Toledo Mud Hens

Microsoft Dynamics Customer Solution Case Study

As Ticket Sales Skyrocket, Minor League Team's Efficiency Soars with CRM Solution

"With Microsoft Dynamics CRM, we can get the money in when we make the sale and send the sales order automatically to accounting. Nothing falls through the cracks."

-Scott Jeffer, Assistant General Manager and Director of Marketing

Toledo Mud Hens Baseball Club and Toledo Walleye Hockey Club

The Toledo Mud Hens Baseball Club enjoyed record-breaking ticket sales after its move to Fifth Third Field. But while ticket sales increased by 88 percent, operations struggled to keep up. The club relied on sales representatives to deliver handwritten sales orders to accounting staff, who then entered the information into Microsoft Dynamics^TM GP. To alleviate manual processes and gain insight into sales, the club deployed Microsoft Dynamics CRM and turned to Microsoft® Gold Certified Partner First Tech Direct for its implementation and integration expertise. Now, when a sales representative creates a sales order in Microsoft Dynamics CRM, the order includes all relevant customer information and automatically creates an invoice in Microsoft Dynamics GP. Today, the club also uses Microsoft Dynamics CRM to offer personalized services and tailor marketing and promotions to the needs of fans.

Sparked by the grand opening of the team‟s new home at Fifth Third Field in 2002, the Toledo Mud Hens scored annual record breaking ticket sales-building momentum that culminated in back-to-back Governors Cup championships in the 2005 and 2006 seasons. Following this trend, the Toledo Mud Hens Baseball Club broke its all-time attendance record in 2007-when annual ticket sales reached nearly 600,000-as fans witnessed the Toledo Mud Hens claim the International League West Division title. A minor league baseball team and Triple-A Affiliate of the Detroit Tigers, the Toledo Mud Hens Baseball Club is a private, nonprofit organization with 40 full-time employees. All proceeds benefit Lucas County, Ohio.

Although the team upgraded its ballpark, the club's internal sales processes remained nearly the same. Consequently, when ticket sales increased by 88 percent in one year, internal operations had difficulty keeping up with ticket demands. When sales representatives completed a sale, they either handwrote the sales information on scratch paper or filled out a form. This information was then hand delivered to accounting staff who keyed the information into Microsoft Dynamics^TM GP. If an account included a food order, the order was hand delivered to the ballpark concessionaire as well. "Accounts that included food orders averaged two revisions before game day," says Brian Perkins, Manager of Group Sales and Service for the Toledo Mud Hens Baseball Club and Toledo Walleye Hockey Club. "As a result, concessionaire staff spent a total of 300 hours a year checking in on account information with sales and accounting staff."

With increased sales, manual processes quickly became a burden and sometimes led to data entry errors. In a six-month, offseason sales period, a single sales representative handled more than 300 season ticket accounts. For each of these accounts, the sales representative spent 10 minutes creating an invoice in Microsoft^® Office Word and printing it.

"When taking on increased sales, we needed to stay operationally efficient," says Scott Jeffer, Assistant General Manager and Director of Marketing for the Toledo Mud Hens Baseball Club and Toledo Walleye Hockey Club. "The last thing we wanted was to force sales representatives to do busy work during normal business hours when they could be selling instead."

Consequently, sales representatives would often handle sales calls during business hours, waiting until the end of the day to create and print invoices. Says Jeffer, "On occasion, the manual invoice process led to orders falling through the cracks or major issues on corporate sales, where tens of thousands of dollars could be involved. In addition, invoices could pile up, leading to an unpredictable workload for accountants."

To manage customer information, sales staff recorded basic contact information into Goldmine, a customer relationship management (CRM) tool from FrontRange. Says Jeffer, "We were really only using the system as an electronic Rolodex; it didn't include any financial information, such as quotes and orders."

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