Ferrari Owners’ Club
How sheepCRM Transformed the Ferrari Owners’ Club’s Member Experience
About the Ferrari Owners’ Club:
Founded in 1967, the Ferrari Owners’ Club began as an offshoot of the Bugatti Owners Club. Today, it serves 4,000 members across the UK. The club caters to classic and contemporary Ferrari owners, handling various membership schemes through events, regional groups, and their bi-monthly magazine.
"We needed a system that was fit for the future, flexible and ready to deliver the service that our members expect" said Chris Leach.
Over his five years with the club, Chris has managed their extensive event calendar, which includes competition awards dinners, a range of social functions, and the club's presence at major shows like the Classic Motor Show at the NEC.
He works alongside Will Brown, the Club Secretary, who has been instrumental in modernising the club's membership management systems. Together, they've led the drive to improve member services and operational efficiency.
"We needed a system that was fit for the future, flexible and ready to deliver the service that our members expect"
Chris Leach, Events Planner & Deputy Championship Coordinator
Building a Digital Foundation:
The Ferrari Owners Club's journey mirrors many established organisations' paths from manual to digital operations.
"The management of the club evolved as leadership changed hands. With that, everybody brought their own method of working to the club and looked to improve it from what they inherited; this led to a mix of processes developing over time" Chris explains.
The club progressed from paper-based systems to a FileMaker database, but this solution couldn't meet their modern needs.
"Our previous system was becoming unsustainable; members had no way of managing their own membership, whether updating records or renewing. Everything existed in separate silos" said Will.
Working with a small team of two full-time and two part-time staff members, the club needed to maximise resources. Their time was split between processing membership cards, preparing welcome packs, and handling member queries.
"The more time we spend pushing paper and replicating information between systems, the less time we have to engage with our members and deliver the service they expect."
Why sheepCRM?
The Ferrari Owners Club needed a powerful system to drive their membership operations forward. After careful consideration, they chose sheepCRM for its:
Proven track record with other membership clubs
Ability to improve operational efficiency
Potential for automation of manual tasks
Integration capabilities with existing systems
Flexibility to adapt to future needs
During the transition, sheepCRM’s expert team guided the club through a full data review. They migrated valuable information while removing outdated records, creating a clean foundation for their new system.
This delivered immediate improvements:
Integration with MailChimp ensures mailing lists remain current
Stripe and GoCardless integrations streamline payment reconciliation
Automated processes reduce manual data entry
Improved reporting capabilities support strategic planning
Better tracking of membership status and renewals
The club has also moved from a fixed membership term to a 12-month rolling membership.
"Previously, if you joined in May, your membership would still end in October like everyone else's. Now members get a full year's value, making promoting membership to prospective members much easier”
“Our previous system was becoming unsustainable; members had no way of managing their own membership, whether updating records or renewing. Everything existed in separate silos”
Will Brown, Club Secretary
Making Data-Driven Decisions:
With reliable systems and improved data access in place, the Ferrari Owners Club is now focused on enhancing its member experience rather than managing admin tasks.
The improved access to membership data transformed how the Ferrari Owners Club makes decisions.
Chris explains:
"We can now generate heat maps showing where our members are geographically around the UK,"
"This helps us identify areas with large numbers of members that haven't had major national events in the past decade."
Member Engagement:
Self-service Portal
The Ferrari Owners’ Club has launched their new self-service portal with sheepCRM. Through their improved data access and efficient systems, they identified the need for better digital tools to enhance member engagement, and early feedback has been positive.
The portal enables members to:
Update their membership details
Manage vehicle ownership records
Change payment methods
Add or modify joint membership information
Join regional group mailing lists
Will explains the impact on administrative time:
"If half our members call us with changes to email address, phone number, or postal address, and each call lasts a couple of minutes, you can see how that very quickly spirals. The portal is already helping to reduce these routine admin tasks"
Improving Group Communications
Through data analysis, the club identified an opportunity to improve regional member engagement. Working closely with sheepCRM, they developed a solution that allows area organisers to send communications from personalised email addresses rather than generic ones.
"Our members are more likely to engage with emails when they come from a familiar name," Chris explains.
"An email from their local area representative gets better engagement than one from a generic club address.”
Future Developments:
The Ferrari Owners Club continues to build on their digital transformation with several planned improvements:
Website integration with sheepCRM for direct login management
Enhanced members' calendar functionality
Launch of the self-service portal
Improved regional group communication tools
Streamlined event management systems
Will concludes:
"We're confident sheepCRM will scale with us as we grow. The system has already brought significant improvements, and we're still discovering new ways to use it to benefit our members."
The Ferrari Owners Clubs’ digital transformation journey follows the 3 Mountains of Success Framework and demonstrates how the right combination of systems, data insights, and engagement strategies can transform an organisation while maintaining its heritage and values.
Visit the Ferrari Owners’ Club website at: www.ferrariownersclub.co.uk
“We're confident sheepCRM will scale with us as we grow. The system has already brought significant improvements, and we're still discovering new ways to use it to benefit our members.”
Will Brown, Club Secretary
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