Curious if anyone has had success with subscription payment plans that go beyond a short timeframe (ie before tickets are printed and mailed to subscribers) but rather allow purchasers to spread the payments over the whole season? Aside from the accounting implications, I'm curious about managing expirations, delinquency, and the timing of printing tickets.
We currently allow subscribers to pay in 3 installments, but require them to be all paid off before printing their tickets. We'd really like to make it more of a true monthly payment plan, like Netflix, but with the ability to hold folks accountable for the full amount (more like buying a sofa with a payment plan). Very curious to talk to anyone who has ventured into this realm.
Thanks in advance for any insights!
We allow 4 payments. 25% at the time of booking with the remainder spread across fixed dates that we choose I.e we don’t offer much flexibility but we do see an uptake from new subscribers using this service. We also charge a small fee for it ,$12. Credit card details for patrons using the service are stored on account.
There is a defined cut off period for the service it’s only available until a fixed point - the aim is to drive early conversion.
Having the payments due on set days and the service having a cut off date makes it easier to Administer and schedule the invoice billing utility in advance.
We pay the order off in full, using an invoice payment type and mail the tickets. We also offer this service online. One of my predecessors did a magic trick in sql.
Payment dates are set to make sure that we cover costs for what they would likely have seen by that point in time to mitigate potential losses if we have to write off the invoice.
We use wordfly email to remind patrons of payment dates, dynamic content pulls out the last 4 digits of the card used for the first 25% payment that is linked to the invoice to remind them to update the card we have on file if it’s changed and then we have an SMS follow up for late payments (outside of Tess). We try one more charge for the late payers at a time notified Via an SMS and then tag the account with a CSI for staff to follow up if they fail to pay again.
If the patron defaults the tickets are cancelled. We have Nscan at our venues so they can no longer be used.
We have about 1200 - 2000 patrons using this option depending on the season and about 100-200 late payers each payment date.
Only 2 patrons have defaulted so far. We launched this in 2015.
The admin charge goes someway to covering staffing costs for follow up etc but there is a lot of work involved - having set dates makes it easier to manage and plan for.
Overall we have seen an increase in new subscribers using the service and returning the following year.
Email me if you would like any info on set up etc.
This is so helpful! I will definitely reach out with some follow up questions. Thank you!