Hi all,
We are thinking about offering payment plans as a way for people to pay for series subscriptions (we essentially have a choose your own package setup). We're worried about whether the economy will affect subscriptions and we think that maybe by allowing them to pay in installments they won't shy away from getting a subscription.
Do you offer this? How do you do it, if you do? Do you just do it with people who provide credit cards? How many installments in a payment plan do you allow, and do you allow the patron to pick the number of installments, or do you set it? Do you set a minimum? Do you ever have problems with nonpayment or bad credit cards?
One of the concerns that's been raised is that we offer discounts during the subscription period so that we can get the money in advance. If you've offered payment plans for awhile, have you seen more and more people take advantage of them, or is the percentage about the same from year to year?
Thanks for any guidance!
Leigh
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Leigh Chandler
Director of Marketing
Flynn Center for the Performing Arts
153 Main Street
Burlington, VT 05401
802.652.4509 direct
802.863.8788 fax
www.flynncenter.org
www.flynntix.org
Leigh,
We have offered payment plans for about 8 years but in the past 3 years we actually started to promote them.
We used to only offer a 2 installment option, but due to the economy we offered up to 8 installments for our upcoming season. We choose 8 because that was how many we could fit in before the start of our 09-10 season in September. They must choose between paying on the 1st of the month or the 15th.
It was also made clear that they would not get their season tickets until the entire balance was paid in full. This is important because we don't allow exchanges unless the patron has their tickets in hand and obviously unless you use an invoice, Tessi won't allow you to print an order unless it is totally paid for.
As for the percentage of how many took advantage of them in past seasons vs. the upcoming season, we are working on a report that will give us that date. I can tell you that from a first glimpse we still have more patrons pay upfront than in installments, but I can confirm with you as soon as our report is finished.
Finally, we don't have a huge number of bad credit cards. I would say for each run there is about 10-20 that we have to followup on, but when you are running near 700 transactions, 20 really isn't bad. :-)
I hope this helps, please feel free to contact me anytime at 615.687.6405.
Good Luck!
We have always offered a 3 payment plan but this year because of the economy we have stepped it up to a 3, 6 and 9 payment plans! The 3 payment plan is available by check and credit card. We pay all of our orders to invoice so we can print the tickets in advance of receiving all the money. As for the schedule, the 3 payment plan has set dates (for paper invoice purposes) and the 6 and 9 are billed every 30 days. I set up these date spreads in TR_Billing Schedule to make it easier on the CSRs.
Then we run the invoice billing report to automatically run the credit cards (everyday) and also run paper bills for those who paid by check on our 3 payment plan.
As for nonpayment, this is our first year with the longer range of installments so we shall see but as for the 3 pay, we always have some people whose credit card ends up being bad but we call and are able to resolve 99% of those issues.
We definitely are seeing more people take advantage of them this year, and it does delay when your money hits but that is not a problem in our case.
As for all the logistics involved, I would be happy to go into more detail if you would like!
Here is the text from our subscriber materials about the plans:
*NEW! A Variety of Payment Plans.
1) Renew by April 17 for THREE billing payments by check or credit card with no processing fee.
2) NEW! Renew by May 22 for SIX billing payments by credit card.
3) NEW! 10 Show Subscribers Only: Renew by May 22 for NINE billing payments by credit card.
If you pay by check, you will be invoiced with your remaining payments due on May 22 and June 26. If you pay by credit card, you will automatically be charged in 30 day intervals. Six and nine month options are available by credit card only and are accessed a $1 per installment processing fee.
Thanks!
Amanda
Amanda Sheehan
Ticket System Administrator
Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park
From: Leigh Chandler [mailto:bounce-leighchandler7119@tessituranetwork.com] Sent: Friday, May 08, 2009 3:07 PM To: Amanda Sheehan Subject: [Tessitura Marketing Forum] Installments
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MTC has been offering an installment plan for ages (3 pauments). It's a great incentive for renewal for our patrons. We offer it free of charge as an early renewal benefit, and after that period passes we charge a small admin fee.
