Spot+ Advantages & Disadvantages

Overview

Participants paid per spot per hour, with the spot rate equal to the court rate divided by the number of participants. Members got a discount on their spot rather than on the court. The Reservation Holder picked a time slot and a participant count, then invited the other participants. The Reservation Holder could elect to cover all, some, or none of the invitee spots.

Spot+ pricing is no longer available. Clubs should use Court+ pricing (Bill Splitting) instead — see Court+ Advantages and Disadvantages. The information that follows is retained for historical context.

Customer advantages

• Fairness — everyone paid their own way.
• Medium friction — the Reservation Holder didn't need to collect money from invitees outside the App.
• Options — the Reservation Holder could cover invitee spots or not.

Customer disadvantages

• Foresight — the Reservation Holder needed to know who they were playing with at the time of booking.
• Process errors — the Reservation Holder had to select the correct participant count at booking.
• Increased price — if invitees declined, the Reservation Holder was on the hook for their spots.
• Poor experience — Reservation Holders were often surprised that invitees didn't join.
• Stick philosophy — the model penalized the Reservation Holder with a higher final cost when invitees didn't accept.
• Extra charge — invitees in a Reservation could end up paying more than the regular court rate if the participant count was wrong.
• Credits — the Reservation Holder could not cover invitee spots using Credits.
• Coaching Lessons — the Reservation Holder could not split the cost of a Coaching Lesson with invitees.

Club advantages

• Resolved the Non-member free-rider problem.
• Headline pricing per Reservation Holder was lower, even at the same hourly court rate.

Club disadvantages

• Operationally intensive with more room for error — the Front Desk had to ensure invitees accepted the invite, or the Club lost spot revenue.
• Staff became enforcers, chasing invitees to accept invitations.
• Staff had to update Reservations from the Dashboard for changing participant counts.
• Staff had to charge for differing participant counts or refund no-shows.
• The model introduced a "Stick" in the Customer experience.