We would like to offer our participants a user-friendly registrations platform, Atleta made that possible!
Le Champion
An interview with Jamilla Ladoex de Fretes. Team Leader Customer Contact and ICT at Le Champion.
Le Champion is secretly one of the largest organizers of sporting events in the world. Every year, Le Champion organizes 60 events with almost 300,000 participants. Because Le Champion mainly focuses on the events and participants in its communication, the size of the organization is unknown to the general public.
This of course does not apply to the Dam tot Damloop, the TCS Amsterdam marathon, Egmond Pier Egmond and the Zandvoort Circuit Run. Each and every one of them class A events with enormous fame and tens of thousands of national and international participants.
Two years ago, after a thorough preparation and reorientation, Le Champion decided to make the switch to Atleta in combination with the CRM/CMS system One Community.
Jamilla Ladoex de Fretes, Team Leader Customer Contact and ICT at Le Champion, supervised the transition to Atleta and is responsible for the communication with Atleta and the further development of Le Champion wishes with the developers at Atleta.
“Two years ago we decided to look around to see if the registration of our participants could not be improved. Important goals: more userfriendly for the participants and a backend system that relieves us administratively. In that search we ended up at Atleta. We were looking for a partner who would like to continue developing with us. After all, digital developments do not stand still. Atleta has a young team that shares the same philosophy. The system is under constant development, partly due to our input and an extensive wish list. Just like with us, Atleta is all about the participant and you can clearly see that on the platform with features that make it easy for participants to register and to make changes online without our intervention.”
Le Champion
“11 years ago I started as an intern at Le Champion and I was lucky to work on a fantastic event: The Plus Wandel Vierdaagse in Alkmaar. One big ride, four days of the best festivities with quite a few logistical challenges. I am still at Le Champion, a very nice group of people that feels like family. We are a non-commercial foundation. We organize super nice events where everything revolves around the experience of the participants. I get so much energy from the events, the happy faces of the participants and the platform we offer to get people moving. It’s great to see.”
Atleta and Le Champion
Le Champion did not act overnight and prepared the transition of their existing systems very carefully. After all, it is not easy to transfer 60 events to a new registration system in combination with One Community, which runs the websites and the CRM. Corona canceled all Le Champion events after March 14, 2020. Disastrous of course, but at the same time it provided more time to transfer all the events in 2021. The transition is therefore a fact. All events are now transferred to Atleta and One Community.
“Two years ago we decided to look around to see if the registration of our participants could not be improved. Important goals: more userfriendly for the participants and a backend system that relieves us administratively. In that search we ended up at Atleta. We were looking for a partner who would like to continue developing with us. After all, digital developments do not stand still. Atleta has a young team that shares the same philosophy. The system is under constant development, partly due to our input and an extensive wish list. Just like with us, Atleta is all about the participant and you can clearly see that on the platform with features that make it easy for participants to register and to make changes online without our intervention.”
“Personally I am very happy with the participant dashboard. Super handy for participants to adjust or order things. That relieves our support department. What is also handy is that participants log in without a password. This is safe, of course, via the email address that is registered in the Atleta database in combination with the participant. Integration with our administration is of course super important. Due to the automatic invoicing, processing payments and sending reminders, Atleta reduces the pressure on our financial administration significantly compared to before Atleta. So great!
Atleta features and functionalities
Atleta can do infinitely more than just the registration process and payments. Every customer has its specific requirements and wishes. Because Atleta focuses specifically on sporting events, new features are often also of added value for all customers. Maybe not right away, but in the future anyway. Le Champion is an important partner of Atleta and not only in terms of size. The good cooperation to develop new features makes the work for Le Champion more efficient and is therefore available to all Atleta customers.
“Personally I am very happy with the participant dashboard. Super handy for participants to adjust or order things. That relieves our support department. What is also handy is that participants log in without a password. This is safe, of course, via the email address that is registered in the Atleta database in combination with the participant. Integration with our administration is of course super important. Due to the automatic invoicing, processing payments and sending reminders, Atleta reduces the pressure on our financial administration significantly compared to before Atleta. So great!
We have a development list that grows organically. Within that list we determine the priorities that fortunately always match those of the Atleta developers. The collaboration with Atleta works really well. These adjustments are free of charge and are part of our collaboration. We have one account manager and point of contact, with whom we call, app, e-mail, via the support desk or meet in person for major adjustments.
We would rather organize events than cancel them. A consequence of Corona was that we had to reimburse tens of thousands of participants because their event was cancelled. Atleta helped make that an easy process!”
Marketing and sales
Atleta and One Community are separate systems that together form a strong combination for optimally deploying the marketing & sales of sports events. Le Champion chose this option to boost their marketing activities and performance of their event websites.
“All participants register via Atleta and these registrations automatically appear in our One Community CRM system. Our CRM system is the basis for follow-up communication with the participants. We know whether they are participating in multiple editions or have participated in the past. We adjust the communication accordingly using e-mails and segmentation techniques. It is always good to give your participants the recognition they deserve. You address a participant who has been with us for 10 years and/or is a member of our association differently than a new participant. And we are international, so we adapt the language to the origin of the participant. The One Community CMS application also immediately gave us the opportunity to redesign the event websites mobile first for an even better connection with our marketing and sales of the various Le Champion events.”
Atleta is constantly developing. The idea is that the system is never finished. Changing insights and marketing requires a dynamic attitude of the Atleta developers. Substantial adjustments will be made in the coming weeks and months, partly at the initiative of Le Champion.
“We are now working on optimizing the allocation of starting tickets via Atleta. This is quite complex as we have to take into account members, specific start times, finish times of participants at marathons, specific competition components and whether or not participants are part of a business team. Atleta and our timeregistration partner are working closely to integrate data without exports to avoid errors. The next step is to make our events more sustainable, for example by only working with digital assignments (QR codes). Within Atleta we are working hard to complete the scan application that communicates with our Atleta database. Super customer-friendly and very efficient in managing our participants flows on location.
