The Chaska Community Center is located in the Twin Cities metro area of Chaska, Minnesota, a popular area for outdoor party rental shelters, aquatics, hockey leagues and other ice activities.
Understanding that online options are now a baseline expectation for customers, the Center was looking for a cloud-based solution that would allow them to configure and customize the software, without reliance on an IT employee or server space, to better serve their 25,000 customers.
ACTIVE Net Flexibility
The center uses six ACTIVE Net modules. Configurability of the software has resulted in:
- Revenue stability
- Creative sales (i.e. Black Friday Blowout, Ageless Sale, etc.)
- Accuracy of charging resident/non-resident rates
- Easy application of seasonal memberships or specialized memberships for specific populations
- 2 hours of work freed up per week for 10 staff
Radical improvements in revenue and administration occurred with the following three modules.
1. Facilities Reservation Module
Park Rentals
In the past, the park shelters were reserved only through manual, walk-in form requests requiring staff to check availability, reserve the space, and receive payment. Members could rent whatever hours they wanted, which left gaps of unrentable space.
Results
Chaska’s biggest ROI win since implementing ACTIVE Net is in this area:
- Park rentals were configured in 2 time blocks per day, resulting in 100% revenue increase
- Rentals are reserved and paid for online, resulting in 100% decrease in administration
Hockey League
Ice arenas represent both a huge source of revenue as well as a huge expense for both the facility and the leagues. Arena rentals are $200/hour, with 8 teams using the ice rink for 2 hour games every Sunday during the 10-14 week hockey season.
The season fee of $1200 per team was typically paid in installments through the coach, but it was not unusual for the staff to spend weeks trying to track down late payments. If the season ended with a balance due, it might take six months to account for the entire balance, and sometimes, they never did.
Results
With ACTIVE Net’s online registration, Susan was able to restructure registration to push responsibility for payment to the individual team members. During the registration process, she could secure a down payment of $100, capture a credit card number, and set up two automatic payments for the balance, all during the registration/reservation process, enabling Chaska to:
- Fill ice arena slots more consistently
- Receive 100% of registration revenue on time
- Drastically reduce staff admin time
2. Registration Module
Prior to ACTIVE Net, staff could set up the year’s activities online for viewing, but had to restrict registration until returning families were enrolled. For the onsite preschool, it was an administrative nightmare that parents could reserve spots with a deposit in January but tuition didn’t start until September.
Members had to physically come to the facility and put money on their accounts. Staff had to touch every account and every payment, in addition to constantly reminding parents to keep their accounts funded for monthly fees.
Results
Now, staff can concentrate on kids and curriculum, rather than registration. Other wins include:
- First set-up of every program or class takes less than 20 minutes, due to the ability to copy previous program set-ups
- Entire year’s programs set-up and open by January 20
- Can offer and easily manage Priority Enrollment for returning members
- Childcare fees can be tied in with membership payment plans
- Auto-billing with credit card has solved almost every payment issue
3. Child Care/Flex Registration Module
Before ACTIVE Net, parents had to manually select their contract length (3, 4, or 5-day) and lock in which days they wanted for the entire summer. Billing was set for the first of the month.
- Online registration increased from 3% to 50-60%, reducing staff administration
- Higher fill rates due to the ability to track openings
- Parents love flexible options for contracts and payment due dates
- Auto-billing collects all payments every Sunday
- Additional functionality not found in the Registration module:
- Check-in/check-out authorization
- Ability to generate custom reports with attendance lists (rosters) to track enrollment
- Greater sophistication through graphical calendar option to create and update schedules for daily weekly and monthly programs
Auto-Payments
Since implementing all ACTIVE Net recreation management modules, Chaska has seen a significant amount of growth and improvement. The staff considers auto-payment with credit cards to be one of the most valuable features they recommend to other organizations. It has raised revenue while lowering staff administration in all areas of operation.