’s been there and done that.
Give AOT a try (for free). We think you’ll love it – although our opinion may be slightly biased 🙂
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