Case Study: Academy Bullets Swim Club

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Chicagoland swim club saves a week’s worth of work with Active Network and gives parents exemplary customer service at the same time

Background

For 15 years, the Academy Bullets Swim Club has been one of the most popular destinations in the greater Chicago area for kids of all ages to get fit and have fun. You can join 1500 other eager kids and sign up for swimming lessons or you can join the truly elite and become a part of the Bullets swim team. With 300 members spread out over 10 groups, the instructors at Academy Bullets stress competing against yourself and not the swimmer in the next lane. This inspirational teaching method not only creates exceptional athletes, but exceptional people. Both swimming lesson and swim team enrollment is up sharply over the last few years, which means that a time‑saving solution was needed.

Challenge

While swim lesson kids were already using an inefficient online system to register, swim team members were still relying on paper forms. Six years ago, they had enough manpower to handle everything by hand, but with their rapid growth, a streamlined, user‑friendly system was needed. Entire days were taken up with transcribing swimmer information from printed forms to online databases. The antiquated software being used by the swim lesson kids wasn’t much better. The software wouldn’t work with other programs, which meant that a manual transfer of names, billing information, addresses and phone numbers was necessary. In addition, a state‑of‑the‑art website that would be both unique and easily managed was needed, as well. Both sides were left looking for a single solution that could save time and provide swimmers with a customer service experience worthy of the Academy Bullets name.

Solution

With Active Network, Endurances’ Thriva and Active Content Management solutions, the days of tedious data entry and poor communication were over. With Thriva, online registration was compatible with other Active swimming software like HY‑TEK Sports Software. Parents entered information themselves and that information seamlessly transferred to TEAM MANAGER with just a click.

“We were spending time grabbing checks from every single person, depositing all the checks every month, hand entering all of the information into our database. With Thriva, all of that information gets pulled right in.” —Academy Bullets Head Coach Todd Capen.

Active’s Content Manager makes designing and maintaining a truly unique web presence simple. Access your site from any computer that has an Internet connection and keep your customers up to date no matter where you are. Have Active create a dynamic website for your organization and then use Active’s Content Manager to update your site daily, even if you have no HTML training. No other one‑two punch does more for less.

Results

Thriva and Active Content Management made an immediate impact on how Academy Bullets conducted business. By utilizing online registration, the organization put an end to the days of having to chase down cash that was due to them. In previous seasons, administrators would be drowning in a sea of checks, unpaid team fees and refunds. With Thriva, all fees were paid up front and in full.

Thriva allowed families to pay for individual swim meets in installments, so that swimmers can properly budget the expense and the Bullets can collect all of their fees on time.

“People would pay us in advance for each meet and we’d have to keep track of who had paid and who hadn’t and then at the end of the year, some people would have left over balances and we’d have to refund them. We no longer have to do that. It’s just so simplified now,” —Academy Bullets Head Coach Todd Capen.

Active Content Management has also made a major impact on the day to day operation of Academy Bullets Swim Club. By creating a truly unique web presence, something Active’s competitors couldn’t do, the Bullets have established themselves as a truly elite destination for Illinois swimmers.

“I look at my website as a powerful marketing tool. I want my website to look different. If it doesn’t, where is my originality? If you look at sites designed by Active’s competitor, they look the same. There is literally NOTHING differentiating one site from another except color. I look at that as a waste of marketing. I can change my site so it stands out. Our site says POW!” —Academy Bullets Head Coach Todd Capen.

In addition, board members are able to access and update the Academy Bullets website from any computer with an Internet connection. This allows for near‑instant updates in regards to practices, meets and last minute weather cancellations.

With Thriva and Active Content Management, Academy Bullets are poised for positive future growth.

“I would say Thriva and Active Content Management helped to save me a week’s worth of work at the beginning of the season by not having to manually input names . Throughout the year, I would say it saves me an hour of work per day.” —Academy Bullets Head Coach Todd Capen.

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