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      LFC answers fans questions on new membership scheme

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      kingjari
      • Forum David Johnson
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      • Spirit of Shankly/Liverpool Supporters Union
      LFC answers fans questions on new membership scheme
      Jul 15, 2008 10:44:12 pm
      It seems writing a letter or e-mail to Tony B of the Echo worked, as he has asked many of the questions the Liverpool Supporters Union wanted answers for, to the clubs commercial director Ian Ayre. In the interest of fair play here's what Hicks shadow chief executive had to say, also well in to those on this forum who also wrote to Tony B.      ;)



      Jul 15 2008 by Tony Barrett, Liverpool Echo

      LIVERPOOL have introduced a new membership scheme recently which costs fans £29 to join.

      Today, the ECHO puts the questions many fans are asking to club commercial director Ian Ayre to find out what the scheme involves.

      Ayre also answers questions on other issues including the availability of tickets for European away games and season ticket waiting lists.

      Why is Liverpool FC, a religion to most fans, now charging you to belong?

      "Well we’re not actually. The membership is not compulsory. There is still a situation that exists where you don’t have to join and you can still do all the things you did before – you can still get access to the general sale and you can still get tickets.

      "The purpose of the membership is quite simple. Everyone said to me that one of the things we need to do better is to do better commercially, both here and in the rest of the world. So, if you think about the fact that we don’t have anywhere near as many sponsors as other clubs and one of the things a potential sponsor wants is the ability to access fans, having a membership scheme means we are able to understand more about our fans and their behaviour.

      "This allows us to be loyal to them because we can track what they do. So if you’re a member and you go into the club shop and make a purchase you get a discount but we also know what you’ve bought. It’s the same with tickets.

      "For a partner, for example we are just about to announce a deal with a travel partner, this is also important.

      "As part of this deal, that partner wants to offer a discount to Liverpool fans for holidays. So if you spend £300 on your holiday for this year and get 10% off you’ve already got back what you’ve paid for your membership.

      "And the thing is, all our partners will want to do that. If people think that AIG don’t go to Man Utd members and try and sell them insurance but then they give them back their value so that they get their membership for free then they are kidding themselves.

      "We want to try and create a single view of the fan so that we know more about you as an individual rather than part of a big masse.

      "People told us that we don’t communicate with the fans very effectively and we don’t reward them for their loyalty so the membership is designed around that.

      "It’s not true that you have to pay to belong. You can still be part of it, you can still come to games, go in the shop and access all the things that you could access before.

      "What we are trying to do is to create a next level for those people who want to go to it but it’s not compulsory."

      What about existing fan card holders?

      "No change."

      How much access do fans get to tickets via the ticket exchange for their £29 fee?

      "The exchange is for members and the idea of that is that if a season ticket holder cannot come to a particular game and we know that on average there are 1200 people every game who don’t turn up so we are allowing anyone who is in this situation to put their ticket back which we then sell to a fan at face value and the season ticket holder then gets a credit back which comes off the cost of their next season ticket."

      Will those subscribing to the new membership scheme receive any priority over existing fan card holders?

      "In terms of something like the ticket buy back scheme, members will be the only ones who get access to that but if the tickets don’t sell we will put them into general sale."

      Do we have improved access to tickets, such as window sales, an improved Internet service for buying tickets online, or an improved telephone system for buying tickets?

      "We have built a new web interface which should be ready for the start of the season so that should certainly provide better quality.

      "One of the things that people complained about was that they were getting locked up on the web sales side of things.

      "But you can still buy via the window for certain games and you can still buy on the phone."

      How will the Priority Tickets Scheme be affected?

      "It’s not affected. In fact, if anything it’s enhanced, because the PTS members are automatically given membership, just as season ticket holders are."

      Will they still have the same number of tickets available to them?

      "Yes."

      Can people still join the season ticket waiting list for free, or do you have to pay to join it?

      "Well the people who are already on it keep their position and they don’t have to pay to join it but what we are going to do is once we’ve written to the people on the season ticket waiting list which is a massive number which needs cleaning up so we can qualify that list and find out that if everyone who’s on it is (a) legitimate and (b) wants a ticket.

      "We are going to close that list in the sense of people just being able to send a letter to get on it and thereafter anyone who wants to join the list is going to have to be a member.