We as well use invoice billing so that we can "pay" the order off in full and bill the invoices. Our finance dept doesn't like partilally unpaid orders. This way you can print before your last installment if need be (we don't though)
The only issue that we have usually is with expired cards, and that's just to be expected. But when using the invoice billing report, you get a nice list of rejected cards and it makes follow up really easy. There is ususally about a dozen follow up calls needed after each billing run. But out of around 1000 orders, that's pretty darned good.
The process of installment plans pre-Tessitura was a 2 day affair of manual credit card entry, so it really was a pain...but now it's about an hour long process and it's finished. We LOVE it!!!!
If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to drop me a line.
TSO has had a few different versions of payment plans over the years.
Currently we have a "5 instalment" option, the total ticketing cost is broken up into 5 equal payments and charged on the 15th of the month, Feb-June.
When we process subscriptions in Oct/Nov, the year prior to the subscriptions season. (our season runs Jan-Dec) the tickets are posted out to our subscribers and the payment type of 5 instal is used. Our first main concert of the year is generally in March so the first payment will have been taken by this date and any problems will have been noticed. We have had very few problems with customers probably one a year we have had to chase for payments if the card was declined.
Every year the number of people opting for the instalment method has increased, approximately 40% of our subscribers for this current season.
When we were doing our call back to unrenewed subscribers for the 09 season it was great incentive for people that were worried about commiting to paying up front. Despite it being promoted quite clearly on our "how to book" section of the brochure a number of long time subscribers had not realised it was an option.
Brenda
We have offered a 2 installment plan for many years and have actively promoted it as long as we have had it. This year, with the way the economy is, we have added a new payment plan that is a total of 7 installments.
In this new plan the patron pays 25% on the first payment then the rest of the payments do not begin until July. This plan is only available to renewing subscribers and our renewal deadline is May 29th. The remaining balance is split over 6 months. We do charge a fee for this plan, because of the amount of work that goes in to it, but if they choose the 2 installment plan (the first payment is at the time of the order and the second payment is an arbitrary date, this year is July 31) we do not charge a fee. In the case of this new plan, they will not receive their all their tickets at once as they will not complete paying for the tickets until after the season has already started.
We are paying off all the orders by invoice so that we can print tickets in advance of full payment. Both plans are credit card only. While we do get some rejected cards, for the amount of transaction we are processing (usually 1,000+) the percentage of bad cards is very small and patrons are quick to respond when we call about needing a new card. We find that most of the rejects are cards that have been reported lost/stolen and the patron forgot to inform us.
As for the percentage of people, we have seen about the same percentage take advantage every year of our 2 installment plan, and so far this year this new payment plan hasn't really changed that. Most people still prefer paying in full.
We started a very simple payment plan this year. Basically 50% due up front and then 50% due one month from the initial date. We have had a good response with about a 5% buy in. We advertised this only in our renewal mailout. The paperwork has been minimal, and we have had no difficulties with bad credit cards. We accept post-dated cheques as well.
Hi Leigh,
We have done this for the first time this year and had a great response we used a 3 payment installment plan for subscribers with great success. I am also curious to see if anyone has implemented this on their websites.
That is the next step we would like to take. Has anyone done this? How did you implement it? Loads of questions. Don't hesitate to call directly if it's too much to add to a post.
Thanks,
Julie Wheeler
Box Office Manager
Santa Fe Opera
505-986-590
jwheeler@santafeopera.org
Has anyone had any luck passing a variable first payment amount to the Web API with a payment plan, and if so, how? In our application the first payment, due at the time of check out, needs to include any fees as well as the amount of the payment plan's first installation. The challenge is, we won't know the value of the first payment until the patron is ready to check out.
So, assuming we have a cart with $300 of tickets and $40 of fees, we need to tell the Web API to charge $90 at the time of checkout and schedule 5 monthly payments of $50. Similarly, the cart could contain only $20 in fees, but still have $300 worth of tickets making the first amount to be charged $70 instead of $90.
Any help would be truly appreciated.