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!