Major leisure operators, Trafford Leisure, have joined forces with DFC to simplify the digital journey for their members and standardise Direct Debits across the organisation.

The partnership will speed the online joining process up by an impressive eight-minutes with beneficial repercussions for in-house administration and customer service.

About Trafford Leisure

Trafford Leisure manage the leisure facilities in the Trafford area on behalf of Trafford Council. With nine facilities stretching nearly ten miles, and 350 staff between them, the Community Interest Company (CIC) attracts a wide demographic.

In operation since 2015, Trafford Leisure is a port of call for anyone interested in a huge array of indoor and outdoor activities like fitness, swimming, gymnastics and golf.

The move to Direct Debit and subsequent partnership with DFC

Twelve months ago Trafford Leisure underwent a migration to Direct Debit for gymnastics, trampolining and swimming lessons. Since making this move, Direct Debit has claimed responsibility for over 60% of Trafford Leisure’s total monthly income, leading the operators to outsource.

Emma Thomas, Head of Development at Trafford Leisure, said

“Since moving our swimming lesson and gymnastics memberships across to Direct Debit, collections have almost doubled overnight so the time seemed right to think about contracting this resource out.

“We’d already looked at DFC three years earlier before continuing to manage this in-house. We chose to work with them at this point because they give us a really personable experience. Their values are really closely aligned to those of  Trafford Leisure.”

The contact centre team, in particular, swung the decision for Emma, who described it as ‘a really tight-knit team’ and ‘not matching her vision of what a contact centre is”.

Plans for Trafford Leisure moving forwards

“Our primary goal is to speed up the buying time and improve the overall digital experience,” continued Emma.

“Our previous online buying journey took 11-minutes from start to finish. FastDD’s takes just over 3 minutes.

“The process should become much more customer-friendly, with a number of additional communication avenues like My Payments and SMS in place as a way of reducing pain points”.

Trafford Leisure are also looking to clean up their cancellation process and reposition their membership offering for people who are considering leaving. They are currently working with DFC partners, Leisure Net to develop a cancellation portal.