SiteMinder Reviews

A BREATH OF FRESH AIR

Comments: Peace of Mind, StressFREE, Happy working with them and Relief!

Pros:

From the Outset, the Sales Representative was incredible informative, honest, and consistently followed through every step of the way. The website on extranet looks professional, is user friendly, has everything that we need ... The Support (whilst on a FREE TRIAL) is OUTSTANDING. We went through a painLESS few day process that took the previous Channel Manager months to get right (and they only managed to perfect two OTAs, after a lot of PAIN) ... At first I was very reluctant to spend more on this service ,and now I am so delighted that I listened to the rep, made the much-needed change over to SiteMinder, and that I that have been and still am working with the rep

Cons:

There are no cons at this stage ... We have a Wix website and used two of their "preferred" channel managers (they "sacked Myallocator who were really good and then contracted with HotelRunner, who were an absolute nightmare to work with, for six months . The comparison goes without having to say anything more (read the above "Pros")

Great channel manager & user-friendly

Comments: The property I manage online is displaying live availability 24/7 across many channels, including Airbnb which is becoming a popular OTA. Room rates can easily be adjusted for specific periods. Overall this is one of best systems ever and very user friendly, which is very important.

Pros:

It is so easy to setup; from adding a new channel to the mapping process. Rates can easily be configured for specific room types and channels, unlike others which are not so flexible.

Cons:

Does not have HBSi connectivity. Some channels such as Flight Centre, Apple Leisure Group/Mark Travel Corporation connect via HBSi and I am using Synxis for this.

Alternatives Considered: iHotelier

Reasons for Choosing SiteMinder: SynXis CRS is too technical just to add rooms and rates but much more complicated to add new channel.

Reasons for Switching to SiteMinder: After testing other systems, Siteminder is for sure one of the best systems. Its ease of use is unmatched, which makes it great.

Do not waste your time (and money)

Comments: If you want a very basic system, easy to setup, and budget does not matter, you may be happy with Siteminder.
If you want value for your money, functionalities for your pms, customization for your booking engine, integrations for your pms, accounting system... and a reliable support ... look somewhere else.

Pros:

Easy to setup, functional, good channel manager.

Cons:

Lack of PMS functionalities: no way to handle groups, agents, segments. Little hotelier is more like a functioning beta, lacking most important options.. Lack of updates: no significant improvements (BE/CM) since we started in 2016. It's no surprise that their booking engine is behind their competitors at this point, it lacks customizations and functionalities Bad support: do not expect much from them, clear miscommunications between their services. We have been clients since 2016 and the way they treat us...

SiteMinder Proper is Good, GDS...not so much

Comments: SiteMinder proper is a positive experience.

Pros:

The flat fee makes it easy to budget and not have to analyze/verify/reconcile every month.

Cons:

The SiteMinder program works well. My praises for GDS by SiteMinder are less, as its major functionality flaw for me is that travel agent information does not load into my reservations, creating a nightmare to keep staff trained and abreast of how to work-around this major deficiency.

The best product with the worst service

Comments: It is amazing until there is an issue!

Pros:

User friendly channel manager that links to the main partners. Efficient and fast communication. Very good tool to keep parity across the channels. Refresh restriction and rates as fast as our direct website. Functionalities are great!

Cons:

Support service! The tool is great until there is an issue. Then it become a nightmare to have things done. Even the smallest request seems to difficult to execute. Also, it would be amazing if Siteminder would be able to apply seasons to the rate plans.

Amazing Features

Comments: Siteminder help me to solve my needs in Booking Engine, Managing Channels.

Pros:

- The software is easy to use - the first installation didn't take much time, it's just take few day for the installation - the integration with the other channel also just few minutes to make it integrated, if you have any trouble for the the integration, you just need to call the Call Center and they will help you to solve it within minutes.

Cons:

at the moment I have not get any trouble or any difficulties nor problem from the software.

