Converting the lines to ISDN30e allowed the club much more
flexibility with its calls. The ticket office was always
doubling up as reception. Now Direct Dial numbers to the
relevant club departments, and the auto attendant via the
main number allows callers direct access to the relevant
extensions without tying up the ticket office.
Most of the management at St Helens are constantly mobile
round the stadium and often contact could only be made via
personal mobile phones. The integrated DECT cordless solution
on the site, means staff “wear” their telephone
extension.
Internet access was via one analogue dial up modem operated
by the marketing manager. This meant NO private e-mails
or e-mails direct to departments. The OmniPCX Office’s
full internet package has given the club a true voice and
data solution to all department heads.
The voicemail server on the system allows “online
record” of phone calls, which can be stored as wav.
Files in the user e-mail. This feature was of great importance
for negotiating transfer fees of players.
Enterprise Communications Services (ECS) works in partnership
with Your Communications. One of our clients is St. Helens
Rugby League Club which has a loyal, worldwide base of over
40,000 fans, and a keen following among the local Merseyside
community.
As a famous sporting organisation and venue, St. Helens
has experienced growing demands on its administrative services
and is acutely aware of the importance of maintaining good
communications with its supporters. At the same time, the
club is constantly seeking to develop its commercial activities
in order to maintain a strong financial base.
Following the success in becoming World Club Champions in
2001 and 2002, the volume of telephone calls to St. Helens’
headquarters increased to record levels, making heavy demands
on its switchboard services and requiring a significant
amount of staff time in dealing with enquiries. Supporters
often met with engaged tones or a delayed answering service
due to sheer volume of calls and finite resources, so the
club needed to improve the fan’s experience.
Simultaneously, the club was looking for ways to exploit
opportunities to create new revenue streams, and to maximise
the potential of its lottery competition and ticket booking
lines.
By providing an Interactive Voice Response (IVR) service
with an information line and a general contact line, Your
Communications has enabled St. Helens to deal comfortably
with high volumes of calls and to deliver a prompt, efficient
service to its supporters.
Enquiries relating to tickets and fixtures, the club’s
lottery, coach travel, superstore and restaurant are all
accommodated by the service. In addition, there is the facility
that enables the caller to directly link with the club in
order to purchase tickets, arrange coach travel or book
the restaurant.
The service allows up to 2880 calls to be dealt with at
a time, coping easily with the highest levels of traffic
volume, and virtually eliminating abandoned calls.
By using the services of famous comedian Johnny Vegas to
deliver the option messages, St.Helens created something
of a call response phenomenon. In his inimitable style,
Vegas spiced up the messages with gags and quips that soon
had callers ringing up just to enjoy his performance. Over
6000 calls were recorded in the first week, and the response
messages were soon picked up by the broadcast media, being
featured on BBC Radio 1’s Sara Cox Breakfast Show,
Radios 2, 4 and 5, Radio Merseyside and GMR. St.Helens received
invaluable publicity as a result of this, with spin-off
benefits accruing to ECS and Your Communications.
The IVR service provided by Your Communications has enabled
a high volume of enquiries to be dealt with promptly and
efficiently, with fans and customers being assured of immediate
connection and easy access to the services they require.
This has vastly improved the customer experience leading
to increased loyalty.
IVR has enabled St. Helens to achieve significant savings
in staff time. With most calls simply requiring information
that is automatically provided, fuller attention can be
given to potential income producing activities such as responding
to merchandising enquiries.
By connecting customers directly with ticket booking lines
and other services, the club is making the most of the commercial
opportunities available to it. In addition, with calls charged
at national rates the service provides a valuable additional
revenue stream for the club and plans are in place to exploit
further commercial opportunities. These include a match
report call line and a pay-for-product line, enabling on-line
merchandise purchasing to be charged directly to phone bills.
“The technical expertise and account management
support provided by Your Communications was crucial in setting
this up. The client needed to have confidence in the resilience
of the system and its capacity to deal with high traffic
volumes, and I needed their support in handling the implementation
details. Your Communications gave us both everything we
wanted.”
Peter Hull, Managing Director, ECS |
Listen to the Greeting
