Blue Crystal Software Kennel Connection

Kennel Connection is NOT created to grow your business. It is intended for very small facilities only. There are so many errors and issues that it creates such chaos to run a successful business. Your staff begins to note that the software makes so many errors and has so many bugs that it’s easy for them to place blame on software for many things. As a business owner- you can imagine that this could be dangerous. You can report all bugs and errors to the company but they state that if they can’t duplicate your issues on their private computers than your issues are a mute point. They have no idea what it’s like to have 10 people in line with barking dogs and software crashing daily. Do not find out the hard way like I did. Research all companies and pick one that works with yor growth plans. This one would it be my first choice.

The software is garbage. It is so full of bugs that we are reporting issues often. They tell us that 1000's round the world use it. I don't believe it. The only good thing about the company is the person in support. The rest are just there to take your money and blame you or your computer for their software's failings. Save your money. This software just isn't ready for market.

I was using another software for just about 7 years. That company raised their support rates to nearly double and I could never get support when I needed it. I would call and call and have to leave voice mails and never got a call back. The rare times I did, the support person was useless or wanted more money so I decided it was time for a change.

I looked around, tried a number of solutions including web based ones and decided on Kennel Connection for a number of reasons. The first was that a live person answered the phone. After that, the sales and training department kept in touch. After purchase I got a free training session but didn't really need it because we watched all the training videos online.

I did not want an online solution because I don't want someone else having access to my customer information. I also didn't want my employees to have an excuse to surf the web all the time.

I have no complaints with the software or support and it's been almost a year now. Each time I call, either I speak to someone live or get a call back. I also joined the facebook group and the people who answer questions there do so quickly and sometimes late.

If you want a comprehensive program with great support, choose Kennel Connection.

This software is OK in it's functionality - nothing amazing. My complaint, as with many others you see on this website, is with the support side of software. This is not cheap software to buy and it only comes with one year of updates/support. After that first year, the only person who will call you back is the sales manager to inform you that there is a problem that can only be fixed by purchasing the support. And it is not like the support is cheap either - $329 for 1 year! Just 1 year! That is disgraceful! I would not be surprised if this company works bugs into the software that causes it to fail after a set amount of time forcing customers to purchase the support. Don't make the same mistake I did - keep looking! By the way, I have never taken the time to poorly review a company, but I just don't want this to happen to anyone else.

A year ago we realized our then current software was no longer going to be supported to the level that we needed. The company had been sold a number of times and they simply stopped responding. We contacted a number of software vendors and tried out 4 other options. We chose Kennel Connection for a number of reasons. First, they were responsive. We did not have to wait days for answers and everyone was eager to assist. Second, they were able to transfer all our data from our other program into the new one. Third, they had free training and videos online for us and we have used their live chat and called for help and received the help we needed right away.

I read all the "bad" reviews here before purchase and I can't believe the majority of them. I've had no issues with the support or service. We did the Quickbooks link and it did take some setting up but that is to be expected. I do not recall all the complaints, but I can tell anyone reading that I would not hesitate to recommend this software.

I don't normally write reviews, good or bad for that matter. I like to deal directly with the company I am having issues with in order to get them resolved. I am a true believer that good word of mouth is still the strongest advertising any company can do to help themselves – a reference from someone you know will pay in dividends! And as I mentioned to them, every President of every company should be very wary of bad word of mouth – it travels so much faster than any other type of advertising you can hope to do. Most business people know many others and we all work together and network closely most of the time. And so my network of business friends have strongly encouraged me to write this review plus I personally believe that BCS/Kennel Connection have earned this one star. Suffice it to say that we have had a long "relationship" (and I use this word very loosely) with Kennel connection dating from 2006. In all the years until present it has always been quite difficult to deal with them. We tell them we need a report they tell us we have to pay for a customization report. We pay for the customization reports and use all kinds of works arounds to get through our daily basic functions using mostly manual methods – very time consuming. I wish I could say that it was just about a report/s that didn’t transfer when we made the switch to 6.0 (we’ve since had to revert back to 5.0 to access the old reports), or all the manual time consuming work arounds we have had to constantly do in order for our business to work for Kennel Connection, or the basic call in for tech support that takes between 1 week to 2 weeks to get answered (they prefer to volley emails back and forth and mind you we are on Pacific Time and they are on East coast time so that only gives us a few hours per day to reach them – at their convenience of course) and then we are told to go read the manual, or when my staff that come to me about ready to pull their hair out because of the rude and condescending people. Should I go on…I think you get the picture. Basically their attitude is we’ve sold you the software now buzz off! And in reading the other reviews I can tell that this is the man thread.

I along with more than 4 other senior staff members have all dealt with them over the years and everyone reported the following and it should be noted that my staff deals with KC about 85% of the time and only when they are at their wits end (which is the norm when dealing with BCS/KC) do I intervene:

1.They were very rude, unprofessional, condescending and extremely unhelpful.

2.They were very unhelpful-translation it takes many phone calls and many more emails from us to them to just identify what the problem is and in the end they almost always point the finger back at us. They rarely return calls. And on this one but (please anyone not related to Kennel Connection) if you call Microsoft or some type of IT support for help do they ignore your first 3 calls, email you multiple times and then tell you that you can’t be helped (the problem is unsolvable) or better yet: “I’ll get to you when I have time.” OR does it usually work out by someone taking your call and walking you through to the solution?? Just curious… and sometimes they direct us to just read the manual!! How do you like that for support?? But mostly it can’t be solved, it’s our server and yes it’s our unreasonable expectations…

3.They were very rude, unprofessional, condescending and extremely unhelpful – yes, it bears to mention again.

