To grow your figure skating club, you need to improve your entire club experience. From an easy registration with flexible payments, to clear communication and strong data privacy; growing your figure skating club is a process of complete business optimization.
That may sound daunting to read, but the solution is simple: figure skating software. We may be biased but we have first-hand experience optimizing clubs to help them grow. We’ve helped skating clubs reclaim 24 hours of administrative time per week and we’ve helped others reduce admin time and costs by 75%! These optimizations help free up time and money to be re-invested in growing your skating club.
So, what are some of the specific benefits you’ll have when you grow your figure skating club with skating software?
We’ve detailed 7 of them below.
1) Automate your figure skating registration to boost customer satisfaction
This is going to sound counter intuitive but it’s true. On registration night, you shouldn’t see a long line of customers waiting at your office.
A decade ago, a long line on registration night meant that your club was doing great. However, in today’s tech-driven world, a long line means that your club is at risk of losing skaters to your competition. That’s because a long line on registration night indicates slow registration processes.
Of course, with today’s health and safety recommendations it’s even more important for your club to eliminate lineups. At this time, parents want to reduce any unnecessary touch-points which means online registration is that much more important.
At Uplifter, we’ve helped hundreds of amazing skating clubs take their registration online. Whether you’re one of the largest skating clubs in Canada or a small-town club, online skating registration will boost customer satisfaction.
When you automate your skating registration with online figure skating software, you’re not just eliminating an in-person lineup, you’re also allowing parents to signup whenever it fits their schedule.
This means parents can register their skaters at 10:30pm after a long day, or at 6:30am before a busy day begins. That’s a level of convenience that will make every parent happy.
And of course, the happier your customers are the more likely they are to recommend your club to others.
2) Offer flexibility with installment payments, subscriptions and discounts
No club wants to turn away a young skater because their family wasn’t able to budget a lump-sum registration payment. So why not offer payment installments instead?
Payment installments offer flexibility for your club members during this difficult time. By using cutting edge skating software like Uplifter, your club can split membership fees into several smaller payments so they’re easier for families to budget.
If you prefer, your club can even choose to collect payments as a monthly subscription.
Monthly subscription payments are easy for members to budget, and they create a steady and predictable revenue flow for your club.
Another way to help increase your club’s membership is to offer discounts. By automating discounts like “Buy One, Get One”, “Family Discounts”, and “Multi-class Discounts”, your club is able to encourage enrollments through specific promotions. These promotions don’t just help your club increase enrollment, they reward your loyal customers too.
Whether it’s through a discount, subscription or installment payment, leveraging software will help your club serve all skaters.
3) Keep in touch with skating parents using communication tools
Every figure skating club understands the importance of communicating with parents and members. Whether it’s coaching, scheduling, sending progress reports or general motivation, communication is key.
When you invest in figure skating software for your club, you’re also investing in communication tools. These tools help club administrators keep all skaters and parents informed, even when plans go awry.
For example: what happens if one of your skating coaches calls in sick?
Software like Uplifter allows you to send emails across your entire club or target specific coaches, groups or individual skaters within your Uplifter system. This means you can quickly target and email other coaches to ask for fill-in availability. Then, you can target and email an entire class of skaters to let them know about the temporary coaching change.
This quick and targeted communication keeps coaches and skaters up to date. And when everyone feels up to date, they feel more included in your club experience which only strengthens their bond with your club.
4) Track skater skills to find opportunities for your club
Evaluations are central to the advancement of your skaters. Using an all-in-one software like Uplifter you can easily complete digital evaluations and send digital report cards to your skaters. By storing these digital evaluations and reports on each skater’s private profile, skaters can quickly understand their development and learn where to focus next.
This figure skating skill tracking also allows head coaches, owners and skating directors to see where any new programming opportunities may be.
For example: if a large group of skaters are struggling with a particular skill, your club can choose to create a one-time workshop to focus on that skill. Creating a workshop like this unlocks a new revenue opportunity and helps skaters advance past a troublesome skill. It’s a win-win.
5) Track drop-outs and financial health with detailed reporting
Understand the financial health of your club with built-in figure skating reports. Clubs that use Uplifter’s figure skating software get a birds-eye view of how skaters are advancing through their programs and when they’re dropping out.
Finding drop-out triggers in your club’s programming allows you to identify difficulty levels, or age groups that may need more support. In some cases, drop-out triggers may also point to a group of coaches that could benefit from additional training.
Most importantly, tracking the financial health of your club allows you to see registration and financial trends. When your club can see these trends, planning your next season becomes that much easier.
6) Protect your club and figure skater data
Don’t mishandle your skater’s personally identifiable information. Storing and emailing around spreadsheets with your skater’s information may put your skaters and your club at risk.
With PCI-Compliant and CASL compliant club software, your club and administrators can rest assured that your skater’s data is handled securely.
Unlike many other software providers, Uplifter goes above and beyond by storing each club’s data in its own encrypted, dedicated cloud database. With a dedicated database setup, you can trust your skater and club data will never get combined with data from another club.
When athletes and parents know that your skater data is securely managed, their trust in your club grows. That trust creates a rock-solid foundation for your figure skating club.
7) Automate overdue payment reminders, invoicing and receipts
Manually issuing club invoices can be tedious, but you can automate invoicing and receipts with good club software. Better yet, you can also automate overdue payment reminders.
Automation like this can save hundreds of hours over the course of a season. And, in the instance of overdue payments, it can save your club plenty of missed fees as well.
Your members want a seamless registration experience so they will appreciate this automation. They don’t want to wait on receipts or come into the office to pay their installment each month.
Ultimately, this automation convenience makes it easier for you to grow your figure skating club because when parents enjoy a quick and easy registration, they can recommend your club with confidence.
Summary: Grow your figure skating club with club software
Automated registration and club management software is the turnkey solution to grow your figure skating club. It’s a single implementation with numerous benefits that will optimize multiple aspects of your club. All of these improvements work together to elevate your club experience and boost your customer satisfaction.
With this boost in customer satisfaction comes a strengthened bond between your membership and your club. When your members feel a close tie to your club, and they know you’ll deliver an easy, seamless experience, your membership can grow through recommendations and word of mouth.
Unlike some technology, your club software won’t be dated when you implement it, which is a huge benefit. Software like Uplifter is constantly introducing new features to help your club adapt to changes and modernize your offerings.
Ultimately, we believe that when you choose software to grow your figure skating club, you’re selecting a business partner, not just a software solution. To learn more, visit our figure skating software page, or contact us.
