Fans Consultancy Group Meeting

[villa4europe]

said it for years now we need to push a proper villa youtube channel rather than AVTV, its outdated, had a free membership with my ST for a couple of years, still didnt bother with it

[PompeyVillan]

As an aside I thank you @OutByEaster? for being our VT representative and doing this on behalf of us.

[Eastie]

3 minutes ago, PompeyVillan said:

As an aside I thank you @OutByEaster? for being our VT representative and doing this on behalf of us.

Indeed . Just noted the youth cup game being shown live on the avfc Facebook page as we speak but those avtv paying customers are getting sod all .

Edited February 22, 2017 by Eastie

[thabucks]

@OutByEaster? & fellow Mods When will the minutes appear on villatalk as they are already on vitalvilla ?

Edited February 22, 2017 by thabucks

[OutByEaster?]

Gents, I went straight from work to the reserve game and have only just had chance to put these up. 

 

Quote

AVFC representatives

Keith Wyness, Luke Organ, Tommy Jordan and Lee Preece.

Q. Why was the Villa shop closed in the city centre?

KW - It was sad to see the shop close.  However, we were set to lose about £1.5m on merchandise, with the city centre shop contributing to the problem as the lease was too high (way above city centre market rates).  Retail is dying and technologies taking over.  We need to be more strategical and tactical with our retail presence, maybe with pop-up shops for key times in our year (kit launch & Xmas for example).

 

Q. We understand Retail has been licensed to Fantatics, how many years is the deal?

LO – We’ve got a three-year review option but it’s a five-year term.

 

KW – As a club, if we’re back where we want to be it may be viable for us to take it back in-house and build our own retail operation. I’m not a big fan of that because we’re a football club and I felt that Villa was like a catering business playing football.  I don’t see us getting involved in growing big empires which are not football-related.  My focus is to get Bodymoor back on track. Getting the right people in the right place, spending resources on the Academy for example as opposed to Retail or Catering. 

 

Q. Does the deal with Fanatics negate the £1.5 million lost immediately?

KW – Yes.  It makes a positive contribution straight away and will lead to more revenue for the club.  I’ve always felt if staff are working in retail, they should be working for a retail company that gives them proper training and career advancement. Those that have transferred to Fanatics will benefit from this.

 

Q. Back to the City Centre Shop, there needs to be some sort of presence.  Unless fans go to Villa Park how will they know about Villa?

KW – We don’t believe the shop was the way to achieve that presence.  We need to tell the Villa story in different ways and be more strategic.

 

LO – When we launch season tickets, you will see over the course of the next five weeks a lot of noise in the city. There are meetings in the diary with Birmingham City Council to look at buying ad space or bringing in ad space solutions that they share with us.

 

Q. You mention more strategic ways of delivering a presence in the City, have you an idea of what those are?

KW - We’re doing a lot of work on social media and in many areas we are ahead of other clubs. We can’t divulge the strategy but Luke (Organ) has been doing a lot of work with his team. Technology is the relevance to young people these days, using that to teach the Villa story.   All of you that have kids know that it’s not one screen, it’s two or three at the same time and that’s where we have to be in terms of ‘millennials’, reaching younger fans.

 

Q. We have got to make certain that Villa Village is adequately stocked. I’ve been told by someone who visited recently that stock levels weren’t good.

LO - That’s something I’ve picked up on having operated in retail before. We are addressing our buying patterns, using analytics performed on what remnant stock we’ve carried over from last season and adjusting our ordering patterns for that. Currently, the stock in the shop is spring/summer stock as opposed to autumn/winter. So we’re holding the wrong stock at the wrong times of the year and we’re addressing that via Fanatics. They’ll open us up to a much broader opportunity of buying and reduce our costs. 

 

Q. The club has also outsourced the catering operation.  There have been complaints from fans regarding the catering service provided throughout the stadium. Is that being addressed?

KW – We selected Compass after a very strenuous process because we believe them to be the best in the Market.  With regards to the complaints we are seeing, we need to give Compass time to bed down their operations.  We are clearly monitoring operations and the feedback we receive closely.  One indicator we have seen already is an increase in spend per head from £2 to £3, so some elements are moving in the right direction.

 

LO - Every matchday we’re getting feedback which we urge you to continue.  We can’t improve what we don’t know.

 

Q. Compass Group do Edgbaston very well, it’s a big job to change so why now in the middle of a season?

KW – When you have got to do something there is always going to be a first day.  We felt we should get it done and get in to it!

 

LO – It also gives the guys at Compass some time to understand our business.  There is a break in the contract (as there is with Fanatics) if they don’t meet our service requirements.  However, we expect everyone to benefit from their expertise and improved matchday experiences.

