Why We Stick With Zen Planner

Around 2007, we started using Mind Body. I am unable to recount the specific problems we had with that product back then, and I’m not sure that it matters anymore. Those bugs have probably long since been fixed. Around 2009, we switched to Zen Planner, because our desk staff was simply having too many problems getting their job done using Mind Body.

We went through a difficult transition. For six months, all of our new members went on Zen and all of our old members stayed on Mind Body. At the time, we were still small enough that we could manage two platforms and not really worry about the consequences of people booking slots in the same class via different data bases.

To make sure that Zen was working correctly, we opened a separate checking account for all money billed via Zen. We wanted to know with certainty that Zen was better than what we had before we committed to switching our entire membership. (I strongly recommend this approach for anyone considering changing their billing software. It insures that you don’t disrupt current members unless and until you are sure that the new product works better than the old, which is by no means a certainty.)

Our staff was far happier with Zen, and I was able to get a clearer picture of our business. We ultimately migrated all of our members to Zen. As an owner, I had two primary concerns: (1) that everyone was getting billed correctly; and (2) that our members were able to register easily for classes. To this day, I do not consider a third function (3) WOD tracking, to be a matter of enough importance to justify moving 1600 members to another platform. Our customers expect only (1) and (2) and they use to Beyond the White Board for (3) WOD tracking. (We pay BTWB a monthly charge for our affiliate and allow all our members to use the software for free.)

From a software design perspective, (1) and (2) are almost entirely distinct functions from (3), and I believe that any vendor trying to do all three of these things is going to have a problem. In general, there is a large market for software packages that do (1) and (2). Once a software company tries to add (3) they have cut their market down to CrossFit in general and to CrossFit affiliates that are willing to switch in particular.

It is difficult for me to imagine a compelling enough reason to switch all of our  members from Zen and BTWB to an integrated package, even if that package were certified as extraordinary. The switching costs are simply too high for us at this point.

Basically, I have come to feel about Zen Planner like a famous author felt about his word-processing program (the now discontinued) WordStar: "I'm told there are better programs, but I'm also told there are better alphabets." 

This is not to say that Zen is necessarily the best option for a new affiliate. I have several problems with Zen. Though their customer service department is polite and responsive to most issues, there are some bugs that I expect will never be resolved.

Zen allows people to register only once for a free class. If someone registers and does not show, they can never again register for a free class, unless we go in and delete them from the class they missed. 

The dashboard for Zen is pretty much meaningless. There are tremendous inconsistencies in what constitutes a “member” and what constitutes a “membership.” For example, if Zen says we had 10 memberships drop and 20 members join over a given time period, that does not mean we have grown by 10 members. This is because members can have multiple memberships in Zen, and the terms are used indiscriminately in reports. When a member drops his current membership (and therefore next month's "pending" membership)  I think I lost one member, and Zen thinks I lost two memberships. This issue extends into all our historical data, so there is no way to track member (as opposed to "membership") changes over time without maintaining a separate spreadsheet. 

If you look at almost any Zen report and analyze it by hand, you will find that things don’t balance. Nonetheless, Zen bills correctly and it handles signups correctly, except for a weird bug that allows some people to get on a wait list but never get upgraded when a spot becomes available. That bug has been around for years, and I have all but given up on its getting solved.)