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The AMS landscape is evolving rapidly. With the ever-changing nature of technology, older comments can sometimes provide a skewed view to the person seeking feedback. Archived reviews are more than 60 months old, and aren't counted towards the average five star ratings or percent recommended.

Biz-zone sells hard but the service is soft

Submitted Feb. 13, 2018
Customer Service
1
Does your AMS vendor respond to your organization's requests in a timely and thorough way?
Ease of Use
2
Reliability
1
Customization
1
Membership Size: 
1,001-5,000
Industry Type: 
Other
Organization Type: 
Individual Membership
Primary Job Function: 
Chief Staff Officer (#1)
Number of Years Using the AMS: 
1-3 years
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We retained the services of Biz-zone / Association DNA for one of our association clients. We opted for the AMS for membership and event registration. We integrated the AMS into our existing website.

One of our staff, an experienced project manager, worked with their staff to develop the AMS according to the requirements document, which was based on our client's need. 

Almost from the beginning our project became backlogged by delays, errors that followed requested fixes, additional costs for customizations that should have been standard features and miscommunications between their project manager and their developers (too many layers). Regrettably, we ended up eating our hours for project management as we didn't think it was right to ding our client for the project going over-schedule. Biz-zone would make excuses at every turn and repeatedly told us that they were busy hiring new developers to serve us better but didn't seem to care that we had contributed literally hundreds of hours to manage them, the project and the launch. Much of their work was sloppy and we spent a good chunk of our time finding errors, which whenever they fixed, led to more errors. 

We launched Association DNA in 2016 but are still encountering issues which they are slow to fix, delegate to a junior manager or simply make excuses when it doesn't get done. 

In the meantime, another client came on board with Association DNA as their prospective new AMS. The project was not very far along and knowing what we knew, we were not looking forward to managing the project. In fact, our project manager refused to go anywhere near it, he was so "traumatized" from the last time. 

Long story short, the project did not go well and we advised our association client to walk away and find another solution which we did and have since very successfully launched. 

We gave Biz-zone a chance because they are a Canadian company and they seemed keen to help us develop solutions. Their principals are well-known in the industry and do a good sales job but they don't seem to have the necessary talent on board to make things happen. They also don't listen to their clients which is likely why our projects went so far off the rails. 

Buyer beware on this company!