 

Q. When you go to the rugby at Coventry and get a pint, you have a plastic glass with the Wasps details on it and you pay £1 for that and a lot of people just leave them afterwards. It’s a good way to persuade people to part with more money and not cash their glasses…

KW – Luke was commercial director at Wasps so he knows all about those.

 

Q. Are there any plans to be radical with the Season Ticket price structure?

KW – We’re about to announce season tickets. It will be very aggressive in terms of pricing, understanding the need to attract the younger fans back in to the fold.  We don’t want to give it away tonight but you should be happy with the packages that we’re offering. 

 

Q. The Villa Cash scheme has changed. What is the update on that and what can be done about communicating the changes better to fans?

LO – There will be a new loyalty programme introduced next season where fans will accrue points in many ways, from social media interaction to entering the stadium on matchday.  The programme we are devising will include a dashboard for you to see how many points you accrue.  We are looking to tighten up what we deliver, to ensure there are tangible benefits to your loyalty.  

 

Q. What prompted the Villa Cash decision?

LO – The actual utilisation of Villa cash has significantly reduced over the years.  90% of the villa cash used is spent on season ticket renewal, which shows it is a narrow programme.  We want the new scheme to broaden the benefits you enjoy.

 

Q. The number of communications I’ve had from Villa have been minimal, if that. Will anything be done to address this?

KW – There was a presentation from Luke’s team this morning, looking at our demographics and how we are communicating with each group.   It’s amazing to see the age profile of who opens email and who doesn’t. We need to understand how to deliver communications across our fan base. 

 

Q. I was involved with the marketing company that did research on the loyalty programme. Did you glean anything from it?

LO – Communication was one of the big outcomes.  We are currently reviewing our comms piece, but you will hopefully see personalised comms from us about your experiences.  We have information we are not using so hopefully we will be much smarter with how we use it.

 

Q. Could we do anything with tickets for schools?

LO – There are regulations via the EFL that restrict ticketing offers.  If we can overcome these hurdles and have the right ticketing partner then schemes such as tickets for schools can be delivered.

 

Q. Could tickets for schools be extended to local non-league clubs?

LO – We should have affiliate pubs, clubs, schools, a university programme and relationships with big employers.  Schemes that offer cashback opportunities for local organisations that help us get back into our local area.

 

KW – It is fair to say we’d lost our way in the city.  We’ve got a very aggressive plan to take it back.

 

Q. You say right ticketing partner are we looking to outsource ticketing as well?

LO – It’s already outsourced and it has been for a number of years to Ticketmaster.

 

Q. What has changed with the way mascot places are allocated?

LO – Three JV-Life members get access to mascot privileges, six are paid and two free spaces come from the foundation. For those that pay, the cost includes £75 worth of vouchers for kit, programme, autograph books, £70 for seats and a hospitality package. The purchased spaces have sold out for every single game. We can look at readjusting the balance between paid for and JV Life.

 

Q. That wasn’t publicised enough. It seems to be a pay privilege now…

LO – We can recommunicate this. 

 

Q. Would it be possible to include a friendly with Watford in our pre-season in memory of Graham Taylor?

KW. We have a major pitch reconstruction project in the summer which will prevent our hosting a pre-season friendly.

 

Q. Can you tell supporters where we are playing pre-season?

KW. We should have our plans confirmed shortly and there is no reason why we cannot communicate the schedule to fans.  We are likely to be heading to Germany and Portugal. 

 

Q. Would Steve Bruce take part in a fans forum?

KW. I can’t speak on Steve’s behalf but I see no reason why the two of us couldn’t do one together at the beginning of next season.

 

Q. Could you provide details on what the fixed and floating charge over many Aston Villa related companies registered as Companies House in favour of HSBC (Nov 16) means to us? Some people have concerns.

KW. Let me put any concerns to rest. When we bought the club in June there was £29million of debt. That’s been written off and paid for totally. The HSBC charge is purely a £5million working overdraft that we use accordingly. There’s no debt apart from that.

 

Q. Are the Club doing anything to improve Wi-Fi and phone reception during matches?

KW. We had Ian Dimmock, our head of IT, and other members of staff travel over to Cisco (American multi-national technology conglomerate) to see three examples of the best stadiums in the world. Nobody has cracked a full stadium yet when everybody is on their phone at the same time.   We have plans to improve connectivity as we go forward.

 

Q. Could you provide an update on safe standing?

KW. We hope the Premier League will approve safe standing at their summer meeting and then push the government accordingly.  Whilst we are waiting for legislation to change, we will be looking to consult with fans to understand what we should do if and when we have the choice to introduce safe standing at Villa Park.

