What people want from their sports software providers

June 7th, 2010

Knowing or discovering what your market wants and then providing it is an obvious key to business and life success. But, like so many things in life, it’s far easier said than done. At Bonzi we know you want the following basics from a sports software provider because our clients tell us or otherwise confirm these things every hour of every day:

  • Friendly, unlimited, free support… even one-on-one training from people you know, like and trust to have your best interests at heart.
  • Lowest overall cost
  • Easy to use but with all the features and functions you need to do it your way
  • Your money in your bank account within 24 hours of a transaction
  • No surprises, no hidden costs and no contracts
  • The best registration, website, scheduling and email communications software available that will run with almost any browser
  • Speed; all of the above needs to happen fast no mater how many other people might be online

While those are all great things we’ve also realized that there are a few other elements that are also critical but at times hard to pin down:

  1. Reliable; we do what we say we will do when we say we’ll do it
  2. Good relationships; you treat me like a person, are appropriately warm and friendly and are willing to speak frankly when things need to be addressed
  3. Well run business; Bonzi sports software runs a tight ship business wise so that you can count on us being both efficient and around for the long haul
  4. Fit; you understand and give me what I need and beyond to run my club, league or organization
  5. Listen; we ask questions and don’t assume – we get to know you and your situation by asking good questions and listening well to the answer
  6. Research and innovation; you know best practices in sports software and are constantly working to keep the gap narrow
  7. Caution; we’ve done our homework so that our suggestions and direction are valid and reliable
  8. Available; you can reach us when you need us and we’ll respond
  9. Education; you’ll help us understand how things work and give us the tips that come from over a decade of working with organizations and the sports software that supports them
  10. Alignment; we have the features and functions you need to do your business – if we don’t have what you need we won’t hesitate to tell you so you can find a better alternative – we won’t waste your time if we aren’t aligned
  11. Deadline oriented; let’s face it, play starts on a certain date, standings must be posted by a certain date and your email has to get delivered so your plans stay on track – at Bonzi sports software your deadlines are our deadlines

All these may seem like subtle distinctions in a sports software provider… but they are distinctions that our customers tell us make all the difference in the world to their lives using sports software.

What do you think?  Did we miss anything?

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Posted in Coaching, Communication, Costs, How to Choose, Parents Win, Volunteers, Wins for Parents | No Comments »

Sports Scheduling Software for Very Large Organizations

May 21st, 2010

When your sports schedule software can’t match venue with team with coach with hour with day you have a mess that will likely only be addressed by a sports schedule software specifically designed to handle your size and complexity and beyond. It only takes a little bit of growth to completely defeat your ability to efficiently and effectively let everyone know where and when their game is happening.

You’re a large sports organization with over 3,000 players and many types of programs.  Maybe the software you’re using just can’t keep up in general but you are struggling through anyway.  You don’t have the features you want in your software, your staff complains about wasting time, and the vendor won’t answer the phone for support and email support is slow at best. Despite all that pain you can still keep the game going.

There is one area that when your sports software fails you are likely forced to find an alternative and find it fast; sports schedule software.

You want a software product that can keep up with your organization and the different needs you have.  It has to support registration for your programs, handle thousands of transactions and allow a wide variety of staff members to work on the system at the same time without bogging down. Above all that, however, it must handle your schedule demands.

TRUE STORY

Dana’s sports club serves more than 5,000 players.  They offer programs for youth and adults.  They register online for camps and clinics, referees, leagues, competitive programs, try outs, tournaments and have fundraisers.  .  . all using Bonzi’s sports management software and sports scheduling software.  There’s no slow down due to volume and the system has all the features a large organization needs to exceed everyone’s expectations.  When Dana has a special need, she picks up the phone and instantly talks to an experienced Bonzi staff member about how to quickly and easily address the issue.  Her requests for enhancements are added to the software, sometimes within a few days depending on her needs.

