Home to the 7th
Marquess of Bath, Longleat Estate first opened for
business in 1949, when Longleat House was opened
to the public. Since then a range of tourist attractions
have been developed, including the world famous
Safari Park, Railway, Adventure
Castle and a whole
host of others.
Named UK Family Attraction of the
Year for 2002 by the Good Britain Guide, Longleat now attracts
around 630,000 visitors a year. The tourism side
of the business at Longleat generates gross revenue
of more than £11 million a year and employs
100 permanent staff, rising to 420 in the summer
season. In 2002 Longleat replaced its antiquated
cash register-based ticketing and admissions
system in order to provide better customer service and
support business growth. The cash registers worked
independently, so manual updates were required whenever
prices changed, and a separate cashing up process
was necessary for each one. Furthermore, tickets
had to be pre-printed at considerable expense and
their distribution carefully controlled for security
reasons. In 2003 they extended their use of the
VENPoS solution from VCSTIMELESS to cover the estate's
catering sales, allowing Longleat to retrieve a
single end of day report for both admissions and
catering activities. In 2004 Longleat selected the
VENPoS Online solution, offering visitors the ability
to purchase tickets and guide books on the internet
and giving Longleat new CRM capabilities and the ability to offer online
discounts.
David Hines, Estate Accountant at Longleat
says, "We
are a major tourist attraction and with our visitors
very much in mind, we wanted to improve the speed,
efficiency and control of the admission process
both at our main entrances and online. We have worked
closely with our software partners VCSTIMELESS to
tailor their software, VENPoS, to meet our exact
needs."
Ticketing at the gate
Longleat selected the VCSTIMELESS VENPoS
Ticketing and Admissions system running on IBM
SurePOS 500 touchscreen terminals. Since implementing the
solution, Longleat has seen significant cash savings,
increased efficiency and improved ease of use.
Says David Hines, "The VENPoS software allows
us to print customised tickets on the spot, which
reduces the cost per ticket by a factor of seven.
All the PoS terminals are linked so cashing up
is faster and easier, and the VENPoS software
allows us to see more detailed breakdowns of ticket
sales and money-off vouchers. Overall, the VCSTIMELESS
solution speeds up entry for our customers and
reduces costs - those are important benefits for
our business."
Just the ticket for cost savings
Prior to implementing the VCSTIMELESS solution,
Longleat had to pre-print pre-numbered tickets in
batches and then store them securely, because they
had a cash value. Now, tickets are not validated
until the system has printed them for each individual
customer. Says David Hines, "We can now print
directly from the system, so we no longer need secure
storage. Last year, we spent £35,000 on our
full-colour Passport tickets. The move to the new
system means we now use two-colour thermal tickets
at an equivalent cost of £5,000, resulting
in a significant annual saving on our print costs."
Longleat's main attractions are open from Easter
through to November each year, so the park relies
on a large number of seasonal staff. They have to
be trained as quickly and efficiently as possible,
so a major requirement of the new solution was that
it should be easy to use. "The VENPoS software,
provides a clear and simple interface between the
operator and the PoS. Training can be completed
very quickly and staff find the technology genuinely
enjoyable to use," says David Hines.
Communicating
the benefits
The new ticketing and admissions system has a built-in
Electronic Funds Transfer (EFT) function running
over a fibre-optic network linked to the accounts
office. Credit card payments are now authorised
centrally, which has reduced communication costs
and accelerated processing. The point of sale
terminals connect to a server for centralised
operations such as price and function changes,
but work independently during the day. The VENPoS software, provided by VCSTIMELESS, is highly resilient,
so it is powerful enough to run stand-alone. If
a break in communication occurs between the server
and the PoS, the software enables the transaction
data to be copied over to the server once the
connection is restored. David Hines comments, "We
wanted a system that was centralised, in order
to avoid manual adjustments to each PoS, but we
also wanted the terminals to be powerful enough
to function alone. The VCSTIMELESS system gives
us the assurance that we can work through a network
failure."
In control with VCSTIMELESS
Another major advantage of the new solution is the
control it provides. At close of business, the
head cashier can view and aggregate data from
all ticketing and catering terminals to see any
discrepancies. The close of day routine automatically
passes information to the Estate's Exchequer accounting
system, without any further manual intervention.
Central management can analyse sales of tickets
by individual, assign different levels of security
to operators, add new operators and run special
offers - all at the touch of a button. In addition,
every button pressed by operators is permanently
recorded on an audit log.
David Hines says, "We
now have information that we didn't have before,
and we can see the state
of the business much more quickly. We can monitor
activity in real-time across the whole network,
so our control of the admissions process is much
tighter."
The flexibility of the VCSTIMELESS system enables
Longleat management to make modifications quickly
and easily, giving much faster response to customer
demand and reducing the administrative overhead
of making changes to attractions or pricing structures.
David Hines concludes: "The system has not
only proved incredibly stable, but has given us
greater
flexibility. It saves time and money, and
the end result is better service for our customers."
Safari
commerce at Longleat: e-ticketing
In August 2004 Longleat installed the VENPoS
Online solution from VCSTIMELESS. Flexible and modular,
VENPoS Online can be integrated with the rest
of the VENPoS suite or can operate as a stand-alone
solution. Secure and enabled for web payments,
VENPoS Online allows customers to purchase tickets
and merchandise online with complete peace of
mind. Longleat worked with VCSTIMELESS to deliver
an online booking and payment solution which would
allow faster access at the gate, maximise revenues
by offering 24/7 advanced booking facilities,
offer visitors the choice and convenience the
web provides and ensure secure payment processing.
The
results
"We worked with VCSTIMELESS to create a design for
the e-ticketing window which would mirror the style
of our own corporate website. This was very important
to offer our visitors a seamless online experience," comments
David Hines. Also of importance and a key benefit
of e-ticketing is round the clock availability.
At the end of the 2004 season, when the park was
closed (between mid November 2004 and mid February
2005), Longleat generated over £10,000 in
revenue thanks to e-ticketing.
In just 9 months Longleat
have sold over 8,000 tickets online which, coupled
with guide book sales,
is worth an impressive £125,000! "Since
we installed the solution last August, the value
of online orders has quadrupled!," comments
David Hines. In March 2005, Longleat took over £3,000
in online ticket and guide books sales in one day
alone!
Since installing the VENPoS Online solution Longleat have noted the following benefits:
- Rapid
return on investment
- Ability to run discounts
and promotions
- Ability to take orders 24/7
- Opportunities for
up-selling
- Efficiency
- Improved CRM capabilities
- Ease of use
- Increased customer satisfaction
The future
Longleat has been so impressed with the response
to e-ticketing they are now looking at the possibility
of installing self-service kiosks at the park
entrance to offer visitors who have booked online
fast ticket collection. Longleat are also talking
to VCSTIMELESS about mobile PoS
solutions in
the form of compact and durable tablet PCs which
can
be worn over the shoulder in comfortable carry
cases. This solution is extremely useful in
this type of environment where 43% of visitors
visit
the park in July and August. Future opportunities
for Longleat include enhanced CRM and analytical
reporting which will allow Longleat to offer
targeted mailings to previous visitors and monitor
buying
patterns.
All in all, Longleat can now offer
a better experience for all its visitors and
has put in place the technology
to safeguard future needs for many years to come.
|