 

Q. What is the Club’s attitude towards the city’s Commonwealth Games bid?

KW. I met with the Commonwealth Games group to look at the feasibility of the games in the city.  We have lots of games experience in the management team here at Villa Park: people who have worked on previous games. We are fully supportive. There won’t be a new stadium built, that’s clear, and they’ve asked us what they could use Villa Park for. 

 

There is possibly going to be a major redevelopment project which I’m calling ‘The Sports Quarter’. The city and the club are looking to put our land assets together to build offices, residential and commercial areas that would work for sports governing bodies. That’s ongoing and that could be the legacy from the Commonwealth Games.

 

Q. How was the runout song at Villa Park chosen? Can we change it?

KW – There are several ways we could try and approach this.  At the start of the season we asked Tommy Elphick to choose the music.  We are aware that many are underwhelmed by the choice, and will see if we can arrange a fans vote. 

 

Q. Can we paint the Witton Bridge in Villa colours?

KW – We will look to contact Network Rail and will even offer to buy the paint!

 

Q. There have been problems with the website. Are there any plans to improve or upgrade it?

LO – We are aware there are problems. We have a third party helping us with the maintenance of the website operating without any SLAs (Service Level Agreement).  SLA’s need to be introduced.  We have 73 ‘sprints’ running with them at the moment, each ‘sprint’ being a mini project to develop the website.  We are aware of issues with the indexing of content as we can see how many clicks we lose where people get lost.  The website is something we continue to work through.  

 

Q. Could more Under-23s/Under-18s matches be screened live on Facebook?

LO – We recently reached 6.5 million people on Facebook when we showed our recent FA Youth Cup match v Broxbourne Borough - that’s half our usual monthly reach and a huge success. We received 1.5 million views - more than Chelsea v Hull. We had 30,500 interactions and 745,000 minutes watched (12.4k content hours). The top bracket for views was males aged 19-34 so when we talk about targeting, this is where we need to start moving towards. UniLAD, the partner we used will be here again on the 22^nd Feb for our FA Youth Cup match against Manchester City.  We’ll be looking to see how we develop this area.

 

Q. Is there any way to make this available on AVTV?

LO – We are speaking to our tech team, looking at how we can take that feed and put it on AVTV.  

 

Q. Can games not broadcast on national TV be streamed for overseas fans similarly to how Newcastle and Fulham have done this season?

LO – My understanding these are time-shifted broadcasts I.E. not live.  We can broadcast a match behind the AVTV paywall but we can only do that 12pm the next day.  This is something we can trial.

 

KW – Even if it’s time-shifted, you can’t stream a Sky game. We’ve been on Sky more than any other club in the Championship home or away.  There’s an EFL meeting on Thursday about the broadcasting of matches. 

 

Q. Why are some car parks closed?

LP – Official car parks around the area are operated by third parties and the decision to operate is theirs.  There is plenty of spare capacity each match at the Official Car Parks for those that wish to opt for secure off- street parking.  The club is also offering off street parking at our Brookvale Road Car Park (on the junction of Tame Road / Brookvale Road) as the buildings on the site have now been cleared.  This will include the opportunity to purchase a season parking pass for 2017/2018.

 

Q. Can the club work with the West Midlands Combined Authority to improve/incentivise public transport to game?

LO – We’ve got that meeting coming up. From a marketing point of view, we’re looking at engaging local rail and looking at buying ad space. We know our heat maps, so we could look to create a bundle of travel passes for fans to and from Villa Park.  These type of arrangements can only be done in tandem with the local authorities.

 

Q. Is there any update on the North Stand / area regeneration?

KW – I’ve had one major meeting with the council already on the whole Villa area regeneration and we talked about the North Stand. The biggest constraint is the transportation links at present. The road system is the biggest problem we have to solve before we can go and build any extra capacity within the ground and that’s where we’re a way off. You won’t get any more capacity until those issues are solved. This fits into the whole redevelopment of the area.

 

Q. Do you have an update on the upgrading of disabled facilities at Villa Park?

KW –It’s going to be done because it’s the right thing to do.  It is part of the budgets I’m looking at. 

 

Q. What steps are being made to work with the local community?

KW – We’ve hired a guy called Guy Rippon who heads up the Aston Villa Foundation and Guy has been fantastic.  Within a year or so we are looking for our Foundation to be a shining light in terms of the work we do in the local community. At the next FCG meeting, we’ll get Guy to do a presentation to show you what we’re doing in the community. You’ll be pleasantly surprised. 

