National Theatre Tokens

Hi Kathleen

We do accept and sell Theatre Tokens but there is a LOT of admin work associated with this. We would advise that each staff member has their own login on the SOLT site to redeem and sell tokens as we've previously had problems where staff have processed the tokens on Tessitura but not logged this on the SOLT website.

Because the Theatre Token number isn’t logged on Tessitura, if one token isn’t validated it’s a case of going through all the token numbers to find which one is missing. To make this easier we have an Excel spreadsheet which logs all of the Theatre Token numbers we are selling. Each time a token is sold we process this on Tessitura, and on our spreadsheet we write the order number next to the token number and then sell this on the SOLT website. This can be quite a long process!

We run a ‘Ticketing Refund Report’ on Tessitura on a monthly basis (as the Theatre Tokens appear as a refund on Tessitura when sold). This report therefore details each order where Theatre Tokens have been sold, we then check this amount against the sales report on the SOLT website – again if there are any problems when tokens have not been sold on the website it’s a case of going through each token and manually linking it up to an order (this is where the Excel spreadsheet mentioned earlier helps).

We check all tokens received as payment on a weekly basis to ensure they have been redeemed; again this can be a long task if some tokens haven’t been redeemed at the time of the booking.

Since introducing the spreadsheet it's been a lot easier to track potential mistakes and issues but overall it is a long process. We sell our own gift certificates as well which is much easier as it can all be managed through Tessitura. We have considered (and are still considering) whether it is worth us continuing to sell and redeem the tokens as it is so much extra work. However, now that we are a part of it, it could be difficult to withdraw from a customer service point of view, as our customers expect us to be a part of the scheme. We not really reached a final conclusion on whether it is worth us still being part of it. For the time being our current system is working so we will see how it goes!

I hope this helps, but if you would like us to explain this in further detail let me know and we could speak to you about it.

Thanks,

Sarah

Hi Kathleen

We do accept and sell Theatre Tokens but there is a LOT of admin work associated with this. We would advise that each staff member has their own login on the SOLT site to redeem and sell tokens as we've previously had problems where staff have processed the tokens on Tessitura but not logged this on the SOLT website.

Because the Theatre Token number isn’t logged on Tessitura, if one token isn’t validated it’s a case of going through all the token numbers to find which one is missing. To make this easier we have an Excel spreadsheet which logs all of the Theatre Token numbers we are selling. Each time a token is sold we process this on Tessitura, and on our spreadsheet we write the order number next to the token number and then sell this on the SOLT website. This can be quite a long process!

We run a ‘Ticketing Refund Report’ on Tessitura on a monthly basis (as the Theatre Tokens appear as a refund on Tessitura when sold). This report therefore details each order where Theatre Tokens have been sold, we then check this amount against the sales report on the SOLT website – again if there are any problems when tokens have not been sold on the website it’s a case of going through each token and manually linking it up to an order (this is where the Excel spreadsheet mentioned earlier helps).

We check all tokens received as payment on a weekly basis to ensure they have been redeemed; again this can be a long task if some tokens haven’t been redeemed at the time of the booking.

Since introducing the spreadsheet it's been a lot easier to track potential mistakes and issues but overall it is a long process. We sell our own gift certificates as well which is much easier as it can all be managed through Tessitura. We have considered (and are still considering) whether it is worth us continuing to sell and redeem the tokens as it is so much extra work. However, now that we are a part of it, it could be difficult to withdraw from a customer service point of view, as our customers expect us to be a part of the scheme. We not really reached a final conclusion on whether it is worth us still being part of it. For the time being our current system is working so we will see how it goes!

I hope this helps, but if you would like us to explain this in further detail let me know and we could speak to you about it.

Thanks,

Sarah