This is what you need to consider before getting a dance studio software. No. 1, what is your budget? Do you have a budget? What does it look like? How much are you gonna spend per month on your CRM? There are so many CRMs out there that you are going to be overwhelmed and they are all going to be priced differently.
Number two is, what do you actually want it to do? Do you want it to send your invoices? Do you want to do like, do you want it to do your best to send reminders, to send emails, to take classrooms? What do you actually want it to do? All your goals are what you want it to do. So when you’re looking up all of the software that you can sort of like tick off what it does if you don’t know what CRMs can do for you, a good way to find this out is literally just to like go on to their websites and they normally have like a feature section and just read through and then compare.
No. 3 and what you need to consider is how, like how good are you at technology all of these programs are very different. And if you’re not tech savvy, you definitely have to go with something that’s a lot easier. They all have their pros and their cons. So I think definitely looking at demos is one way to go.
Asking for other people’s experience with programs. No. 4 on what to consider is how often is this program updating? Is it a program that they update all the time or is it something that has stayed the same for the past 20 years, you really want a program that’s gonna continuously update and take on board suggestions from their customers.
Another thing to consider as well is where is this company program based? You might find a note for me that a lot of these programs are not based in Australia. So that means customer service, for one, can often be delayed if they don’t have an Australian team into the currency that they are in, they may say, oh, it’s $30 a month, but then you get the Bill or the direct debit and it ends up being $50 plus international fees for transactions. So now going on to the software that I would recommend for your dense studio.
This is all my personal opinion, just based on what I’ve looked into over the years and what I’ve used. I have been loving Class Manager. It is very user friendly. I find that I do have to do a fair few clicks to get to where I need to be, but it’s very straightforward and very categorized. So you’re not really getting confused on where you actually need to go.
I find Class Manager very budget friendly. It fitted within my budget. It takes that Australian dollars. It shows you how much money it’s going to be in AUD. You even got a discount if you signed up for the whole year, which was a bonus. A customer service is amazing. I do tend to get a response quite quickly, even though like they’re not an Australian program, if that makes sense. It invoices, put some late fees. I can text customers for a small fee. I can buy like bulk SMS. I can email, I can schedule emails, I can send reminders before someone’s trial. And if I don’t rock up to a trial, it does all the things that I needed to do. I didn’t want it to do anything too special.
I have used Dance Studio Pro before. I loved it. I did not like the price rises. And it was in USD as well, which means that I often got that transaction fee between USD and AUD.
I do personally find Class Manager and Dance Studio Pro quite similar in their functions. I think Dance Studio Pro is a lot more like, they’re more in tune, probably a little bit more with their customers and specifically dance studios. Whereas Class Manager can be used for or other industries as well. It doesn’t necessarily have to be dance classes. I know my daughter’s gymnastics place uses like I Class Pro. That seems like amazing, but I couldn’t justify like the 100 and something dollars a month to run that program. But I know that they automatically invoice, select classes. It’s really clear. Very, they’re very user friendly. So if you are looking for CRMs and software for your dance studio, definitely do your research.
Have, I think about all those things that I said about at the start of the video, this is a personal journey. One may work for me, that may not work for you, and vice versa. A lot of these companies do have free trials or like a trial period as well. So it’s best to trial a few and make sure you dedicate time to actually sit down and have a look at it.