SiteMinder Reviews

Great product, less than average support service

Pros:

Great software for hoteliers who wants to reach a global audience. Will save a lot of time, especially if you want to offer many different rates and length of stay. Not expensive at all. Give you ability to connect to so many different booking sites around the world in no time. Another great thing is - they have their own PMS (LittleHotelier).

Cons:

The support service. No words... Having problem during a weekend? Oh, sorry we have no one in the office you can speak about, leave a message... What? Response time for created cases is slow. Accounting: if you have several hotels: your bills could be mixed up easily. After being with them for 7 years quit only because of support service. Still do feel sad about that as I loved the software. Now we are using other software and each time I receive an answer from new software support in less then one hour I remember how I was waiting for SiteMinder answers for days!

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.

Not a great start with SiteMinder

Comments: We have Tech issues from the get-go, and now a month on still do not have a fully working channel manager. I have repeatedly asked my account manager to call me and she hids behind her email.I called them this morning with a different issue and was on hold for 68 mins when i was number #1 in the help queue. Thus far not a great start for SiteMinder i am sad to say and a month on i still don't have a fully working channel manager.

Pros:

Really prompt in Sales, and the product training was great

Cons:

The staff - sales/account manager from the Australia office won't call to discuss issues leading to huge frustrations.You can't talk with the same support person, and some staff don't appear to comprehend what is being asked of them. Many staff has promised to call me back and I haven't heard from them.

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.

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.

Horrible all around

Comments: Horrible- I would not wish this service for anyone.

Pros:

I like that I can get out of using it as soon as possible- they make it time consuming to try to setup and get working but at least I can leave after months of horrible service and no functionality.

Cons:

Absolutely no customer support- their phone line support always responds that everything is working when nothing is setup correctly. Their email support just never gets back to you. I have been manually checking reservations for nearly 6 months because of no help or functionality from Siteminder!

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

Strange Sales & Marketing practices

Comments: The Sales and Onboarding process is fairly convoluted. Apart from the misinformation on Free Trials and key product functionality, you are meant to schedule a call only to confirm verbally the data provided earlier via a formsheet - what a waste of time.

Pros:

Seems to have good stable performance in terms of synchronization across their Channels. But honestly, I didn't get a full insight into Siteminder's suite of CRS/Channel Manager/Booking Button. At the end of the Onboarding process it was actually revealed that key information provided by Sales at the beginning was plain false.

Cons:

Sales and Marketing standards and practices are extremely questionable. First of all, there is no Free Trial available despite countless claims and buttons on their website. Fake news. Second, they seriously missold me when confirming Stripe as my Payment Gateway of choice was available on Brazil, only to then turn around and saying it wasn't.

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 All-in-One Solution

Comments: Overall, our experience has been nothing but positive. Online booker engagement is up, and times on page have increased, which has allowed us to build bigger and better audiences for our online direct channel.

Pros:

Their whole suite of products simplifies managing reservations for a smaller chain like ours. I find their website design to be easy, intuitive, and devoid of 'too-many-options' which sometimes scare bookers into exploring more and booking less.

Cons:

Their support is limited, but it's an out-of-the-box product that is priced super-competitively, so honestly, you can't expect enterprise level account management or support.

Terrible product, even worse support

Comments: Our worst decision in the past 10 years was to start to use SiteMinder. Never again.

Pros:

I don't know what to answer. There was not too much to like in it. The software is full of bugs, and the support is absolutely incompetent.

Cons:

The software is full of bugs which make you lose lot's of reservations.Their support is not willing or not able to solve any problem.

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, impossible to dislike

Pros:

I have worked with different channel managers, however Siteminder has been the most intuitive to work with and the support of the team has been amazing since day one. The connection with our PMS was and is perfect. Overall the benefits are more than enough for us to keep Siteminder as our channel manager for a long long time.

Cons:

I believe that what can be improved are the yield rules. To close availability upon percentage of total sold rooms. This is an action we, specifically, would love to have.

Suite of tools to effectively manage a boutique hotel or a large resort

Comments: Many. 1. The channel manager is very stable!! We have less than 1% of issues and even then there emails or the Siteminder extranet that we can easily double check.
2. Prophet is easy to use and pretty accurate. The weekly summary could have some improvements, like a percentage of rate increase or decrease of each of our designated competitors.
3. Booking button - That it is tied into the Channel Manager and Canvas makes it so easy. It is specific for hotels so it has all of the data needed. Super easy to build out a promotion or edit content. One suggestion, the ability to note a price drop, right on the rate.
4. Canvas - Again very easy to use!! Because it is designed specifically for hotels it has all of the necessary pages and some.
5. Siteminder has also recently partnered with TripTease-a website chat, pop-up promotion and rate comparison tool that you paste a script that Triptease provides onto your Canvas webpages. It's another added bonus. I have definitely seen an increase in reservations since we implemented it.

Pros:

Having the entire SiteMinder suite of products has reduced our time spent managing reservations and has provided a brand presence that truly reflects our vision of a boutique hotel. Canvas has also improved the quality of guest interaction with our website, they are spending more time in areas like rooms, gallery and attractions. The pages are right there on the homepage easy for them to find and the layout is cleaner and more inviting to browse.

Best choice we made for a channel manager !

