SIS – Coordination and Communication are the Keywords
By Mary Pitt T
says more about the ethos of the company, which until recently was the sole provider of pictures and data to British racecourses. That is what SIS intends to do: communicate with its customers. Though they are the first to
acknowledge that hasn’t always been the case.
department were restructured and merged in June 2008 and now work as a team. This has allowed them to engage with customers more than they had previously. “Three years ago when I was asked if I
would start a new department within SIS we were given a clean sheet of paper and it was something I couldn’t refuse,” says Brent Dolan, Commercial Director, LBO services, who has been with SIS since its inception in 1987. “I had a look and saw that we had two
The customer service and sales
Brent Dolan at the SIS Open Day at Towcester in March
he title of the newsletter SIS sends out to all its customers is simply: Communicate. Perhaps the name
relationships with associations and individual bookmakers, some of which, going back twoand a half years, wouldn’t even speak to us. “What we’re asking ourselves is: ‘What
can we do to make this work best for our customers?’ The majors look after themselves to a certain extent. The FACTS service is almost an independents’ service.”
State-of–the-Art Production Facilities
SIS maintains a huge facility located in an industrial park just outside Milton Keynes, with two buildings, one containing numerous state-of-the-art studios and galleries. The main open plan office at Milton Keynes has two large screens showing SIS and SIS+ so that if a customer calls with an issue the person answering the phone can see what’s happening on screen.
Picture: Mary Pitt
departments – we had a customer relations manager, Helen Scott, and we had a head of customer relations, me. My background is operations, racecourse data and running the programme, whereas Helen’s background is in finance.” Helen adds: “We wanted to look at
the way we interact with our customers and to build the relationships with them, because we’ve always delivered a first class picture service and the audio and data to go with them, but the hardware side of things, like text display systems, we haven’t really been at the forefront of.”
Commitment to Customers
Brent admits the last two years have been a learning process: “We didn’t have the relationships with the bigger independent bookmakers, or individual bookmakers. We looked at that and thought there was an opportunity there. We brought back Nigel Boardman as part of our management team.” Nigel serves as National Sales Manager. In September 2009 they brought in
goes out to meet customers, and Paul Masterson, Technical Support, is our problem solver.” “We’ve got a close, healthy relationship with the Irish Bookmakers Association,” he continues. “We’ve been working with them to get more evening content at Dundalk. It’s progressing. We made a joint presentation to Horse Racing Ireland and they’ve held off releasing their 2011 fixture list.” Helen adds: “We’ve been working with the Dunlewey Substance Abuse Centre, the Irish equivalent of GamCare, to set up a billing mechanism to coordinate payments.” Brent emphasises, “Customers in Ireland
have got a better service now than they ever have done.” As for ‘Communicate’, he says, “We took on the newsletter when we took over the department. It has evolved into what it is today, an informative newsletter about SIS, what we do, and are looking to achieve, about the people within SIS, the industry and our customers. Feedback has been positive, which is always encouraging. “In the past we didn’t tell people what
infrastructure to develop further at the site, as witnessed by the bank of satellite dishes of varying sizes sitting outside the building. Beyond racing, SIS produces other outside broadcasts, such as Wimbledon. There is another base at Langley, just off the M4, whereas the At The Races channel is still based at their hub in Corsham Street in London. Total staff number over 900. The SIS pictures service started 23 years ago with two horse meetings and one greyhound meeting; now there are around a dozen different services. It soon outgrew its London premises, hence the need for the Milton Keynes complex, which opened in April of 2004 and incorporates a huge text room, where all data comes in, is collated and is sent back out. “We wanted to build something that
would last a minimum of 10 years,” Brent offers. “We put data out to all independent bookmakers, supply South African data, Turf TV data and do off course pricing and text display. We can also swap around and the facility in London can do off course pricing and text display. Each site complements the other.”
SIS has both the capacity and the
we do, then we thought, maybe we should be telling them, especially what we do for independent bookmakers. “We weren’t known as a company that
Jimmy Hanlon as Product Manager. Previously with Stan James, Jimmy is “the unsung hero” of the operation and, notes Helen, “He knows what the bookmaker is looking for and he gets things done.” “We had a mini restructuring in
Ireland,” Brent points out. “Rachel O’Reilly is General Manager for Ireland. Eamonn Cosgrave, our Account Manager,
24 July/August 2010 BOS Magazine
spoke to the independent bookmakers. We need the independent sector, it’s important to our business. “We instigated a meeting with the BHA and made a presentation with the UK Independent Bookmakers Association and got more twilight meetings. Everyone profited from that. We want to work with them. “We have formed some very solid
Helen Scott, SIS Customer Relations Manager. Picture: Mary Pitt
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