Rangers Football Club’s annual season ticket campaign sees the club process over 45,000 season tickets over a two-month period each year. They currently offer their supporters three different methods of paying for their season ticket: card payment made through a payment link, payment via bank transfer and a finance option to pay over several monthly instalments.
To improve the efficiency of their season ticket card payment process, Rangers were keen to work with a payment processor who could provide a sophisticated solution that was data-driven and scalable to meet their evolving needs. They also wanted to improve the connectivity between the different moving parts in the transaction process to create a more customer-centric experience for their supporters.
The challenge
Before working with Acquired.com, Rangers faced challenges around the overall efficiency of their season ticket sales via card payment, including significant delays between the customer making their payment and receiving a confirmation email. They wanted to remove time-consuming manual processes for their ticket office staff, while improving the purchasing experience for supporters.
Building an efficient payment experience
Acquired.com were selected to partner with Rangers due to our best-in-class payment technology designed to improve efficiency, as well as our consultative approach, which meant we could build a payment strategy that best suited Rangers unique needs.
By undertaking a rigorous integration into Rangers’ ticketing platform, Acquired.com were able to provide a vastly more efficient end-to-end payment journey. This integration means that when a card payment is made through the payment link, the ticketing platform management portal is notified and automatically generates a confirmation email which is sent to the supporter making their purchase.
Susan Hannah, Head of Ticket Operations at Rangers explains there were significant challenges to overcome in the card payment process.
“As our staff had to manually check each card payment to ensure the funds were received before sending confirmation emails via the ticketing platform, this meant supporters could face delays of 4 to 5 days between the making of the payment and receiving a confirmation email.
The work Acquired.com has undertaken has been transformative for this process, I was so impressed by the support from their customer success team, providing training to all members of the ticket office team for the generation of the payment links we utilise for renewals and hospitality sales. By automating the renewal link process through the ticketing platform, we have been able to free up our staff time for better use elsewhere.”
Improving cashflow through acquirers
Acquired.com also undertook a review of Rangers’ incumbent card acquirer relationships for merchant account services, incorporating the associated processing charges and settlement terms. For many years the club has had a rolling reserve security in place on season ticket sales, meaning the card acquirer processing their payment held back a portion of the money after ticket sales were processed, paying out funds gradually as games were fulfilled. This process diminishes the acquirers deemed risk of chargeback exposure over the course of a season.
In order to support Rangers’ liquidity, during the midst of the ongoing global pandemic and its impact on professional sports and events, we undertook a review of their card acquiring services, terms and processing rates and were able to deliver the club an unsecured facility for the first time in years.
Kenny Barclay, Financial Director at Rangers explains how important obtaining the unsecured facility is for the club.
“Acquired.com’s work now means we can benefit from the full amount collected through season tickets sales at the point of sale. I cannot stress enough what a critical improvement this is for the smooth running of the club to be able to have this financial benefit at the start of the season.
“Acquired.com’s expertise and knowledge of the payment sector has been so useful as we look to further refine our payment strategy and offer new payment methods to our supporters. Building a more automated and connected payment landscape for Rangers will allow us to stay at the forefront of great supporter experiences as we continue to compete at the highest levels of the game.”
A consultative approach
A key benefit for Rangers of working with Acquired.com is our industry expertise and insights. We are in constant communication with the club about regulatory changes that are happening in the payment industry and how alternative payment methods such as Open Banking could be beneficial and save them money versus conventional card payment going forward.
Grant Evans, Head of Partnerships at Acquired.com commented “Our partnership with Rangers Football Club is constantly evolving to deliver a payment infrastructure which is highly attuned to the club’s goals and their supporters needs. We are currently working with the club to implement a variety of alternative payment methods, such as Open Banking and Digital Wallets, to provide their supporters with a wider choice of payment options and further their customer-centricity. We look forward to continuing our work with the club in the years ahead as they lead the way in supporter payment experience.”.