4.In fact the “service” they provided became so bad when we had to deal them once more, who they claim is the best at what she does, she’s so fantastic she’s actually the customer service manager – we had a blast laughing out loud about that one. So I took it to the COO of this company – her email was so condescending (not mention that she never returned my call) but choose to write a lengthy email instead – I’d love to share with anyone interested in reading – quite comical really. Of course she never failed to give warm and fuzzy accolades towards the other agent once again singing high praises about her – not sure what the relationship is there. So I escalate it this further to the President of Blue Crystal and he couldn’t stop giving his staff and himself pats on the backs and showering himself with compliments. Is this how they respond to a client complaint? By hiding behind their computers, showering each other with compliments and high fiving one another??

So let’s look at this from another angle: I’m difficult to deal with, my expectations for service for technical issues apparently just too high, and my Business Manager is too difficult and my Store Manager is too difficult and both Supervisors are just not up to their “liking” standards. We didn’t make it in their “club”…Hmmm… ok.

What about the 30 or so other reviewers on here that have named exactly the same people and are having almost exactly the same issues. They too are just too difficult? Their technical issues are not resolvable? We are all a bad batch of unreasonable people whose personalities just don’t work for KC staff?? Seems very unlikely at best.

And yes, I absolutely agree that all businesses receive good and bad reviews but when 30 out of 32 reviews are very bad (KC has 2.5 stars on review centre) and your clients are telling you almost the same exact thing daily – I’d venture to say: let’s put a pause on the personal accolades and warm fuzzies towards one another and let’s figure out why so many KC clients are unhappy with our service…And then let’s actually take care of them! And if all you want to do is sell widgets then go do that and stop selling software support!!

Fast forward – I wrote Mark a fairly nice email saying fine you don’t like us and we don’t like you so let’s part ways amicably. We don’t want to use them for “support” (no one here wants to ever have another weeklong agonizing interaction with any of Blue Crystal’s people) -somehow we’ll just have to manage without, we’ll revert back to 5.0 and so just refund the $500 we just paid for the upgrade to 6.0 (and we only just upgraded because they will not be servicing 5.0 users any more) and we’ll call it a day. He refused.

The lack of professionalism and the level of rudeness are excessive – in fact I’ve honestly never experienced anything the likes of this before. This last $500 he collected and kept has proven to be the most expensive and the tab is still rising. Unfortunately the ego is too big and he is unable to hear what all of us are trying to tell him. This is certainly his prerogative and his call. As far as I know to cut off your nose just to spite your face…not the best way to go and certainly not a way to grow your business and yes there is absolutely a difference between surviving and thriving.

As it turns out the grass is certainly much greener on the other side!  We have done some extensive research only to learn that so many pet software companies have entered into the marketplace that have really been doing quite well. We did find a great company that has actually evolved into the 21st century and meets our business and professional needs. It has been a HUGE time saver and does things at the click of one button – imagine that! Several other companies I know that are in the pet care business are also in the process of doing the switch from Kennel Connection.

So I encourage all of us to speak up and do something about this, you don’t have to grin and bear or even swear!  Anyone interested please email me. Here we go! And a final special thanks to the Kennel Connection people who have given us that last kick in the b to get out and find a reputable company that can actually take care of our business requirements and we as people need. Thanks so much!

We were sold this mess at an expo and wished we had seen the reviews before we WASTED OUR MONEY!!! It is nothing like they promise. If you are attempting to merge from QuickBooks POS it is a nightmare. The only thing that they transfer over to Kennel Connection is your clients first and last name. THAT IS IT. You will have to re-enter ALL of your inventory items and customer history, pet and employee information. Then when you try to link Kennel Connection to your financial software, prepare for your computer to be tied up for hours resulting in numerous errors that YOU are expected to research and fix. The reports are childish and give minimum information. DO NOT BUY THIS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

They should tell people that the software is a scheduling program and not a compliment to any others that you have. It is overpriced at $799.00.

Overly complicated, expensive and pretty much useless. The staff are rude and won't even talk to you before making you pay for an update than will just make your life harder. Thanks once again Kennel Conmection for costing my business time and money spent on your garbage software. I'm off to buy a pencil and a calendar for $3 that will be more reliable.

The support for Blue Crystal Software Kennel Software is humorous. I have owned this software for 10 years after the first 3 years the calendar section has not worked properly. When I called for support they couldn't tell me the problem or fix it so I have lived that way while looking for other software. Recently, I am updating my prices, so I can transfer them into the other software I have purchased and it will not let us enter that section. We called and they said we had to UPGRADE. Getting into your own system to change things should NEVER need an upgrade! that ability comes with EACH software package for the life of that software. Mark is ridiculous and I encourage you to look into other software. If you would like my help with that please contact me via email. I am a kennel owner NOT a software salesman. I would really like MARK to help me. however, so far he has been unwilling to do that without my upgrading. that is degrading!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! the software itself, if it would work properly for more that a year at Bot have to upgrade for my system to work properly and as advertised for my version.

Okay, I will start by saying I use this software at work, but do not own it. It is extremely layered in details & features to a point that it almost makes no sense at all. It isn't useless & to be quite frank if you take the time to learn it, it does the job fine. I have to say that I've seen programs designed by guys in their late teens, that have a more thought out approach. All the tabs, directories & features that are accessible from every other menu is pointless & confusing (to the average user). I know the sofware well, after studying it for hours, in a non-work environment. No business owner in the kennel industry should want to, much less have to, pay for employees to spend as much time to learn an overly complicated records system. I know many ”real” electronic medical records software & this program makes them seem no more complicated than an etch-a-sketch. I don't know about support, but if it's as runaround as this software is, good luck to any who have to use it.