Vagaro Review: The Best Solution For A Salon's Appointment Scheduling Woes?

For many aesthetic practices, salons, medical spas, and clinics, keeping track of customer appointments can be a grueling task. Depending on the size of the business, online booking can take anywhere from a dozen to half a hundred on a good day. This is why the software was specifically developed to avoid these hurdles: to easily match a patient with their stylist in a spa, to making credit card processing easier on a mobile device like an iPad.

So does the Vagaro business suite of software (Vagaro and the Vagaro Pro App) help improve operations and appointment scheduling, or is it simply another overrated branded app? Vagaro can help manage several key aspects of a business like inventory management and keeping track of employees, but its best use is undoubtedly for automated reminders and online booking.

Vagaro Review

Marketed as an all-in-one solution for salons and other similar practices, Vagaro shines by helping a business keep track of client appointments and online booking. To automate the POS system of any business, it becomes easier to settle payments and manage both patients and staff even on a mobile device.

The Strong Points

Vagaro is very much a user-oriented service: from the easy-to-navigate UI to the focus on helping clients connect better with you without sacrificing security or ease of access. Designed as a comprehensive app that your clients can seamlessly conduct business from online to offline transactions, the emphasis on user-friendly features is one of the platform’s strongest points.

This works in both ways for the client and the business itself: with its automated reminder system and intuitive scheduling system, the risk of having no-shows or matching the wrong trainer or stylist with a client drastically lowers. Because the emphasis is placed on making the entire process of making an appointment much easier, it also functions as an excellent patient/client portal that can make sure that your business is reachable whenever it’s needed.

If there are any particular difficulties with implementation or integration with your business, Vagaro also employs a dedicated customer support service that can help with any issues that you may have with using the app, with an excellent turnaround time for any problems that you may bring up. This dedication to customer satisfaction is one of the stronger points of using the Vagaro and Vagaro Pro system: you always feel like you have all the support that you need to keep the software running perfectly for your business.

Finally, Vagaro also has the basics of what you need from practice management software like inventory management, employee tracking, and reporting features to take a look at how your business has performed over a set amount of time. While these aren’t as well-developed as more analytics-focused applications, they provide enough of an overview for you to know what areas of your business are performing well and which ones need improvement.

The Points That Need Improvement

But while Vagaro has extensive support for both patients and providers with its intuitive design and user-focused features, there are three particular areas where the platform can prove to be somewhat unreliable: the relatively slow addition of new features, some bugs with the platform are not solved immediately, and the emphasis the platform has on scheduling appointments.

While Vagaro does provide excellent features right off the bat, the platform itself doesn’t seem to put much R&D towards adding new features, instead choosing to address existing bugs and other errors in their infrastructure. While this in itself isn’t a bad thing, this can feel limiting to a practice that’s looking to expand its service or is experiencing a rapid period of growth, since the app can’t exactly be scaled without extensive tweaking of how it works.

Another reason why the platform feels slow is that the emphasis on solving problems when they crop up instead of continuous improvement on their services means that it may not always run as smoothly across different devices, especially older models. Since there’s no real push to make the app accessible on more powerful devices like a PC, it can be difficult for practices that don’t use mobile devices to integrate the platform with their business model.

Finally, while there’s a particular emphasis on scheduling appointments, it can be difficult for a practice to leverage the other benefits, especially if they’re transitioning from another practice management system. The lack of emphasis on the other functions for practice management can feel underwhelming to use for a practice looking to get its operations done well.

Overall, the Vagaro software is good for keeping scheduled appointments and coordinating with patient concerns, but the basics of the patient management software may not be enough for practices looking for more extensive control over their operations.

The Alternative: Calysta EMR

While features of the Vagaro app can help make merchant services of any practice easier to access, it can feel a little less effective as a comprehensive solution that integrates patient interaction with a business. If you're looking for a Vagaro alternative that can help make practice management much easier.

One of the main benefits of the platform is that it's specifically designed for aesthetic practices to use, so everything from managing employees to keeping track of a patient's electronic medical record is accessible within the app itself. It offers enough flexibility for practices and clinics to adjust the platform for its needs, whether it's a small practice scaling up or a larger enterprise that needs help micromanaging its operations. With easy integration into an aesthetic clinic's existing routines and the capacity to automate workflows, it's an extensive solution that keeps more than just a patient chart safe.

Accessible through mobile devices and PCs alike, it guarantees that you'll get a larger market share of patients who use several different devices to conduct their business and set up appointments. Since the platform performs smoothly across different devices, your clients will never have to feel like they need a specific device to get in touch with your practice.

Calysta EMR also makes conducting business with your aesthetic practice easier by functioning as a dedicated patient portal that your clients can always access. Not only will they have the ability to make appointments, but it also provides them with the needed consent forms to sign and other paperwork needed before their visit. This data (along with all the other medical and patient data that you may have) is backed up daily, ensuring that you'll always have a backup in case of emergencies.

Improve Customer Service By Using EMR Software To Make Booking Appointments Easier

The Vagaro app is an excellent mobile app that functions well as a POS system and for scheduling appointments, allowing a salon owner to have an easier time with customer tracking and clients to have more control to schedule appointments via a mobile device. But while it's an excellent tool for wellness centers, fitness businesses, and even gyms, it really shines as a portal to book appointments and conduct payment processing. Since the Vagaro software is specifically designed to make your client navigate it easier, you may find that the operations side of the infrastructure may be lacking compared to other salon software.

Calysta EMR has years of experience in monitoring the market trend and movement of software development for EMR solutions, helping aesthetic practices keep pace in the competitive landscape of client management. We specialize in offering comprehensive EMR solutions to improve your operations with competitive pricing, helping you maintain and expand your services while also being considerate of your bottom line. For more information about us and the services our platform can provide, contact us today.

Learn more: Best Aesthetic EMR for Injector: How To Choose an EMR For Your Aesthetic Clinic