EPOS Takes a Walk on the Wild Side at Top Tourist Attraction
One of Kent’s fastest growing tourist attractions is promising an even better day out for customers after investing in a brand-new integrated EPOS system.
Wingham Wildlife Park near Canterbury has enjoyed a decade of rapid growth since its owners decided to take the former Wingham Bird Park in a new direction. Hundreds of thousands of visitors now flock to the park all year round to see lions, tigers, wolves, moon bears, reptiles, flamingos, penguins and much more, with huge indoor and outdoor play facilities adding to the appeal for all the family.
To ensure the park can still offer a premium experience as the number of visitors continues to rise, Wingham’s operators decided it was time to introduce an integrated point of sale solution that could handle ticketing, memberships, retail and catering in one platform. It turned to leisure ticketing and EPOS specialist DigiTickets, who already supplied the park with its online ticketing hub.
“We’ve worked with DigiTickets for around six years now,” said Scott Binskin, the park’s Finance Director. “When we were looking at installing an EPOS system, I told DigiTickets what I required and the challenges I had, like not having the site networked and not having the space for servers. They provided me with a service that works via the cloud, which cuts down on bulky equipment, makes it easier for us to manage different services across the site, provides a better interface for staff and overall helps us to deliver a better experience for customers.”
DigiTickets has built its reputation providing online ticketing for zoos, theme parks, aquariums, museums, tour operators and a wide range of different seasonal attractions. But understanding that leisure destinations sell more than just tickets, the company also supplies on-site EPOS solutions, with the aim of uniting admissions, membership, retail and hospitality in a single, simple to use platform.
AURES hardware
As well as creating a unified, cloud-based sales platform that catered for all Wingham’s needs, the company also installed a total of 12 AURES YUNO EPOS terminals in the park’s ticket offices, gift shop, cafes and snack bars.
Jamie Faulkner, Head of Client Services at DigiTickets, said: “Our clients face the challenge of ensuring they offer their customers the best possible experience when they arrive at the attraction. What many operators really want is a unified approach across all points of sale to help them drive efficiency and service wherever the customer happens to be. We specialise in offering the best possible customer journey, which is constantly improved using market leading analytics.
“DigiTickets has chosen AURES as our preferred hardware provider for several years,” Jamie continued. “We feel that the hardware offers our clients a robust, durable and design-led EPOS platform from which to serve their customers and run their businesses. Wingham has used DigiTickets and AURES hardware for all areas, so far, they are very pleased with the solution. It has improved queue times, revolutionised membership and continues to provide a seamless operation.”
Scott agreed, saying: “We really like the look and feel of the hardware and it performs very well for the tasks we ask of it. We have not previously had an integrated EPOS system, but the AURES terminals are so much better than our previous old-style tills, giving us the ability to capture all our membership data in once place and move away from a stand-alone membership system.
“I love being able to run a simple report to see how we are doing at any point and being able to make changes in the back office, like a price change, that are immediately deployed in a live environment. It saves a huge amount of staff time.”
