Darren F.
Customer for 22 months - pros and cons
I have been a Buildium customer since 2018, about 22 months. The software itself is pretty good until they do a release. When the release breaks something and the accounts get messed up (like they did a upgrade for lease renewals that had a bug where the leases did not renew with the correct rent amount), the communication is horrible and they fix the problem going forward but not the messed up accounts. Additionally, the phone support is lacking. While they have knowledgeable staff, when the error cannot be resolved immediately (by telling me what i did wrong), they rarely if ever follow up on the ticket. I don't know how they monitor their open tickets. One fellow did not even create a ticket, so after 1 week of waiting I called back to find out I had to start over. Then I waited another week and called back for a status, and there was no status. When they have a problem to investigate, they do very poorly. Lastly, if you accept ACH or credit/ debit card payments and any item is disputed. the only way to communicate with them is via email. They will not verbally tell you anything. You initially get 7 days to provide evidence of a valid charge. After that the dispute remains on your account until it is re-credited to you account or nothing happens, and I mean nothing. In this case your evidence doesnt matter the charge back stands, Buildium doesn't notify you at all. They tell you it can take 4 months for a response and during that time the only way you know if it is settled is to EMAIL them. Imagine you have chargeback and you provide the information, you wait a month to see if you get your money back and you hear nothing, so you email them and they say, "it is in process and it could take 4 months" You wait anouther month and do the same.... Finally you email them and they tell you that your claim was rejected. It would be nice if they proactively let you know. Additionally, they accept payments from people other than the lease holder. So if someone pays rent with someone else's credit card and later the person with the credit card disputes the charge, you automatically loose because you don't have a lease with that person. However, when buildium processes the payment you see the tenants name, so you have no way of knowing it is someone else's card. Then they tell you that is the owners risk for taking credit cards. So, other than releases, and communication and credit card handling. I actually love using the product. When the system works as designed it is usually a pleasant experience. They do either answer the phone or allow you to hang up and they will automatically call you back at your place in line when you call support. The product does work and they do have decent tutorials. Their support staff knows the product and has educated me on it when I make an error. The price is cheaper than app folio and it is pretty easy to use. I've shared my concerns with them directly, but haven't seen any changes. All in all it is an above average product with horrible support when you really need it. The support is really educators, not problem solvers.
Response from BuildiumApr 1, 2020
Hi Darren, Thanks for your honest feedback about release communication. Our team is working hard to improve on communication for all our releases, including monthly product emails and in-app messaging. I've passed your feedback on support follow-up to the manager of that team. This is not the experience we want our customers to have, and we thank you for letting us know about what you've encountered. Best, The Buildium Team