Club Software Matters
Parents Don’t Just Choose the Best Tennis Club. They Choose the Easiest One to Trust.
Imagine a parent comparing two tennis clubs. Both clubs are nearby. Their prices are similar, and both appear to have experienced coaches.
At the first club, the parent must email to check availability, download a timetable, wait for a response, complete a separate form and pay by bank transfer. Important updates arrive through a mixture of email, text messages and social media. At the second club, the parent can find the right program, see the price, book a place, pay securely and receive confirmation—all in one place.
Which club is more likely to win?
Coaching quality remains one of the most important factors when parents choose a club. However, when two clubs appear similar, the club that is easier to understand, trust and deal with has a significant advantage. Coaching quality creates preference. Digital maturity removes uncertainty and friction.
Parents are not simply buying a tennis lesson
A parent may appear to be purchasing one hour of coaching each week, but the real job they are asking the club to perform is much bigger. They are trusting the club to provide a safe and positive experience for their child while helping the family manage schedules, communication, payments and changing commitments. In Jobs-to-be-Done terms, the parent is “hiring” the club to help them make progress in a particular situation.
However, there is significant room for improvement in the tennis club experience
43% of parents report being just somewhat satisfied or unsatisfied with the experience they have with their club.
Club management technology matters more than we knew.
91% of parents surveyed agree that the technology their child’s club uses to manage the member experience (e.g., registration, payments, communication, events, calendars) impacts their overall satisfaction with the club.
Clubs aren’t using technology that meets parent expectations.
82% of parents report having high expectations for the technology their club utilises to manage the member experience, but only 44% report being very satisfied with the technology their club uses.
Parents are willing to pay more for club technology.
About one-third of parents report that they would be most willing to pay additional member fees for better technology or apps used by the club.
More apps mean more frustrations.
Parents who are asked to use more than one app as part of their club experience are significantly more likely to report experiencing frustrations such as last-minute event changes, payment issues, unresponsive coach or club staff, as well as lack of or missed communications from the club.
The strength of the digital expectation is substantial: 91% of parents in the PlayMetrics study said club technology affected their overall experience, 82% had high expectations, but only 44% were very satisfied with the technology their club used. Communication quality was also a major contributor to club opinion.
We discovered a remarkable dissatisfaction with the current youth sports club experience, and its root causes may surprise you.
43% of parents we surveyed report that they are just somewhat satisfied or unsatisfied with the overall experience they have had with their club. Our research indicates that the use of club management technology by a club to facilitate its relationship with parents is heavily tied to satisfaction and the frustrations that parents currently experience.
While the on-the-field experience matters the most to parents (coaching, practice and game schedules, playing time), the software and apps clubs use to communicate with members and the tools that allow parents to manage their memberships have an immense impact on their satisfaction - or lack thereof.
Coaching quality creates preference, but digital maturity removes uncertainty and friction. Where two clubs appear similar in coaching, location and price, the easier and more professional club is likely to win.
When my child participates in tennis, help me confidently organise, support and understand their experience in one place, so that they can enjoy and progress in the sport without tennis becoming an administrative burden for our family.
Parents do not evaluate a club’s technology architecture. They experience digital maturity through outcomes. Therefore, digital maturity is not “having an app.” It is the club’s ability to deliver a connected, reliable and low-effort parent experience. A club can have several digital tools and still be digitally immature if:
information is duplicated or inconsistent;
different coaches use different communication channels;
invoices and bookings are disconnected;
parents miss important notices;
the app is difficult to use; or
parents must call the club to correct basic transactions.
This is supported by the finding that parents using three or more club apps reported substantially more problems—not fewer. For example, missed communications increased from 16% among one-app users to 40% among parents using three or more apps. Payment issues increased from 10% to 31%
The decision mechanism
Digital maturity affects comparison through four mechanisms:
1. Information completeness
Parents can compare a club only when they can understand what is being offered.
Missing information creates uncertainty and uncertainty increases perceived risk and encourages parents to keep searching.
2. Cognitive effort
Parents are often coordinating work, school and several children’s activities. Every extra phone call, login, form and email increases the anticipated burden of joining.
Parents are effectively asking: “If registering is this difficult, how difficult will the whole term be?”
3. Trust - the ultimate differentiator
Clear information, secure payments, immediate confirmations and consistent messages demonstrate competence. People will get more discerning about the clubs that strive to empower them and delight them. Trust will increasingly become determinant of brand preference. Customer will ask questions like “can I trust their partners to coordinate use and safeguard my information and ore importantly, are they empowering me to get done what I need to do?”
Winning clubs will empower know, reach show and delight their customers as they accomplish more together.
4. Perceived value
A mature digital experience can make the entire program feel more professional and therefore more valuable. Businesses that prioritise customer experience report higher loyalty rates and revenue growth. Research shows that 73% of consumers prioritise a good experience in their decision to stay with a brand and are willing to pay up to 16% more for exceptional service.
In the parent-expectations study, 98% of parents whose clubs used an app across registration, communication, schedules, attendance, forms and evaluations agreed that the club benefits were worth the money. This is an association, not proof that technology caused the value perception, but it indicates that an integrated experience and perceived value move together
What matters most across these jobs
Five expectations cut across almost every job:
One trusted source of truth
Parents do not want schedules in one system, invoices in another and weather notices buried in email.Mobile-first self-service
They expect to book, pay, cancel, report an absence and check information without calling the club.Immediate certainty
Every important action should generate confirmation: booked, paid, cancelled, credited, moved or received.Relevant, timely communication
Parents want the right information for their child at the right time—not more communication indiscriminately.Transparency and fairness
Prices, policies, player placement, make-ups, progress and decisions must be easy to understand.
Core conclusion
The strength of the digital expectation is substantial: 91% of parents in the PlayMetrics study said club technology affected their overall experience, 82% had high expectations, but only 44% were very satisfied with the technology their club used. Communication quality was also a major contributor to club opinion. Having powerful, easy-to-use software is no longer just about helping coaches complete their daily administrative tasks with less friction. Parents now expect the clubs they interact with to be digitally mature, and they have little tolerance for inefficient, difficult-to-use software.Coaching quality creates preference, but club’s digital maturity removes uncertainty and friction. Where two clubs appear similar in coaching, location and price, the easier and more professional club is likely to win.