Alternatives Considered: RateTiger and STAAH Channel Manager

Reasons for Switching to SiteMinder: I mostly comfortable using Siteminder instead of other alternative product. compare to others, Siteminder easier to use too.

It could be way better

Comments: There are some incompatibilities to the Brazilian market, which limited our possibilities to the Siteminder partners, but it is a selfserviced channel manager with a good structure and amazing support.

Pros:

The easy way of different types of settings for pricing, variations and additional rates.

Cons:

The limited options of restrictions and the need of creating the properties anywhere and then connect, it is not so practical at all.

Great channel

Comments: it's a very easy channel to adapt and use

Pros:

Easy to use and to get help if any issue occur

Cons:

lining on the phone for help, and even if i switch into english it still waiting

Flaky product, never make any improvements, terrible customer service

Comments: I would never recommend this to anyone. The support is awful, they have little idea about the product. Honestly, it is easier to muck about with it yourself and find the solution on your own than call a useless support team who rarely know what they are doing. I don't think I've ever called and found them to be useful. There is no one in charge, you cannot speak to anyone in authority to get anything done and they refuse point blank to deal with any suggestions, let alone complaints. They do not give two hoots about their customers' experience. Every time the money comes out of my bank each month I feel sick. I literally hate paying them. I can't wait to find an alternative. Till then better the devil you know.

Pros:

The chanel manager works and makes it easy to manage mutiple selling platfroms.

Cons:

I have been using this for 2 years and in that time they have made not one single improvement to anything. I buy a suite of products. Little Hotelier (back office) Siteminder (Channel Manager) and The Booking Button (online reservation booking engine) Little hotelier is a terrible product. I was guaranteed when I signed up that there would be a major update to this software, but there has been nothing. not one single thing to improve it. This platform looks and functions like it was built to run on windows 95. It is terrible. The booking button lacks functionality. It works in part, but they never make any improvements. One major thing is that you cant translate promotions, so you are stuck with the one language that you use to set up the majority. You can translate most screens, but not promotions. I reported this issue in 2018 and was guaranteed that it would be looked into, but a year later and it is exactly the same. The iPhone app is one of the worst apps I've ever used. I've tried to give feedback on it, but it falls on deaf ears. They literally do not care about their customers.

No overbookings

Pros:

When introduced to the software, the hassle of over bookings were eliminated. With it's seamless integration to the PMS, it automates availability of rooms and increases revenue by making the most expensive rooms available.

Cons:

I think commissions can be reduced to maximise profit.

Very basic platform, stay away

Comments: have spent plenty of time on it to set all the channels up so I haven't been able to move elsewhere but will be looking up other systems soon. Need to see what works better in this big market, They never ask themselves WHY Siteminder?

Pros:

good software for a start off but then it stops there, updates they make are all useless technical support is good and prompt on very small issues but helpless if you ask for more, easy to use Channel Manager & BookingButton after the initial setup, monthly price is same as many other providers but what you get is far from good

Cons:

- Cons - Siteminder & BookingButton are basic but you pay top price for nothing - the reservation templates that are sent over by email come in 2 pages long, - need to spend 20 mins to get card details for every booking -date picker widget is useless, just a square box with no options at all, customization not possible -reservation dates (check in/out) are delivered not in UK format -All OTA's can put a cut off time for same day bookings but Siteminder can't do it, you lock up at 10.30pm but at 11.59pm someone can still make a booking & turn up God knows about 3am -developing team in Australia makes 1 update in 2 years & never gets the messages from the helpless Technical Support team in UK, even then you know 100% it'll be a negative reply. - have been asking them for 5 years to add a simple *PROMOTIONS" tick-box to apply discounts to any day you want but they keep ignoring it, waste of time -tech support team in UK gives you their own versions of solving issues instead of passing feedback to HQs and following up the problems -they have a terrible Knowledge Base & expect you to pay professional web designers to integrate Booking & Availability widgets on website or keep with their ugly looking widgets, - Guests can cancel a booking but not modify it, not possible -keep sending them feedback for 5 years & they never cared to fix any of them, not good at all -been very busy & haven't been able to switch to another company but will do it very soon

Think twice before you get committed to using SiteMinder hotel software package

Comments: we lost money because of technical issues with the Little Hotelier product from SiteMinder we use. Siteminder refused to compensate

Pros:

The software we have consists of the front desk, channel manager, website, and booking engine.

