Upper Hand Reviews

Pros
I love the camp/clinic registration feature, as it significantly helps reduce time I spend processing registrations and payments. Additionally, I love the messaging feature, as it allows me to send mass marketing e-mails and messages to our entire team of athletes, parents and coaches. Lastly, I love that I am able to access Upper Hand through the mobile app, as I am always on the go and often need to be able to schedule or process a payment when I am away from my computer.

Cons
The software is sometimes not very intuitive for the client. I often have clients contact me, because they are struggling with the scheduling feature, as they are not able to easily access their lessons credits or past scheduled lessons. It would be great if they would be able to view all past and upcoming events, as well as their total number of remaining event credits on their dashboard after signing into the mobile app. And while I love the messaging feature on the app, I wish it was better visually designed and would allow you insert graphics and change font size and style. Lastly, while I was thrilled with the latest upgrade that sends out automated reminders, I was bummed that this is only offered to those who upgrade their accounts to the next level. When I first purchased the Upper Hand software, this was one of the initial features included in the membership. I would love to see this feature included for all membership types.

Rating breakdown

Likelihood to recommend: 9/10

Pros
Saves me time scheduling sessions. Saves me time processing payments.

Cons
The way our sessions are set-up makes it a bit difficult to customize the software events and scheduling. I spend a lot of time helping our clients work with the app. My coaches don't like the calendar view. It would be great if there was a client facing calendar of our events prior to client purchase. There are limitations on the scheduling side.

Rating breakdown

Likelihood to recommend: 6/10

Pros
Being a non-profit that is focused on many aspects, this software helps me in each one. The many programs we run, employee tracking, and in the near future, facility management. You aren't really limited to what you can do with this software. If it isn’t something they currently do, they are open to any and all ideas to make it even more user friendly. Whatever makes it easier for us!

Cons
The only downside is some of the small things that we aren’t able to customize ourselves, as far as special questions in the account creation process. Since they are always updating and coming up with ideas, I’m sure it will happen soon.

Rating breakdown

Likelihood to recommend: 10/10

Pros
The ability to create a unique platform specific to our business needs. Merchant fee for credit card transactions is favorable as well.

Cons
At our business we are constantly booking clients. We have a mix of repeat and new customers but for the most part we know when we’re seeing clients and classes. The fact that we still cannot make recurring events possible is ridiculous. I should not have to time out of each day to book a client, whom I have had at the same time and date for over 6 months, over and over again. It’s been promised for Q1 for 2020 but that was after Q3 and Q4 of 2019 fell through so we will see. The mobile app continues to either crash or run extremely slow regardless of cell service or WiFi connectivity. Its a coin flip whether I’ll be able to complete a purchase or book an event with out the window dropping. The desktop version is better but we’re not in front desk all day. Functionality seems so circuitous to perform simple tasks like deleting or rescheduling events. I have to find the three vertical dots on one side of the screen then the window populates on the other side to do quick pay or reschedule. If I want to delete I have to search for the specific client rather than doing it through the calendar view where I can actually see the event I’m deleting/rescheduling in the context of my day. In order to reschedule I have click view session then find three vert dots. View event doesn’t seem to do anything. Now imagine trying to train employees who don’t have the knowledge of this platform on how to use this.

Rating breakdown

Likelihood to recommend: 2/10

Pros
Overall a very good product reasonably priced and very good customer service

Cons
I think the software overall is very good with constant upgrades

Rating breakdown

Likelihood to recommend: 10/10

Pros
I like that the software allows for us to schedule and book lessons, rentals, and more with ease. It is nice that the calendar view helps us see and access sessions directly from that same view.

