A staple in their community, the Haysville Recreation Department in Kansas offers a variety of recreation programs from youth sports and adult sports to fitness classes.
Rob Arneson, Program Supervisor, has been a part of the team at the Haysville Recreation Department for almost 10 years. Rob went to school for recreation and has a passion for sports and anything that “keeps him moving”. He has a strong passion to get kids in the community active and engaged in recreation. He has helped the Recreation Department grow over the years from operations to running and facilitating programs.
Rob Arneson, Program Supervisor Haysville Recreation
“I’m on the frontline with kids. The interaction I get to have with the kids where they will come up to me at the end of a program and tell me how much fun they had or when they recognize me walking down the street. I actually get to see the impact I have on them and that is my favorite part about what I do.”
One challenge the department started to encounter as the recreation programs grew, was managing the registration process for the various programs.
“We were using paper and pen and online forms to register for some programs but our customers had a tough time using the online registration forms so they would just end up calling or coming in to register for the programs. It took a lot of time.”
An Online Store for Service-Based Business
Haysville Recreation has been using PaySimple software to help them accept program payments since 2015. We took a look at their programs and the time they were spending on registration and thought they could benefit from a new feature we were building. We asked Rob if he would be willing to participate in the beta group for the Online Store.
“We have been using the recurring payment option for our after school latchkey program for over a year and are now offering other program registrations and selling program shirts through the Online Store.”
Haysville Recreation was our first customer to have their online store up and running and actively selling for their business. They have put it to the test, using it for a variety of their activities and programs. To increase the number of customers using their Online Store, Rob has been advertising it within their programs through school flyers, on their Facebook page, and with email and text messages.
“We started taking registrations through our Online Store in February of this year and have had at least 20% of our registrations since then processed through it. The more people find out about it, the more they seem to be using it.”
Customers have been impressed with how easy and convenient it is to register for programs at Haysville Recreation with the Online Store.
“Now that we have the Online Store our customers have been saying they will stick with registering online because it is easy and saves them a drive across town.”
Like so many businesses, Haysville Recreation wanted to collect information about their customers when they sign up for a program. With the Online Store, they have been able to do that easily and at the time of registration.
“We use the registration fields to collect addresses, telephone numbers and any other information we would have had on our old registration forms. That requested information is now completed online at the same time the customer makes a program purchase. The customer side of this process is very user-friendly allowing people to log in, enter their information and move on.”
The Online Store has made registering for recreation activities and programs much easier and has saved office staff lots of time. Rob sees the Online Store continuing to help them as they grow in the future.
“I hope we will be able to increase the number of our customers who use the Online Store as we progress and add new programs in the coming years. The Online Store will be very beneficial as people become more technologically savvy and want to do things quicker, faster and easier.”
Built with service businesses in mind, the Online Store helps you sell in the background while you are with your customers, while you work on other parts of your business or while you sleep. Let the Online Store sell for you.
