Freshworks assists Manchester FA with tackling a 66% increase in enquiries during lockdown

Manchester Football Association (Manchester FA), the governing body for association football in Manchester, saw customer service tickets increase by 66% from March to May, with lots of its customers concerned about the 2019/20 season ending prematurely. Thanks to its use of Freshworks’ customer support software, Freshdesk, Manchester FA has managed to respond to all enquiries and even increase its CSAT score by 7% to 89%, despite ticket numbers increasing by two-thirds, compared to the same period last year.

Getting inundated with enquiries

Manchester FA is responsible for the governance and development of football at all levels in the area and looks after approximately 420 clubs. As the COVID-19 crisis hit and the UK government put a halt to sport, Manchester FA had its work cut out closing the 2019/20 season and informing all clubs of how league positions would be resolved.

Using Freshdesk, the clubs were informed via an automated email about how their particular season would be resolved and received advice on how to move forward. The customer support tool has ensured that Manchester FA was able to stay on top of all enquiries raised by its customers and keep secretaries at all levels informed, without having to add more agents to its team.

The footballing body also built a specific COVID-19 landing page and incorporated Freshdesk into this to address FAQs in its knowledge base and enable customers to raise new tickets and check the status of existing enquiries. Freshdesk was also used to send automated responses to the most common queries, enabling the agents to prioritise the issues that needed their attention most. 

Scoring a belter: Improved CSAT score despite challenging times

Despite the 66% rise in customer tickets, the Manchester FA team managed to increase its CSAT score by 7% to 89%, compared to the same period last year – well above its target of 75%. Thanks to Freshdesk, the organisation has been able to adapt quickly to the ever-evolving government guidelines and is now looking forward to supporting clubs with the imminent return of organised sport in the area.

“Freshdesk has proven to be an invaluable tool to us during this testing period, supporting us in dealing with thousands more enquiries than usual and making our customers’ experience of our support page as simple and painless as possible,” said Paul Roots, Business Operations Manager, Manchester FA. “Our industry is fairly unique in that most of our customers are volunteers, and so we often have club secretaries and officials needing to ask us questions late at night after finishing their day jobs. What we’re looking to achieve now is 24-hour support, whereby our agents, supported by Freshdesk, provide instant, live chat during the day, and we move to a chatbot service that can answer simple queries overnight.”

“The sporting industry has not been immune to the global crisis and sporting bodies have had to respond to huge spikes in enquiries and requests from understandably concerned customers,” said Simon Johnson, UK Managing Director, Freshworks. “It’s great to see how Freshdesk has supported Manchester FA through the period and helped it keep players, volunteers and referees fully up to date on when they can once again enjoy the sport they love.”