Selecting a Box Office System: Shine where it Matters

In these situations, look for ways to serve the needs of both parties. For example, perhaps make the information collection fields optional. Customers who indeed want you to know them better will provide the information. In some cases there is no easy answer, and you’ll just have to decide whose need trumps the other’s. The point is, though, to ensure consideration is made of your customers’ needs and to consciously assess the trade-offs.

When selecting a box office system, it is useful to use the following framework to assess the value of features and functions both to your customers and to you:

Let’s consider each of these quadrants

High Value to You and Your Customers: Shine!

First, in the upper right are features that are valuable to both you and your customers. Examples include:

• Season tickets
• Ability to customize tickets
• Low software cost
• Print-at-home tickets

You want a system that really shines in those areas, because you will be delighting your customers and serving your own needs.  Identify these features and ace them!

Value to only You or Your Customers: Contain

In the upper left are areas that are of value to you or may be absolutely required by you to effectively manage your events, but are not of value to your customers. Examples may include:

• Unique number and bar codes on the ticket
• Ability to check patrons in and redeem the ticket
• Patron demographic data

In the lower right are areas that customers may want, but they do not help you manage your events and sell more tickets. Be careful about dismissing these because they may be required to deliver the best overall experience to your customers. Examples here include

• Ability for customers to easily return a ticket and get a refund
• Ability to switch their ticket for a different date, time or show

For features in these quadrants, our advice is “Contain”. You will definitely need features in each of these two categories. However too many feature in the upper left may frustrate your customers, too many in the lower right may drive up your costs or require a high degree of support.

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No Value to You or Your Customers

Run for the hills! There are aspects of some box office ticketing systems that are of no value to you or your customers or may even be of negative value or cost. Examples include:

• High fees to the ticketing company
• Requiring customers to drive somewhere to purchase or pick up the tickets
• Mistakes – overselling, printing errors, etc.

You want to avoid these like the plague. You will know their fees, so you can compare them to other alternatives.  Regarding reliability or other aspects in this quadrant, our advice is to ask their customers, not just references they provide, but customers you find on your own and contact.

Find out more about how to define requirements and review a list of typical box office software requirements by downloading the White Paper.