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2023 Wrapped UP: Upper Hand Year in Review

communication

And just like that, another year has come and gone.

As we look back at the past 12 months, we saw a lot of growth, innovation, and development. And, we saw a lot of intention behind the changes that you implemented.

Both in your athletes, and in your businesses.

You came up with new training methods and ways to make training more fun and impactful for young athletes. You added new offerings and programs to support your vision and your athletes’ goals. And, you expanded your footprint – whether by clientele or by square footage.

At Upper Hand, we’re excited to have made quite a few innovative changes of our own.

And by a few, we mean 344 new updates to the Upper Hand app.

Thank you for always challenging us to push the status quo, add more features, and provide more value through our sports software.

We just don’t have the space to dive into every single win from this past year. So, we’ve Wrapped UP some of the highlights.

Upper Hand Wrapped: 2023

From new program offerings to a new client booking experience, our team prioritized not only your experience in the app, but the experience of your biggest asset: your clients.

Let’s first take a look back at some of the biggest features new to the Upper Hand app in 2023.

We launched a lot of new features this year, but Teams was truly a home run.

This year, our team diligently worked to bring new capabilities to the Upper Hand app. As a result, we announced the launch of our new team management functionality! This not only introduces our sports scheduling app to new sports team-based organizations, but also empowers our current customers to expand their business operations within Upper Hand. With our team management functionality, you’re able to manage your sports team rosters, schedules, payments, communications and more – all from your fingertips. To learn more (and take a tour of the solution), click here!

Meet your new way of tracking athlete progress

Another big win for our team and our customers was the launch of a new Athlete Progression Tracking feature. Start by building out your exercises and training programs, then assign your athletes to the programs that are the right fit for their goals and ability level. Track their metrics at each session so you’re able to visualize their improvement and identify more opportunities for growth.

Say hello to a new and improved client experience

The team also made some updates to the Upper Hand client experience. The team found an opportunity to revamp the client login process with a new modal that doesn’t disrupt their buying experience. A new client booking flow improves the client user experience and helps you increase conversions. Additionally, we launched the ability for clients to quickly reschedule their own sessions – eliminating the hassle (and plethora of emails) that come from canceling the session and rebooking at a different time.

Even more updates to the Upper Hand app

In addition to these features, we also launched a number of other exciting updates throughout the year. Here are a few highlights:

Camp and Clinic Updates

With our Fixed Event Pricing Schedule feature, we’ve added the ability to offer early-bird pricing or raise/ lower prices as an event draws near.

Create pricing tiers based on the number of days an athlete chooses to attend camp. (For example, if you attend 2 days of camp, it’s $50, but if you come to all 4 days, it’s $75).

Alphabetized event check-in makes even your largest clinics and camps check-in a breeze.

An unpaid indicator at check-in helps you stay organized when collecting any remaining outstanding balances.

Membership Upgrades

Apply a dollar-amount discount to memberships (in addition to being able to offer percentage discounts for membership benefits).

You can now also include credit pass discounts as a part of your membership offerings.

Create and upload a custom Membership Agreement for clients to sign upon enrolling for a membership. Both parties can view and/ or download this agreement at any time.

Change a membership charge date without disrupting the member’s experience.

All-new membership landing pages make it easy for clients to view a membership’s benefits, empowering them to make the best decision when it comes to purchasing a membership that helps them achieve their goals.

A new membership page layout for admins provides even more insights into a membership – for example seeing a list of all of your active, suspended, canceled, or invited members in just a few clicks.

Marketing Enhancements

We’ve added the ability to create and save filters on your Contacts page, making it easier for you to identify athletes who meet certain criteria (for example, High School Boys or Middle School Girls)

And, create a live contact group from any of your saved filters – meaning that athletes will be added/ removed from a contact group based on the filter criteria you’ve set.

Account Credits and Account Balances

We’ve added the ability for clients to carry a positive account balance. Via the Client Profile, you can add a positive account balance – here’s a few ideas of how our customers have been utilizing this feature!

Alternatively, for clients with an outstanding balance on their account, we’ve made it easier for you to pay down that balance in just one transaction.

Staff Management Updates

You can now invite a user at the Instructor level. In this access tier, an Instructor will exclusively be able to see their calendar, set their availability and view their payroll.

We’ve also added the ability for you to set a priority order in which staff are booked for an open booking session like a lesson or training session.

You can now also set a commission rate for any and all retail and/ or memberships, empowering you to reward your staff members when they make a sale!

Business Admin Advancements

Filter your calendar by staff member or payment status

Add your business type and sport in your business settings to improve data collection and reporting.

Attach a document to a Client’s profile (for example a doctor’s note or a progress report).

We’ve added the ability to set facility-wide date-specific availability, making it easy for you to adjust your hours of operation to accommodate holidays or other events.

New features, new awards

With all of these new features came new awards for the Upper Hand team. Throughout the year, we were celebrated by Gartner Digital Markets as a top software provider in a number of different categories. We also received recognition from SourceForge as a Top Software Provider for Fall 2023. These awards were a result of the feedback from you, our valued customers. Without you all, we would not be able to continue delivering all-star solutions for you and your clients.

Our product updates have also resulted in a Client NPS score of 47, which is significantly higher than the industry average of 31. This puts Upper Hand in good company, with similar ranks as top brands like Netflix, Amazon, Apple – a testament to the hard work of our team to deliver a product that your clients love.

This year, we prioritized innovation and technology

In 2023, Upper Hand AI was in full-swing, with new reports being developed in response to customer feedback. These visualizations and reports have already helped our customers dive deeper into their business’s data and make decisions that lead to business growth.

In addition to adding value to our customers through our software, we also kept a close eye on all the latest technological advancements. One of the biggest tools that came out of the year 2023 was ChatGPT. As a result, we hosted a series of webinars to help sports business owners get the most out of ChatGPT, Midjourney, and other AI tools. View the past sessions on demand here.

For a full breakdown of the first half of the year, check out our mid-year Innovation Issue.

What's UP in 2024?

Like we mentioned in the beginning of this wrap up, 2023 was a year of more. More innovation. Growth. Inspiration. We are proud of both our team’s innovation, as well as the growth of the businesses we serve. As we enter into another new year, we will continue to do our part to grow youth sports participation around the country. We look forward to sharing even more updates with you in the new year. Thank you to our customers and friends, and have a great 2024.

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