Comments: We had a different channel manager when we started our business, it worked just fine but it had a lot of issues, & then we started looking, & we compared & tried demos for different channel managers, until we found siteminder, to be honnest we loved the sales person, they were convincing & we found everything we needed in Siteminder, they were very helpful during the mapping of rates & availability with all our partners, & they were very professional, working with us day & night until everything worked perfectly. They send emails whenever there is an issue & they resolve it in impressive delays, we never had issues with Siteminder honestly, it was perfect since day one, & it still is, the most unfortunate thing is that we compare all our other partners to Siteminder & it's hard to settle once you tried the best!

Pros:

Availability of customer service is incredible, their very knowledgeable & will answer any question you have, never failed to respond to me in the whole year we have been working with Siteminder, they are very professional & will answer you in the best delays.

Cons:

None, everything works perfectly for the time being

Siteminder Feedback

Pros:

Very smart and technical software, will continue to use. Especially the multi language customer service is much help, thanks for [SENSITIVE CONTENT HIDDEN] always give me much much more help on any of kinds of problems, 5 star service for her.

Cons:

could be more colorful or App download use.

Ok for the Price

Comments: Since we do not depend a lot on the online reservations (we do more contract and group business), the low flat price is good for us.

Pros:

The flat rate for the Channel Manager, so we are not paying for each reservation that comes thru the channel manager. But then we signed up for GDS thru them, thinking it was the same way, but it turned out they are charging heavy fees for the GDS reservations.

Cons:

Customer Support. Terrible.... Hard to get anyone to help you. Don't know who to call. They are based out of Australia, and I dont think they have a very strong support system for their US clients. I have been trying to get a rate loaded, and haven't had much help. Another thing I definitely do not like is that we cannot provide a link for our group business to book directly. If we do, then there is a heavy fee I think. So we prefer

Great integration and channel management

Pros:

The ability to distribute inventory to all channels with a click of a button. Being able to access booking information across all channels and manage them accordingly. Integration between our PMS and SiteMinder.

Cons:

The software is easy to use and has many Pros, there are no cons to report.

Limited Interface, Distant Support, No Follow-up.

Comments: I wanted to like Siteminder. Their website touted how easy the system is, and its interface with my PMS. Their dashboard, while it has a nice design, is limited in what you can actually do with it. First off, the whole reason I wanted a channel manager was to make life easier for me, not having to constantly update rates on OTA's, and when receiving a booking, not having to enter information into the PMS again. Unfortunately, that's not what I got. First, the rate process and availability, is pretty standard, however, CTAs or MLOS or reservation cutoff times do not transfer from the PMS with the siteminder interface. Secondly, every reservation I get, I still have to enter some type of information: credit card numbers are not directly put into the PMS. So every reservation comes to the PMS without most of the guest information entered directly, then I get a separate email from siteminder with the reservation details, and payment information, which is also password protected, so then I have to look up some obscure password that they send to you in the signup process, and is so long, you could never possibly remember it. Then you have to take that information from the email and put it directly into the PMS....Why am I paying a separate interface fee if I have to touch each and every reservation? Then, whenever a reservation is modified or cancelled, it is not updated automatically in the PMS, you are sent another email, and have to make these changes manually. Siteminder, please tell me again how this is making my life easier? Lastly, support is pretty much by email only. If you call, they take basic information, and that "support" person knows how to read the user manual, and if they can't figure it out, they have to push it off the "second tier support" who only emails you. Not too mention, they are in the UK, with a 5 hour time difference from the US. So if you have a problem at say, 4pm, when people are checking in, you are out of luck. I cannot recommend them. I am only sticking with them for a small time frame, because I have already paid a setup fee to both my PMS and Siteminder, and as soon as I think I've gotten my money's worth, I'm jumping to another channel manager.

The very best channel manager out there

Comments: Managing multiple distribution channels individually could be a very daunting task. this helps streamline that process

Pros:

It love the versatility the Channel Manager has. Very easy to set up new room types, connect to new channels, and creating rates amongst other things. I just love using Siteminder

Cons:

My least liked feature of this platform is probably their booking engine. It's very archaic and not very user friendly. I wish they improve this part sometime soon.

Reliable and wide connectivity

Comments: Siteminder still the most valuable and workable in their range. I love their service and product development.

Pros:

I love its reliability and consistency of its work. The sales team and support team are professional and helpful. That’s why I always prefer Siteminder.

Cons:

A bit high price when compare to many products in the the market however the value in return is a key.

The Best Channel Management Solution

Pros:

Range of channels Range of other apps , PMS and booking engines Adaptability and flexibility of set up. Very reliable Great support Cost

Cons:

Wish new feature could be added to Booking engine, such as loyalty scheme or secret rates to help us compete with OTA pricing.

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.

Siteminder Reviews

Comments: To be honest, I am very satisfied using the product. Except on several occasion certain room
categories have been booked twice despite inventories have been closed on channel manager. Beside these problem, overall it is an excellent product to use

Pros:

Easy to manage and efficient Saves time

Cons:

showing /sending room availability on certain ota channel despite inventory has been closed on channel manager therefore caused overbooking situation. If channel manager suppose to send real time room availability to all the mapped channels, how could it happend? As our hotel is in Singapore, we are not able to contact Siteminder's customer support directly during emergencies for advise. Only via emails and it could take few days to resolve the problem.

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.