Hello,
I first posted this in the ticketing forum, but maybe the customer service forum is a better (or just as good) place to ask the questions I have.
I am trying to make a case to our marketing department for doing away with our per-single-ticket handling fee. Part of the process is hearing from other people who've done away with handling fees and what their experience was.
If your organization has gotten rid of handling fees, any information you could share on any of the following topics would be very helpful. Thank you!
Allison
- Did you heavily publicize your decision to get rid of handling fees or did it just happen, quietly? Do you think the way you decided to go on this had an impact on patron response?
- What was the general patron response? Positive/negative/non-existent?
- Did you notice a difference in response between single ticket buyers and your subscriber base?
- Did you keep a subscription handling fee or other fees, or did you get rid of all fees?
- Did you increase ticket prices directly to compensate for the lost fee or did you use a price layer or additional price map to break out the fee but just have it be invisible to the patron?
- Was there patron push-back to the increase in prices, especially with a subtext along the lines of "I know what you're doing - you're still charging fees and I'm not happy about you hiding them"?
- Did you see an overall increase or decrease (or neither) in income after getting rid of handling fees?
We got rid of handling & credit card fees when we moved from our old Box Office system to Tessitura.
- Did you heavily publicize your decision?
Yes, in the sense that we pointed it out in all mailings when booking opened for the following season. We also launched a new website at the same time, and we included a message about the scrapping of handling fees in all promo about the website.
- Do you think the way you decided to go on this had an impact on patron response?
I like to think people saw it as part of our 'rebrand' - us moving into a new era of being more focused on the customer experience (i.e. an easier booking experience overall, including no handling fees).
When it was first introduced, we received many positive comments to Box Office operators. It generally made their lives easier because they got fewer complaints about fees!
I don't believe so.
We still charge a £1 per ticket exchange fee (up to a max. of £10). However, those who buy our highest-level season ticket are exempted from those fees as a bonus of their package.
We did this before Tessitura, so didn't have to deal with the set-up of getting rid of the fee. We didn't raise our prices specifically to compensate. The only reason we used to charge the fee was to cover the transaction fee of our third-party BO operator, so once we moved all that in-house our income in real terms didn't go down. We normally raise our prices in line with inflation anyway, so customers are used to our prices going up about £1 a year (perhaps you could fold a compensatory increase into your next scheduled increase?).
I don't see how people could justify that thinking. I mean, all ticket prices are essentially made up of discreet 'fees' that cover staffing, building maintenance, actor pay, etc.! If your ticket prices go up, that just reflects the constantly increasing expense of running a theatre. Luckily, our customers are used to slight yearly prices increases from us. What we now do instead is ask for a donation with every transaction. The lack of handling fee makes it an easier ask, plus you'd be surprised how willing people are to give when you phrase it as a voluntary 'donation' rather than a forced 'fee'. We make sure to make our charitable status well-known to them also.
This is difficult to quantify, since our income fluctuates between years dependent on a number of factors. What I can say is that we've seen a huge increase in individual donations since we replaced the fee with a donation ask. Furthermore since we're in the UK those donations can be gift-aided, so we actually end up with more cash than if we had a 'fee' of the same rate.
Hannah, thank you! Very helpful!
Open to any other responses that are out there too of course :)