Cons:

It is not the software, it is the company that you have problems with. The technical support is not available on weekends. If you have a catastrophic failure on the weekend you are doomed. It happened to us. I personally deal with support people a lot because of the number of problems we have. Only a few know the product and can help. Most of the support people answering calls are not qualified and know very little about the product and are useless.

Very bad and faulty system, terrible customer support

Comments: Being in the hotel industry, we operate 24/7, and when there is a need for customer support follow up, you would expect 24/7 or at least decently efficient follow-up. During a period when our hotel was fully booked, we closed the allotments for the higher room types, while increasing the rates for our standard rooms, so that if a booking were to come in, we could easily afford to book the guest in a neighbouring hotel, most of which happen to be full or high occupancy as well. Having set up the system, and input the values, one week before the period we are full, I had expected the system to have updated all our online agent sites. Lo and behold, we received a booking 5 days after I had input the new values. And at our normal standard rates at that. Obviously this would be a problem for us. So I called up the agent to check if they had been linked up with Siteminder. They checked on their back-end, and it showed all up and running. So I immediately called Siteminder to get them to check on their back-end, and informed them that the guest would be arriving in 2 days time, so I needed an answer before then. The amazing part was to be told that I needed to wait 3 days for a reply. Despite knowing that the guest would be arriving in 2 days time. They just threw the problem back to me. Up until the guest arrived, there was still no resolution from Siteminder. For a company that is so closely linked to the hospitality industry, and who claims to be one of the best there is, this is abysmal performance. Why should I be paying them, when I end up having to solve problems created by them?

Pros:

It makes it easy for revenue managers to combine all OTAs into one platform, to manage rates and availability.

Cons:

Terrible response time, error in their software but they make the customer solve the problem for them and pay for the damages caused.

DO NOT use this CMS if you're looking to improve SEO performance

Pros:

Adding basic content to the CMS is fairly straightforward but there is nothing this offers which cheaper competitors don't.

Cons:

There doesn't seem to ever be any updates made. As someone who works in digital marketing, making updates to the site to improve SEO performance is critical. However this CMS doesn't even allow the simplest of updates. It doesn't allow you to update page titles without the H1 header and main navigation title being updated. So just to be clear, updating page titles on their own is NOT POSSIBLE. This is 2017! We've been asking the question for over a year about when this will be updated and it's still not done! We still can't update page titles (some of the most important elements for SEO) and therefore are losing out on revenue because of this CMS. It also doesn't allow users to set up 301 redirects, which is simply laughable. Again, this is also impacting our performance. If it was solely my choice I'd have changed a long time ago. Avoid the canvas CMS at all cost if you're looking to improve SEO performance.

Easy to use but lacks basic features like being able to run useful financial reports

Comments: Very basic of use but with time it's a lot effort to have to double up with a separate accounting software when everything could be easily.

Pros:

Very very basic. So if you want something that requires limited knowledge to use that software, this is it. Not a fancy software at all. You get your reservations in and that's pretty much it. So that might fit some.

Cons:

Biggest con for us is to have only a 2 weeks at-glance calendar. It's annoying. Siteminder should work on it. Then when you click on "save" sometimes it does not save properly and you have to start all over again. Lack of financial useful revenue reports be it per month, or by room type. So you need an accounting software outside of Siteminder. Potential to be great with a few easy improvements.

