WorkWave Reviews

“poor customer service

Pros

Back when Real Green owned the software, I experienced a total lack of any meaningful customer service from the company.

Cons

Regarding customer service, I have been using this software for over 20 years and, when I tried to change my subscription because I no longer use all the components, weeks passed while I attempted to get it corrected and I could barely reach anyone on the phone.

“difficulty accessing competent support

Pros

I was able to get the product to function but only if I could locate someone competent to assist me which I could not since their back-office team clearly lacked the necessary understanding.

Cons

Honestly the level of service is dreadful, I'm essentially left to handle everything alone because the company offers no real support and it feels like nobody there cares at all.

“Costly and inflexible tool

Pros

Great tool overall... It is great for operating a lawn spray business, handling the majority of tasks I'd expect for the modest cost I'm paying and generally meeting my day-to-day needs.

Cons

For our team, the per-user cost feels quite high and although we require easy adjustments to the software to satisfy New York reporting requirements, changes that should be simple to program, it seems that support does not currently include or prioritize this functionality.

“Useful scheduling and assignments

Pros

I appreciated the software's ability to schedule employees and adjust staff assignments within the system since it made coordinating shifts and updating who is working so much more easy and reliable for our team.

Cons

Although they told me we could change the number of users at any time, what I wasn't told up front was that reducing our user count would incur charges which felt like a bait-and-switch since they're eager to add users and collect more money without hesitation, they happily help you add accounts and bill for it but the minute I tried to shrink the number of seats I was hit with a cost. I get that cancelling the whole contract requires notice, yet having to pay to LOWER the number of users while the company imposes different rules for increasing them seems unfair to customers and because of that I'm planning to move to another program.

“weighed down by many flaws

Pros

Honestly I'm really into the global search feature, the dispatch view and the way the scheduling workflow is organized because they make finding information and planning jobs much simpler for me.

Cons

There are quite a few problems I keep bumping into, starting with the clumsy team-assignment behavior in the dispatch view that doesn't behave the way I expect and continuing with the fact that customers can't leave tips which feels like a missed opportunity, adjusting invoices is needlessly convoluted, I don't get any confirmation that text messages have been received, messaging is one-way only, customer-facing communication options via text and email are very limited and to top it off their contract renews automatically unless I send a written cancellation letter at least 60 days ahead which is both inconvenient and easy to miss.

“Responsive support & smooth transitions

Pros

We've appreciated how responsive the customer support team is and how smoothly the transition went.

Cons

Although we're still relatively new to using the application, I'm a bit uneasy about how the billing integration with QuickBooks will function and whether it will sync accurately.

“Mobile app unreliable, missing features

Pros

I couldn't identify any real pros with WorkWave, they exaggerated the product's capabilities to get me to sign a contract before I was even allowed to access the application and then, after I discovered the software was essentially worthless for my needs, they tried to extort payment from me anyway.

Cons

From what I've seen in multiple reviews and from my own experience, WorkWave simply doesn't perform as advertised, the mobile app is practically unusable for any of our technicians, there are no native marketing tools included in the service and those features were explicitly presented as part of the offering during the sales demo.

“Billing issues and delays

Pros

The woman who led my team to the training was genuinely pleasant and easy to interact with throughout the session.

Cons

As for the problems, I could write a book: customer support was virtually non-existent and almost immediately we hit an issue importing our client list that took twenty-one days to resolve, during that time the account administrator repeatedly ignored our emails and even came across as rude which only made the situation worse. After several attempts to cancel and being repeatedly stonewalled, we were informed, quite late, that we'd been locked into a year-long contract costing $3,000. By the time I got things usable, I only managed about four hours of proper functionality.

“Extremely poor customer service

Pros

I've come to the conclusion that there are absolutely no redeeming aspects to this company or its product and in my view it's more wasteful than literally burning the money I put toward it.

Cons

Honestly my experience has shown that everything about this company is shockingly terrible, staggeringly dysfunctional and the customer service is astonishingly awful, I'm genuinely floored by how incompetent they are.

“detailed profiles but hard to navigate

Pros

When I explore the system I find customer profiles are impressively detailed, providing a wealth of data and multiple points to pull information from, yet you really need to know exactly where to look in order to surface the most useful fields and reports.

