Kigo Reviews

Great online solution specialised in vacation homes

Comments: We are using Kigo now since about 8 months and are really, really happy with this online solution. The system itself has some bugs but the support team is acting on those matters really, really quickly. When I read some of the bad reviews I can't really believe. The support is always answering any questions - and I asked and keep asking a lot - quickly and with all necessary details.
The majour selling point of the system is the channel manager which sync to the typical vacation home portals like homeaway, tripadvisor and many, many others. Renting out an apartment means you don't need to standard hotel sites to be listed on. You need vacation home sites like airbnb, homeaway, flipkey ...
Adding a booking is very simple, adding a new property needs some time but once added most of the portals sync descriptions, prices, availability and booking rules. So you add it once to Kigo and then lean back, wait for maximum 24 hours and your are online on your channels. The website solution is pretty nice, especially the new template is beautiful. Just a tip from my side: wordpress isn't really difficult but it takes a lot of time to set up everything. Go and get the help from Kigo for the DIY page and focus yourself on getting bookings and earning money instead of playing with wordpress. So, thanks Kigo and thanks to the german speaking support team! I love the solution and you are all doing a great job!

Pros:

Smart software with lots of possibilities to adjust to your business. Simple channel manager syncs to the most important portals

Cons:

Sometimes a time consuming job to adjust everything to your CI.

Kigo delivers

Comments: We are extremely satisfied with Kigo. The functionality of the program and the customer service has been top notch.

Pros:

We liked the comprehensiveness of the software. It does everything that we need. Kigo makes running our vacation rental business a bit easier.

Cons:

As a smaller company with a smaller vacation rental inventory we had concerns regarding the price point and the minimum monthly fees.

Terrible experience

Comments: We were convinced to sign up on misleading pretexts. The salesperson, perfectly aware of our needs, avoided informing us that the software might not be a good fit for us.
After a 6-month long process of valuable time wasted on implementation/ training, we realized that most features were not user-friendly, some did not even apply to us. We were even trained on features that would soon be deactivated. To perform each simple task, an unnecessary complicated process was needed, increasing our workload. It was more time consuming for us to use it, than not to. All remarks below (Cons) were sent to Kigo on many occasions during the year, without receiving any reply whatsoever.
We also eventually found out that we were repeatedly being overcharged for months, as Kigo was charging us on refundable Security Deposits as well. This amount was never refunded. We were bluntly told “We do not do refunds”. Finally, we filed a claim for damages that was rejected, after having to wait for a month without any response. Of all issues we endured, only the overcharging issue was accepted, however not refunded. As informed in writing, a 30 day notice was needed to terminate our account, so we sent it on March 9, 2020. On termination date, April 9, we were told that the previous information was wrong and that we were being charged up to April 30.
I was glad not to pay April’s Invoice. Only then, there was an immediate and overwhelming response of daily "payment overdue" notifications.

Pros:

Good Integration with AirBnb, Booking.com etc. & very efficient Implementation Specialist.

Cons:

• Kigo Legacy was shutting down, before the new Kigo software was completed and properly tested. When we signed up in March 2019, we were instructed to work in 2 separate -not yet compatible- platforms, Kigo & KigoPro. • All 3 below Kigo features were paid for, but never used. The process was so unnecessary complicated that we had to use our own custom-made applications instead. - To use Operations, we needed to switch between 6-7 different tabs both on KIGOPRO and KIGO. - No All-in-one Calendar. There was one Reservations’ calendar on KIGO, another on KIGOPRO, an Overview under Operations, another Overview under Schedule and so on… No availability search option on the main RESERVATIONS’ Calendar. - Owners XP had no option to send monthly owner statements & payouts, so didn't apply to us. • No customizable templates with variables, only notification emails with a general content that must apply to all properties and all guests. • A Current & a New Statement popped up when a reservation was edited, that needed to be compared thoroughly every time, because in several cases the Statements were inconsistent with the changes made. • Constant issues/ bugs & annoying details: Photos not syncing, Deposit refunds not updating, properties disappearing from the website, reviews displayed twice, dates in both US & European formats, time in both am/pm & 24-hour formats, etc.

Great!!! Please read my rating in detail. I have very specific requests.

