The principle driver behind upgrading the venue’s technology was the need for easy and detailed reporting and the collective results in terms of actionable intelligence and operational efficiencies have been significant. Angela says, “We save massive amounts of time in administration as customised reports can be created almost instantly. In the past it may have taken a couple of hours a week to produce a report as we were often relying on manual methods such as running through the calendar to find out what spaces had been used and how often. Instead we now have multiple types of reports produced at different times of the week or month covering all types of statistics from profit analysis, margins, revenues, volume of bookings or enquiries, number of people that have been in the building, through to repeat business levels. As long as we put the information in, we can get all the figures we need from Priava.”

Priava’s ‘repeat bookings’ feature is also a realtime saver as a large proportion of the venue’s business comes from repeat customers. “We only have to enter the details once, the system will then replicate this for future bookings. This is ideal for smaller meeting room bookings that are lower value as you avoid wasting precious time on admin, which takes just as long regardless of whether you are entering a £200 or £10,000 booking. At the same time it is simpler to raise contracts or invoices at the click of a button, enabling us to channel our time into focusing on more lucrative areas such as sales and client relations.”

By having a detailed understanding of where revenue is coming from, demand levels, margins and popularity of different spaces, the management team at Cranmore Park can more accurately assess future strategy and direction such as how to expand the facility in the future.

“In the last twelve months” says Angela, “we have seen a 50% increase in overall bookings that have been influenced by a range of factors, such as an increase in the size of the events team, greater awareness of the brand and also a positive business climate. To sustain and grow this level of business Priava has played a key role in both logging and nurturing opportunities through to effectively managing events and then measuring customer feedback. The booking and tracking capabilities are fantastic. Once we have logged an opportunity we can also add notes, quotations and set reminders to chase potential bookings.”

Using Priava’s reporting, the venue can also analyse where business is coming from, whether from direct mail or the web. “We can see exactly what marketing is working and understand what Google Ad words are most successful, which in turn enables us to optimise their return.”

Both during and after an event, the Priava solution provides support to both the events and catering teams. “Everyone has complete visibility of exactly what’s going on.” Says Angela. Function sheets provide clear and concise information to both the catering/ security teams and to the client, and can be tailored dependent on the recipients. Postevent feedback is also captured within the Priava system, so that any comments can be acted on and any changes made for next time.

Not only does Priava hold all information for booking and managing events, it also checks availability for ancillary items such as AV hire or the availability of car parking spaces. The latter is particularly vital, as this knowledge can determine on what days the venue is able to host certain combination of events.

Time is also a valuable commodity for the internal IT team, so by using Priava’s cloud-based system that is fully supported externally, this relinquishes the management responsibility, so they can focus on other systems, plus there is no need to worry about back-ups, as again this is all managed by Priava. There are other advantages too of the venue and event management technology being hosted says Angela, “With the old system, if the remote access wasn’t working for some reason, then you could not log in when you were out of the office. With Priava it is independent so if you have an internet connection then you can view information. One example where this works brilliantly is when you come back from holiday and you want to see the night before what events you have on for the following day.

As the cloud is completely scalable it also means that Priava is capable of both contributing to and accommodating future growth of the business both in the number of events and expansion of the team.”