Just as it is with world population, a multitude of new e-commerce companies is born everyday. This e-commerce explosion has started to take hold in the Parks and Recreation industry. Many Parks and Recreation professionals are beginning to ask the question:
"How is the e-commerce revolution going to affect my Parks and Recreation agency, and what do I need to do to prepare for this event?" The answer to this question depends on the answer to another, more important question. "Why does my agency need to provide e-commerce to my community?"The easiest way to answer this question is to first define what e-commerce is for a Parks and Recreation agency.
In this day and age, it is safe to assume that most people know what the Internet is all about and the profound affect it has on each of us. Many of us are "on-line" at work or at home and utilize the Internet as another tool in our daily lives. This affect will continue to expand as technology becomes more efficient.
Many Parks and Recreation agencies have taken advantage of this current technology. They have created web pages that provide valuable information to the community. They also let their residents correspond with the agency's staff through e-mail. This is a valuable utilization of Internet technology for improving services for the community. This type of Internet use though is not e-commerce.
E-commerce provides the ability for the community to purchase goods and services over the Internet. In the case of a Parks and Recreation agency, this relates to the selling of services. The primary service is enrollment into programs. While this is not the only service that can be sold, it is the most common. Giving your community the ability to enroll in programs over the Internet will allow you to better service your residents.
So the answer to the question, "Why does my agency need to provide e-commerce to my community?" ends up being quite simple: To provide better service to the community. Consequently, the answer to the question "How is the e-commerce revolution going to affect my Parks and Recreation agency, and what do I need to do to prepare for this event?" should be based on finding the best solution in order to provide the best service to the community.
There are many issues to consider for determining the best solution for your e-commerce needs. One consideration is the methodology to be used for enrolling residents into programs. There are three approaches available. They are the offline, the shopping cart and the “express purchase” approach. Each of these methods needs to be reviewed to determine the best solution.
The off-line approach allows residents to sign up for programs on your web page without knowing if they are going to make it into the programs. It cannot guarantee enrollment at the time of choice. These program requests must be entered into your database at a later time. Once enrolled into the programs, you will have to confirm enrollment with a letter, postcard, phone call or e-mail. This process is no better than mail in, drop off or fax processing. It does not increase the level of service to your community. There are no tangible cost savings to recoup the investment for this process. The only way to increase service to your community for enrolling into programs is to give immediate response to the user as to the status of their requests.
The shopping cart approach is one way to provide real-time, on-line program enrollment. This method consists of three distinct processes. First, you browse all available items and place the desired items into your shopping cart. After you have chosen all your items, you proceed to the check out line. Finally, you choose a type of payment and your transaction is completed. This method is useful and quite appropriate for buying books, gifts or any other commodity on the Internet. For a Parks and Recreation agency, this method means putting the programs for which you wish to enroll into the shopping cart. After you complete your check out, you are then placed in the desired programs. Although this method will give you the status of your enrollment at check out time, there are drawbacks to this approach.
The main shortcoming is that confirmation into a program is not done until the entire shopping cart is purchased. The check out process can occur after a distinct period of time. You will not know that there are available spaces in your desired programs until this time. As a resident, this is a clear disadvantage when attempting to put together a desired program schedule. If you are trying to put three children in the same class, only to find that there is only two openings during check out, you will need to return to browsing to make other choices. This process does not afford you the flexibility required to accomplish such a task.
The only approach that provides all requirements for on-line, real-time processing is the “express purchase” method. This process is termed “express purchase” because it places individuals into programs immediately upon selection. As with the shopping cart approach, available programs are browsed and chosen for enrollment. Unlike the shopping cart approach, the individuals are placed in the program at this time. Confirmation for enrollment in the program is immediate. Payment information is permanently stored with the resident’s profile. Therefore, each time a program is selected, we have a complete transaction: the program, the person and the payment method. Additionally, a summary of enrollment provides the resident the ability to readily review the programs previously selected along with the ability to cancel selections as needed.
Let's take a typical scenario of a family wanting to enroll three children into the same summer arts program. The first and second children are successfully enrolled into a Tuesday program. Before the third child is selected for enrollment, the last space is taken. Since all three children need to be in the same program at the same time, the resident will want to cancel out of the first choice and try a Wednesday program. They cancel the previous two enrollments from the Tuesday program and then are able to enroll all three into the Wednesday program. A summary of enrollment shows all three children in the programs they selected. The resident may now enroll in more programs or simply log out. No check out is required since each selection provided all the information needed for entry into the program.
This approach provides all the required benefits of a real-time, on-line registration system. The resident can enroll in the programs they want, when they want, and how they want. At the same time, the Parks and Recreation agency receives the desired revenue without any additional cost or effort.
Besides choosing the method for enrollment, there are other issues that are important to the type of service you can provide with an e-commerce solution. Two of these considerations are the type of web page and the method for determining residency.
There are two types of web pages. One is a static web page. This type of page requires manual editing when changes are needed. There is no database attached to this type of page. The second type of web page is a dynamic page. This type of page format is attached to a database. The content of the web page will change as the database changes. A dynamic page is preferable to a static page for a Parks and Recreation agency. If program information changes or, if a program is added or cancelled, the web page must be updated immediately. This will ensure that your residents have the most current program information available with the least amount of expense to the agency.