 

Q. Could the VMF restaurant be re-opened as part of this?

KW- This can be considered as part of our whole community approach.  When you see Guy’s presentation, we think you’ll be pleased.

 

Q. Could you expand on the club’s commercial links with China?

KW –   There are a number of sponsorship deals we’re looking at announcing fairly soon. There is nothing controversial - no re-naming of Villa Park or anything like that - just good, sound commercial relationships. We’re starting to progress into other Chinese companies too. We’ve also got more Chinese staff here and we’re starting to lead the way in terms of being able to market in China. 

 

Q. When does the sponsorship deal with QuickBooks end?

KW – At the end of this season. We’ll shortly be announcing who will be on the shirt next year.

 

Q. Is there a chance that the Lions Club in the Doug Ellis Stand will be re-opened?

LP – The Lions Club facility is very much on the agenda.

 

 

 

Now I'll have a read of them.

 

 

[villa4europe]

Not sure of that pre season news is good or bad... that'll be me ruining the wife's summer holiday plans

[Wezbid]

Seemingly a lot business mumbo jumbo and swatting away in those answers if you ask me. Not all of it of course and these forums are very important but a lot of the answers are underwhelming. Maybe I'm just miserable but I'm one of the more up beat posters on here usually! 

Edited February 22, 2017 by Wezbid

[villa4europe]

i think unfortunately we've had experience of faceless people with great experience elsewhere coming in and giving us exactly what we need, saying we've brought in this bloke and he did something somewhere else means nothing as we sit here right now

and elphick, what the **** were you thinking? awful music, that said that stupid **** claret and blue song at the end of games is even worse

[OutByEaster?]

Well, at first reading, they're a reasonably straightforward retelling of the meeting.

If I'm being critical (and I am) then I think there's something in the tone of the meeting that isn't quite captured - I'll have a moan, and it's a slightly strange moan:

The club, in this case personified by Keith Wyness and Luke Organ are completely focused on the future - they're going to push us into a world with great loyalty schemes, great fan experience, great facilities, great merchandise, great this and great that, we're going to be leaders and we're going to be innovative and bold - they're determined and they're completely focused on this club being better and different in the future.

They're so focused, that right now (and more importantly six months ago) seems to have dropped off their radar a bit - the question asked about AVTV is a good example, they did take on board that it would be nice to expand the feeds into the AVTV, but I don't think they got that people who have already paid for the content on AVTV are disappointed they didn't get it. I don't think AVTV is part of the future. Hospitality is sort of the same, they listened to the complaints about the service on the first game, but they seemed to bounce off, the focus isn't on that game or the now, it's on what hospitality will be, on how good our future service will be. VIllacash is dead, it's not part of the future, they've told us and they appear to be a bit confused as to why we're asking. The frozen season ticket price guarantee from last season (someone mentioned it here, I haven't imagined it have I?) is from another world.

This season's season ticket was described as having a lot of wooly benefits - but for some of the people that bought them, those benefits were important, the chance to get a mascot opportunity for example, AVTV and exclusive content, Villacash - all of these were present in the season ticket package - and like most people when we buy things we expect to get the things that are agreed - I think there's a bit of that floating about, there's some on this thread - I'm not sure that the club have quite picked up on that.

There's a focus, a real, genuine focus I believe, on the season ticket holder, on loyalty and on rewarding the long suffering supporter and season ticket holder - I don't see any of the things above being much more than a hiccup - and I'm hopeful that this group can deliver on all of the things they're promising for our bright future - but it's a difficult time in a way - the new season tickets are on sale, but we don't yet have the information on the loyalty schemes and the benefits that will go with them - there's likely to be a narrow window between finding out about those things and renewing for the price you can today - the club are asking us to trust them, they're asking us to put a bit of faith in their idea of the future and buy into it before we've quite seen it. That's made more difficult when there's a feeling that some of this season's promises haven't been delivered upon, and indeed to an extent are no longer all that important. 

Again, there's a really difficult balance between changing things that aren't working as quickly as you can, midseason, mid-agreement and mid-expectation - and limping to the summer before changing those things - the club have made that decision, they've been bold, they've been innovative and they've pushed toward the future - in a way they've suggested that the faith to buy now is justified, there will be action because there is action.

I think that some of these things could have been better communicated - an acknowledgement that in a period of change some of the things that were part of the season ticket package and have been ended before the season is had to be changed and that they appreciate that it's not going to please everyone. To an extent with Villacash, they've acknowledged that and they are looking at communication.

In short, I guess it's a question of faith, there are issues with being a season ticket holder this year, not massive ones, after all 99% of buying the season ticket is about watching games, but issues nonetheless, the club are genuinely looking at changing things for the better, and I think to some extent they're asking us to understand that, live with it and put a little trust in them.

