New Membership Management System Update

Unfortunately, our old membership system which covered all aspects of managing membership, bookings and payments had reached its end of life. It was no longer meeting our day-to-day operational requirements and was impacting our ability to meet the evolving needs of our members and of our club.

We went through a vigorous scoping process of the best management systems available, both domestically, and internationally; few were able to meet the unique scope and flexibility that we require at The Lensbury. We opted for OpenPlay https://openplay.net/ as we were able to work closely with them to develop their system to meet our needs and the operational aspects of the business. This enables us to future proof the system with plans for further developments, as we continuously improve our offering. OpenPlay also had the benefit of working with our existing App provider, which assisted us in reducing the impact of the changes we were making.

The waitlist was changed following your feedback that classes were always full meaning you were unable to attend some of them. There were on average 7-800 cancellations per month. In the old system:

• When a cancellation was made the person at the top of the waitlist would receive an email. If they did not respond to this, they would block the space, stopping the rest of the waiting list from moving up – meaning the class space would often go unfilled.  This will not happen in the new system.
• There was little or no chance of getting into a popular class. Even if you joined the waitlist five minutes after the booking window had opened as you could be at the bottom of the waiting list. In the new system all those on the waiting list will have equal opportunity to respond to the notification, resulting in more places being filled.
• We have been advised there were some people playing the system – whereby private message groups had been set up, and if someone couldn’t attend a class, a message would be circulated advising that if anyone wanted the person’s place, to turn up and give their name! In the new system this will not be possible, as all attendees are ‘attended’ at the class via the access control system.

The decision to move to an ‘alert’ style waiting list was made in recognition of the above improvements, which, in addition to the reduction of the cancellation window to two hours, will ultimately broaden access to our classes on a fairer basis. We are pleased to have received positive feedback from members who have now managed to attend classes they were previously unable to get into. We will, however, continue to monitor these changes.

We have listened to your feedback and are pleased to report that from today, Friday 7^th March, the following improvements have been implemented:

• If you are on a Waitlist, you will receive an email informing you a space has become available in your chosen class
• Open the Lensbury App, go directly to the class on the booking system (there is no need to leave the waitlist first)
• The class will state either:
  • ‘Book’ – Book your place as you would with a normal booking. The system will remove you from the waitlist automatically
  • ‘Leave Waitlist’ – this means another member has already taken the space. You do not need to do anything. Your place on the Waitlist continues. If you do decide you want to leave the Waitlist, press this option.

This new process means that you are no longer required to leave the Waitlist before you can book a new class, or rejoin it again if you are unsuccessful. This is a far simpler process that will reduce the emails you are receiving.

The system is being monitored by the OpenPlay team who are making changes daily to improve the refresh and booking speed for members. This has improved already and will continue to do so over the coming weeks.

The decision to list classes by type and studio was based on feedback from members who found the long list of classes by day unwieldy and difficult to navigate. We will continue to monitor these changes as everyone gets used to the new layout.

Yes, members are still able to use their membership cards to gain entry to the Club. We will be moving to digital membership cards shortly, for those who prefer this option. Further details will be shared in due course.

Thank you once again for providing your feedback, we will continue to review all feedback as to where further improvements can be made.