Elly Yates-Roberts |
Melbourne Cricket Club (MCC) is the largest sporting club in Australia, with over 140,000 active members and the public responsibility for managing the Melbourne Cricket Ground, the country’s largest stadium. As a result, the club has over 330,000 records in its database for members and candidates on its waiting list for membership.
Historically, the MCC has relied on postal addresses to fulfil activities such as posting application forms, shipping member cards and goods, and sending renewal notices. While traditional post remains an important channel of communication, the MCC recognised the need to digitise its engagement strategy to allow it to reduce postal costs, meet the needs of its members who preferred email and text, and deliver timely updates – a capability which proved especially important during the Covid-19 pandemic.
The MCC has therefore used Experian’s real-time address, email and mobile validation solutions at the point of data capture on its website and within the Microsoft Dynamics customer relationship management system. The solutions instantly check addresses against official data from Australia Post and directly with mobile network providers to ensure existence and deliverability. If details are incorrect, the person entering the data is prompted to make corrections before submitting the form, eliminating the need for the MCC’s team to manually rework data later down the line.
“Contact information drives how we manage our membership programme,” says Dean Burton, operations and analysis manager at the MCC. “Experian’s data validation solutions were easy to connect and have enabled us to capture the right information up front so we can communicate with members, evidenced during the Covid-19 pandemic where we needed to provide our members with information quickly and regularly.”
By using Experian’s validation solutions, the MCC has been able to maintain more complete and accurate records for members and applicants. All records now have valid postal addresses, and over 96 per cent have valid email addresses and phone numbers. As a result, member engagement has significantly improved, with a 99 per cent successful email deliverability rate.
Furthermore, the MCC has reduced costs by shifting to a digital-first approach. Renewal notices are now sent via email instead of post to 85 per cent of members, saving over AU$100,000 ($74,170) annually while also increasing the percentage of members renewing within two months from 51 per cent to 61 per cent.
The MCC is continuing to enhance its data and digital engagement strategy with support from Experian.
“We’ve always received great support from the data quality team at Experian, from recommending solutions that meet our long-term needs, to providing quick responses to queries,” says Burton. “The team has been really helpful over the years.”
This article was originally published in the Winter 21/22 issue of Technology Record. To get future issues delivered directly to your inbox, sign up for a free subscription.