How BEAST Baseball Refills Cancelled Lessons in Under an Hour

A rushed start that turned into a two-year headache

Bryan Shepherd opened BEAST Baseball in January 2022, right after COVID, and didn’t have time to vet baseball facility management software the way he wanted to. He picked EZFacility because it was popular and a nearby Wisconsin facility was using it. He needed scheduling, fast, so he jumped in and figured he’d learn the rest on the way.

Two years later, he still couldn’t run the platform. As Bryan describes it, his tickets went to a support team overseas. In his experience, every issue meant filing a ticket, waiting two or three days, and then getting passed to whoever happened to pick it up next — someone who had no context on his account or his last six tickets. His payments ran through a separate company, Global Payments, so in his experience nothing lived under one roof. Changing his programming meant logging into a different system Bryan could never remember how to find.

The client side was worse. Parents couldn’t reset passwords. Accounts got kicked out mid-booking. Bryan had clients who created five or six separate accounts over two years just trying to schedule a lesson. The platform wasn’t mobile-friendly, so families trying to sign up from a phone gave up. He’d hear about it later, in person, from moms who didn’t hold back.

“They would get so frustrated just even trying to create an account that they would just disappear. I’d see them at the field and they’d say, ‘Yeah, I was going to come in for a camp or a lesson, but we couldn’t figure out how to get signed up, so we just didn’t come.’”

Bryan Shepherd, Owner

By Bryan’s estimate, he was losing two to three lessons a week to a platform his own customers couldn’t use.

A clean handoff into something his clients could actually use

Bryan asked for a 30-day transition window so he could sit with Baseline, learn it, and make the call on his own terms. He didn’t end up needing it. Once Olivia and Torren walked him through onboarding and built out his programs, Bryan stopped opening EZFacility entirely. He didn’t log back in again until the day his own EZFacility subscription ended.

A few things lined up that hadn’t before. Support was based in the US, and Bryan could reach someone during business hours instead of writing into a ticket queue. Torren came from baseball, so explanations landed in language Bryan already spoke. And the platform worked from his phone, which is where Bryan runs most of his business anyway.

“I sent Olivia an email one Sunday night, just letting her know what was going on. Didn’t expect anything until Monday. About 45 minutes later, she was on it and already taking care of it.”

Bryan Shepherd, Owner

He’d been putting the move off for months — busy season, the unknown of switching, the fear of trading one broken system for another. He finally pulled the trigger heading into winter because he couldn’t survive another off-season on EZFacility.

The Trainer AI agent that pays for itself

The feature Bryan didn’t see coming was the cancellation flow. When a client cancels, Baseline’s Trainer AI agent texts Bryan, asks if he wants the slot offered back out, and pushes it to his regulars. Most of the time, the slot is filled within the hour — from his phone, without Bryan touching a keyboard.

“Usually within the hour, somebody else has booked it. It’s gone. So that’s saving me money.”

Bryan Shepherd, Owner

Bryan’s own gauge of how well it works is an anecdote rather than a report: over the last few months, he says, he can count on one hand the cancelled lessons that didn’t refill.

Six to eight hours back every month

Everything Bryan used to do on a desktop — scheduling fixes, cancellations, refunds, account cleanups — now happens from his phone, or doesn’t need to happen at all because clients can manage their own bookings. He estimates six to eight hours a month freed up, time that used to go into untangling problems EZFacility created.

He’s also close to retiring his work phone. It sits on the desk charging, mostly unused.

Clients who can sign themselves up

The bookings Bryan used to lose at the front door — families who couldn’t get through the sign-up flow — aren’t lost anymore. New parents get a notification when they create an account, and Bryan can see in real time when someone signs up but hasn’t booked yet. If a week goes by with no activity, he sends a quick email to check in. Most of the time, he doesn’t need to. They book a lesson within minutes of signing up.

“All of my customers I’ve had since I opened are like, ‘This is awesome.’ They can just hop right on there and do it. It’s mobile-friendly. There’s hardly ever any issues, other than they always complain because I’m full. Which is a good thing.”

Bryan Shepherd, Owner

The bigger takeaway

For anyone sitting where Bryan was before the switch — stuck with something that isn’t working, but afraid the change will be worse — his message is short.

“Do it. It’s well worth getting out of something that doesn’t work for you, based on the time and the money you save.”

Bryan Shepherd, Owner