…as Everton Football Club deploys stadia-wide Verteda Hospitality solution in partnership with Sodexo Prestige
With a capacity of 39,572, Goodison Park – in Liverpool’s Walton district – was the first major football stadium built in England and one of the world’s oldest purpose-built football grounds. It has staged more top-flight football games than any other UK ground.
Sodexo Prestige has provided award-winning hospitality and fine dining at Everton F.C. since 2006, catering for match day fixtures and non-match day events such as conferences, meetings, weddings and sportsman’s dinners. Hospitality, dining and bar facilities include The People’s Club, Captains’ Table, Joe Mercer Lounge, Alex Young Suite, ’85 Lounge, 1878 Brasserie, Brian Labone Lounge, Dixie Dean Suite, and executive boxes.
A new Verteda – AURES IT solution went live without a hitch against Liverpool F.C. on local derby day, Sunday 4th October 2015, with InfoGenesis POS software running on 142 new AURES POS terminals.
“Go live went very well, and the Sodexo team found the system easy to use and gained instant benefits with insightful real-time reporting,” says Matthew Prosser, Business Development Director, Verteda Ltd. “Everton F.C. were also very keen to implement our built-in Challenge 25 alcohol control functionality.
We are now installing our integrated digital stock solution, which will go live in a phased approach starting with a couple of Food and Beverage kiosks.”
With Verteda having also installed new cabling, he says the stadium is now experiencing far fewer issues with EPOS tills going off-line due to network problems. The next phases are to rollout cashless and contactless payments including ApplePay functionality, via a new payment device from Global Payments, and installing Verteda’s Voom loyalty solution for dynamic discounts and promotions at POS terminals.
According to Chris Reed, Retail Catering Manager – North Region, Sodexo Prestige, the previous system had become “Very inflexible, restricting operators and causing lots of problems, so we wanted a fresh start. Looking at the point of sale element alone, we can already do far more than before. Previously, we couldn’t even look at basic information like product sales. We can now plan effectively for future events, making sure we have the right stock levels to meet demand. Crucially, we’ve already gained the flexibility to add new products instantly, across the stadium. With the old POS system it was very labour intensive to change item and price details. Now it’s easy: we can change products anytime throughout the season in line with feedback from the fans, and addressing different circumstances – such as an early kick-off as opposed to evening kick-off, when we might make a different offer to fans. In parallel, we can change the digital signage to reflect and communicate this. We’ll also be able to deliver new promotions and loyalty offers, perhaps match day specials to encourage fans to come into the stadium earlier. This sort of thing was impossible before. And consumers simply expect to be able to make cashless and contactless payments today, and we can offer this in a few weeks’ time also. We can deliver a better service and faster customer throughput with shorter queue times. It was cash only before, with no opportunities for discounts or vouchers.”
“We are delighted to be working with one of the most consistently successful English Premier League clubs, helping Everton F.C. and Stadium Experience award-winners Sodexo Prestige to further improve the fan experience while achieving a raft of operational benefits,” says Trevor Roberts, Sales Director, Verteda Ltd.
“Verteda solutions are, on average, serving one million fans a week and I’m particularly pleased the Everton F.C operational team was able to witness the Verteda solution in action at the club’s Merseyside rival Liverpool F.C. at Anfield before committing. We’re looking forward to working closely with the team as we rollout more elements of our award winning stadia solution.”