Testimonial
Hi Bruce,
Yes, the Natick Comets did switch to Crossbar last February. We were previously on League Athletics and looked at/vetted 3 other platforms before deciding on Crossbar.
It has honestly been very easy.
Our webmaster can easily update pages in an intuitive way.
Our registrar was able to set-up registration initially in a few hours compared to multiple hours over multiple days with League Athletics. The registrar was shocked how easy it is to roll this season into next year's season to set-up registration when we met to do it on Tuesday evening.
From a finance perspective we did much better collecting tuition payments from everyone compared to League Athletics. Yes, we do pay a few cents more per transaction with Crossbar but the ease of use offsets that.
Our scheduler likes the scheduling tool since she can visually see the practices assigned compared to doing it on a spreadsheet and importing. The other nice part is the Valley and MYGHL schedules sync directly with very little effort (I think it took me 20 minutes).
From a parent/family perspective - they are loving it. Between the clean website where it is very easy to find information and the companion app for phones for syncing schedules and team chats - I have heard nothing but good things.
The attendance piece is a huge plus for our coaches who in the past were paying for TeamSnap on their own just to have attendance. Crossbar added the automated health screening this year in response to covid and the parents welcomed it - we have had over 95% compliance with it.
Support has been superb. One of the biggest complaints from everyone with League Athletics was the support. Crossbar support has been a breath of fresh air. They have always responded within a few minutes to a couple of hours. They have helped us on weekends to work through some questions we had. I know our finance person has reached out to them a number of times with questions. In fact, Crossbar added a feature that our finance guy asked about to help with reporting. Eric and Chris have been awesome.
Eric at Crossbar had us reach out to Andover when we were vetting Crossbar, since they were one of the 1st programs in MA on Crossbar. They told a similar story when I spoke with them. That introduction has also led to Natick and Andover sharing/bouncing ideas off each other in regards to our programs since we are similar sizes. We have talked covid policies, tryouts, league issues, skills, learn to play, etc...
We are a fan of the platform with a year under our belts.
Jeff Schneller
VP Operations - Natick Comets