Making everything go swimmingly for the hundreds of thousands of visitors flowing through City of Canning’s leisure facilities each year is a massive task, made just that little bit easier by Envibe leisure management software.
City of Canning Team Leader Swimming Jordi Sullivan said Envibe’s main appeal was its ability to be a one-stop shop for all the council’s leisure-management requirements.
“Trying to manage all our different areas and provide the level of service we do without software like Envibe just wouldn’t happen or would be incredibly difficult.
“The biggest difference is just the ease of use for both staff and our customers – making it seamless for everyone.”
Sullivan said about 300 staff used Envibe to run the council’s leisure facilities seven days a week, 48 weeks a year.
That included 30 spaces for hire, including function centres, meeting rooms and sports courts within its Riverton and Cannington leisureplexes, as well as off-site halls, parks, reserves and tennis courts.
Mini-buses were also available for hire for senior and community groups to use – all of which are managed through Envibe’s booking functionality.
“Every single area, apart from our lifeguards, uses Envibe – our creche, our gym, our customer service team and our swim school.”
More lessons, less admin
Swimming lessons are one of the many services provided at the council’s pools, with around 4,600 student participants across the aquatic centres in its two leisureplexes.
Sullivan’s team began using Envibe’s planned absences function in July 2023 to allow parents to give advance notice online, rather than only in person or over the phone, when their children would not be able to attend a pre-booked swimming lesson.
She said the feature’s introduction saw the number of planned absence notifications lodged online rise to 70% in under three months, freeing up staff who previously had to manage them manually when a parent called or let them know at the front desk.
“When I first started talking with everyone about it, I was like: ‘you have no idea the impact that this is going to have for us – it’s going to be massive!’.”
Before the planned absences feature was introduced, parents had to advise her team in person or over the phone and all credits for affected lessons had to be manually refunded back to parents by staff.
With the new functionality implemented, staff no longer have to spend time recording every planned absence and there has been a dramatic reduction in staff intervention to issue credits for lessons.
“It’s been a huge time saving for us,” she said.
Sullivan said parents began using the planned absences feature quickly, with little promotion, because there had been a previous push for them to use the online portal and keep up to date with their kids’ activities.
Recently City of Canning has used Envibe to make things even simpler for parents by giving them the ability to arrange make-up sessions through the online portal for any lessons their children can’t attend.
Sullivan said it all adds up to a better experience for leisure centre users, and less stress for her staff.
Group fitness, simplified
Another Envibe feature the council finds valuable is Envibe’s Group Fitness module. More than 100 group fitness classes are held at City of Canning’s Riverton leisureplex, and dozens of others are offered across the council’s leisure-facility network.
“The team use the module a lot and I know they’ve been working closely with Jonas Leisure to develop it to meet their needs so they can get the most out of it.”
Envibe’s waiting list feature and occupancy reports for group fitness classes have given her an in-depth view of how popular different classes are so she can work out which ones to schedule at what times to offer the most benefit to members, Sullivan said.
“Envibe helps me understand what classes to put on to make the most impact to the most amount of people and I can drill that right down to a day-by-day level.”
Having the data that Envibe provides at her fingertips is a huge benefit as it allows her to analyse attendance data in detail and demonstrate to customers why scheduling decisions have been made, Sullivan said.
“As a team leader, the facts and the figures make it so much easier to make an informed decision.”
The result: thriving, well used leisure facilities
Sullivan said City of Canning estimated that people will visit its leisure facilities 1,500,000 times during the current financial year.
“The volume across the two facilities is massive and has been growing every year. After Covid the community use of facilities has seen a huge uptick.”
She said post-Covid people were taking their mental and physical health more seriously and leisure facilities were playing a big part in supporting their communities with that mission.
With the Western Australian government recently granting free summer-holiday swimming lessons for students enrolled in its VacSwim programme, City of Canning is set to be busier than ever this summer – some might say a victim of its own success.
