Kaizen Ticketing Are Helping Football League Clubs Break Revenue Records
Kaizen Ticketing are one of the football industry’s fastest growing success stories. With more than 100 clubs now using their software they are challenging the ticketing industry’s status quo – and winning.
The result? Football League clubs are seeing better, closer, relationships with their supporters – and record sales. Mansfield Town FC and Cheltenham Town FC are the latest two beneficiaries.
Kaizen Ticketing’s Founder and CEO David Lynam – who used to work for The FA, Spurs and Ticketmaster – is doing something right.
His software is now used by more than 100 clubs across the football pyramid, the company has finished their most profitable pre-season ever and have appointed an industry heavyweight as their new Sales Director.
“I think this is going to be a really good season for Kaizen – we can push on,” says Lynam. “Actually, scrap that – it sounds like we’re trying to qualify for Europe, or something!” Lynam is affable and personable – and really smart. It is no surprise that clubs entrust him with swathes of their commercial operations.
Kaizen are Official Ticketing Partners of the Southern, Isthmian & Northern Premier leagues (known collectively as the Trident Leagues) and over the last seven years have used this footing to refine the system’s robustness.
Their ranks have been bolstered further with the addition of Chris Belt, who joins from Ticketmaster Sport where he was Head of Business Development. Belt’s appointment solidifies Kaizen as serious players in the market.
Lynam is clear that his original strategy is coming to fruition. “Non-League was a huge test for the system,” he said.
“Could we cope with a Premier League side coming to town for an FA Cup tie? Could we help keep a club afloat with online sales through Covid?
“Could we get clubs to adopt electronic turnstiles and reduce cash handling on the gate?
“We did all that and more. We have proven that we are not a risk for a Football League club – quite the opposite.
“We position ourselves as an interesting alternative to what is out there already. We challenge our staff to think big without ever losing that start-up approach to customer service: always do the right thing for your customers.”
Mansfield Town and Cheltenham Town are the latest Kaizen converts. Both are already speaking in glowing terms.
Mansfield have sold almost 4,500 season tickets at the time of writing – a modern day record for The Stags.
Alex Sherriff is Mansfield Town’s Operations Director and was instrumental in bringing Kaizen to the club. She said: “Kaizen were really easy to work with and were good ‘hand-holders’ in the early days of implementing the system.
“They were first class and an extension of our own ticketing team, really. They have been a big contributing factor as to why we have sold a record number of season tickets this summer.”
That is a sentiment echoed by the club’s CEO, David Sharpe – former Wigan Athletic Chairman. “Working in partnership with Kaizen Ticketing, we have transformed our ticketing operations and have already delivered on a number of goals for our fans.
“Our fans have adapted to the technology extremely well because of its ease-of-use and simplicity. The incredible increase in season ticket sales underlines the effectiveness of the new ticketing system from Kaizen.”
Similarly, Cheltenham have surpassed their own 20-year record for season ticket sales.
They had beaten the entire sales from the previous season before this year’s ‘early bird’ offer was over. In fact, they’ve been so impressed their club historian is rechecking the previous record!
There isn’t a secret, particularly – just the Kaizen approach. That is, really listen to what any given club’s objectives are and work backwards from there.
The system is flexible enough to cope with the rigours of day-to-day ticket office life. The user interface is intuitive and clean, while the mechanics of the ‘back-end’ lend perfectly to quick and efficient reporting.
The man ‘at the coalface’ in Cheltenham is their Ticket Office Manager, Tim Nicholls – and his praise is effusive.
“Honestly, Kaizen makes the day-to-day running of our ticketing operation so much easier,” he said.
“When you get into the detail of the system, you can see that it has been put together by people who have worked in a ticket office.
“Kaizen have built something that the supporters can use easily but can also generate the sort of reporting insights that the whole club can make use of.”
That kind of insight is being used operationally on matchdays too. The club’s Safety Officer Nick Meeks, said: “Introducing ticket scanning at our turnstiles is a huge step forward for the club.
“Having access to the scanned data, through the system dashboards, in the control room has given us another layer of information that we didn’t previously have on matchday.
“Being able to see where entrances are busy, or which sections are filling up early allows us to make sure we’re deploying our matchday staff efficiently in the build-up to kick off.”
Kaizen Ticketing Fact File
The Kaizen Ticketing system is seven years’ old
More than 100 clubs are now using the system across the football pyramid
It is the Official Ticketing Partner of the Southern, Isthmian & Northern Premier leagues
Helped two Football League clubs achieve record season ticket sales this summer
Front-end system is ‘white label’ and a web based ‘back end’ allows you to set up a box office anywhere you have an internet connection
Kaizen Ticketing Can Help Your Club!
If you are looking for a new ticketing provider – we can help with a no obligation chat. Tel: 0203 858 0709 Email: info@kaizenticketing.com Web: www.kaizenticketing.com
