Community swimming center Sea Lanes Brighton recorded a massive 232% revenue increase after three months of using Bigin

The company

Established in 2016, Sea Lanes Brighton is a unique swimming center with a vibrant community at its core. The business founders include swim coach Andy White, Copsemill Properties, QED Sustainable Urban Developments, and SwimTrek. At the heart of Sea Lanes is an outdoor swimming pool that offers accessible swimming for all.

Supporting the pool are 19 local businesses focused on fitness, wellness, food, and beverages, all serving as a hub for the community.

The challenge

In the early days, the company relied on Microsoft Excel spreadsheets to manage their contacts—a primitive setup that worked well enough for a while. But as the services they offered around the swimming center increased—as well as the bookings for the pool—things got more complicated. They used Skedda, a hire management software tool, to handle their calendar. However, managing everything in separate tools became a hassle. Changes made in one place wouldn't sync with the rest, which led to confusion and miscommunication. Tracking customer inquiries, bookings, and feedback across scattered tools started to feel like piecing together a puzzle with missing pieces. It was clear they needed a better solution to streamline processes and keep everything connected.

The solution

Sea Lanes Brighton transformed how they manage their operations by embracing Bigin's features to streamline and organize workflows. The team has created four pipelines tailored to their diverse offerings, such as room hires, team-building events, pop-ups, and networking of clients.

Bigin's automation capabilities play a pivotal role in simplifying Sea Lanes' operations. For instance, they use stage automation via Zapier to manage food options during bookings. If a customer opts to include food, their request triggers an email to ensure this detail is handled promptly. Beyond this, six email automations are in place to keep the team proactive. Whether it's moving a deal between stages, closing a deal, or sending reminders before a booking's due date, the team stays ahead of follow-ups.

Initially, the team added contacts manually, but they've since integrated Gravity forms with Bigin to automate contact creation directly from their website forms with the help of Zapier. This saves hours of manual effort.

Tags and custom fields add another layer of organization and precision. Tags like "fitness," "food and drink," and "pop-up event" ensure proper categorization, while custom fields collect unique details like social ID numbers, pop-up area specifics, and deal values.

The Companies module is cleverly divided into three categories: fitness, workshops, and corporate events. Any company booking one of these services is captured in this module, which offers the Sea Lanes team a clear view of their client base at a glance.

Through their Zapier integration, they seamlessly connect Bigin with Gravity Forms on their website, which enables customer inquiries to flow directly into their pipelines without manual intervention. This integration has saved countless hours and reduced errors, and ensures that they track inquiries from the first touchpoint all the way to booking confirmation.

Benefits and ROI

• Recorded a massive revenue increase of 232% within the first three months of using Bigin (May to July 2024).
• Achieved 262% increase in food and beverage orders after implementing the pre order in the form, while also capturing this data in Bigin.
• Conversion rates surged from 41% to 65%, which drove revenue increases.
• Automations have saved the team considerable admin time.

Looking forward

The Sea Lanes Brighton team says they're fully focused on Bigin and don't plan to change their system anytime soon. However, they believe that additional customization options for the Activities module would be a valuable benefit in the future.