The challenge
During the 2012/13 season, Stoke City FC were looking to enhance both the fan experience and improve the efficiency of club operations.
The Club had grown significantly over the last 10 years with the number of fans purchasing tickets on match days had increasing greatly since being in The Premier League.
This created additional pressure on the ticket office on their already busy match day operations.
The solution
The venue access control solution agreed with the club to improve match day efficiency was to issue all anonymous non-season ticket holders with a TeamCard and request a one-off registration of their details against the card’s unique ID.
Once a fan joined this membership process, acquiring a ticket would be easy and efficient, and could be done in person, by phone or using the web sales facility.
Furthermore, all ticket entitlement and location details would be on the TeamCard ID with the card itself used as the method of entry at the TeamCard equipped turnstiles.
This approach eliminated congestion at the ticket office, improved the customer experience, and reduced the paper ticket printing and administration in general.
The results
With its first year the club had issued 33,000 of the new membership cards, acquiring a significant new membership category of previously unidentified supporters that could now be engaged.
The fans also benefited from their TeamCard with loyalty rewards for a range of activities such as making purchases in the retail store in store or online.
The club’s commercial department gained more leverage with an enlarged and identifiable membership when negotiating future sponsorship deals.
As well as this, they were able to to segment the behavioural data of the fans using Pro-Contact, allowing them to communicate strategically with tailored content to influence commercial activity and spend.
Contacts
Martin Goodman, Financial Director
Josh Whittaker – Vyse, Head of Ticketing
If you would like to talk to us about your venue access control requirements, please get in touch
