Revenue was slow in the initial days but now, it is bigger than ever. The last two months have been our best months in the last 10 years and I believe part of it is because of Kenko.

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What is the Chrome Bar all about?

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I have been teaching pole dance since 2013. I think I was one of the first ones to start teaching dedicated pole dance outside dance studios. Although I was traveling and teaching, I wasn’t very sure of how a pole dance studio would work.

Since I had a small client base, I started a boutique studio.

I had no idea whether to take drop-ins or memberships or unlimited. Slowly, we figured out and settled on selling a spot or a pole instead of unlimited memberships.

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What were some of the challenges that you were facing initially?

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There were a lot of challenges that came our way, actually:

1. We started out by offering unlimited memberships, and there were clients who booked every class, there was a point where we were selling classes for 80 cents. Later we corrected this.
2. Pole dance is a very niche thing. It took us a really long time to build a local client base.
3. Since the client base was small, I had to do a lot of travel camps to generate revenue.
4. And when all this got settled, our software gave us all the trouble.

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Which software did you use?

Mindbody

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What challenges did you face with Mindbody?

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Their software is not business-friendly unless you pay a really high price. They put you amongst all the other businesses, and advertise other businesses over yours making it extremely hard for people to find your business.

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Plus, it is clunky and not at all clean.

Another big part was the user experience.

I do a lot of bachelorette parties. It is a golden cookie for my business. I charge almost $350 for 5 people for 75 mins.

For this, I need the experience to be top-notch. It was very difficult for my clients to book and I could never integrate Mindbody on my website in a pleasing way. So, I started using Square Space but then I had to pay extra for it. After they would schedule the class, I had to add these clients to Mindbody for emails and recording purposes.

Some of them wouldn’t get added and some of them would get double booked. It was a whole mess.

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When did you decide to switch your software?

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The breaking point was the price that Mindbody was charging.

Additionally, they were starting to charge a 7-9% processing charge on a few cards like AMEX. I wasn’t okay with this.

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What made you choose Kenko?

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I remember that I loved the website integration that Kenko was offering.

Also, I saw that there were other pole studios that were using Kenko which was helpful.

The team went the extra mile to help with the onboarding process.

I had a very personal experience right from the beginning which I still value.

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And the price of Kenko is very suitable for the value that they offer.

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Did you try any other options before opting for Kenko?

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I looked at Wellness Living and Glofox. Didn’t find them too impressive.

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How are you and your team using Kenko?

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Apart from booking and scheduling classes, I do a lot of online classes, travel camps and bachelorette parties.

I have used zoom, courses, camps, and all the other functionalities, honestly.

Yet to use videos, I think it will be really good for the business.

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The customer app that Kenko offers is the highlight. Our clients love the app.

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The software should be something that you can depend on and is easy. Kenko does a great job!

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It is not too much. It is not too complicated. It is just perfect.

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How has Kenko impacted your business?

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Last month I signed up for a friend’s class who is using Mindbody, it was very difficult and I just couldn't find her business on the app. I thought to myself that I don't miss this at all.

One way in which Kenko has really eased our life is by reducing the number of questions clients asked.

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Earlier we used to get tons of questions about how to book or how to cancel a class because the software was very confusing. Kenko saves us a lot of time.

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Revenue was slow in the initial days but now, it is bigger than ever. The last two months have been our best months in the last 10 years and I believe part of it is because of Kenko.

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