Comments: Tracking for ads doesn't work well because we can't put a tag on the check-out page. Please also look at the rating description I did on the site before this. Everything else I like. I would like to work with you for a long time. We will grow further and might need to discuss pricing then. It's a quite high percentage to pay when we have more properties. We try to double every year.

Excellent software for accommodation industry

Comments: Overall the software is excellent. Pricing mechanisms, portal integration and Guest App elements of the product are absolute standouts. Downside is on the reporting front. There are vast options for reporting, but none that provide the most basic monthly reporting figures, which creates unnecessary work for me (the client) at the end of every month, and doesn't allow a rolling synopsis snapshot of where the business is sitting on any given day within a month. Only other major concern is to do with responding to customer concerns. Emphasis seems to be placed on the development of the product on a macro level, rather than having a separate team of developers ready to respond to client queries and concerns over elements of the product.

Right idea, but some big oversights...

Comments: Moved client from pen and paper system to Kigo. I would have preferred another solution that I was familiar with, but client had already committed and just wanted to get going. Selected better website for $999. Some nice features and integrations, such as the commerce integration which auto charges guests at time of booking, and allows for a few click refunds on cancellation. The website is attractive, but unfortunately went through a two week f*$k up when a major upgrade went badly wrong and their backup server went down at the same time and was unable to restore previous versions. I wonder if they will be crediting customers for 2 weeks without service. Thankfully they seem to have worked through the issues.

Pros:

Easy to user interface. Quick learning curve. Booking from calendar view. Integration with AirBnb, Booking.com and others. Nice front page booking bar. E-commerce for initial booking deposit and refunds (but not for the balance which has be done manually). Allows for lots of different fee structures. Built in revenue management system for an extra fee (haven't used it yet).

Cons:

No channel connection with Expedia, which alone will cost this property thousands in lost bookings. Website changes are slow to show up because of the way that they cache the files. Takes hours or sometimes days for a change to show up on the site. If they mess something up, there is nothing you can do to fix your site, you have to wait for them. You can create specials but they do not show up until after the guest has made the booking, so they are useless. Support is good, but slow. Issues can take a few days or longer to get resolved. Seasonal price feature is good idea, but buggy and I think no longer supported. There is no way to track when features are being released (they may or may not be). There is no group booking feature. Only 6 slideshows and no video allowed for front page on paid website packages.

Terrible software "soultion"

Comments: This software is clunky, it isn't intuitive or functional in any way. What was sold to us by [SENSITIVE CONTENT] was leaps and bounds different than what we actually received. Kigo was supposed to make managing our rental and our client rentals easier. In reality, we didn't even add any of our clients to the software because we very quickly saw while using it for ourselves what a nightmare it was and were too embarrassed to offer our clients such a poorly executed system. They claim there's an "app" for owners and users. In reality, it's a junky ugly webpage formatted for mobile users. As an owner, trying to use it on your phone is almost impossible. The calendar is in a row format (like a week is listed) instead of a monthly format showing each month. We never got notifications when guests would contact us. We still relied solely on Airbnb and VRBO to communicate with guests and use the calendar. Lastly, the payment processing system is beyond terrible. It doesn't sync with the channels at all. For example, VRBO would show only tax had been collected but in Kigo sometimes nothing other than the full amount. They say they offer a functional website for smaller management companies to use. It's a VERY restricted WordPress site where they limit everything. There is (literally) only one font option and the site is locked down so owners cannot design the site to function (without errors) appropriately.

Pros:

Nothing but the idea that we were sold on.

Cons:

Everything. CONS Poorly designed and executed software Slow clunky platform Bounces admins from two different platforms to do very simple functions NO APP - despite what they tell you in their sales pitch Software is full of glitches and rarely works correctly The support and implementation team is lacking simple knowledge on how their software operates No notifications when guests communicate The calendar is set up in row format making it very difficult to view Data is not consistent in Kigo The client platform is sold as interactive but is really incredibly basic and doesn't allow clients to view their rental data/reporting as advertised Causes error's within channel managers

