Book-It's grass roots are in the membership sector, however, its CRM and event management features now have wide appeal in non membership based organisations too, particularly organisations involved in the training sector such as Gloucestershire Enterprise Ltd (GEL).

GEL is a private training provider. It's mission is to improve other organisation's productivity and profitability by helping them to develop their staff, management, processes and practices. GEL provides high quality training that is local to the Gloucestershire area, affordable and cost-effective, for businesses of all sizes, types and sectors. GEL is a private training company that operates as a not-for-profit, social enterprise. It provides training for approximately 5500 learners per year and delivers some 30+ events each month. GEL has 8 permanent staff, though they use associate trainers to deliver courses, of which there are over 50 on their database. They work predominantly from Chargrove House in Cheltenham, but also train at other venues around the County and nationwide.

Prior to Book-It GEL used another software system with powerful CMS and and an event booking bolt on to record their contacts, actions, follow ups, event booking details etc. When asked why they left their old system for Book-It, Kevin Holt, Managing Director at GEL commented

"Our old system was fairly comprehensive but equally inflexible. Our working practices were actually formed around what the software could and couldn't do. Making bookings on courses, completing confirmation letters and other such vital admin functions connected with event management were sometimes unnecessarily complex.

As we became busier we realised that we needed several points of entry to the system; we needed a system that would allow any of the GEL team to make a booking with confidence; a system that was simple to use, robust yet flexible and, where possible, one that automated many of the details required in confirmation letters, enquiry letters, note packs etc. Furthermore, although our business wasn't yet fully on line, it would be one day so the system had to be web-conversant."

Research was carried out and GEL came across the Instinctive Systems web site and quickly took the 'Tour' on the homepage to watch the demonstration of what Book-It could do for them. The demonstration really appealed and GEL could quickly see how Book-It might have many of the properties they were looking for. After all staff had watched the tour and evaluated the downloadable demonstration software it was apparent that Book it could do a better job than their current software. It also seemed to have a cleaner interface, giving them confidence that this software was designed for event management companies rather than a CRM system with event management simply bolted on.

A decision was taken to purchase Book-It. Before Book-It could be installed, Instinctive Systems needed to look at the systems already in place at GEL and ensure that all data could be extracted and moved across to the new system. In order to reduce costs GEL shared this work with Instinctive Systems using the 'DIY' data conversion option. Once data was converted it was taken to GEL's offices and installed and configured on their server and staff were given a 2 day briefing on how to use the software. Book-It is now used at GEL to

Kevin Holt, Managing Director at GEL, was particularly pleased with the complete product and service solution from Instinctive Systems and looking forward to a long term relationship with Instinctive Systems commented

"Book it has a simple, mechanical look to it and that's a real attraction. It's fairly intuitive and staff can pick it up relatively quickly, plus the email confirmations and batch operations are real strengths; the way we can store details about suppliers alongside each course is also very useful.

We had very few hiccups with installation and data conversion from our old system. I know Instinctive Systems worked with our data manager to ensure everything was transferred across efficiently and effectively. This software will evolve with GEL. I am sure we will learn more about using UDFs, write better queries, make better use of the enquiries database, access the web enabled version, use the newsletter function and much more. We would also like to see Book it evolve into an evaluations database, maybe have on line assessment for our qualifications courses, allow on-line NVQs to be uploaded, work with survey tools to canvass our customers and so much more. There is no shortage of ideas!

If you are an events management company, particularly running training events with delegates from many different companies, all booking at different times, then this software is certainly worth a look!"

For more information about Gloucestershire Enterprise Ltd visit http://www.glosenterprise.co.uk