Cons
It is frustrating with the payment set up. It is difficult that the way a session is booked also completely dictates how payment is done. For example, if someone wants to schedule say 8 weeks of lessons. If we book it one by one, as 8 individual sessions, payment is set up as 8 individual payments. So they come in and say, "Oh I'm paying for all of this at once". We then have to physically go in to each event and pay those out individually. That is annoying and time consuming, but that is the less cumbersome of the outcomes. In the other way, lets say we book someone for 8 sessions and set it up as 8 sessions in the system. Then the client comes in and says "I'd like to just pay for tonight". We can't even do that. We would have to delete the entire event and re book it as individual sessions because the payment would be set up where it wants the entire session paid for all at once. It would be awesome if we could just pay for what they want and the event would mark it as such. Something where we click what is being paid for and the system holds the balance or lets us know what is still unpaid or needs to be paid would help a lot.

Rating breakdown

Likelihood to recommend: 8/10

Pros
Ease of use, great customer service, easy for customers and super Intuitive.

Cons
Functionality could be boosted for our industry, a few work around a here and there.

Rating breakdown

Likelihood to recommend: 8/10

Pros
The customer service. No software or platform is going to be a perfect match for what your company needs. Where Upper Hand has been most beneficial to DST is through their partnership with me and my team. Whenever something has been confusing, deficient, or lackluster from our perspective, their team has made every effort to fix, communicate, and better their software to tailor it to our specific needs.

Cons
Any time you switch software or learn a new platform, there is going to be a learning curve. It was no different with Upper Hand. There have been some frustrations getting everyone on the team educated and up to speed with the platform and functions, but nothing that wouldn't be expected.

Rating breakdown

Likelihood to recommend: 9/10

Pros
We like how easily we can add and change things and how it tailors well to our use case. The team is also very responsive and the software continues to improve.

Cons
Reporting needs to be stronger and more actionable.

Rating breakdown

Likelihood to recommend: 10/10

Pros
I love the ease of setting up programs and clinics. The software is great for creating clinics with easy to understand prompts.

Cons
The software features are not robust enough to manage a facility. The reporting function lacks features to easily capture daily sales. The mobile reports feature doesn't exist. The software is great for clinics but cumbersome for recurring classes and front desk check in.

Rating breakdown

Likelihood to recommend: 5/10

Pros
Their customer support is beyond what you can expect. I reached out to Mike service representative on a Sunday evening recently and she helped me work through an issue that enabled me to find The names of kids on teams in a hitting league. I cannot believe she answered my question on a Sunday evening !!!

Cons
It can be a little bit cumbersome for the first time user but once the customers become accustomed to the software and the app, then the problem goes away.

Rating breakdown

Likelihood to recommend: 10/10

Pros
The ability to create events and set a schedule is great. Inviting new clients is easy and from my customer feedback it sounds like registering is a pretty easy process.

Cons
On the admin side there tends to be some areas that take a few too many steps to complete a process. Whether it's changing details in an event, or simply trying to see who is registered for event, it tends to be a much longer process than it should be to retrieve or adjust the information. A quick pull up on the calendar of who the attendee(s) are for an event would be nice. The process to find that information now is quite time consuming and can be frustrating. There's seems to be bugs in random stuff you do. Having events randomly not show up in the calendar can be frustrating. Double booking has never been an issue as the system still reflects the proper availability for an instructor, but on the admin side, I need to see the schedule in full detail.

Rating breakdown

Pros
I like the concept of what they are trying to do. I really believe there's a need for it and was sold from the beginning from the sales and marketing team who told me everything or software could do. Also their customer service is very good, they have a support team that gets back to you quickly which is always great, but I think they are overwhelmed.

