I know we are a bit behind the times in this but we are finally thinking about doing away with Print at Home tickets in favor of mobile tickets; at this time we use Appscension. So most orders have the option between Hold at Box Office, Mail, Mobile app, or PAH. I don't think our leadership is quite ready to go to Mobile only like a lot of organizations have started adopting, but we're trying to convince them to at least get rid of PAH. The concern is that right now about 40% of our orders are done PAH, most being single ticket purchases. Subscribers overwhelmingly choose mail most of the time. If any organization out there did phase our PAH tickets, but still offers mail, pick up, and mobile, did you see this decision shift delivery more to mobile or did you see an uptick in mail orders?
Or any organizations that have gone mobile only, did you see any push-back from patrons? Our subscriber/donor base is on the older side, and there are concerns about upsetting them. We did have 2 Broadway shows in the fall that required mobile only, and vocal customer complaints were minimal, those people were offered ticket pick up instead. But hearing about other's experiences might help convince us make a more informed decision.
This is something we're working through as well and navigating how to assist more patron's with Mobile Entry. One of the things we're in the midst of developing is troubleshooting guides our representatives can send to customers easily, using pre programmed emails in our Customer Engagement software. We're modifying them now but they have some step by step instructions, a video, and some basic troubleshooting links based on the patterns we see with customers calls and emails. It's still a work in progress so I'm interested in what others are doing.
For those shows that required Mobile only tickets, we definitely had to publish user friendly directions to simplify things for customers and staff. So, moving in that direction we'll have to consider providing updated and easy to find directions for all our customers.
Hey Jesse,
At our org, we are hopefully looking to transition away from Print-at-home PDF tickets and start using "Mobile Tickets" instead. Is that what you are thinking here or is the idea to try to move people to the Appscension app to get their ticket?
We also use Instant Encore/Appscension to allow for a Mobile App delivery for tickets, but our usage is fairly low.
We also too have a audience demographic that skews older, but I would push back on the idea that older folks are not able to adopt new technology. We will always offer will-call or mail tickets to those who request it for that purpose. But you may be surprised how many tech savvy seniors are out there looking to prove they can hang with the young kids too! I agree with Jennifer that it does come down to communication and training and good customer service, which I am sure you and your team can provide!
I think the industry trend is to adopt digital delivery and we have a unique opportunity to guide our older demographic to using this technology in a much more customer service focused way than say MLB, NBA, and even cities with digital parking meters can.
We moved almost exclusively to mobile tickets as I was starting my position as Ticketing Manager at my current org in 2021. In the first year, we made mobile the default option, but allow tickets to be accessed via email or through TNEW (and now in the mobile wallets). They can still be printed, and that functionality is better in v16 than it was in v15. We started charging a small fee for mailing, but that didn't deter many folks. In the past 6-8 months, we've simply done away with mailing tickets except for large groups.
We did a pretty drawn out campaign on teaching people how to use the mobile tickets, and while we did have a lot of push back initially, it hasn't made any of our subscribers leave, even those that don't have an email address. We do still have Will Call available, and had enough trouble in the beginning that we started printing essentially mini tickets for all ticketholders onto mailing labels instead of doing reprints on ticket stock. It's faster than looking up their account and reprinting, and helps drive home the point that we're moving away from printing tickets. I also found a good source for the labels, so it's way more cost efficient. This solution probably only works if your houses are relatively small (mine are ~300 and ~500), but if you have larger houses and higher tech, you might be able to create a PDF manifest that FOH staff can have on iPads or something to that effect.
All that said, our patrons have largely learned how it all works and many of them love the new mobile wallet feature. Our Will Call lines are usually not long, and we've cut a big percentage of our mailing budget.