During the pandemic, more than 1,500 fans over the 70s received phone calls from players like Ricardo Arias and Miguel Tendillo, Valencia CF legends of the 80s and 90s.
An app was also developed to allow users to order food and drinks from their seats in the stadium, which helped to reduce queues, increase sales revenue and increase fan satisfaction.
Prodware, a Microsoft partner specializing in business management solutions, helped Valencia CF incorporate the new solutions.
Valencia Club de Fútbol (CF) has a large, dedicated and loyal fan community with family roots that span multiple generations. As an innovative and forward-looking organization, the club continually improves the overall fan experience with the aim of strengthening relationships with the community.
With Microsoft Dynamics 365, the team was able to leverage fan interaction insights, improving their understanding and drawing new conclusions. By implementing an app to expedite food ordering at the stadium and registering the 1,500 ticket holders from the season interrupted by COVID-19, Valencia CF analyzed fan data to create more rewarding and engaging events and experiences.
Franco Segarra, Valencia CF’s head of innovation, has a background in computing and artificial intelligence and has brought an entrepreneurial mindset to the team, always respecting the club’s tradition and culture: “We try to put the fan at the center of the ‘equation’ in everything we do. we do,” he explains.
Unique and scalable Valencia CF experiences
With a team of six engineers, Valencia CF already had a data-centric approach, however, it wanted to know and understand its fans more deeply: it needed to find a way to leverage its existing data sources without having to completely overhaul its current system.
With the help of partner Microsoft Prodware, the club was able to leverage Dynamics 365 Customer Insights in the most effective way as it easily integrated into the club’s existing processes and helped the organization gain additional value from its previous technology investments.
Dynamics 365 enabled Valencia CF to unify data from a wide range of separate sources, including sales spreadsheets, relational databases, attendance records, concession trends and more, with a 360-degree view of their community.
With all the information integrated and these new data analysis capabilities — technology that also helps the sports betting industry — Valencia has created more meaningful fan experiences and increased match attendance. A predictive algorithm was designed to assess the probability of fans’ future participation in games, based on their past behavior.
As a result, the club identified the segment of fans who regularly watched games but had missed two consecutive games, an effort that was even more significant in the midst of a global pandemic. By sending a simple email for registration, the club increased the number of participants in its games by 20%.
