Parents are the foundation of youth sports. Full stop. They’re the ones who register, fill out paperwork, and drive players all over town for practices and games. They show up to cheer when it’s cold outside, volunteer their time as team managers, and help guide athletes to make the most of their time as club members. Striving to keep parents happy should be at the very top of any club leader’s priority list, right?
Why, then, are 43% of parents not fully satisfied with their youth sports club experience?
We asked over 500 parents of youth sports club participants what matters most to them, what clubs can do to improve their membership experience, and how club management technology impacts their satisfaction. As far as we’ve seen, this is the first time a study like this has been conducted at such scale and so thoroughly. You can read the full report here.
It’s worth getting right
If you have 500 parents in your club, we learned that 215 of them are less than pumped about their club experience. Only 125 of those are confident they’ll return for another season. And only 47 are likely to recommend the club to their friends and neighbors.
That means less than 10% of youth sports parents tell other parents to give your club a try. Word-of-mouth is by far the most effective and cost-efficient way to grow your business. A remarkable club membership experience leads to happy parents, and happy parents will do more good for your business than all the marketing in the world.
There’s more than one club experience
We asked parents what factors most influence their overall opinion of a club. To nobody’s surprise, the top three results were all related to what happens on the field: Quality of Coaching (57%), Practice & Game Schedules (48%), and Playing Time (44%). If you’re not able to get the on-field experience right for players, the rest of this won’t matter. Assuming you’re in good shape between the lines, there’s another equally important part of being a club member you’ll want to recognize.
Our research indicates that the tools and technology that clubs require parents to use to manage their membership and stay updated on team events are also of great importance. One in three parents listed the quality of communication they receive from their club as a top contributor to their overall opinion of a club. Quality of customer service, as well as the technology and apps a club uses to manage the parent experience, also contributes greatly to their overall opinion of the club and whether or not to return for additional seasons.
Follow the money
What are parents willing to pay more club membership fees for? Half of all surveyed parents answered player development programs. This was followed by the quality of coaches (43%) and improved facilities (37%). About one-third of all parents surveyed report that they would be most willing to pay additional club fees for better technology or apps used by the club, both for performance analysis (34%) and registration/communication (32%).
Dig a little deeper and it gets even more interesting. These numbers jump drastically when parents are segmented by the number of apps they are asked to utilize by their club. Among parents who have to use three or more apps for their club, half of them are most willing to pay additional club fees for better technology used for registration and communication. This means that, for parents, modern and user-friendly technology is as high of a priority as player development and quality of coaching when there are three or more apps involved.
On that note, we learned that 54% of parents are made to use two or more apps to manage their club experience, and one out of four have used three or more. Parents associated with clubs that are utilizing three or more apps are significantly more likely to have experienced a lack of communication as well as entirely missed communications from the club.
Parents who reported to be part of households with an income of more than $100K per year are significantly more likely to value technology and apps both for registration and member communication, as well as for performance analysis, than parents with an annual household income of less than $100K per year. Parents from higher income households are also twice as likely to list technology and apps used by a club as a top reason to stay with a club for additional seasons.
Make it easy
We all understand that modern life is hectic and filled with stress. The last thing a busy parent wants to do after working a full day, fighting traffic, getting dinner ready, and organizing their kids’ activities is to have to wrestle with paper forms or archaic emails from your club. When you introduce friction into a parent’s routine, you get what you’re asking for. That’s exactly why a seamless digital experience with your club is crucial to a parent’s happiness.
We found that parents who are very satisfied with their club’s technology are significantly more likely to have used a club management app during key moments in their season, such as:
- Registering and/or paying for programs and club fees
- 74% vs. 56%
- Viewing team and/or club schedules, calendars, and events
- 62% vs. 52%
- Updating player attendance for games/practice
- 35% vs. 25%
- Accessing club forms and player evaluations
- 28% vs. 13%
The bottom line
Parents and players have more choices than ever in how to spend their recreational time and money. A subpar member experience will no longer be tolerated. The path to happy parents, increased word-of-mouth, and higher member retention starts with streamlining club operations.
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