A common question that I get asked is what sets Court Concierge apart from the existing platforms. It’s a good question, and in the beginning, I thought it would be an easy one to answer. After all, I did my research in existing platforms prior to starting Court Concierge. In my head, I had an abundance of reasons to indicate that building this platform was a good idea. Most of these reasons were based on outdated UI, confusion on what the platform offers, and a lack of features that I thought would be useful for clubs. None of these reasons are wrong, per say, but it is possible that I underestimated the number of reasons I needed to give potential clients a reason to switch.

In 2018, Tennis Canada conducted a survey of 64 tennis facilities across Canada that asked club owners to rate the importance of 9 different ‘features’ that would be most useful to them. I found the results quite interesting – I would have never expected ‘Online court booking’ to be considered the least important feature! However, that does not mean it isn’t important. Each of the nine features had a minimum score of 3.4/5, therefore, I think it is fair to say all of them are important.

So, first off, thank you Tennis Canada for conducting this survey. I learned a lot from this, and some of these features really made me think. Fortunately, Court Concierge always had plans to implement almost all these features. However, there’s one feature listed that I haven’t really seen in any platform out there: 'Members forum to connect players for matches'. When you think about it, the social aspect of tennis is important for a lot of players. It is a common occurrence for members – especially new ones – struggle to find others to play against.

When I worked at a tennis club many years ago, I remember there being organized weekly nights of doubles play. Not exactly a tournament or anything, but just a chance to play with different players between each match. The players each week were mostly the same, simply because it was not something that was really advertised. So, how can we bring this idea to Court Concierge? Generally thinking, admins could block a time each week, and members would be able to view and join that booking. Those bookings would have names such as ‘Doubles Beginners Night’ or ‘Intermediate Evening Mixed’. Admins would have the option of recording match results, which would be entered in the Court Concierge platform, allowing members to view and track their results. I think this would be a great feature to implement for your competitive and none-competitive members, and a great way for your new members to get involved.

This is one feature among several that I want to bring incorporate in Court Concierge sooner than later. I hope to have it in there within a few months. Anyways, stay safe out there. For our Canadian readers (and anyone else that cannot play due to Covid) - I hope that people can start playing again soon!

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