When Kigo became a No-go

Comments: Kigo has newly been taken over by the American company Realpage and that is not an advantage for the clients. We have been clients for over a year and suddenly they raised their prices. I complained as Kigo didnt made any improvements to the existing software! So I had a phone call from a Sales Manager who promised me that we would be up runing in 90 days with the New Kigo. He really convinced me about this new product and I accepted the new prices too. But nothing happened and after 70 days I contacted my Account Manager and she had no idea about this. But she also inform me that I needed to buy a new website for the price of 4000 € (a very important detail that the Sales Manager forgot to tell me when he was selling the New Kigo) We lost a lot of time because of this horrible customers service. Furthermore they sacked the Account & Sales Manager and the Sales Director admitted that Kigo made a big mistake and that they have been understaffed. But at the end of the day they didnt take responsability for their mistakes. Our case went to their "Top Management" and they declined to give us any reduction for their mistakes. The product is good, but they completely lost it when it comes to customers service and therefor Kigo is a No-go for us.

Good in parts, but clunky and very poor support

Comments: We moved our portfolio of about 100 properties to Kigo in November 2015. Aspects are good and aspects are bad. The good:
Once issues are resolved the distribution is decent.
Revenue management works well.
The ops app is functional. The bad:
A number of issues that we raised at the outset are still not resolved, and we are now considering them as being more or less insurmountable. Kigo do not seem to be willing or able to address the issues. They are not critical but the detract majorly from various communication automation functions.
The app is very "clunky". Reservations take a long time to load etc and it is generally not a user friendly experience.
There are also a lot of bugs with downstream channels. We have experienced a lot of issues with our AirBnB, Booking.com and other connections. It is definitely an improvement on our previous software solution (MyBookingPal), and has the potential to be excellent, but it is a long way from finished, and the speed of changes that we have seen in the past six months leads me to believe it will be a very long time before this is a polished product.

Pros:

Distribution Revenue Management

Cons:

Slow to use Poor customer support Bugs not being addressed

Wonderful Experience!

Comments: Very Pleasant!

Pros:

Awesome Features, User Friendly, Agile On-boarding & best Customer Support

Cons:

should focus more on getting potential channels with easy connection process.

2017 reviews convinced me to come back...very happy I did!

Comments: Website , channel management, guest app, and much needed help.

Pros:

I was a Kigo customer from 2015-2016 and left in March to try BookingPal, Guesty, and Next. Kigo overall at this point in time was truly horrendous. Our team encountered problems with the software everyday, support never solved our issues and often said they were solved even though they were not. This was impossible to stay on top of. Our website was an embarrassment and continuously had glitches. The onboarding process was a complete nightmare to put it mildly. Fast-forward to end of last year. I received a call from Mat Hoffman. When I realized the purpose of the call was to invite me back, I hung up. To his credit he called back a week later. Surprisingly, it was to apologize for the businesses previous shortcomings, that Kigo had a new product team, and that if I were to give Kigo another shot, if it wasn't different this time, they would refund 2 times whatever we spent inside the first 6 months. I can respect a company that takes accountability. Kigo has undergone a complete transformation. Credit where credit's due. The software, especially the guest app and new website platform. The implementation process still requires a lot of work, but at least this time it was very well organized. My implementation manager at times was reminding our team what we were missing on. The frontline customer teams at Kigo today are far more informed and have a respectable understanding of our business needs. Great job Kigo with 2nd chances and the amazing turnaround.

Cons:

While I would still like to receive more options for training then offered today. Recorded videos that were in Spanish as well would be helpful.

The tale of 2 platforms

Comments: My rep was great - very nice lady. The software is old and incredibly complicated.

Pros:

The reason we chose Kigo was because it promised to be able to do all the things that were important to us. They said it could handle channel management, an owner portal, housecleaning management, website integration, guest app and guest communication. The truth is it does all of that - just in the worst way possible.