The Channel Manager to connect your hotel

Comments: Overall we achieved a lot together already. The support for new set-ups is amazing and couldn't be better! From the technical part like developments and features we would be happy for some update of what is in the making.

Pros:

- ease of use - very customer friendly - new features can be suggested and will find recognition - great & fast support

Cons:

- some basic functions are still missing like sending MAXLOS / MINLOS to all OTA's - development of new features seem to take quite a long time - an update on the current developments would be appreciated

decreasing support quality

Comments: From excellent to regular and even bad times. Their product is good, but their policies are slipping away from their clients interest.

Pros:

easy to use reazonable competitive cost facilitated to work with different channels

Cons:

it became expensive when the tourism industry came down and hardly any consideration from SiteMinder side quality of support service decreased considerably, difficult to get a serious assistant they reduced benefit of working with Google Hotel Ads

Excellent

Pros:

At our hotel (Hotel & Gasthof zum Hirsch) we have been using SiteMinder technology for 3 years. We love that we can make changes to our Canvas website without needing professional IT background. Our direct bookings have increased by around 18%, we have more independence for 3rd parties and we are gaining a lot more traffic.

Cons:

.....

Not great support

Pros:

It is suited to hostels but only partly.

Cons:

Group bookings, different check in and out dates for 2 or more rooms. Support is not great and resolution is even worse. They closed out my availability leading up to the busiest weekend of the year across all sites and have done nothing about this to date....7 months ago.

Long term user

Comments: We have been using SiteMinder for the last 10 years and have found it to be completely reliable and meets all our needs to operate a 14 unit 5 star motel.

Pros:

We find the system very easy to use and quite easy to train new reception staff. We manually adjust rates and conditions on a daily basis to maximise occupancy and yield.

Cons:

Mapping rooms can be quite confusing. Have found this quite time consuming

Gret channel manager

Comments: Great. It revolutionized my business 5 years ago, but I believe the market has changed since then and Siteminder will have to change with the times eventually.

Pros:

Brings together most of my channels to one easy to manage place

Cons:

Only works at a group of rooms/properties level. So I cannot list individual property availability which many sites require. For example - AirBnB work on a per property availability while Booking.com and Expedia work on the availability across your properties - like rooms in a hotel. Siteminder is great for Booking.com but does not work with AirBnB. Also I have two Booking.com listings, but Siteminder can only link with one, so I have to manually manage the second listing.

A great cloud services bundle

Comments: I work with many hotels, and having a tech solution that helps me save time and save money to the hotel is a must. I came upon siteminder looking online and I have already implemented it on several properties. Has everything you need to control your inventory and avoid overbookings. The website templates are also great, ease to use and fast. Its a tool that does what is meant to, helps you save time and helps you sell more.

Pros:

Ease of use. Calendar grid lets me control everything Fast website builder Easy connection to OTA´s

Cons:

Creating promotions on the booking button app should be better looking, not just a code

Customer Support

Comments: Very good. I find Siteminder support exceptional. We have recently been updating our systems, rate plans, room types etc and the support desk have been invaluable. Responses are quick and any issues resolved quickly.

Pros:

Once experienced on the software it is very straightforward to use

Cons:

Possibly a reporting option see what updates have been sen t from PMS

Siteminder is amazing

Comments: Overall good

Pros:

Ease of channel management Adding restrictions is easy- CTA, CTD, Minimum Nights etc

Cons:

mapping Individual rate plan with room type

Excellent Channel Manager - Fantastic Support

Comments: We are a boutique hotel of 14 rooms and have been using SiteMinder (and the Booking Button) for over 7 years. One of the great things about this product is it is in constant development. New features are released regularly, and the product evolves with market feedback. Compared to most software companies one of the best things about Siteminder is their support. A phone call to an Australian call centre, no waiting on hold for hours, and satisfactory and immediate assistance!

Pros:

Easy to use, functional, great support

Cons:

Nothing to report