Cons
I'm really not one to complain, but this experience has been very frustrating. Like trying to hang onto a greased pig. Especially trying to get to the root of the problem-- it's really difficult to do and feels like you have to fight to get real answers. For every camp or clinic we post, there seems to be some bug that customers can't figure out. And I can't help but feel that the upper hand team is blaming that on the customer or on us rather than taking steps to eliminate recurring confusion. I feel like to the upper hand team, any issues are no big deal as their development team is working to fix them.. but those issues end up being hours and hours for me having to bring those customers back around and get them manually signed up. Additionally, when I was sold on the program, they showed me functionality that would be useful in facets more than just camp sign-ups. Lesson sign-ups, memberships, crm And some others. Just having those would have made the software pay for itself by canceling other software's. However, once we started, we found that those other functionalities did not have the features we needed to be able to use them. I think the software has tons of potential and could be very useful, but I think it needs another one or two years of development with close customer feedback. I don't think it's worth it to pay for it as it is now, I think there are better options. Just my two cents, happy to discuss my experience

Rating breakdown

Likelihood to recommend: 4/10

Pros
- Customer support is unmatched - Account manager very helpful and communicative - Love the features

Cons
- Features are sometimes hard to figure how to use on own

Rating breakdown

Likelihood to recommend: 9/10

Pros
The features that I like most are the ability to create needed events & the new features to switch users or trainers.

Cons
Scheduling view for the clients. Ability to obtain needed data.

Rating breakdown

Likelihood to recommend: 8/10

Pros
Honestly, I do not know where my business would be without UpperHand. It has been such an asset when organizing our clients, calendars, reports ect.

Cons
Quite too often, the software has glitches and errors that keep us from conducting business at the times we would like to. In time, they are always fixed, but it does put a dent in what we do from the admin side as well as the cliental side and it is quite frustrating.

Rating breakdown

Likelihood to recommend: 8/10

Pros
As a small basketball organization, Upperhand software has provided a platform for our clients to register for our training online, as well as schedule their sessions and keep track of their payments. As a result, we have become more organized in tracking the payments we receive. We have also been able to build a database of clients and can streamline our communication with them through the software.

Cons
As with any software, we as an organization have to monitor and update payment and scheduling information through the Upperhand system. For example, if an athlete forgets to schedule his/her training session, we have to go in and manually schedule it for them. Otherwise, their credit will not be deducted from their account.

Rating breakdown

Pros
We are loving the features and potential of the Upper Hand software! As we get our business off the ground it has been great exploring the various features, and we are excited about the customer experience we'll be able to provide thanks to the software's ease of use!

Cons
Honestly, nothing at this point. We are still learning more and more as we develop our programs but for every question relating to our programs, Upper Hand has been up to the task.

Rating breakdown

Likelihood to recommend: 10/10

Pros
FUNCTIONALITY EASE OF USE CUSTOMER SERVICE

Cons
SOME PARENTS HAVE TROUBLE USING IT, MAYBE MAKE IT EASIER TO USE

Rating breakdown

Likelihood to recommend: 10/10

Pros
The software has improved tremendously, and is a great tool for a baseball & softball training facility. The software is easy to use, and very user friendly.

Cons
The software needs to be tied to gift cards and the cash drawer. This is very important. Need better reports too. Inventory management - making inventory adjustments - needs to be easier.

Rating breakdown

Likelihood to recommend: 7/10

Pros
The features that are available for all the services we provide.

Cons
- Almost zero training for me and our staff. - Minimal phone support when have issues from lack of training - the calendar schedule events and the pos system does not talk to each other when paid from pos it doesn’t update calendar and shows unpaid even though was paid. - if have to manually discount an event it still shows unpaid in calendar.

Rating breakdown

Likelihood to recommend: 0/10

Pros
The software is easy to use and set up and my clients also love it.

Cons
I don’t like that I can’t keep my filters the same in the event section

Rating breakdown

Likelihood to recommend: 10/10

Pros
Accommodating, intuitive, artificial intelligence, customer centric

Cons
No timeline given on expressed changes or upgrades to improve customer or user experience

Rating breakdown

Likelihood to recommend: 10/10

Pros
It was very Easy to use. Within minutes I felt comfortable.

Cons
There was really Nothing to dislike. I like the product completely.

Rating breakdown

Likelihood to recommend: 9/10

Pros
Upperhand’s ease of use and ability to fit our dynamic workflow.

Cons
The software would increase in value by a better integration of features with one another.

Rating breakdown

Likelihood to recommend: 10/10