The determination of residency is important for calculating fees owed for programs. Many Parks and Recreation agencies have separate fees for residents and non-residents as well as different time periods when each can enroll. It is for these reasons that the determination of residency is an important factor.
One method for determining residency is to provide a resident with a resident ID number. This ID number is used during the enrollment process to prove residency. This approach requires the user to obtain the ID number prior to any enrollment. This is not a very flexible approach.
The best approach for determining residency is to have the system automatically determine residency based on the user’s address. This requires that the Parks and Recreation agency pre-define all resident addresses. When a person signs up, the system can use this database of addresses to determine residency. Many agencies already use this approach for mail-in and touch-tone enrollment.
This approach allows anyone to sign up and enroll in programs anytime without any special circumstances. As soon as a person moves into the community, they may go on-line and enroll in programs. This is the most flexible approach and is beneficial to both the residents and the Parks and Recreation agency.
The above-mentioned features are extremely important in order to provide the best web page interaction for your residents. There are also features to be considered that will improve your ability to efficiently manage your web site.
The advantages of a dynamic web page have already been described. Having a database attached to your web page makes maintenance of program information on the web page efficient. It should also be noted that this database must be the same database that runs your existing registration application. Any program enrollment or program master change, addition or deletion, must affect the same database where you do your daily work. It is this database that sets the rules for enrollment and program availability.
The rules for enrollment identify program age and gender requirements on a program-by-program basis. Program availability defines the starting date and time residents and non-residents may enroll for programs on the web. It also determines the programs that require in-person enrollment and may not be selected for enrollment on the web. These two factors are vital for keeping your web site accurate and useful to you and your community.
The final issue to consider is the ability to analyze how and when your web site is used for program enrollment. This will allow you to calculate the total revenue received by web registration, and to determine at what time of day these transactions occur. These statistics will provide you the information necessary to understand the impact of this process on your profitability and service to your community.
Choosing the best solution for your e-commerce needs will also provide cost savings to your agency. There are many intangible costs that can be realized. One is the added convenience to your community for access to program enrollment anyplace and anytime. Another is the possible increase in revenue when these residents purchase more services because of this added convenience. These types of cost savings are difficult to measure and quantify. More notably, it is the tangible cost savings that can be beneficial for providing the required savings that will justify this type of expenditure.
There are two components that factor into the tangible cost savings: time and material. The savings of time can be realized in many ways. First, there is the time saved for manually entering participants into programs. This can typically be 1-2 minutes per enrollment. Second, there is the administrative time that can be saved. This includes the manual handling of the enrollment request, either by phone, mail or fax. It also includes the time that is required for preparing the program confirmation, either postcard or letter. This can account for a savings of 1-2 minutes per enrollment. Since all web registration payments are made by credit card, an additional savings for the processing of cash deposits and reconciliation can also account for another 1-2 minutes of time saved. Furthermore, since an automated process will do the charge card reconciliation, an additional 1-2 minutes more can be saved over manually processing these charges. Finally, there are administrative time costs involved in the supervision of all of the above activities.
All of these costs combined can add up to a savings of 5-10 minutes of your staff’s time per program enrollment. Because the web application will not required any of the above processing, these are costs that affect your bottom line. If you convert this time into actual dollars spent, this can be a savings of $2-3 per transaction.
Material savings can be realized in two ways. First, eliminating the need for mailing a confirmation to participants will result in a savings of $.25 per transaction. Second, the purchase of the materials (postcard or paper and envelopes) plus the wear and tear on the equipment that produces the confirmation can account for an additional $.25 per transaction.
Overall, the total costs savings will be approximately $3.00 for each web registration transaction. To determine your annual savings, you will need to take the total number of registrations per year and multiple this total by the percent of these that will occur through the Internet. 20% web registration can be used as a conservative estimate. For example, if your agency processes 25,000 registrations per year, and if 20% of these are now done over the Internet, your agency would realize an annual savings of $15,000.
While each agency’s actual savings will vary, the fact remains that there is significant savings that will be realized when a Parks and Recreation agency implements an e-commerce solution. Providing a convenient, simple to use and flexible e-commerce solution will not only benefit your community but also benefit your agency’s bottom line.
E-commerce is a powerful, useful and growing part of our existence. Determining how to utilize this tool in the Parks and Recreation industry, will affect the impact you have on the level of service you can provide to your community. It is for this reason that all the above issues need to be considered when choosing the best e-commerce solution.
Notes
(1) This number represents the number of registration you have received in the current year.
(2) This is the percent of registration that is anticipated to be received via the Internet.
(3) This is the amount of actual savings per transaction. This can range from $2.00 to $3.00 .
(4) One additional method for payback is to add a fee to each program registration. This represents the amount you want to add.
(5) This is a projection of the number of registration per year, assuming a 5% increase each year.
(6) This is the percent of registration that is anticipated to be received via the Internet with an increase each year of 5%.
(7) This is the amount of actual savings per transaction with an increase each year of 5%.
(8) This is the total savings per year by multiplying the number of registrations by the percent of web registration by the savings per transaction.
(9) This is the total dollars received by adding a fee to each program.
(10) This is the total increase in income each year by adding (8) and (9).
(11) This is the total cost per year based on the Investment Analysis.
(12) This is the total income increased accumulated each year.
(13) This is the total costs accumulated each year.
(14) This is the total net savings of income over cost.
(15) This is the average savings per year by dividing the 5 year total savings by 5.