      "But I have to say that anyone who thinks that’s restrictive because you might want to join it now it is so big that in reality I wouldn’t even like to guess how many years it would take before the man at the bottom is actually going to get a season ticket.

      "The good thing about making people be a member to join it is we then have a relationship with that person. They are renewing every year, so we are able to keep track if they are still around, at the same address or whatever.

      "It also means if there’s a game where we’ve got extra tickets or something we can communicate with that person and see if they want to come to that game because there’s this myth that you can’t get tickets."

      The club’s very own charter says about fan cards "The fan card is the only card that you will need with Liverpool FC", why the change?

      "When we go into the new stadium, as an example, the whole place will have electronic access which would need a card..

      "Also, at a football club there are always all kind of systems and processes that have evolved over time, some of which are almost at odds with each other, so what we are trying to do is streamline that process so that we get rid of a lot of the issues and the confusion.

      "The aim is to bring the systems into line so that by the time the new stadium is open we have (a) the technonlogy and (b) the ability for fans to get access to general sale, priority tickets and season tickets.

      "The charter may have said that but everything evolves over time and we are making a change for the good of the fans not for any other reason."

      What about season ticket holders? They currently pay a minimum of £650 per season. Do they get the same benefits of this new membership? Will they receive the discounts and the special offers?

      "Yes."

      Did the club consult with supporters?

      "Yes."

      Is it true that Development Association agents who sell pools on behalf of the club are to have their ticket allocations cut in half why the sudden change, where will these tickets go?

      "I don’t know where that one came from. All we have done with the Development Association is streamline it.

      "There were two levels of allocation. There were tickets going to agents, that hasn’t changed. What we did identify is there were some tickets through that scheme that were being provided to third party corporate hospitality programmes, so there were pubs and hotels in Liverpool that were running unofficial corporate hospitality packages.

      "Our view of that was why should someone in a pub charge anyone who wants to buy it £200 or whatever for a package for which the only benefit to the club is the income from the match ticket.

      "We believe that we should do it so we have taken those same tickets which were going to random people and we are going to put our own corporate package together which is available to fans.

      "We are looking at two off site venues. We will run it and it will be controlled by the club and all the revenue will come to the club.

      "That is a good thing for Liverpool because there’s an extra revenue stream coming in, which is what we’re trying to do in a lot of areas, we are trying to stop people who are profiteering.

      "The fan can buy it off the club but they know they are getting the right product and they can come to us if they are not happy.

      "Also, the money is coming to the club and I think as a fan that’s a good thing because if we want to put the likes of Fernando Torres out on the pitch we have to identify as many of these revenue streams as we can and that is what we are doing.

      There are rumours circulating that Liverpool FC will be giving up to 50% of tickets for European away games to Thomas Cook to sell as part of packages, thereby penalising fans who prefer to travel independently. Is there any truth in this?

      "All of the European tickets for next season will be sold on the basis of loyalty just as they have been.

      "What Thomas Cook will offer for people who want it is a package but we’re not giving them the tickets and telling them they can sell them to anyone who wants to buy them.

      "It will all be done on our normal qualifying system, so you have to qualify just as you did before and then you have the option of taking the Thomas Cook package.

      "With Thomas Cook we’ve told them they can be our official partner and we are getting a big sponsorship fee so we are trying to encourage people to use Thomas Cook because more of that revenue will come back to the club.

      "Clearly, if Thomas Cook price themselves out of the market no-one is going to use it but we believe we have identified a partner who can offer a service at a competitive price so that the club and our fans benefit."

      http://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/liverpoo ... -21341974/
      JD
      • LFC Reds Subscriber
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      • 39,529 posts | 6887 
      Re: LFC answers fans questions on new membership scheme
      Reply #1: Oct 10, 2008 01:17:35 pm
      http://www.spiritofshankly.com/news/Follow-up-meeting-with-Rick-Parry.html

      3. Belong!

              * Where are the tickets coming from? S.T.s in the scheme or out of the general sale? Are tickets for away games being diverted into this or similar  schemes. Several aways now selling out at high level of credits. 

