From Hesitant to Happy – YogaONE’s Transition from MindBody to WellnessLiving Success Story

With WellnessLiving, YogaONE has found a partner they can grow with. Since making the switch, they’ve experienced a 35% increase in business and client retention.

About

In the unlikely setting of 1980’s Massachusetts, 15-year-old Deacon Carpenter discovered Ayurveda and yoga. “It fundamentally changed my life,” an older, healthier Deacon told us. “I lost half my body weight, I got rid of a lot of ailments, and I knew at some point I would become some kind of person in that business.” But natural wellness and practices like yoga were perhaps too real for that synthetic decade, and Deacon found himself on a quite unexpected path: spending almost 17 years working in global advertising and branding in New York City.

In time, Deacon noticed that his own passion was becoming popular as yoga studios began to pop up all over the country. Around eight years ago, Deacon and his husband moved across the country to California, and finally, Deacon was able to pursue his youthful dream of becoming an Ayurveda clinician.

After earning his teacher training certification and working closely with clients and patients, Deacon realized that he needed to own his own business where he could act as “The creator and collaborator of change.” So, in June of 2015, he bought YogaONE.

As a business owner, Deacon had been able to spread his mantra of “Meet people where they are” to his students, teachers, and collaborators alike. Under Deacon’s ownership, YogaONE has evolved into an integrated wellness center that offers its clients services such as acupuncture, traditional Chinese medicine, massage, nutrition, as well as a practical approach to yoga and Ayurveda.

The Problem

When Deacon purchased YogaONE, he inherited the studio’s MindBody Online account. Despite his years of business experience and a plethora of related knowledge, Deacon was stumped by the system. “I’ve used project management software, I’ve used computer design software, so I’m pretty versatile when it comes to technology. But just looking at MindBody, it was hard for me to understand how to truly run the business. It was a mess.”

His staff had the same issues. “They would always be putting things in incorrectly. It looked like they were doing it right, but it didn’t go into the system properly.” And so, like most MindBody clients, he contacted customer support again and again. After having already invested hours into each issue, he found himself at wit’s end each time he contacted support. “When you’re calling into MindBody technical support, you’re already 2 and a half hours into trying to figure out what’s going on with the system. Invariably, we just want it fixed. Just fix it, we don’t want to hear about it because we’ve invested all that time already.”

Often, the support team succeeded in providing some sort of solution for Deacon’s problem; however, their explanations were rare and impersonal, so whenever issues recurred, the same process of endless troubleshooting and contacting support for workarounds had to be repeated.

Along with the system, Deacon also inherited the costs of MindBody Online. Though his studio was grandfathered in at a reasonable rate, when they added the Engage app, the price nearly doubled. Still, Deacon considered this the “price of doing business,” but certain costs were much higher than expected. When first transferring his data over from the former owner, roughly $28,000 of Deacon’s earnings were issued by MindBody to the previous owner’s bank.

Finally, a bizarre six-dollar charge that accompanied every refund was “the straw that broke the camel’s back.” As Deacon found out that his clients’ were frequently charged by the system without any reasonable explanation, he’s had enough.

“I was at this point where I know dynamic change doesn’t happen without dynamic change. It’s time to find a new software partner. And we looked.” After investigating competitors such as Tula, ScheduleBliss, and GloFox, Deacon realized that he needed more than they could offer. He needed MindBody’s features, but their software just wasn’t working for his business. After a thorough search, Deacon finally came into contact with WellnessLiving.

The Solution

The team at MindBody warned Deacon that some of his data may be lost when transferring, and he knew that “no data migration is 100% perfect,” but he was certain that the time for a change had come and hoped that he was right in placing his trust in WellnessLiving. “You just sort of have to trust the process. I think what made it easy for me was having Eric and the technical support people just be there to hold my hand… Eric and the migration team did a fabulous job with helping us. I wouldn’t say there were any major glaring issues.”

Despite the lack of “major glaring issues,” Deacon did find that his first three months with WellnessLiving were a bit of “a white knuckle experience.” He and his staff had developed a certain way of working around the MindBody platform, which had a bigger impact on their day-to-day than even they realized. “WellnessLiving was completely different and ultimately more intuitive. So I think the white knuckle experience for us was learning how to run the business properly versus having to manage our business with an inferior piece of software.

“I just want to really underscore for anyone who is having the harebrained idea of opening a yoga studio for the first time, they work with a software platform which is easy to use, which can be customized very easily, that does have reporting and all the bells and whistles you need in one package, rather than having to sacrifice function over payment. WellnessLiving, the payment platform, is very different from MindBody: they have different levels of engagement. This is the one tool for it all. You don’t need anything else, other than WellnessLiving.”

The impact of switching to WellnessLiving has been unmistakable to Deacon: “We’ve probably had a 35% increase of both business and retention since we switched… I think from a pure number’s perspective, we’ve had a lot more retention because we can use WellnessLiving to engage clients more frequently.” On top of increased revenue and retention, Deacon and his staff are saving countless hours each week with the intuitive system that allows them to almost always bypass technical support.

When YogaONE does need to get in contact with WellnessLiving’s support team, it’s a totally different experience than it was with MindBody. “What WellnessLiving does is they actually send you a video of how to do it, and MindBody does not do that. That’s what I love about the technical support that WellnessLiving offers. It’s an easy fix, but then we get a library of how to fix it.” Along with his library, WellnessLiving support offers him constant communication via an automated system that ensures that he is always informed on any issue he has submitted.

WellnessLiving’s impact has been more than just a smooth transition with a good support team. It’s the features that have truly made a difference. The first pleasant surprise that Deacon discovered was that the features were actually workable, unlike with MindBody. He no longer had to work his company around his software, but rather was finally able to work the software around his company.

Like a lot of new WellnessLiving clients, Deacon was impressed by the power of the system’s integrated and automated marketing tools. “You can do so much in it. You can use it to send text reminders, email reminders, run your MailChimp through it, run special promotions through it.”

Direct marketing, add-ons, promotional deals, and other deal-making features within the online store have led to a noticeable impression on sales at YogaONE. “For us, as an integrated wellness center, we have SOAPs in there now. So we can share SOAPs with different members of our healing community when we’re working on the same client.” Furthermore, the potential dynamism of scheduling and breadth of programming have allowed YogaONE to better analyze and further expand their business alongside WellnessLiving.

Finally, to get their clients really excited about their business, YogaONE has also been making clever and constant use of WellnessLiving’s built-in rewards program and leader-board, motivating new clients to sign up by cultivating a competitive and fun environment. “People come in and see their points on a weekly basis and see how they’re ranking, so there’s a little bit of competitiveness there… they just like the way you can sign up really easily. It’s kind of a no-mess situation. It’s been pretty great.”

Despite the fact that “yoga studio owners have a white knuckle experience running their business on a daily basis,” Deacon and the team at YogaONE could not be happier with their new studio management software. Next, YogaONE will be releasing their own, personalized application with the help of WellnessLiving.

If you would like to talk to a WellnessLiving representative about how we can help your business grow, contact us today at 1 (888) 668-7728, or, book a free demo of the platform.