Liiga is aiming for new audiences by developing its services – with the help of Digia’s service designers

The goal of the service design work is to deepen customer understanding so that services can be better developed to meet the needs of different customer groups. The core question is how different people are fans and what kind of services they hope for.

Six Liiga teams are involved: TPS, Lukko, Ässät, JYP, Ilves and Kärpät.

“There is a group of so-called true fans who go to a lot of games and follow league events actively in other channels as well. Traditionally, services offered around matches have been developed for them, and of course we want to serve this core group of supporters well. However, alongside them, there are other groups whose needs are not currently recognized in the best possible way,” says Jukka Sundquist, Chief Digital Officer of Liiga, and continues:

“What kind of services do families, for example, hope for? What about teenagers or children? We don’t want to base service development on assumptions, but to acquire researched information as a basis for decisions.”

Developing the customer experience is at the heart of the Liiga’s strategy: Liiga has defined its mission to offer the most influential sports experiences in Finland. To make this possible, it is first necessary to understand what an influential sports experience means to different people and what it is built on.

For one, it may be of paramount importance that the clubs offer comprehensive and easily utilized statistics alongside the matches, whether watching the game on site or in the home stands. For another, the sports experience is complemented by, for example, the arena’s high-quality restaurant services. And for a third, something completely different – what, that is now being found out.

Data and artificial intelligence are at the heart of customer experience development also in ice hockey

In the service design work of Liiga and Digia, diverse means are used to build as comprehensive customer understanding as possible. Service designers have deployed to the home games of the clubs, and there they interview people and test and observe the functionality of the services. In addition, a wide online survey is carried out for the supporters, the results of which are deepened with personal interviews carried out for a smaller group.

“When we think about customer experience development in general today, it is essential to note that more and more touchpoints with the customer are digital. So, data is accumulated from them. This data can be used to deepen customer understanding and develop customer service. We believe that the winning customer experience of the future is precisely a data-enriched, intelligent customer experience,” says Jari Laakso, Director in charge of Sales and Marketing at Avalon.

“Liiga is now strongly investing in digital services, and the clubs have a strong desire to use more data. I am really excited about this work, as Liiga is on its way towards an intelligent customer experience, where data and artificial intelligence are used. By deepening customer understanding, digital services can be developed in the direction desired by ice hockey followers, and at the same time, the idea of what data points should start to follow and how to utilize them becomes more precise,” says Victor Ström, Service and User Experience Designer at Avalon.

How is Victor’s research work on hockey fans’ services at Tampere Arena going? Watch the video on Youtube to find out! (in Finnish)

More information:

Jukka Sundquist
Chief Digital Officer, Liiga
tel. 040 587 4128
jukka.sundquist(a)liiga.fi

Jari Laakso
Chief Sales and Marketing Officer, Avalon, part of Digia Group
tel. 040 058 7253
jari.laakso(a)avalon.fi