With over 100 years of rich heritage, Norwich City Football Club is a community-led and spirited club with 20,000 season ticket holders. It employs 160 permanent staff that oversee club operations and community ventures.

Background
Interaction with its fan base is key, and there are regular fan news bulletins and consultative meetings about the running of the club and the services it provides. Norwich City also requires a quick response information service ensuring fans are fully informed about any possible changes to fixtures, travel arrangements and so on. Most importantly, the club requires a ticket line that is able to accommodate hundreds of thousands of fans.

Challenge
Thousands of calls come through to the club every week from fans requesting information on tickets, games and news. For big cup games Norwich City can expect up to a quarter of a million fans calling for tickets.

The club's last telecoms solution, which was state-of-the-art when it was installed, only had 30 active lines at any given time. However, this could no longer cope with the high volumes of traffic, leaving many calls unanswered. When a call was answered it was sometimes difficult to get an additional free outside line for credit card purchases.

Furthermore, basic information could not be put on the phone line to inform callers whether tickets had sold out or whether matches were on until the lines were closed at the end of each day. This meant thousands of calls had to be taken to relay the same messages over and over.

Solution
IP Solutions approached Norwich City and undertook an extensive research exercise to understand the club's relationship with the community and its fans.

Based on this consultation it recommending replacing the existing 0870 ticket and information line number with a less expensive 0844 number, with the savings directly passed on to fans — the club did not want to make a profit out of an information service.

IP Solutions also implemented an IVR solution allowing for more effective call queuing as well as a messaging service, which instantly improved the flow of communication across the club and its supporters. Even when working at maximum efficiency at peak periods, the service holds customers in queue, providing tailored waiting messages and updating them on their position.

Results
The new system was a resounding success — Norwich City fans can call the club and get critical information instantly and automatically.

The club is expanding its reach among its fan base, and with the reduction in cost the number of calls is expected to increase further. An example of this efficiency was highlighted during a snow disruption, when matches were called off across the country. Norwich City was still playing, and the club was inundated with calls for the status on the upcoming game. The club set a standard for information flow and coped spectacularly with the volume.

"When someone does something exceptional it's important to let other people know, so I would have no hesitation in recommending IP Solutions to any other business." - Head of Customer Services, Norwich City Football Club

"IP Solutions invested time and money to get an understanding of us and our supporters' needs. They showed a high level of professionalism, which gave us confidence in appointing them." - Head of Customer Services, Norwich City Football Club