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SiteMinder
What Is SiteMinder?
The hotel commerce platform with everything you need to succeed as a modern accommodation business. Sell, market, manage and grow your hotel – from one place.
Our platform includes; a channel manager, online booking engine, hotel website builder, hotel business intelligence, and access to the global distribution system. SiteMinder has been voted 2022's #1 Channel Manager and #1 Booking Engine and has won the People's choice award for customer-centricity by Hotel Tech Report.
Who Uses SiteMinder?
Independent hotels or hotel groups, across the globe, that are looking to bring in more guests through online reach, and seeking technology that provides solutions to attract, and convert guests.
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Reviews of SiteMinder
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")
SiteMinder Response
6 years ago
Hi Linda, Thank you for your great feedback. We are thrilled that you have had such a positive experience with your SiteMinder sales representative and our support team! Thanks again and please let us know if we can be of any assistance. Thanks, The team @ SiteMinder
Alternatives Considered:
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.
SiteMinder Response
4 years ago
Hi Marlon, First of all, thank you for letting us be part of your journey! And thank you for your thoughtful feedback. We're so pleased to hear that you find our systems efficient and user-friendly, and that you understand our passion for improving your service and customer experience everyday! Customers like you make it all worthwhile. We appreciate your feedback and will take to our product team as we are always looking to improve our user experience. So thanks for sharing, and thanks for trusting us to be your partner. All the best, Misha
Terrible support and a very basic system
Comments:
We have been using Little Hotelier with Siteminder (same company) for almost a year. For a company of it's size, the lack of support is astounding. I am constantly chasing them up for answers for the most simple issues. Even after going to the head of the department, issues are still just left or put in the too hard basket.
Aside from the lack of support, the biggest frustration has been how amateurish the system is. A simple thing like putting your own image as an invoice header has been ignored by them. To me, this is simple programming that could be done in a day at the most. Also, there is no guest profile or blacklist facility. To find previous guests you have to look at reservations, each reservation listed separately, not collating information. They brought in a function to add multiple guest names on a booking, not important. They really need to focus on what customers want, not what they want to do.
The latest issue for us is the lack of reports. They provide a few but none of them match each other. Some include payments when others don't, some include extra items when others don't, none include credit card fees. Their response to this was trying to get us to sign up to their payment system. If you can't get the basic system right, why would we do that? We are looking at other systems to replace this one as even though we are only a small hotel, we expect much more than this basic system for the money we pay each month. Do your research before signing up to this software. The basic bones are there but the support is terrible and the functionality is very basic.
Pros:
It puts bookings into the system via channel manager as it should, well most of the information but not all.
Cons:
The lack of support and it not being able to do basic things like reports.
SiteMinder Response
7 years ago
Thanks for your feedback. As you know, we have been escalating your suggestions directly to our team and we worked through your requests and gave you answers (and where possible timeframes) for each one. This is something we don¿t do very often, however we felt it was important as you were passionate about the suggestions. We have also put you in contact with our customer success team who have always been there to support you and your property. I believe they have reached out to you again this week to follow up. We are working on invoices. However, due to varying global regulations, it¿s a big project. We do understand how important this is, but we want to develop this feature properly ensuring it complies with international requirements. Guest profiles are also in active development and again we know this is important to hoteliers. With this in mind, it's especially disappointing to hear your thoughts on our support and I hope our team can continue to help you. Thanks - Clare @ SM.
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.
SiteMinder Response
4 years ago
Hi Don, First of all, thank you letting us be part of your journey! And thank you for your thoughtful feedback. We're so pleased to hear that you find our products user-friendly and time saving, and that you understand our passion for improving your service and customer experience everyday! We are always looking feedback on how to improve so we'll be taking back your feedback to our product team. Thank you for taking the time to leave us your thoughts. In the meantime, we regularly release products and updates which you can check out on the SiteMinder Release page here: https://help.siteminder.com/s/Releases?language=en_US We have more exciting updates coming in the meantime, so stay tuned and we hope that these improvements will make life easier for you, Don. Please let us know if there is anything we can do to further assist you get the most out of your products. Thank you again for trusting us to be your partner! All the best, Misha
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.
SiteMinder Response
4 years ago
Hi Ines, First of all, thank you so much for taking the time to leave us a review. We really appreciate your insightful feedback and always take your suggestions to heart. I'm sorry to hear that your experience with us didn't live up to our usual standards. Many of our 30,000 customers enjoy contacting us so to learn that this wasn't the case for you was disappointing. I wanted to let you know that seasonal rate plans are a possibility for you listed under your "inventory" tab. Using the "bulk update" tool, you can apply a seasonal rate plan to a specific room according a predetermined date range of your choice. Once this is activated, the rate plan will automatically switch on/off according to the dates you have set. Hopefully this helps you apply seasonal rate plans to The Set Hotels but please don't hesitate to reach out if you're still having trouble! All the best, Lauren
