I woke up this morning (late) and took my time going to work because I didn't have any appointments booked. OR SO I THOUGHT...
And then the angry calls started coming in: "I'm here for my appointment, but there's no one here!"
I looked at my iCal on my iPhone and I said "ma'am, I do appologize, but I don't have anyone booked for this time." Then she proceeds to tell me that she confirmed online and everything. So I launch the Square Appointments app and sure enough, THERE'S 3 CLIENTS BOOKED! I threw on some cloths and ran out the door without my morning coffee. Hell, I sped through a school zone and nearly crashed my car weaving in and out of rush hour traffic!
Long story short, Square cut us off.
Square Appointments is no longer syncing with our Google calendars... That is, unless you pay them $29 for Appointments "Plus." That's right, they got us hooked on a feature- one that we all depend upon, and decided to extort us mafia style. Now let me tell you something... Out of nowhere you want to charge us for calendar sync? OK, but I've got some strong opinions on paying for this service that is shotty, at best.
1. First of all, iPhone users have to set up a "proxy" Google calendar to serve as a middle-man because Square Appointments won't even sync with Apple Calendar.
2. Any edits you make in the iPhone Calendar, don't change in the appointments app.
3. Now that thousands of us have integrated the calendar sync feature into our daily lives, Square shut us out like a light. They didn't even bother to grandfather the existing users in and now ALL previous appointments that were synced in the past are completely GONE from Google and iCal. THIS IS UNETHICAL!
In the future, can we expect Square to just TURN OFF Invoices one day and prevent us from sending customers an invoice until we paid them $29/mo. (That's $348 a year, BTW)
I would never do anything like to my clients. Not in in a million years.
I run a repair shop and we used to offer free diagnostics. We stopped doing that a few years ago, but I still give my pre-2018 clients free diagnostics. It's bad enough that the Calendar Sync feature barely works, but Square knows that thousands of us are dependent on it, and they're banking on the face that at least 40% of us will pony up the $348/year for this janky feature.
Way to nickle-and-dime us. GO SQUARE!