Cons:

First off understand that Kigo is 2 platforms. A legacy platform that all your properties need to be set up on and then a newer platform for the overall management. This is ridiculous and I should have run away the instant I saw that. The communication between the two platforms is poor. You constantly find yourself trying to figure out which platform to go to to fix an issue - and trust me there will be issues. In every single training session (which took a month) my trainer had to apologize for something not working. Now all that being said all the functionality is there - It is just confusing, buried and difficult to find. Kigo states that the management website is responsive - until you try to see the calendar (the most important part) . Then you have to turn your phone sideways and adjust the view dates so that you can see farther than 10 days ahead. Change anything over 10 days ahead and when you hit save it defaults back to the 10 day window - making anything you do slow and painful. Then there is the website - "the extrodinary experience" for your guests. Actually it is a stripped down wordpress website that limits you, the user, from adjusting the look, adding plugins, adding booking widgets outside of the presets and adding any sort of style to the platform. Instead of offering a simple plugin solution they have given you a website that is bland, useless and does nothing to represent your business or brand. That and they slap powered by kigo all over it.

Kigo everyday user

Comments: Customer support is good but the system itself is confusing and not user friendly

Pros:

Calendar availability. Guest communication

Cons:

Document management. Cleaning vendors schedule

Without customer service I would left Kigo a long time ago. Kigo is growing but has a lot to learn

Pros:

Easy of use. The system has a lot of potential to be the biggest and the best. Learning the needs of the clients and adding that to the system would make it almost perfect. Kigo is growing and learning and getting better in being there for the client.

Cons:

The system isn't open for changes. It takes to much time to adjust or ad something new to the product. Isn't ready for social media or MailChimp. Removing the benefits from the software: Ical, API with software of Kigo, not having a website development department anymore and not learning from the clients. Adjusting to the changes of the rental market.

I wish I could give them less than 0 stars. Kigo deserves a Black Hole.

Comments: Below are examples of dozens of real conversations with Kigo Support Staff illustrating that they truly do not understand how their software works. Me: Hi Kigo, something seems to be wrong with our Kigo Wordpress website, there's no property image included when sharing the page link on social media. Attached are screen shots, links and reports from Facebook that show exactly what the problem is (https://developers.facebook.com/tools/debug/og/object/ hint: 'og:image is missing') Kigo: Our test post shows no errors. (attached image) CASE CLOSED, thank you! Me: Please re-read my first message re: property images not showing in social media posts and notice that your screenshot is exactly like the one I sent to you when I said this wasn't working: no property image! Kigo: The social sharing plugin included in our uneditable template doesn't work well and you can't turn it off or install your own. Try an outside service like Addthis! Me: An outside sharing service doesn't change the fact that the info needed for sharing isn't included because the template functions aren't putting it there Kigo: We don't support sharing property images on social media. We removed that function on purpose. Me: You removed the ability for property managers and owners to effectively use the #1 marketing venue in the world? You purposefully want to hinder their ability to advertise properties and increase bookings by way of Social Media? Please confirm this. Kigo: You are correct, we removed your ability to share a property link from your Kigo website on social media with an image of the property included. Case Closed. --- Me. Hi Kigo. Our calendars aren't synching correctly with HomeAway and we're getting double bookings. Here are a bunch of screen shots, supporting links to our site, FlipKey, TripAdvisor and HomeAway. Kigo: That's a problem with HomeAway. Me: HomeAway only displays what you feed them. Hey HomeAway, what's going on? HomeAway: We only display what Kigo feeds us. Here are screenshots and links to support that Kigo is sending us the wrong data. Kigo: Why don't you turn off the online-booking feature so guests can't double book? Me: What's the point of having Kigo if we can't have online booking and correct info sent to distribution channels? ---
I have 15+ years of programming experience, worked w/ 5 property management systems and I have never, ever seen this level of incompetence from any software company.

OK

Pros:

Easy access, other platform requested to have a minimum of properties while it is good to build on from scratch. It has all the basics but miss a lot of details that may help my team work

Cons:

There are many unfixed Bugs, The Layout is faulty, There is No mobile App which would be very important in a job where you are very often out of office, No connection to Expedia, No specific link tool to italian Police

Excellent Software, gets better everday

Pros:

Great channel manager and very clever system to manage house keepers & guests. Romain our client manager is fantastic. Kigo listen to its customers and implement changes to improve.

Cons:

Not connected to expedia and the reports aren't great. (although this is improving each day) Would be great to get better reports so we can analyse our business and make changes. Revenue management needs to be improved too.

Good product, even better people!