For my part, I renewed on Sunday.

 

 

[Wezbid]

Why ask Elphick in the first place. He's knewly arrived. Ask the bloody fans. It's just a small thing but these little things matter and you don't need a degree or be able to quote corperate jargon/speak to understand such things. 

[The Fun Factory]

Thank you Out by Easter for attending and making the notes. At least the club is talking to fans representatives which is a positive. I do somewhat agree that it looks like they are trying to run before they are walking. We can have many grandiose plans for football world domination but they are going to look a bit silly if we are in League One.

 The discussion on transport is interesting, it sounds like they are aware that is a problem which can't be resolved by the club alone. However if I do recall although it is ancient history the club had previously gained  permission to expand the North Stand under Ellis without any transportation improvements. Though this is nearly 20 years ago and perhaps fans movements to and out of the ground have evolved since then (more on the trains nowadays?).

At the end of the day fan schemes and loyalty promises mean diddly squat if the football is terrible. If we start to have a winning team a lot of things will start to fall into place. If.

Edited February 23, 2017 by The Fun Factory

[Wezbid]

Whilst I applaud and encourage rewarding the Season Ticket holders and those already attending, a big focus needs to be concentrated on bringing in those uhhmmmming and arrrggghhhing. Ticket prices are mental and floating fans are not going to be drawn in apart from the team winning game after game. 

Being able to buy 3/5/10 games at a time may help or offering 25/50% off 3 games for every shirt purchase for example. It's better to get bums on seats for a bit of a loss than a smaller crowd paying more. Apathy soons sets in with those picking games, entice them to turn up every home game and the more likely they are to get hooked on it. 

[rjw63]

The Villa are still getting rid of people, I know for a fact someone who was there for many years has just been got rid of with NO explanations or excuse. In fact he had to threaten an unfair dismissal claim  to even get the payoff deserved.

Something not quite right at B6.

Edited February 23, 2017 by rjw63
Might have given too much away

[Eastie]

Thanks Scott for making our points to them - as for avtv I've given up my subscription now as not worth the money .

i think wyness seems a decent type but for now what happens on the pitch is the main thing that will attract fans back - will be interesting to see who the new shirt sponsor is and would be nice to get a well known name this time .

[sne]

Think Xia might have to be a bit "creative" with sponsoring if we are going to be able to keep this up for another season and beyond.

Unless he comes up with an Man City Etihad type sponsoring deal our finances will be in the toilet.

[VillaChris]

Did no one ask Tommy Jordan a question or did he just take the minutes?!

We do have a youtube channel but it's taken a hit on relegation, we'll need to be promoted before it's improved I suspect.

Another reason to get rid of Elphick, baffling decision.

One idea I do like from what was raised was free transport to and from the game in the West Midlands area. They do that in Germany after all so would be a nice touch and make the miserable matchday a little bit more bearable but of course I realise you need co-operation of the West Midlands transport authority which isn't easy.

[dont_do_it_doug.]

So may irrelevant questions asked re the club shop. Such as (paraphrased) "how will young fans know about Villa if we don't have a city centre presence?"

Who asked that one, Doug Ellis? 

Great work as ever though OBE! Cheers. 

[OutByEaster?]

On 09/02/2017 at 17:54, The Fun Factory said:

Could we have a friendly in the summer versus Watford for the memory of Graham Taylor? 

This comment lead directly to a question that contributed to making this happen...

Quote

 

Aston Villa will play Watford in a friendly as part of a tribute to the late Graham Taylor.

The two clubs have agreed to face each other in memory of their former manager who sadly passed away in January.

http://www.birminghammail.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/graham-taylor-joint-tribute-aston-12684827

 

Take a bow TFF!

And by the way, for everything that people sometimes say about the club, the access we're given to senior members of the team, and the ability we have to see some of the things that go on and ask the questions we want to is second to none - there isn't another club doing this this well right now.

A couple of people have thanked me on here for attending, which I'm slightly embarrassed about - it's a dream come true to sit in front of some of the people I've been lucky enough to sit in front of thanks to VT and a privelige.

 

 

 

[The Fun Factory]

Hurrah, good news all round. I am pleased that both clubs have agreed to this gesture. Well done Watford. 

[OutByEaster?]

Gentlemen (and ladies),

There's another one of these meetings on the 6th June - VT will be sending a representative to listen, report back and most pertinently to ask the questions you'd like asked. 

I believe it'll be attended by Keith Wyness and there's usually a Head of Department or two there.

So, what do you want to know?