About the Church

St Edward Church in Golders Green has been a diverse and vibrant hub of its community for over 100 years. As well as hosting Church services for their congregation, they regularly welcome members of the local community for charity fundraisers and fun events like barbecues and movie nights.

Among other spaces the Church features a beautiful main hall and a small hall that are available for hire and popular for kids’ parties and community get-togethers.

The challenge

St Edward let their spaces before partnering with Sharesy. But they faced some problems, so when Sharesy reached out they decided to give us a try to help Parish Administrator Kasonde Konie better manage lettings.

First, although they received enquiries from members of the Church and local community, St Edward struggled to find enough new customers to make the most of their capacity. They wanted to grow their online presence to reach a wider audience.

Secondly, between her many responsibilities Kasonde struggled to find time for all the admin work required for a successful church hall hire strategy: scheduling bookings, answering customer queries and handling payments. When the Church learned Sharesy could solve these problems in a seamless and efficient way, they decided to give us a try.

Finally, Kasonde also found that the area was relatively competitive in terms with the number of local community venues and so she needed a platform to allow her to stand out from the crowd. There are over 40,000 church buildings in the UK and so it's very much a crowded market.

The solution

Sharesy’s ability to find new customers and handle booking-related admin like scheduling, payments, and customer support has empowered St Edward to take more bookings with less hassle.

Helpful account management

When St Edward signed up, Sharesy gave them an account manager who visited Kasonde at the Church to photograph their spaces, help create listing pages, and set up their smart Sharesy calendar and payment flow.
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Since then, the Church's account manager has continued to support them by giving monthly sales performance updates and remaining available to solve any issues. Kasonde finds this really valuable: ‍

"Everyone on the Sharesy team is friendly and provides excellent service. From the start, they have been pleasant, polite, and professional, always accommodating in responding to any questions."

Finding new customers online

St Edward’s Sharesy listing pages have helped them reach a wider audience, including people who didn’t know about the Church before. Kasonde says “since we've been on the platform, the online promotion has reached a wider audience as we have received more enquiries.”
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What's more, the comprehensive details and ‘instant book’ button on the listing pages means “anybody can book any time” without Kasonde needing to talk with them first: “With Sharesy, all the forms are there: the explanation, the terms and conditions are there. It relieves a lot of the admin pressure."

Scheduling, sorted

Sharesy gave Kasonde an online calendar where she can specify when the Church’s spaces are available to book. The calendar lets her ‘accept’ or ‘decline’ any booking depending on its suitability for the Church, giving her complete control over bookings. Also, its capability of integrating with the Church’s Outlook calendar gives Kasonde and her team instant visibility of all Church appointments in one place.

Customer service with a smile

Sharesy’s customer support specialists are always on hand to answer customer queries on St Edward’s behalf – something Kasonde really appreciates because it saves her lots of time and effort.

Smart payments

Before Sharesy, Kasonde spent a lot of time handling payments from customers – a mix of cash, cheques, and direct bank transfers. Now customers pay online through Sharesy’s website, and Sharesy sends the money to the Church at the end of each month along with a sales performance report.

St Edward Church, unstoppable superhost

Since partnering with Sharesy, St Edward has been able to let their spaces more often while spending less time and effort. Currently they’re making on average an extra £800/month through Sharesy bookings, a number the Church expects to double in the next six months.

The extra money has allowed the Church to employ a caretaker as well as fund charitable and community events. According to Kasonde, “if you're a church and you haven't taken advantage of the bookings, then that's a missed opportunity.”

‍Kasonde credited Sharesy as a key enabler of St Edward’s success:

"Sharesy boosted our online presence so more people know about us and made it much simpler to manage bookings of our Parish hall."