Comments: We have been using Kigo since the beginning of the year to manage our Bali villas and we cannot imagine going back. The customer support has been second to none in our case and we always have access to a Kigo team member if needed. We had a slight issue with a sync between Kigo and Airbnb, some amenities were not showing up. Kigo visited us in Bali, in person and resolved the issue within a matter of minutes with the help of Tania who works on the customer support team in Barcelona. James Glover was our first point of contact as the person for developing new partnerships in Asia for Kigo. He was extremely helpful and realistic in the way that Kigo would be able to help us, and has continued to consult with us on an ongoing basis to ensure we are getting the most from the system. Kigo have recently visited Bali to learn more about this unique market, I have never heard of any other software provider doing this, which in my opinion makes them more than just a software. Lastly, Regina is our point of contact and yet again, we are working with someone who cares and understands our business. We have been explained from day one that Kigo is not as strong in Southeast Asia as in Europe and the USA, which is why they come here to learn. We look forward to continuing this partnership for the long term and helping you develop some features that will ensure you have total success in our region. Thanks, Kigo!

Pros:

- The Kigo team - Easy to use & learn - Kigo gives me a USP above others in Bali, they work offline.

Cons:

- Needing to get some more Asia focused channel connections

Great product, awesome support!

Comments: A good number; Centralised information, Multi-level management, Synchronisation between multiple platforms, Payments management, Website Distribution, Revenue management, etc, etc.

Pros:

Its capability to contain a vast number of configuration possibilities and the great support team, always available and communicative until resolution.

Cons:

It is not oriented to a biggest and more exhaustive hotelier management, we need more control over internal users. However they listen to our needs and we expect to have a solution implement soon.

Could not do it without Kigo and the team!

Pros:

Kigo, Kigo Pro and awesome people such as Richard Baker., Jason Gann., and Ron Pugla., make it possible for me to manage bookings for all of my properties and still have a life! The peace of mind and extra time that Kigo Pro's automation component affords me is priceless.

Cons:

Looking forward to the improved calendar interface and more attractive/user-friendly templates for statements, etc.. Also sometimes a little glitchy, but overall Kigo gets the job done and I would not switch.

Kigo Review

Comments: Challenging

Pros:

Holistic process. End to end process. Holistic process. End to end process.

Cons:

Managing Day-to-day Tasks and syncing with other OTAs.

you have to invest time with Kigo, to save it afterwards from your daily time.

Pros:

what i like most about this program is that it safes my time and it manages a lot. i have my calendar and all the dates saved about my guest. it also reminds me if a payment is due now.

Cons:

what i would say that i like least is that you have to take the time at the beginning to understand all the things and it really takes time to set up all the properties. but i think that this is normal with every new program.

Not happy

Comments: Kigos Free templates are really bad full of mistakes.
If you want to improve them they charge 125 euros an hour.
I think they made bad templates just so you would use their design team 900euros for some changes 3000 for a full custom.
I was told by their sales people the system would send photos and information to all portals using a sync .
which I thought was great......
I would just have to input into kigo one time and then sync .
Rubbish we have to upload descriptions and photos each time we want to join a new Portal.
which takes a lot of time .
I Just want to run away from this company very Bad experience very misleading.
we are now with them 3 months and still very little help apart from the 2-hour training in the beginning.
we wasted so much time with the template which we were told we could edit .but really they have just put restrictions everywhere.
Whoever designed the free templates knew everyone would have to call the design team in kigo.
where the can charge 125 euros a hour .

Excellent Customer Experience

Pros:

Since I am using KIGO, everything is going smoothly and I am having no more double bookings. But not only the availabilities are perfectly syncronised, also the descriptions are in place. So if anything changes in the houses of my agency, they get directly changed on all channels. I didn't think that it would be such a difference in the experience, but if you want to grow an agency it's important that every channel gets synced in the same way. So I can handle a lot more houses than I used to be able before that. I was screptic about the fix price per month for the software, but in the end KIGO is very fast in their customer service (any relyable) when you need anything.

Gets better and better

Comments: In the beginning we had a lot issues with Kigo but now with the website and the guest app. It is really improving and growing with the company.

Pros:

It makes it easy to work different users and owners. It gives you a better view of what is going on

Cons:

The website restrictions. There should be more space to create your own website with add ons.