If you travel an hour north of Salt Lake City, up I-15, you’ll find Logan, Utah. Home to Utah State University, the city of roughly 50,000 people could easily be described as sports obsessed. That athletic enthusiasm goes a long way in explaining why one of the nation’s most progressive and forward-thinking volleyball clubs was formed in Logan.

Mountain Peak Volleyball provides a wide variety of programming, from boys and girls volleyball club teams to private instruction and a developmental youth academy. With a staff of nearly 40, Mtn Peak helps shape the volleyball experience for student-athletes as young as five years old. Most impressively, they have championed a “Work To Play” program which gives all athletes the opportunity to play club volleyball regardless of financial circumstances. Players in the 15 to 18-year-old range have the opportunity to work at clinics, camps, and as referees to pay their club dues. This allows Mtn Peak to cast a wide net, an issue that has become increasingly problematic for club teams across the country.

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Mtn Peak has also embraced technology to assist with recruiting, travel logistics and registration. We sat down with Dixie Loveless, one of Mtn Peak’s directors, to discuss how her new branded app has impacted her club.

What has your experience with your new app from LeagueApps been like so far?

We started using the mobile app at the very end of our club season, so this upcoming club season is going to be where we’ll really utilize it. Luckily, it has so many uses we’ve introduced it to everyone right away. All of our parents have downloaded it. I’ve already accessed it, and our team is really excited about using it. There are so many features that will be really awesome to dive into. Communication between coaches and parents will be strengthened right away. Being able to relay information like schedules, timing, current rankings, this will all be turnkey now. Beforehand it was convenient for me to communicate with parents using the desktop LeagueApps platform, but now I can give that ability to our coaches in real-time. Instead of relaying information to them, they can just pull things up on the app, which saves a ton of time for my coaches. In terms of logistics, for instance carpooling, it’s been a huge help. Parents can just tap on the name of a team member and pull the information up and get a hold of them so it really helps to improve the level of communication especially between non-directors, namely the coaches and parents.

Do you see the mobile app folding into your overall tech strategy?

Absolutely. The app streamlines everything for our parents and players and improves the kind of product we can deliver. Everything we do on the tech side is geared to make things easier for the customer. The app is super convenient and easy for us, so if parents have a question, they know they can reach someone right away.

Our main strategy is to simplify things for parents, which is especially important here in Utah. The average number of kids per family we deal with is close to seven, so it’s nice to remove the hassle of organizing a schedule. To be able to say “Ok, I know for Mountain Peak I can find information easily and contact people easily,” that strengthens the customer’s desire to work with us. The app has taken us to a new level of being “user-friendly.”

Why did you decide to go with LeagueApps?

I tried a lot of programs before LeagueApps. Once I made the switch, it definitely made my life easier. In all honesty, it has been phenomenal to use, I save so much time and have been able to branch out with different programming because of it. I have an academy program, that a director runs, and thanks to LeagueApps really all I help with is the invoicing and setting things up on social media. Our director is able to run the actual program because everything is so easy to use, I can be hands off. I have another coach who runs my outdoor program and I can just add them as a user and instantly they have access to all the emails.

I can’t overstate how amazing it is to find out my invoices are almost all paid before the event starts. That kind of thing never used to happen. I used to have a handful of outstanding invoices, and sometimes players wouldn’t even show up, which was such a headache. Now that I have everything streamlined, I can focus on growing my club, instead of spending time in excel spreadsheets.