The City of San Ramon's Parks and Community Services increases revenue and customer service with membership management software and affinity program

Background

Located in California’s Bay Area, the City of San Ramon has a growing population of over 72,000 residents. The mission of the San Ramon Parks and Community Services is to create community through people, parks, partnerships and programs, which heavily involves the popular municipal recreation department. Since 1995, the City has been using parks and recreation software from Active Network to maximize its resources and provide top tier customer service. In 2004, San Ramon expanded and improved its offerings by adding functionality to the system that would accommodate membership passes and an affinity program. The City’s top goals included:

• Build an affinity program to improve revenue and retain customers
• Improve membership validation for the Pool Aquatics and Senior Center
• Increase convenience for customers by selling memberships online

The City of San Ramon has experienced notable success with the new services and can act as a model for other organizations seeking to institute similar recreation software for their programs.

Improving Revenue and Retaining Customers through Affinity Marketing

In 2004, the City decided to start an affinity program as a way to reward its customers and instill loyalty. “Retaining our members was a priority,” mentions Steve Piersol, system administrator for the City of San Ramon. “There are two nearby cities with parks and recreation departments which offer programs similar to ours. We wanted to differentiate ourselves and incentivize our customers to stay with us.” Like a reward miles credit card, the City’s new affinity program added points to “Go Card” each time a customer signed up for a program or bought a membership (not including sports team registrations and facility rentals).

The City used the Affinity Marketing module within Active’s recreation software to manage the program. The City could specify the transaction types that would accumulate points, the point value for the accumulation, and the redemption value. Each time a transaction was accumulated, the software would track the point level for the customer. When first instituting the program, the City used a step-by-step guide provided by Active Network as the framework and established an in-house marketing group to execute on the program. The initial program design awarded customer with one point for every $10 they spent on a membership or registration. Go Card holders were also allowed to register early for programs as further incentive.

The first year of the program, 43 people bought Go Cards and that number has only gone up. Currently there are over 500 Go Card members and the City has seen a noticeable boost in registrations. “We noticed that as people started earning points on their Go Cards,” mentions Piersol, “they doubled their registrations from the previous years. Affinity Marketing encouraged more participation and increased our revenue.”

Improving Membership Validation

Pool Aquatic Memberships

At the pool, the City wanted to increase its control over the memberships sold. Pool passes were paper cards that were easily damaged—if you forgot your pass or it was destroyed, swimmers had to pay a day fee which resulted in frustrations on the part of both the customer and the front desk staff. Also, because the cards were made out of paper and created in house, there was no method to distinguish if the card was a copy. Since the system was manual staff neglected to validate punches in the system leaving many active passes on an account that were actually expired.

To alleviate these issues, the City upgraded to Active Network’s membership management software in 2008. Using the system, the staff created plastic membership cards that featured the member’s picture and a bar code which was scanned upon entry. Cards could be “reloaded” online, which reduced wait times at the counters.

"Using the plastic passes with bar codes is so much easier and faster," says Piersol. "Plus, it really improved our cash handling for lap swim passes because members can renew their cards online. They just have one card to keep track of and our front desk isn’t dealing with a bunch of loose cash."

Senior Center Drop-In Memberships

The City’s Senior Center was having issues similar to Pool Aquatics. The passes for the drop-in programs were flimsy paper and easily duplicated. Also, with multiple classes starting at different times in different locations, it was difficult to monitor the door and many people would sneak into the back of classes. "We learned a lot from the changes we instituted at the pool and knew that Active’s software could do everything we needed at the Senior Center. It was just a matter of buying the hardware."

San Ramon decided to implement membership management for the Senior Center in a similar manner as it did with the Pool Aquatic. Seniors could buy a membership pass that was preloaded with credits or they could buy a one-day entrance and be given a receipt. To validate the passes, the City set up a secure wireless network in the Senior Center and purchased two laptops with scanners. The laptops were placed on AV carts so they could be moved around to different rooms. Staff members and volunteers were stationed at entrances to classrooms to scan the pass cards on the laptops or collect the one-day receipts, which relieved the instructors from monitoring the doors. Overall, with a fairly minor investment in hardware and a simple extension of the pre-existing technology provided by Active, the City was able to streamline processes and increase the validity of the Senior Center memberships.

Adding Customer Convenience through Online Membership Sales

To improve efficiency at service counters and offer customers better options, the City instituted online sales of memberships—both for the Go Card affinity program and for the Pool Aquatic and Senior Center memberships. “It was a departmental goal to let people buy passes online,” comments Piersol. “Our main objective was to add more convenience for customers with the Lap Swim passes and Go Cards.” Customers could purchase and refill memberships online, at their convenience. The membership management system was also set up to notify customers when their membership would expire so they could renew it. This was particularly useful when members were attempting to register for a program that extended beyond the end date of their membership—the system would prompt them to renew before they could complete their registration.

Conclusion

In a relatively short amount of time and with a minimal impact on its budget, the City of San Ramon has leveraged its parks and recreation software solution to achieve significant successes. From implementing better controls to eliminating counterfeit passes to retaining customers through rewards programs, the City has created an improved membership system for both staff and the community. "We have been able to significantly improve our membership tracking and validation with Active Network’s membership management software." says Piersol.

"Affinity Marketing encouraged more participation and increased our revenue."

Steve Piersol
System Administrator,
City of San Ramon