This is not very Tessitura related, more general ticketing for the performing arts.
When we launch sales for our upcoming Festival we have an issue with long call times. A lot of our audience members buy early and buy a lot. Some of these buyers are also a little bit older, don't use our website, and demand call time (sometimes our box office associates are on the phone with one customer for over an hour on the 1st day of sales, which cripples us when trying to get through 100 voicemails). We have a really small staff at onsale (5-6 call agents tops on the phones at one time). We are a multi-venue (12-13 venues), multi-genre performing arts Festival.
Does anyone have any recommendations on how to move a call along? Any specific tactics when recommending seats, reviewing pricing, recommending performances, etc.? I'm not talking about shortcuts within Tessitura, we already try to train in that. Mostly just how to move a customer along to complete a sale faster without the customer feeling rushed?
Hi Katie,
I don't have any specific ideas on how to move them along on the call, but we've really pushed our patrons to our website by offering incentives for them to purchase there, ie: lower handling fees, web only discounts on certain performances, that type of thing.
We also allow our patrons to mail/fax/email in their orders (archaic, I know!) but this also cuts down on calls to our call centre as those patrons know that their orders will be filled before the actual on-sale, so again incentivizing them to not call in.
Michele
Hi Michele,
Thanks for the advice! Question in regards to patrons sending in their orders- Have you ever had an issue with that kind of creating a "grey area" when it comes to when your onsale launches? Do you advertise that you take orders like that, or is it really only for customers you know will need the extra attention? If you are accepting orders prior to onsale, do you ever have any customer service issues with those who wait to call in on the 1st day and then find out they could have "jumped the line"?
Thanks!
We have a staggered on sale for our members, so each member level gets their day to place their orders. Mail/fax/email orders can be sent in as soon as patrons get their brochure. These are then filed in order of receipt by member level. If level A begins online on Monday, then our reps are keying those mail/fax/email orders on Monday and contacting patrons for payment. Then level B starts Tuesday, so we key those orders on Tuesday. It really saves on inbound calls and keeps the lines free for those experiencing any web issues. As for seating, we do keep research notes as to favoured seats and if there are no notes, we'll look back to last season to see where they sat and book similar.