Patrick Chambers, Chairman, Hungerford Town FC
What was happening at the football club? What was the problem?
We were having a few connectivity issues and recently switched to a new EPOS till system across the club, but we had a number of times where it kept dropping out. This results in the tills being unable to use the card machine and process transactions.
Obviously, in the modern age, particularly since COVID, lots of people don’t carry cash, so the EPOS till system not being connected to the internet and being down defeats the point of having a wonderful new system. It means we can’t log our sales and record payments. It’s happened on various occasions, and we needed to get it fixed.
What impact does this have on the football club?
The impact is significant if you can’t take card payments. If you lose the internet connection to the till you automatically lose the function of taking a card payment. You would have to go back to a manual system, where you’d have to be getting an old till out and getting an old card reader out, which is just not viable.
At a match, you have hundreds of people waiting to make purchases at the bar and at the Snack Shack, and if they haven’t got cash with them, you can’t serve them. It’s catastrophic if we don’t have a reliable connectivity.
Amtech were very friendly and very efficient. We’ve got exactly what they told us we would get, and we are paying exactly to the penny what they told us it would cost.
How did Amtech get involved and how did they help you find a solution?
The impact is significant if you can’t take card payments. If you lose the internet connection to the till you automatically lose the function of taking a card payment. You would have to go back to a manual system, where you’d have to be getting an old till out and getting an old card reader out, which is just not viable.
At a match, you have hundreds of people waiting to make purchases at the bar and at the Snack Shack, and if they haven’t got cash with them, you can’t serve them. It’s catastrophic if we don’t have a reliable connectivity.
How did Amtech get involved and how did they help you find a solution?
I knew of Dave [from Amtech] because of his affinity with football and we always stayed in touch. Because of the issues, we were looking at solutions and I really appreciated his advice.
We needed a reliable connection so that we could take card payments on the tills and turnstiles. Amtech saw that there was no issue with the way we configured everything. But if there was ever a problem with the internet supply, we were in trouble.
First, we had a site survey, so Amtech could look at what we had and our future plans. Then they looked at exactly what we were doing at the time, checked the repeaters, and checked signal strengths at various parts of the ground.
Amtech then suggested a balanced router and explained that if ever the internet connection was lost, it would automatically switch so it was still available. They went through the costings, and it was remarkably similar to what we were contemplating, and within our budget.
The solutions ensure everything works seamlessly. Now, if someone is working the till or the turnstile, they don’t know what network they’re using, it just picks up the signal and just works. It gives us a bit of reassurance.
During the visit, I explained some of the problems that we were suffering and Amtech came up with the solution on the day, which was then confirmed in writing with a quotation and details of how it would work. All within 24 hours.
We pressed the button immediately to get on with it and Dave was back installing it within 10 days. It was quick.
Would you recommend Amtech to others?
Yeah, definitely. I mean it. It was just a very easy service. We explained what issues we had, and it was solved. I didn’t feel like we were being oversold, it was just a case of, ‘this is your potential issue’. And then, wow, ‘this is the solution’.
Sometimes you contact companies, and you feel like you have opened a can of worms. They say, ‘you need this’ and ‘you need that’.
Whereas we discussed [with Amtech] if we wanted to improve connectivity for supporters, but we’ve got three masts on the ground and nearly every supporter has got their own phone, which means connectivity for the general public wasn’t an issue for us. So that was parked and Amtech purely focused on the commercial issues that we have faced on several occasions, which has been an absolute nightmare and they provided a solution for what we needed.
