The Hong Kong Rugby Union (HKRU) is the governing body for rugby union in Hong Kong. With a mission to promote and develop rugby in the region, HKRU organizes various events, matches, and programs to engage with rugby enthusiasts, fans, and players across the territory.
Context
HKRU recognized the need to enhance its engagement with fans and members by implementing a robust loyalty program. However, they faced significant challenges in consolidating and managing fan and member data, which was dispersed across various ticketing portals, external client portals, and other platforms. The lack of centralized data management made it difficult for HKRU to understand and analyze their audience effectively, hindering their ability to tailor personalized experiences and incentivize engagement.
The client is a membership based sport club which also organizes the biggest and international sport events in Hong Kong for fans. Fans (event goers) and members (players, coaches, families) had a hard time inquiring about their loyalty information, renewing membership and booking tickets as customer details were managed inefficiently across different tools.
Action
We devised a comprehensive solution to consolidate and centralize fan and member data from disparate sources into Salesforce Sales Cloud, enabling HKRU to gain a holistic view of their audience.
At the beginning of the engagement, we introduced an improved data model and suggested deduplication methods that help unify fans and member details to achieve a truly 360 view of all customers. Furthermore, it allows the client to collect more relevant information about their members, especially their interests for more tailored marketing campaigns.
Following the business analysis, our consultants designed the points earn & redemption logic, rules for downgrading and upgrading members and integration flows between a new custom customer-facing portal and Salesforce. With automated solutions, we were able to send reminders to members of any major events related to the memberships (e.g. expiry).
- Data Integration: We leveraged Salesforce's powerful integration capabilities to seamlessly connect HKRU's ticketing portals, external client portals, and other platforms with Salesforce Sales Cloud. This integration enabled real-time synchronization of data, ensuring that HKRU always had access to the most up-to-date information about their fans and members.
- Customized Data Model: We designed a customized data model within Salesforce Sales Cloud to accommodate HKRU's specific requirements. This included capturing essential information such as fan demographics, purchase history, engagement preferences, and membership status, allowing HKRU to segment their audience effectively and tailor personalized experiences.
- Loyalty Program Implementation: Leveraging Salesforce Sales Cloud's robust capabilities, our team developed and implemented a loyalty program tailored to HKRU's needs. The loyalty program incentivized fan and member engagement through rewards, discounts, exclusive access to events, and personalized offers based on their engagement history and preferences.
- Analytics and Reporting: We configured powerful analytics and reporting dashboards within Salesforce Sales Cloud, providing HKRU with actionable insights into their audience's behavior, preferences, and engagement patterns. These insights empowered HKRU to make data-driven decisions, refine their loyalty program strategies, and optimize their engagement efforts continually.
Loyalty Program
In addition to the complexities of consolidating and managing fan and member data, the Hong Kong Rugby Union (HKRU) faced unique challenges in implementing their loyalty program. One significant challenge was the need to establish an automatic mechanism for the upgrading and downgrading of members as they moved from one tier to another within the loyalty program. Additionally, HKRU needed to control the expiry of membership points to a certain date, ensuring that they could effectively manage their loyalty program's rewards and incentives.
- Tier Management Automation: Namiru Solutions developed custom automation workflows within Salesforce Sales Cloud to manage the upgrading and downgrading of members as they progressed through different tiers within the loyalty program. By defining specific criteria and thresholds for each tier, the system automatically upgraded members when they met the criteria for a higher tier and downgraded them if they no longer met the requirements for their current tier.
- Membership Points Expiry Control: Namiru Solutions implemented a sophisticated mechanism within Salesforce Sales Cloud to control the expiry of membership points. This involved setting up rules and parameters to determine when points would expire based on predefined criteria such as membership tier, engagement activity, or a specific expiry date. The system automatically tracked and managed the expiry of points, ensuring that members could redeem their rewards within the specified timeframe.
Integration with Client Portal
We collaborated closely with HKRU to design and implement a robust integration between Salesforce Sales Cloud and the external client portal. This involved several key steps:
- Integration Patterns Design: Conducted a thorough analysis of HKRU's requirements and the capabilities of both Salesforce Sales Cloud and the external client portal. Based on this analysis, they designed integration patterns that best suited HKRU's needs, considering factors such as data synchronization frequency, data mapping, security requirements, and system scalability.
- Integration Endpoints Provisioning: We worked with HKRU's IT team and the providers of the external client portal to provision integration endpoints. This involved defining the APIs and endpoints through which data would be exchanged between Salesforce Sales Cloud and the client portal, ensuring secure and seamless communication between the two systems.
- Data Mapping and Transformation: Our consultants facilitated the mapping and transformation of data between Salesforce Sales Cloud and the external client portal. They ensured that data fields and structures were aligned between the two systems, enabling smooth data exchange and eliminating data discrepancies.
- Authentication and Security: We implemented robust authentication and security measures to protect data during transit between Salesforce Sales Cloud and the external client portal. This involved setting up authentication mechanisms such as OAuth, as well as implementing encryption and data masking techniques to safeguard sensitive information.
- Testing and Validation: We conducted comprehensive testing and validation of the integration between Salesforce Sales Cloud and the external client portal. This involved testing various use cases, data scenarios, and error handling mechanisms to ensure that the integration functioned seamlessly under different conditions.
Results
Our partnership enabled the Hong Kong Rugby Union to implement a successful loyalty program, consolidate fan and member data, and significantly enhance their audience engagement efforts, positioning them for continued growth and success in the future. In addition, loyalty information has never been easier to find and manage, providing the client with the ability to finally understand spending patterns, membership lifecycle, automated renewal campaigns and more.