Maidenhead Rugby Club
Founded in 1921 Maidenhead Rugby Club (MRUFC), affectionately known as the ‘Maids’, is now a venerable and well established part of the town’s sports and social scene. Like many rugby clubs, MRUFC has a very strong social element that complements its sporting activities. In all, six adult teams and eleven youth age groups play in the famous magenta, violet and black colours that together account for over 650 players in a total membership of around 1100.
The Challenge – Old tills, poor stock control, no opportunity to track complimentary services or offer loyalty schemes to members
As well as the normal post match socialising in the bar, the Club provides food and beverages for all visiting teams and officials and it also hosts a number of functions including, birthday parties, anniversaries, sporting dinners and events for its sponsors. The facility is also available for hire to the local community for dance events, local fairs and business meetings,
“The tills were very old and coming to the end of their life, and they were very limited in the management information they could provide. For example it is common to provide officials, visiting dignitaries and some players with a level of complimentary food and drink, however we had no way of recording this and consistently experienced discrepancies between bar takings and stock.” – John Wanklyn
According to John, another major catalyst for changing the existing system was the integration of the youth and adult sections into a single Club constitution and membership structure, for the first time in the Club’s history.
” To achieve the above we needed a solution that would enable us to integrate and manage our entire membership population via a single system. Integrating this with the tills would also allow us to introduce a loyalty scheme for members.”
With pointOne, their enthusiasm has remained throughout the entire project and their support and service has, and continues to be excellent.
The Solution
A fully integrated and automated solution from pointOne EPoS
“After a fairly extensive review of the market we shortlisted three suppliers, however it became clear that the only company that really understood what we were trying to achieve was pointOne EPoS. Furthermore they were the only company that offered solutions to all our needs and was prepared to customise their product to meet our membership integration requirements.” – John Wanklyn
pointOne delivered an EPoS Solution that integrated all our members
MRC needed to record each individual member in their own right regardless of whether they were a senior or junior member and also provide the correct family associations. This is extremely important to support its subscription system and its association with the RFU (Rugby Football Union). MRUFC has recently attained the RFU Seal of Approval, and as such have obligations to provide accurate information on youth members but also to hold data necessary for their safety and welfare.
Results
An integrated ‘members’ database, tighter stock control and an easy to manage loyalty scheme. According to John the system has certainly met their expectations, he explains,
” The guys at pointOne have been fantastic, not only have they delivered what they promised, but as our understanding and requirements have evolved, they have undertaken additional development work that was not part of the original specification. Now when a member buys a drink and has their card swiped through one of our tills they get 10% discount, so you can imagine how popular it has become!”
pointOne’s enthusiasm and excellent service shone throughout the project
John concludes by summing up his experience of using pointOne so far, “A lot of companies are very keen during the sales process, however, this spirit can quickly fall away after the sale has been made. Not so with pointOne, their enthusiasm has remained throughout the entire project and their support and service has, and continues to be excellent.”
The benefits that MRUFC now enjoy include:
- Up to date, easy to use modern tills
- An automated stock control system
- Improved management information
- An Integrated database of all members
- Options for delivering loyalty schemes such as discounts at the bar for members
- Tills that allow the Club to manage and run open tabs when hosting guests
- Ability to introduce an awards scheme based on vouchers
- Able to audit the activities of each member of staff