We had the chance to talk to Pierre Vasse, Marketing and Communications Director at Bowling Plaza Company, about his experience with N&C support. Find out more in this interview.
Can you introduce yourself?
I’m Pierre Vasse, Digital Marketing and Communications Director at Bowling Plaza Company. We’re a corporate brand that develops and operates innovative and highly profitable bowling concepts. We currently have 3 establishments in France with a total of 78 bowling lanes, in Rouen Grand-Quevilly, Reims Thillois and Saint-Maximin Creil. Our aim is to become the benchmark for bowling in France, by developing a substantial network and opening a number of our own establishments or franchises.
Before turning to N&C, what were the main Revenue Management challenges you were facing?
We want to work on a number of levers: the customer experience, operational excellence – by creating a business model that we can replicate – and CSR (corporate social responsibility), with our « Bowling du cœur » foundation.
We want to have in-house specialists working on these issues. For my part, we want to deploy marketing in the greatest detail, by professionalising it and using the right tools. To do this, we are tending to digitalise all our communications (online booking, exchanges between our employees, payroll management, etc.). We also have innovative products and tools, with a subscription system and digital tools to manage our ticketing.
The final lever we want to work on is Revenue Management, to optimise the company’s income. Our marketing strategy enables us to attract customers, and now we’d like to be able to optimise revenue once we’ve sold them our services.
That’s why we wanted to implement Yield in a serious and professional way, with the support of specialists in the field. There were two reasons for this: we wanted to be sure that all our data was being used correctly, and we wanted recommendations on how to put Revenue Management into practice in our company. This is what led us to call on the services of N&C, which very quickly positioned itself as a specialist.
Can you tell us more about Revenue Management in the bowling sector?
It’s rather paradoxical. In fact, you could say that it’s widespread, because for many years now, bowling alleys have been adapting their prices according to the number of visitors. In the old world of bowling, the pricing grids were really very complex, which didn’t seem to us to be viable for the customer experience.
Our idea was to go further, to have a grid that was both more comprehensive and more optimised in relation to a whole range of data, while at the same time making it easier for customers to read.
Overall, how did the support go?
When I contacted N&C, we started by discussing our working methods. This reassured us of their availability and serious approach.
We then met Xavier, our operational contact. We started with telephone meetings during which we presented all our services and how we work. The idea was for N&C to have all the information about our company and the world of bowling. Then we started to get into the data: we extracted all the data present in our tools. At that point, we worked in iterations: we’d send in data, then we’d get feedback from Xavier, and we’d know whether the data was useful or whether we needed to go further. Thanks to this method, we were able to send increasingly precise and qualified data, which also reflected the reality of our business.
We held a number of video meetings to present our tools to Xavier and determine how far we could go in terms of exporting data.
After an initial astonishment report, the N&C team carried out a precise and detailed analysis of our data. We then received a full report, with very concrete recommendations, without the need to manipulate huge Excel files. It was all very easy for us to understand.
What was also very interesting about N&C’s approach was that we were given clear actions to put in place, with a projected return on investment (ROI) and concrete benefits in terms of sales.
In short, we came away with a concrete, structured and sequenced action plan that we can implement quickly. Today, we are in the process of integrating all the recommendations into our operations. This process has provided us with an excellent basis for starting up Revenue Management (RM) in our bowling alleys.
Would you recommend our Revenue Management consultancy services to other companies in the same sector?
Yes, absolutely. I would recommend N&C for its ability to adapt to their customer’s business, its ability to respond to needs on several levels, both in terms of data analysis and the creation of digital tools. And also for N&C’s ability to prioritise the actions to be implemented.
Would you like to add anything?
There’s one point I didn’t mention. Once the recommendations had been delivered, Xavier also suggested a number of avenues for support. That’s a very good thing, because it gives us prospects for continuing to optimise our strategy. We also appreciated the firm’s versatility, with both the operational consultancy side and the technological side, with their knowledge of the solutions/tools on the market.
To sum up, our aim is to become the benchmark for bowling in France, and to do that we want to equip ourselves with the best tools and the best service providers. That’s why we turned to Revenue Management and N&C.
Keywords: customer experience, Bowling Plaza Company, consultancy, Revenue Management, N&C, Yield