Blackburn with Darwen Council has gone live with a single, integrated leisure management solution from Legend Club Management Systems. Following a stringent procurement process that involved all major industry providers, Blackburn with Darwen selected Legend’s hosted ‘One System, One Solution’ for its ability to seamlessly and cost-effectively bring together all customer touchpoints for improved control, greater efficiency and to provide better management information. In addition, Legend will sit at the core of an enhanced, modern customer experience through new online, smartphone and kiosk self-service capabilities.

Blackburn with Darwen Council is a unitary authority area in Lancashire, North West England. It operates eight sites across a range of sports centres, leisure centres, pools, school sites, pitches, courts, outdoor facilities and country parks. The council was looking for a single touchpoint solution that would enable it to provide improved customer service, by increasing online and self-service functionality for members, replacing legacy paper-based systems and processes, and having a single, central customer database – from registration, booking and membership, through to payments and reporting.

Martin Eden, Director of Environment and Leisure comments: “Fundamentally, we wanted our leisure services to reflect the customer experience our members expect to have elsewhere in their daily lives. From greater control and real-time access to our services - such as bookings and online payments - to a seamless front-of-house experience and reassurance that their personal data can be trusted with us. We knew that our existing infrastructure could be improved, and we wanted to work with an industry leading partner who would help us put our customers’ needs first. We are pleased to confirm that, of all the suppliers we invited to tender, Legend provided robust system solutions to support our customer focussed service improvements.”

Blackburn with Darwen went live at the beginning of October ’17 with Legend’s Online Booking & Registration, Smartphone webapp, Legend Native app, Direct Debit & Invoicing, and Kiosk solution.

Legend’s integrated, hosted ‘One System, One Solution’ will reduce pressure for both staff and members during peak times, allowing Blackburn with Darwen Council staff to have more meaningful, active engagement with their members. Improving ease of access for customers through streamlined front-of-house processes including Kiosks, will also enhance the customer experience. Additionally, customers will now have the convenience of being able to use the Legend Native App to gain easy access 24 hour booking capability further promoting self-service and empowering members.

Legend replaces the Council’s existing membership management software by integrating a number of complex previously disparate systems with the ultimate aim of improving operational efficiency, providing better overall management information and introducing many customer service enhancements.

Sean Maguire, Managing Director, Legend Club Management Software, concludes: “We are delighted to have won this highly competitive, rigorously assessed tender and are pleased to welcome Blackburn with Darwen Council to the Legend family. Legend is looking forward to helping the authority with the onward development of what will be a modern, future-proof and customer friendly solution which will provide Blackburn with Darwen the competitive advantage and business benefits that they seek going forwards.”