       

      BM to look at the credits required and the percentage of those eligible who took them up and compare with last season. RP and BM also aware that fancard 'scams' may exist with touts and even travel agencies holding fancards. They said the club do investigate anything suspicious and do revoke fancards on a regular basis. Anyone buying tickets from a suspicious source is asked to copy the stubs so the club can investigate who the ticket was originally issued to. The SOS said they would co-operate with this and urge anyone who does buy from an external operator to help them help the club to investigate where the tickets are coming from. The club insist that they do take this seriously RP and BM said that tickets for away games are not being diverted into Belong! or any corporate schemes Although an arbitrary 500 tickets went into the Belong scheme for the Middlesbrough game
      CRK
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      • 13,604 posts | 361 
      • JFT96 YNWA
      Re: LFC answers fans questions on new membership scheme
      Reply #2: Oct 14, 2008 10:38:24 am
      With regards to the membership fee. I recognise we're getting 10% off in the club store, etc. But the money in passing on details to other companies is phenomenal. Ian Ayre said that with our £29 fee, which we're 'getting back by spending more money at the club. Yet after this, we're basically paying for our details to go to third parties, and don't forget the club will most probably gain profit from these parties as a result of capturing these details, and they ring us up and try and blag more money off us? :D

      If it's revenue streams Liverpool want, they could have had people sign up for the membership for free!!! In doing this, more people will sign up and then they have more names, addresses, etc to flog to the sponsors thus making more money from third party contacts.
      kingjari
      • Forum David Johnson
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      • Started Topic

      • 216 posts | 10 
      • Spirit of Shankly/Liverpool Supporters Union
      Re: LFC answers fans questions on new membership scheme
      Reply #3: Oct 14, 2008 04:56:02 pm
      With regards to the membership fee. I recognise we're getting 10% off in the club store, etc. But the money in passing on details to other companies is phenomenal. Ian Ayre said that with our £29 fee, which we're 'getting back by spending more money at the club. Yet after this, we're basically paying for our details to go to third parties, and don't forget the club will most probably gain profit from these parties as a result of capturing these details, and they ring us up and try and blag more money off us? :D

      If it's revenue streams Liverpool want, they could have had people sign up for the membership for free!!! In doing this, more people will sign up and then they have more names, addresses, etc to flog to the sponsors thus making more money from third party contacts.

      Nail on head there mate.
      HUYTON RED
      • Forum Legend - Shankly
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      • 39,947 posts | 8458 
      Re: LFC answers fans questions on new membership scheme
      Reply #4: Oct 14, 2008 05:54:39 pm
      Surely for the next bit of SOS action, surely we should be down having a demo outside Ian Ayres or Ayresire (whichever f***in way his name goes) office in town, let him know this £29 membership and the Thomas cook stuff is a bang-to-rights rip-off by the club.
      HUYTON RED
      • Forum Legend - Shankly
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      • 39,947 posts | 8458 
      Re: LFC answers fans questions on new membership scheme
      Reply #5: Oct 14, 2008 05:55:37 pm
      Oh and when the club answers these questions do they charge you 10p a minute answers.
      JD
      • LFC Reds Subscriber
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      • 39,529 posts | 6887 
      Re: LFC answers fans questions on new membership scheme
      Reply #6: Oct 26, 2008 10:36:34 pm
      Steady on.  I got a keyring and a pen. ;)

      Actually to be fair I got a Pompey ticket through the exchange. 

      Still a complete rip off I agree but hey - what can you do.
      CRK
      • LFC Reds Subscriber
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      • 13,604 posts | 361 
      • JFT96 YNWA
      Re: LFC answers fans questions on new membership scheme
      Reply #7: Oct 27, 2008 11:13:04 am
      Steady on.  I got a keyring and a pen. ;)

      Actually to be fair I got a Pompey ticket through the exchange. 

      Still a complete rip off I agree but hey - what can you do.

      Don't forget the faux leather bound notepad! ;)

      The pen is quite smart though, I must say.

      We getting 'free-ish' gifts next year?
      RedDrog
      • Forum John Toshack
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      • 264 posts |
      Re: LFC answers fans questions on new membership scheme
      Reply #8: Oct 31, 2008 11:40:46 pm
      Anyone know with regard to the Membership and the 10% online store discount. Keep getting the message that my card no doesn't match my surname or they don't have a record of my card. Have it about a month at this stage. Anyone else get this? Club very slow in getting back to me.
      TNAwrestling
      • Forum Kevin Keegan
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      • 352 posts |
      • Cross The Line
      Re: LFC answers fans questions on new membership scheme
      Reply #9: Nov 25, 2008 06:13:24 pm
      they got my surname wrong on my fancard so i have to spell my name what is printed on the membership card, ridiculous

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