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How to Move a Slow Phone Sale

Katie Hetrick
$organization

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?

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  • $organization

    Incentives to use the website are a good idea - online only promotions are a good way to get people to purchase online.

    As for phone sales, it is a difficult balancing act trying to ensure the patron feels taken care of while also managing call time. A few strategies I've used during lengthy subscription sales:

    • Ask if they have their show dates/times ready to go at the top of the call and if they haven't try to direct them towards the program or website before calling in to purchase. Try to work more with the mindset that they are calling the box office for ticket sales, not festival info. 
    • If you're using packages it helps if the associate asks for the show date & times to start and explains they will discuss seating, quantity and pricing after
    • For seating, avoid asking the patron where they would like to sit and instead ask something along the lines of "shall I place you in the best available seating" or "best available in X price level"? Most patrons will simply agree they want the best available, or will speak up if they have accessibility needs or a specific request. Stay away from discussion of row/seat numbers and instead get an idea of where they would like to be and seat best available. It's much faster than telling the patron what's available and having them decide - your associates know the space the best
    • If the patron continually wants to confirm information suggest that they give you a moment to put the order together and you will be sure to confirm the everything (date/time/price) once the order is complete before getting any payment information

    Good luck!



    [edited by: Katherine Beaulieu at 11:52 AM (GMT -6) on 31 Aug 2017]
Reply
  • $organization

    Incentives to use the website are a good idea - online only promotions are a good way to get people to purchase online.

    As for phone sales, it is a difficult balancing act trying to ensure the patron feels taken care of while also managing call time. A few strategies I've used during lengthy subscription sales:

    • Ask if they have their show dates/times ready to go at the top of the call and if they haven't try to direct them towards the program or website before calling in to purchase. Try to work more with the mindset that they are calling the box office for ticket sales, not festival info. 
    • If you're using packages it helps if the associate asks for the show date & times to start and explains they will discuss seating, quantity and pricing after
    • For seating, avoid asking the patron where they would like to sit and instead ask something along the lines of "shall I place you in the best available seating" or "best available in X price level"? Most patrons will simply agree they want the best available, or will speak up if they have accessibility needs or a specific request. Stay away from discussion of row/seat numbers and instead get an idea of where they would like to be and seat best available. It's much faster than telling the patron what's available and having them decide - your associates know the space the best
    • If the patron continually wants to confirm information suggest that they give you a moment to put the order together and you will be sure to confirm the everything (date/time/price) once the order is complete before getting any payment information

    Good luck!



    [edited by: Katherine Beaulieu at 11:52 AM (GMT -6) on 31 Aug 2017]
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