SWS Fisheries

Customer Story

KEY BENEFITS

Empowered members to manage their own memberships via the Clubmate App, streamlined internal operations, provided the tools to improve member communications.

SWS Fisheries - Our Story

Working in close partnership with our sister company, SWS Countryside, SWS Fisheries doesn’t just offer the best fishery management across our venues, but also develops the best environment around our lakes, for our fish stock and nature to thrive.

We’re privileged to be able to offer five unique fisheries situated within the heart of the Kent Countryside, ranging from an intimate shallow 6-acre venue, right up to one of carp angling’s most mysterious waters: a 45-acre gravel pit with depths of 30+ feet. 

SWS offer specimen fishing for more than only carp anglers; we have some of the most prolific tench waters in the South East of England and great predator fishing with most anglers bagging multiple 20lb pike in a season.

Fishing rods on a dock at SWS Fisheries

Running the fishery was stressful and inefficient.

Before Clubmate, running the fishery was stressful, time-consuming and inefficient. We used a management system that was designed for use across many different industries, but since the angling industry runs slightly differently, that made it harder to use. It would generate PDFs for me to print out, cut out and put into a self-laminating pouch. Going through that process for every angler at the fishery just wasn’t sustainable. 

Communication is key for us, so we tried using MailChimp but it wasn’t entirely successful. Most of the time our messages ended up in spam folders and so key information got missed. 

Our ability to grow the fishery was limited by the amount of admin we could handle, which was incredibly frustrating.

Beautiful sunset cast over SWS Fisheries.

Why we chose Clubmate.

We wanted to use a management system that would help us grow the fishery more effectively and streamline things internally. Having the ability to manage memberships via an app would save a lot of money on admin, not to mention time.

If I’m honest, we didn’t do much research into other products on the market. We were sold quite quickly once we’d had a demo from one of Clubmate’s representatives. The fact is, their software offered solutions to everything we wanted and more.

My only concern in getting started was over how well our members would take to the change. You don’t have to be tech-savvy to use Clubmate, but members have been used to the fishery doing all of the work for so long, I was apprehensive about how they’d respond to using an app to manage their own fishing experience.

Set of three fishing rods set up at SWS Fisheries.

We’ve finally got a fishery-specific management system.

Now that we’ve got Clubmate up and running, we can present all of the information our members need within one app on their smartphones. The business is more streamlined and I can finally focus on other areas to grow the fishery. Using the system is almost effortless and it’s turned my position at SWS Fisheries from a very stressful role to a much more enjoyable job!

My favourite part of using Clubmate is that we’ve found a fishery-specific management system which does everything I’ve ever wanted and more. It’s hard to pin down one specific feature, but the communication tools Clubmate provides have been invaluable to us – key to any successful business.

I’m hoping that next season’s renewals will be a walk in the park now that we use Clubmate because members will have been using the system for some time by that point, they can manage everything themselves in the member app.

Would I recommend Clubmate?

Yes, I would. Simply because of how easy the system is to use once you know the ins and outs of it. The support is second to none as well, with live chat options from their Help Team available combined with the tutorial videos on Clubmate’s website. 

I honestly don’t know why you wouldn’t want to use an app-based system considering the world we now live in and how time-consuming, costly and stressful it is to produce paper tickets! 

Thanks to Clubmate for making my life easier. This really is a great business and we are grateful to be working with you.

If you’d like to learn more about Clubmate and how it could benefit your fishing club, please get in touch (we don’t bite!):

hello@clubmate.co.uk

0333 987 4677

SWS Fisheries Logo

CLUB NAME

SWS Fisheries

CLUB WATERS

Castle Lake, The Larkfield Complex

MAIN CONTACTS

Aidan Setford

WEBSITE

Click here

KEY CHALLENGES

Rising printing costs

Inefficient member communications

Struggled when sharing key info with members

Growth limited by time spent on admin

Interested in joining SWS Fisheries?

Visit their website for more information.