Cons

One major frustration I've run into is with the payment processing: I can't see who paid on the very day the payment goes through, I frequently have to wait until the next day for anything to show up and in some cases the transaction doesn't reflect on the customer's account for up to a week which feels substandard and like a significant glitch in the system.

“Inefficient tool

Pros

From my perspective the software includes a broad range of capabilities but a significant portion of those functions are not yet usable and overall it gives me the impression that the product was released to market before it was fully ready.

Cons

I've run into a host of issues with the software that have caused ongoing headaches for our operation: to start, the rounding behavior when syncing to QuickBooks is inconsistent and inaccurate which leads to many transactions failing to sync and forcing us to edit each one manually inside QuickBooks, on numerous days this repeats enough that any organization larger than a one-person shop ends up with a substantial amount of work just to keep QuickBooks accurate. At our company we process merchant payments, including ACH, through Workwave Team Light and there's currently no practical way to reconcile the totals deposited into our bank account with the individual transaction records because most ACH deposits are batched so I have very little confidence that the amounts are correct. On top of that, customer portal payments often appear to fail from the customer's perspective so customers retry and inadvertently create duplicate payments for the same invoice, from our side both payments are acknowledged but the second one is recorded as a credit and because that credit is tied to the same invoice that was paid initially it ends up stuck and cannot be applied to the customer's balance. Future invoices then ignore that hanging credit which understandably frustrates customers and since we are not notified when these duplicate transactions occur they frequently go unnoticed until our monthly reconciliation, at which point we have to reach out to the customer, often after they've already contacted us. I've had many conversations with the company trying to reconcile these overpayments and it has been four months since the issue first appeared with no resolution, one particularly bad instance involved a $1,500 payment where the customer tried three times and, from their perspective, every attempt failed. This combination of failed-looking payments, duplicate entries, stuck credits and no proactive alerts has cost us time, damaged customer trust and left us repeatedly troubleshooting problems that the platform should be handling.

“effective tool but costly

Pros

It worked effectively for me but I now find it far too expensive to justify continuing with the service.

Cons

Okay so... I've been unable to cancel my subscription, they persistently withdraw funds without my authorization and I ultimately had to close my bank account to put a stop to the charges.

“Refund required multiple contacts

Pros

I've noticed they keep a large team of phone operators ready to take calls so in my experience I never miss a lead when reaching out.

Cons

It required contacting their billing department seventeen times before I finally received a refund of several thousand dollars and because nobody on their team accepted accountability I would never recommend giving this company your credit card, in my view they operate like the Comcast of field service software.

“poor customer support

Pros

nothing to mention in my opinion.

Cons

No one's answering, I'd like senior management to contact me.

“Easy customer follow-ups

Pros

What I appreciate is that I can input customers and keep tabs on them consistently from day to day and week to week which makes managing regular follow-ups and schedules much easier for me.

Cons

For me, the way it syncs with QuickBooks is problematic and doesn't fit our workflow but I can see it being an excellent solution for a different kind of business, or for users who never need to adjust prices mid-process the way we occasionally do.

“NO SUPPORT

Pros

The integration with our accounting software connects pretty easily and I find the job and schedule management behaves as you'd expect, handling assignments and timelines without fuss.

Cons

There's effectively no customer support, my whole office team and I have had a hard time getting any real help or clear answers from anyone at WorkWave and they are basically impossible to reach. When a response does come and it's almost always by email because phone calls never get answered, I'm asked to explain the problem again and again which is incredibly frustrating. At this point we're dealing with an issue that has generated more than twenty emails with no resolution in sight, despite our repeated requests that someone actually call us. On top of that, the company has incorrectly taken funds from our account twice related to a dispute (yes, each dispute resulted in a deduction) and although we've sent detailed explanations and photographic evidence some twenty times they still haven't corrected the mistake. They continue to question the situation even after I provided the trace ID and system ID from our bank which makes me feel like they aren't taking responsibility. I would not recommend using this service, mistakes happen but taking people's money and failing to fix it when you're clearly at fault is unacceptable.

