Shopmonkey Reviews

Pros

Easy of use, end user experience is excellent

Cons

Customer support wait times. We would like faster response from support.

Alternatives Considered

Pros

Professionalism: You can create polished, branded estimates and invoices that impress clients.

Cons

I wish that we had access to see how much labor to charge for a specific job

Pros

Interactive and saving feature was useful.

Cons

Price, issues with customer view when customer sees invoice or estimate.

Pros

The reviews were amazing and the sales department is awesome at making promises and telling you what you want to hear. However this is not what you will get. I have been calling and texting for a month about the lack of labor times on everyday repairs. I have yet to get a return call, even called sales who are always there to make money but they also promised to have someone call back that was a week ago.......

Cons

No labor times on things like engine oil coolers, transmission replacements, valve cover gaskets. If you require help from them they are quick to text but tell you it will be 2-3 days for an answer. Is your customer going to wait 2-3 days for an estimate? Not mine! That is a loss in revenue yet they charge more than others in the industry like Mitchell. You will not matter to them and they will leave you hanging.

Pros

Shop Monkey is so simple to use compared to competitors. It is user friendly for those of us not super online.

Cons

ShopMonkey can run a bit slow. It has lag between clicks and pages.

Pros

The blue backdrop.... that was nice. Other than that.

Cons

Poor time tracking, horrible customer service, poor follow up to zoom conversations and in person meetings. No kpi tracking failed integration to quickbooks, reconfiguring users is a process. No vendor expenditure tracking. So much more

Pros

nothing to be honest ive used a ton of auto shop managment soft ware programs shop monkey while easily being the most compliacted is not the most redundant

Cons

its way way too compliacted ive used many shop managment soft ware and this one takes the cake for being the most complex and un-user friendly

Pros

It is a dream come true especially from where we were before. They have really thought out and launched enough versions by now to have covered the many features that now make my business digital and 'one version of the truth' for accountability and data management. We look professional to our customers and communicate very clearly internally now. Broad range of Automotive Shop topics are covered with this 1 license.

Cons

#1 issue is whenever some feature is not working as you hope or an improvement to a feature is requested from chat support, they put it back on you to throw it in a future product upgrade ideas pool 100% of the time even if it's behaving today as a feature defect. They should take every issue in Chat Support as an opportunity to improve and deliver it internally with a ticket number. #2 issue is their data model doesn't have a logical concept for Department. They have store location and they have Category and of the two, we split our ticket line items with Category. There is only 1 report on the whole list of canned reports I can run that splits data by Department aka Category. It would be my dream for each department manager to have a dashboard of daily reports and charts to review. It's not even appropriate to show them data from other areas of the business much less make them filter through data they don't influence. I also found it highly inappropriate from an HR perspective to list employee salaries in the User set up screen. Yes, it allows for valuable profitability reports, but salary should be granted to 1 super admin perhaps or hidden with a password to view. #3 issue is really the apps are not that great, buggy and limiting. We eventually just had Techs log into the website from a mobile phone and we gave older employees big tablets. There also should be a native language button given the Hispanics employed in this industry, but we use google translate for now

Alternatives Considered

Reasons for Switching to Shopmonkey

Pros

Firstly, they have be best customer service. Any time I needed help with anything, they were quick to respond and if they didn't have the answer they got it for me right away. Professional looking invoices that are easy to read for customers. Search functions are great. They let you look up almost anything with a few key strokes.

Cons

The price is the tough to swallow. We are a Canadian company being billed in American dollars. The exchange is killing us and making it even more expensive. The system is still really slow. I know they are working on fixes for it but some days it is so slow we can't use it. Labor rates, procedures and general vehicle information specs and other information isn't as great as they let on. There needs to be an easier function for that.

Alternatives Considered

Reasons for Choosing Shopmonkey

Switched From

Reasons for Switching to Shopmonkey

Pros

Everything about this software has made work life so much easier and also has helped us to bring in more business and build more trust and clear communication with our customers.

