Solving Half-Time Pint Frustrations With Mobile Innovation

By Adam King, CEO at SwipeStation.

Recovering from the effects of the pandemic continues to be a long and arduous journey for stadiums, whilst they navigate the challenges of reduced attendance, minimising contact and safe delivery of food and beverages.

Moreover, post-pandemic changes are estimated to remain a key consideration until at least 2024, and the industry must face two significant challenges whilst desperately trying to recoup revenue lost over the last 18 months. The first is the long-standing issue of stadium connectivity, and the costs involved. The second is the crisis across the hospitality industry of recruiting and retaining casual staff.

Tackling Stadium Connectivity

It’s fair to say that nearly everyone who attends a sporting event owns a smartphone, or is accompanying someone who does. The stadium industry, however, has been particularly slow on the uptake when introducing innovative technology to improve consumer engagement, such as digital ticketing, interactive fan apps or mobile ordering. This is partly due to the challenges around connectivity. Whether it’s Wi-Fi or 4/5G masts, the problem for stadiums centres around providing a stable connection for fans when bandwidth is being pushed to its limits in a building made up of multiple layers of concrete and steel. These two factors alone make these infrastructure changes almost impossible to afford for any but the very richest clubs. Even those that have it can’t seem to offer a great deal of stability. Nor have they found a way of clawing back a return on their £1m+ investment.

As a result of the pandemic, there has been a staggering uptake in fans using mobile payments to buy food and drink on their phones. Whether in a pub, coffee shop, stadium or outdoor event, it has been estimated that 1.31 billion people will use a mobile ordering app by 2023. There is no doubt that the pandemic has dramatically advanced attitudes towards mobile ordering by a few years in just a few months. A combination of more-digitally savvy consumers, health and safety concerns and multiple cost benefits has expedited this progress across the hospitality and retail sectors - which can only be a good thing.

Now is the time for the stadium industry to make a change and start recouping its much-needed revenue, and there are viable services that don’t cost anything to install and can help boost the stadium’s bottom line straight away. For instance, SwipeStation is a mobile ordering service that is widely favoured, as it does not require the fan to have phone connectivity. Fans can create orders in airplane mode, then scan their phone at a SwipeStation, which acts as an unmanned till away from the bar. They simply bring their receipt to the bar to redeem their food and drink, reducing service time to an average of 15 seconds (as opposed to the usual 60+ seconds with contactless till payment).

Ultimately, for consumers to adopt and engage, they need to know the service is reliable, as well as being fast and easy to use.

Improving Staff Retention

The stadium world is also facing an entirely new crisis: a desperate shortage of matchday service staff. This issue was exemplified when The Principality Stadium had to close 24% of the bars due to lack of staff - leaving those that remained open with terrible queues. The pandemic decimated the hospitality industry, with experienced staff changing careers when work dried up, many casual workers returning to Europe and students returning to family homes rather than renting student digs in city centres. Even the staffing agencies who can usually be called upon to make up the gap (for a premium) are overcommitted and are letting the stadiums down.

Those casual workers willing to work are inexperienced and, with so much choice on offer, are not prepared to work under such pressure. Meanwhile, having been ordering food and drink on their phones during the pandemic, fans are expecting a smoother service than ever before. It’s a perfect storm of high customer expectations vs. disappointing customer service.

What has always been a fraught experience for someone new to the job is exacerbated when the bar is short-staffed. In this case, managers will suffer from frustrated and disgruntled customers because the service is too slow and queues are too long. In the meantime, staff are unlikely to return for future matches when all that’s being offered is short shifts, low pay and a stressful experience.

Maintaining a strong team of staff who are confident and happy is key to the success of stadium bars in a post-pandemic environment, and if the service is efficient, customers will arrive earlier, spend more and leave later. Managers must make every effort to ensure their staff members work in a stress-free environment, and are motivated to learn and increase their experience in the industry. Adopting a simple and easy to use payment system when serving customers is a great way to mitigate staff retention issues - now and forever.

Removing the need for touch screens, buttons and unnecessary dialogue between the staff and customer, SwipeStation is proven to turn inexperienced, casual staff into super-efficient service professionals - even on their first shift. By removing deliberation, ordering and payment from the service area, all the server has to do is read the receipt and fetch the drinks. There are no cards or cash to handle, no tills or till training and minimal communication necessary between staff and customers.

The result of this increased efficiency is fewer staff required behind the bar, making their experience more rewarding and less fraught. Meanwhile, fewer staff serving more fans means lower costs and increased revenue by up to 25%.

The Power Of Data

As an added bonus, stadiums gain valuable sales insights on not just the ‘what?’ and ‘where?’ that a typical EPOS system will provide, but the powerful ‘who?’ - including email address, mobile number and birthday. This data can be used to connect with fans 365 days of the year, improving their overall match-day experience.

One football club to already benefit from embracing mobile ordering is AFC Bournemouth, who achieved a massive 66% sales uplift from the 19/20 season vs. the current season. SwipeStation can attribute this growth to the uptake in mobile payments following the pandemic, in addition to the club’s ability to serve the fans faster - even without an internet connection in the stadium.

Stadiums Of The Future

These seismic shifts across the stadium industry are placing increasing reliance on technology in order to adapt successfully. Sports venues need to evolve in order to overcome financial hardships, in addition to the challenges of stadium connectivity and staff retention. The ‘long game’ focus is on adaptation and digital transformation to engage with fans and attract them back to venues time after time. It’s vital for stadiums to take advantage of emerging tools (such as SwipeStation) to redevelop strategies in response to COVID-19, bolster their infrastructure and provide a solid return on investment.

For more information on how stadiums can serve ‘half time drinks in half the time’, please visit the SwipeStation website: www.swipestation.co.uk