“time zone support issues

Pros

It offered what I had hoped it would, providing the kinds of capabilities I expected for managing a small service business, including job coordination, record keeping and features intended to align daily operations that I believed would suit our needs.

Cons

The biggest problem I ran into was that time zones are totally ignored and because there's a three-hour difference we were essentially left without support if we couldn't conform to their narrow service hours, in practice that meant no service for us on many occasions. I felt strongly that the product and support did not match the promises made by the salesperson and the situation got worse after I signed their lengthy legal agreement because the very employee who sold me the system quit shortly afterward and the company assigned a different rep to our account. Our bidding process is significantly different from the options their software provides and when I raised this the original salesperson assured me there was a workaround, unfortunately the so-called workaround turned out to require me to purchase additional software just so our proposal method would integrate with their system. We wasted a lot of time trying to make it function. At the end of the day they operate like a massive company with many staff who seem indifferent and I have work requests and email threads and documents that clearly show the lack of follow-through on their part. Given the current hiring climate where we can't easily expand, we decided to cut our losses and asked if we could be released from paying subsequent months on the contract we never actually used but they refused to release us from that monthly commitment. That experience says a lot about the company and I strongly advise being very cautious before signing any type of monthly contract with them.

“complex program, unhelpful support

Pros

I was eager to try it because I assumed it would help us organize our cleaners' routes and simplify daily operations but in reality it didn't live up to hopes.

Cons

Honestly I find program overly complex and support unhelpful

“Keeps technicians on task efficiently

Pros

What I like is that it keeps the technicians on task which makes managing their workflow noticeably easier for me.

Cons

I find the program could be more user-friendly to get it set up, as the initial configuration felt more complicated than it needed to be.

“Not recommended!

Pros

I found nothing redeeming in this service, it's complete garbage and it felt like a total waste of my time.

Cons

After they assured me of a trial period, when I realized the program was unusable I attempted to cancel but despite my cancellation attempts they continued billing my card and bluntly refused to honor the trial they had promised so I'm warning others not to throw away their time or hard-earned money on this.

“nonexistent support...

Pros

It is a user-friendly tool but in my experience even trying to submit this survey turned into a problem which felt contradictory given how it's presented.

Cons

Support is essentially non-existent and whenever I report problems they're routinely shifted onto "engineering," yet I never manage to actually speak with anyone from that team.

“setup difficult, delayed training

Pros

Genuinely I can't come up with a single redeeming thing to say about them, their software or my overall experience.

Cons

Setting it up was incredibly difficult and using it proved equally frustrating and after they enrolled me in the system I couldn't get the training scheduled that I needed to actually use it for two weeks.

“didn't like much....

Pros

If I sign up for it and later decide I don't like it, I'm trapped by the contract they put me under, they won't let me walk away even when I'm clearly dissatisfied.

Cons

Frankly, I was forced to stay on the plan even though I didn't like it because they wouldn't allow me to cancel.

“Overpriced tool

Pros

This tool only works when I have a team to operate it

Cons

It's outrageously pricey and in my experience they only contact me to bill

“easy to use with QuickBooks integration

Pros

I find it incredibly easy to use and we appreciate that it integrates easily and works hand in hand with QuickBooks.

Cons

I'm concerned that Express is going to be discontinued and because we genuinely like this product, we don't want to be forced to switch and start all over with some other solution.

“helpful technical team but a lot of issues

Pros

We've been really impressed with most of the technical team, who genuinely seem to tune into the issues we're facing and actively work toward fixes and having real people to troubleshoot alongside us is reassuring, the initial video training they rolled out today struck me as a smart move and I honestly think it will become an important resource that helps us considerably going forward.

Cons

After dealing with so many persistent issues over the years, I half-jokingly feel like you ought to be compensating me for the dozens of hours I've spent helping to troubleshoot and shake out the glitches, it's frustrating that even after nearly two years of trying to get everything stabilized we still hit daily problems that disrupt our workflow.

“no customization options

Pros

In my experience the workflow arrangement is great and when it runs properly I find that it flows smoothly.

Cons

I have no way to customize any part of it so I'm left with exactly what is provided even when elements fail to work.

