Innovation Issue: Upper Hand Product Update 2022

We’re (over) halfway through 2022!

Our team has taken a look back at the updates we welcomed to our platform over the past 7 months. We’ve been hard at work adding new features to make scheduling and communicating with your clients easier. Additionally, we welcomed changes to memberships and classes that make the software more flexible for your business.

As we gear up for a busy second half of the year, our team continues to prioritize new product innovations and updates that make running and growing your business easier. Let’s jump in and take a look at some of the highlights.

Scheduling & registration enhancements

Effortlessly book recurring sessions

After hearing feedback from our customers, we built an easier way for you to book out recurring sessions within the app. Repeat Booking is a new scheduling capability that puts you and your staff back on the field and away from tedious admin tasks. For example, if an athlete wants to schedule a private lesson for the same time every Monday and Wednesday for a month, you can now book all 8 of those sessions at once, rather than individually.

Enforce specific age groups for your events

You may choose to offer camps, lessons, or classes for a particular age group; for example middle school or high school athletes. We’ve updated our event age ranges to place true age restrictions for clients when registering. Now, if you have a camp that’s available for athletes ages 14-18, clients outside of that age range will not be able to register.

Let your clients book their credits in advance (or not!)

We’ve also made some updates to the way clients can schedule their credits. You can now restrict credit grants so that they are only able to be used to schedule bookings in that billing cycle. Alternatively, you can opt to remove these restrictions and allow your clients to book however far in advance they would like with the credits they have available. This increases the autonomy of your clients within the parameters you choose to set as a business.

Upper Hand Platform Updates

Say hello to an all-new classes layout

Our team has been hard at work implementing feedback on how we can improve our classes functionality to better serve your businesses. A brand new layout for our classes event type has been implemented, providing even more flexibility with how you can create and manage your events! This update empowers you to customize every class, as well as every session within that class. This means, if you want to increase the maximum number of participants for one specific session, you can now easily make that adjustment.

Better track your attendance and no-shows

Life happens, and sometimes, your clients may fail to show up for a scheduled session. Our new no-show indicator allows you to mark when a client no-shows, and keep track of their missed sessions in their client profile.

Enhance communication with your athletes

Our customers asked for an easier way to communicate with athletes for specific sessions. So, we’ve built a way to message a session’s attendees within the app.

Here are a few ways to use this feature addition:

• Send an update if there’s a change in location due to weather. (“Due to today’s weather, we will be meeting inside the fieldhouse today.”)
• Remind your athletes to bring certain equipment to the day’s session. (“Everyone please remember to bring cleats and shin guards to our training session today!”)
• Send a quick message to your athletes letting them know you’re running a few minutes late. (“Coach Phil is running a few minutes late to today’s session. When you arrive, please grab a foam roller and start rolling out.”)

Collect new athlete waiver agreements in person

When a client has not agreed to your waiver on file, there will be a ‘no waiver on file’ icon next to their name in their client profile and session summary drawer. With this update, you will now be able to prompt the waiver agreement from the client profile and have the client accept the waiver in-person. This ensures that you and your business are protected when your athletes come to train with you.

Make adjustments to your inventory

When selling retail, it’s critical that the products you have available are accurate. So, we’ve added the ability to adjust the quantity of your inventory and make a note of why you made an adjustment. For example, if a piece of equipment was damaged or stolen, you can adjust the inventory you have available to account for those situations.

Upgraded membership capabilities

Provide flexible membership billing options

This update provides you with more flexibility when it comes to memberships. You now have the option to prorate memberships through Point of Sale transactions, meaning you can allow clients to start their member benefits on one day, and specify their membership charge date for a different day.

How does this work? Say you have a client that wants to sign up for a membership on July 1, but they want to be charged on the 15th of every month. You now have the ability to sign them up for their membership July 1st while setting their billing date to the 15th. Plus, you have the option to charge them for those first 15 days before their first membership payment.

Offer introductory membership rates

Creating an introductory offer is a great way to bring in new members. Now, that is even easier to do. Customers now have the ability to create and apply one time coupons to recurring payments. This allows you to discount the first payment of a membership or payment plan, with the remaining payments being charged the full price

Read more about how to build a successful membership program here!

Better prepare for future membership cancellations

While not ideal, there will come a time when a member may want to cancel their membership. When canceling a membership, you are now able to set the membership to cancel at any date in the future. This eliminates the need to set an internal reminder to cancel that membership on a specific day.

Client Experience Improvements

Easier browsing for clients

Between training sessions, rentals, camps, and clinics, you’ve got a lot going on. And, for clients, it could become difficult to find the event they’re looking for. While new clients may be interested in browsing through your various offerings, some clients log in to book a specific event. Now, clients are able to search your Browse Events tab, which makes it easier to find the offering they are looking for.

Celebrate your clients’ birthdays

Everyone loves to feel special on their big day. That’s why we’ve built a new client birthday indicator. The week of a client’s birthday, a gift box icon will follow their name around the software, making it easy for you and your staff to acknowledge and celebrate.

Leave internal notes on your clients’ sessions

Let’s say an athlete comes into their private lesson with a sprained ankle from the weekend. This injury may affect what you do in their training session, or affect their ability to complete a workout. Previously, any notes on a client were tied to the client as a whole, via the client profile. But, we saw the need for a session-level note taking capability.  Our new internal session notes feature allows you and your staff to make notes from an individual session. Both the client notes and session notes are readily available within the calendar.

Here’s how some of our customers are already using this feature:

• Making a note of an athlete’s aches/ pains that affected their ability to complete a workout
• Leaving a note for another staff member letting them know what was done at the day’s session (this is especially helpful if an athlete works with multiple coaches)
• Making a note of which equipment or areas were utilized and thus need to be cleaned and sanitized

Financial Upgrades

Request certain payment options for different product types

This update provides you with more flexibility when it comes to accepting certain payment types for your offerings. Now, customers are able to specify which payment methods are acceptable for each product type. For example, you are now able to accept only credit card payments for memberships, but allow check or cash payments for private lessons.

Cost of Goods Report

When selling retail, it’s important to easily track how much revenue is generated per sale. This new cost of goods report allows you to track and export information such as the product name, date sold, price, cost, and total revenue per sale.

Like what you see? Let us walk you through a personalized demo of Upper Hand so you can see these updates (and more) in action.