Above all Dana knows that she simply can’t outgrow Bonzi’s ability to quickly and effectively manage her incredibly complicated scheduling requirements. Since adopting Bonzi Dana sleeps well at night.

Any software provider should be able to explain how they would serve a large club and especially address how the sports scheduling aspect of their software can handle steady growth especially for a very large organization.  They should have worked with large organizations before similar to yours and should demonstrate they understand the special circumstances you face managing a very large organization.

Bonzi software is the only sports software in the market specially designed to handle the needs, schedules and volume of large and very large sports organizations.  It provides the features and customer support that larger organizations need to stay on top of their workload.

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Posted in Communication, How to Choose, Scheduling | No Comments »

Practice, practice, practice…

April 28th, 2010

You know the old joke… “how do you get to Carnegie Hall”?  with the punch line being… “Practice, practice, practice”.

Much of the performance literature that I have read over the last few years has said that its actually specific practice and not just practice, practice, practice. Alternatively, as the old Dale Carnegie saying goes, practice doesn’t make perfect but rather perfect practice makes perfect.

Kids who do what is now called “deliberate practice” of a specific skill over and over again until and beyond such time as their brains are hard wired and their muscles have permanent muscle memory; these are the kids who are often seen as overnight successes.

My 11 year old refuses to practice basketball. The neighbor kid never seems to not be in front of his house shooting shots. At the start of this year both kids were about the same in all regards on the court. No surprise, by the end of the year the neighbor kid was really having great results and my son was just a bit better than when he started.

We see practice show up in a funny way in sports software believe it or not. Here is the deal; with enough practice almost anybody can get good enough to tolerate almost anything. In fact they can get so good and so tolerant that they are just used to using lousy software. Practice, practice, practice.

The trouble comes in when that administrator or volunteer moves on and a new person without the dogged dedication has to learn to use the system fast. This is one of the events that has people calling Bonzi. The funny thing is that while everything benefits from lots of practice you don’t need much practice nor skill to look like a pro on Bonzi almost from the start.

So is all that just marketing hype? One little fact tells the story; Bonzi is the only major sports software provider that doesn’t require a contract. We’re confident that you’ll be happy with Bonzi month one and beyond without having to invest practice, practice, practice. This is so true that none of our customers have left Bonzi since we opened our doors over 10 years ago.

Our suggestion is that you consider leaving the practice, practice, practice to the kids and give Bonzi a try so you can get the job done and get on with watching those wonderful kids practice.

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Posted in Coaching, Motivation | 1 Comment »

Sports Scheduling Software; What Late Adopters Want

February 18th, 2010

Most groups who decide to use Bonzi sports software come to us after having had a bad experience with one of our competitors. Some, however, are trying out online sports scheduling software for the first time. When someone is adopting online sports scheduling software in 2010 or ten years after such software has been available and reasonably usable industry experts refer to those folks as “Late Adopters”.

Why should you care? The only reason to care is that “late adopters” tend to be the most difficult of all market segments to please and are therefore a good test of the true quality of a online sports scheduling software or registration platform.

Here is what most “late adopters” demand by category:

  1. Deciding to decide: late adopters wait until prices come down and the service is great and the sports scheduling software has matured to the point of truly being easy to use.
  2. Weighing Information about options: they only want the best service, support, most advanced sports scheduling and registration software at the very lowest price with no compromises.
  3. Trial: at this point in the sports scheduling and registration software business you can assume that any problem can be fixed; the BIG question is how easily and how pleasantly can it be fixed?
  4. Implementing: Will they get me up easily and quickly?

All that makes sense for a “late adopter” in my book; if you’ve waited all this time why not go for the gold as your payoff for waiting and putting up with just paper, pen and Excel.

Are you a “late adopter”? If you have not yet started using sports scheduling and registration software for your team, club or league we’d like to hear from you; you can just post a comment here on this blog and we’ll share it for all to see in the hopes that your thoughts can help somebody else make a better decision.

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Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

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