“A disastrous switch with failed data migration

Pros

After relying on Service CEO for nine years, we opted to switch to WorkWave Service when we were informed that CEO was being sunsetted and would no longer be supported and we were repeatedly told the transition would be simple.

Cons

All of the data that was migrated from CEO had to be removed and manually re-entered by our team which made it obvious that WWS and CEO are fundamentally incompatible platforms, despite assurances, the integration simply doesn't work. The platform itself is only about two years old and WWS staff often reminded us of that, bluntly saying that 'WWS is still young and working through development,' so many features we expected aren't yet mature. For example, there is no built-out front-end sales system and they told us the front-end won't be ready for another six to eight months which was a shock given our needs. It bothers me that nobody sat down with us at the outset to ask what our specific requirements were and then tailored training around our workflows because had they done so we might have avoided this mismatch, instead we invested hours having my staff learn a system that doesn't even support creating or managing estimates. The most frustrating part is that after wasting significant time and money, they refuse to release us from the contract so we're still being billed for a product we're effectively not using.

“Initially helpful but became laggy...

Pros

Okay so after doing a fair bit of research, I arranged for my wife's cleaning business to pick up Service CEO back in 2005 and later learned that Workwave acquired the product, the whole purpose was to simplify scheduling and customer communications for her company and while it initially handled those tasks reasonably well, over time it started to lag behind what we actually needed from the software.

Cons

I found it a real struggle getting even small customizations implemented and although the support had been passable at times making those necessary tweaks felt overly time-consuming and frustrating, after Workwave took over CEO, the attitude shifted noticeably toward arrogance and unhelpfulness. More painfully, my wife was unexpectedly diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and had to close the business abruptly on September 10th, yet despite having already paid the September subscription, the company is demanding a buyout to terminate the contract which feels exactly like dealing with a bureaucracy-stuffed government office.

“Misleading payroll claims!!

Pros

After they acquired my previous software, ServiceCEO, I assumed they'd already understand my history and specific needs, yet they acted as though they were completely unfamiliar with ServiceCEO's functionality and even asked me to send screenshots of how the program worked which was surprising given the acquisition and left me frustrated that there was no apparent continuity or knowledge transfer.

Cons

Both their IT team and sales reps gave me blatantly incorrect information about what the program could do and despite my making it crystal clear before signing up that payroll calculation was essential because my old program handled it, I was repeatedly told it could do payroll, first by IT, then by sales so I agreed to a yearly contract (the only scheduling software I could find that insisted on annual billing rather than monthly). During onboarding I was forced to learn payroll on my own and only then did they seemingly realize what I had discovered: the software does NOT process payroll. It cannot handle commissions, tips, training pay, vacation pay, or bonuses which to me is unbelievable for a product marketed to service businesses where tips are often a basic payroll component. The absolute worst part after wasting hundreds of hours and a lot of money on onboarding is that they said they would release me from the contract, yet they keep charging my card even after deleting my files, I am now disputing the charges with them and with my credit card company.

“trapped in contract!

Pros

We appreciated being able to monitor our delivery drivers locations in real time since it improved scheduling and accountability for our team.

Cons

I felt misled when sales reps assured us to get us to sign the paperwork and afterward we were trapped in a year-long contract which is really disappointing since we genuinely wanted it to work.

“hidden features, frustrating interface

Pros

To me it seemed user friendly and like it would align our business and I think it offers a lot of useful features if you find them.

Cons

Almost everything is hidden where you wouldn't expect so learning the system took me forever and felt like fighting a poorly organized interface. They haven't adjusted to modern workflows and entering customer records doesn't leave room for long names or for listing spouses which is a headache. Searching for customers is frustrating because the lookup isn't simple and often returns random, countersimple results that make finding the right record a guessing game. I can't update critical tables myself and there are regulatory tables that they insist on updating for a $200 fee, otherwise I'm exposed to county or state compliance risks which feels like an exploitative practice. It comes across like a racket because seemingly simple functions that should be a single button are buried so they can nickel and dime me with paid add-ons instead of providing sensible default settings intentionally. They promised it would be easier but it's only easier if I buy five upgrades, each containing something I want but bloated with features I don't need and it also has a scheduling lock that often doesn't work and they won't fix it. Pathetic program, honestly.