Cons

I have not found one thing I don't like about shopmonkey yet.

Alternatives Considered

Reasons for Switching to Shopmonkey

Pros

its pretty and almost there. It looks better than it is. The customer support is great and very responsive. It got us out of Mitchell 1. Its hard to write Pros because everything I like about SM has a flaw that pushed us away from it.

Cons

* YOUR INFORMATION WILL NOT TRANSFER TO OTHER MANAGEMENT SOFTWARES!*
Id like to see feature role out that are complete and note just 50% there. Every new feature i see are half baked. Nothing talks to each other in the software. Its pretty, but not functional for anyone looking to improve workflow; every step requires 6 more steps to ensure everything is working together as it should, but that usually requires alot of cut and paste and work arounds. In particular the new tech view is awful! As an admit i cant complete things, see progress without diving into the tech view. Why this was a priority over a service manager being able to see a snapshop view in the workflow of how far along a job is baffles me. Its like the staff here has never worked in a shop before or managed one. The priority needs to switch to management and workflow speed. SM makes things take so long because it has to done several times so that information is congruent throughout the software.

Alternatives Considered

Reasons for Choosing Shopmonkey

Switched From

Reasons for Switching to Shopmonkey

Pros

It is great! Shopmonkey has everything that I needed.

Cons

Nothing. I love using it and it has everything that I needed!

Pros

I like how easy Shopmonkey is to use and the customer service is great. It really streamlined a few things for us. It communicated most of the time with QB with out any effort

Cons

There are a handful of features which would be nice and there are some bumps too.

Pros

Great communication ability between our shop and customers

Cons

Sometimes things seem to lag, and can create confusion between team members because things haven't loaded on their side. Also, would like to see some things implemented to help with mobile auto repair.

Pros

Being able to look parts up and finish the project

Cons

Nothing much it helps out a lot and gives great infew

Pros

Very easy to understand and use! I don't think we could run our business without it!

Cons

Sometimes we make mistakes by deleting or changing price in work order and there is no way to undo a change that was made

Pros

Convenient and no hassle to use. Very user friendly.

Cons

No negatives to this product, couldn’t think of anything to make it better!

Pros

Easy of use and learning shopmonkey system for daily use

Cons

No scheduling link for customers to schedule appointments

Pros

Being able to send customer quotes of service and labor with approvals.

Cons

The credit card fees are a bit high, it would be nice for the option to upgrade packages for a smaller CC fee.

Pros

Shopmonkey is very easy to use and learn. It also improves your time on invoicing customers. I love everything about shopmonkey. Great shop writter.

Cons

I have no complaints with shopmonkey and have not add any problems with it.

Pros

The ease of inputting customer information in

Cons

the labor hours suggested were never correct

Pros

Streamlines the service process; auto body shop client was extremely pleased with the features

Cons

Wish it was more affordable for the smaller auto body shops

Pros

Shopmonkey cut the piles of paperwork. So more auto work gets done.

Cons

It take a little computer savvy to learn to navigate

Pros

Being able to create CANNED services, and the different ways to keep customers informed via text/email are cruxes for me.
Creating and saving CANNED services saves valuable time, and simplifies creating work orders and estimates/invoices.
One thing I used to hear customers say a lot about shops and companies is, "I would just like a phone call or SOMETHING to keep me informed." ShopMonkey solved that for me.
I LOVE that the software is ACTUALLY as easy as it looks, to use.

Cons

Outside integration of other card readers (such as Square for example) would be greatly appreciated. The upfront cost of having to purchase a card reader and pay a monthly service fee on top for integrated payments is a big turn-off for me when I already have a card reading service. I would consider perhaps a service where the ShopMonkey card reader can be "leased to purchase" with monthly payments. I.e. $35 a month for 12 months for the card reader and service is more manageable, especially for small, brand-new businesses.

Pros

Organizational benefits, easy to use, and more cost-effective than the competition!

Cons

Report formats and building custom searches in the REPORTS could be a little easier to manipulate. Exporting reports is difficult.