“Not mobile-friendly, tough workflows

Pros

Honestly I couldn't find anything I liked about this software, using it felt tough and difficult and it ended up creating extra work for our team rather than aligning tasks.

Cons

What frustrates me is that the app isn't compatible with phones or tablets so we can't use it on-site in the field, additionally, the scheduling and billing workflows are overly long and tough, packed with unnecessary questions and mandatory fields that force us to fill out information that shouldn't be required.

“awkward workarounds...

Pros

It's hard to judge, they won't show the software workflow to me unless I sign a contract first so I don't really know what it does beforehand.

Cons

I've had to deal with sales reps and plenty of manual optimization and awkward workarounds which makes it feel like they're bending things so they can technically claim the software supports certain features, plus, they don't produce their own hardware and simply resell Azuga's devices so in my opinion it's easier to go directly to Azuga.

“Smooth transition!

Pros

Our company recently moved all of our operations onto the WorkWave-run software platform and I really appreciated the thorough training they provided during the transition because it made the changeover much smoother than I expected.

Cons

When I first began learning the software, I found it somewhat overwhelming because there are so many features packed into it which made the initial learning curve pretty steep.

“comprehensive workflow management

Pros

I find the program provides a wide range of features that let me manage everything from listing and tracking work orders through completing jobs and then gathering the necessary payment data which makes handling the whole workflow much smoother.

Cons

Sometimes I run into situations where I need additional assistance with certain features and although it can take a while to reach live support or get an immediate fix, they ultimately come through and resolve the issue in the end.

“Responsive, professional support

Pros

Great tool... I've often proposed new features and the team genuinely tries to implement them, doing their best to meet what I ask for, their customer support also responds quickly to every inquiry and everyone I've dealt with has been consistently professional and polite.

Cons

Occasionally, after a software update I notice glitches that end up reverting the settings I had previously configured which can be frustrating because it forces me to reapply my preferences.

“excellent onboarding

Pros

It was a bit overwhelming at first but their customer support was outstanding, they patiently walked me through every step. Over the next year, I plan to do a lot more training so I can start using many of the additional features

Cons

At the moment, I can't really point to anything I dislike about it yet since nothing significant has come up that bothers me.

“Good training & support

Pros

Honestly I found the software extremely simple and within a short time I was able to pick up how to use Workwave without much struggle, on top of that, the training I received included excellent customer support, as the team were always on hand to respond to any questions I had and handled every interaction with a high level of professionalism and courtesy.

Cons

One feature I'd really appreciate is an option to generate reports that show services organized by each customer's name because being able to pull service records per client would simplify my tracking and record-keeping considerably.

“great features and scales well

Pros

I picked WW largely for its great feature set even though it's somewhat pricier than alternatives, it has scaled alongside the ways I use it and accommodated my growth in size over time.

Cons

Although it's not organic, I often struggle because many of the features aren't easy or obvious in how they're meant to be used so I've had to rely on training sessions and a fair amount of trial and error to learn and operate the system effectively.

“flexible tool with broad functionality

Pros

I've discovered that WorkWave helps a far broader range of functions and much greater flexibility than I could accomplish with CEO.

Cons

For me, it took a little while to get used to the system but collaborating through Teams quickly proved to be a major benefit.

“smooth web-based workflow

Pros

For me, the program's workflow is smooth and the fact that it's web-based removes much of the downtime one would usually face with a locally hosted network application system.

Cons

I'd love to see POS capabilities in a future update since using this software to cash out items at my retail store would be so incredibly helpful.

“easy setup, excellent onboarding

Pros

What really impressed me was how easy the setup process was and I have to say that the WorkWave onboarding team made a big difference by migrating our database for us and walking us through each step, they scheduled multiple training sessions, were consistently professional and genuinely patient in showing us how the program functions. When we lost the employee who had originally been trained, they even arranged extra basic training sessions to help bridge that gap which I found incredibly helpful and reassuring because it prevented a real loss of operational knowledge. As someone involved with H2O Systems, I'm very grateful for the clear communication and the way they helped recover skills that were lost due to an employee termination and the new users' unfamiliarity with the software. Looking ahead, we're excited to unlock more of the program's capabilities since, with a lot of turnover and fresh hires, we haven't rolled out every feature yet, the nice part is that WorkWave scales to the level a company is ready to handle so we can expand use as our team becomes more comfortable. Even with the reduced feature set we're using at the moment because of our newer employees, we haven't missed any scheduling or invoicing tasks which says a lot about the platform's reliability and I'm thankful that WorkWave's customer support has kept our scheduling accurate and dependable.

Cons

What frustrated me was the initial data migration approach because we have about 6,500 customers overall but only planned to integrate roughly 850 customers for one specific division and given that we operate multiple divisions with staff responsible solely for single-division duties, the way the import was handled created complications. When WorkWave first brought our QuickBooks data in, they migrated our entire customer list and that became a nightmare for employees who only needed access to a much smaller subset, it meant they were forced to sort through an overwhelming directory rather than focusing on the handful of accounts relevant to their division. To resolve it, we ended up manually entering the specific customers for that single division which felt tedious but ultimately proved easier and far less error-prone than expecting staff to pick from the gigantic list. Once we completed that cleanup and limited the customer set to what each division actually needed, the program became much simpler to navigate and use day to day.

“Perfect for fine-tuned driver routing

Pros

I've found that giving me the ability to set every imaginable parameter for a driver really helps me fine-tune and optimize routes and that kind of optimization is absolutely crucial for my company because it directly affects how well we meet our clients' needs.

Cons

For my pool service business, it took me a while to get used to the system because there was a noticeable learning curve and several of the tools felt awkward or overly complicated for the specific tasks we handle day to day.

“limited workflow flexibility

Pros

Scheduling work orders is easy, the lookup feature is quick and simple and handling daily work orders plus invoices is reliably simple.

Cons

I have to finish a work order before I can look up another account which means that once I do so I'm essentially forced to start creating a new work order from scratch, furthermore, when I close a ticket it's extremely difficult for me to go back and reverse or correct any financial entries associated with it.

“Great time saving tool

Pros

Being the owner who visits every job site, I find it frees up a lot of my evenings because when I get home I don't have to spend time scheduling, billing and generating invoices which means I actually get some personal time.

Cons

Honestly I can't come up with anything that's bothered me about this software, there simply haven't been any issues or annoyances worth mentioning in my experience.

“Frustrating accounting limitations

Pros

In my experience the GPS portion of the application works really well and remains easy to navigate for everyday use.

Cons

I'm frustrated that the software won't synchronize two-way with accounting systems because it only pushes or pulls information in a single direction rather than exchanging data bi-directionally.

“billing workflow issues

Pros

Honestly I really don't have a whole lot to say about this, to be frank.

Cons

Can't go back and create work orders for projects, I only learn about after they've already been finished which is a problem because on many occasions I don't become aware that a job was carried out until a day or two later, furthermore, I really don't want an invoice to be automatically generated for every single scheduled work order since we bill our clients primarily through a monthly contract that covers all services rendered in that period and every invoice that gets pushed into QuickBooks just ends up clogging our accounting system with unnecessary entries.

“easy to use with valued feedback

Pros

Finding the app genuinely easy to use, I appreciate that the company is still growing and remains open to feedback because I've actually watched several of my suggestions come to life, perhaps not implemented exactly as I envisaged but adapted into practical, usable features that work for me.

Cons

I still can't tell whether the distance measurements are showing straight-line, 'as-the-bird-flies' mileage or actual travel distance because on multiple occasions the app has reported that the next property is only 0.5 miles away yet when I examine the map it's clearly much farther, a separation that might make sense if you were crossing water but not for driving or walking between sites and on top of that I find it frustrating that the system won't display unassigned or empty days unless I drill down into each technician or team individually which makes getting an overall view of gaps or availability more time-consuming than it should be.

“logical route planning

Pros

I've discovered a easy way to map out and organize my day so that my tasks follow an easy, logical route which makes planning feel much less chaotic and more manageable overall.

Cons

Setting up the next day for all of the service guys takes me a surprisingly long time and I often find it frustrating when I'm trying to coordinate everyone quickly and efficiently.