Online ticketing

[andy jones]

For what it's worth ...

Yes we have the age old problem of the ticket office.

But surely the ray of hope is the systematic sorting of long time, ongoing, problems since Carol took over?

Rome wasn't built in a day and turning Vale Park into a modern day ground is certainly a bigger job than building a city! 😳 

[Trumpingtonvale]

4 minutes ago, andy jones said:

For what it's worth ...

Yes we have the age old problem of the ticket office.

But surely the ray of hope is the systematic sorting of long time, ongoing, problems since Carol took over?

Rome wasn't built in a day and turning Vale Park into a modern day ground is certainly a bigger job than building a city! 😳 

Short term pain for long term gain I suppose.  I must be very lucky (and possibly in a minority?) in that last season and this I’ve never had  an issue ordering my season tickets/match tickets on line for home or away fixtures, though I’ve never understood how my loyalty points were derived (never added up to what I thought they should be - sometimes more sometimes less than I’d calculated at different times during last season). However, having driven up from Cambridge to queue for hours on the car park for Exeter tickets only to miss out by being 10/15 places from the front when they ‘closed the doors’ what we have now is still an improvement in my eyes but obviously there’s some way to go for everyone to be satisfied.

Who knows, if we’d had a pre-season home game or two perhaps new systems/procedures would have been tested then rather than us having to be Guinea pigs in the season, but at least we now seem to have more opportunities like the forums and local radio ‘phone ins’ for the fans to provide feedback and find out what’s going on.

[Wrex]

23 minutes ago, andy jones said:

Rome wasn't built in a day and turning Vale Park into a modern day ground is certainly a bigger job than building a city! 😳 

Saudi Arabia's new city is costing $500 billion to construct so I'd probably have to disagree with you on that one

[NorthwoodValiant]

5 minutes ago, Wrex said:

Saudi Arabia's new city is costing $500 billion to construct so I'd probably have to disagree with you on that one

Its a trillion actually

[NorthwoodValiant]

5 minutes ago, Trumpingtonvale said:

Short term pain for long term gain I suppose.  I must be very lucky (and possibly in a minority?) in that last season and this I’ve never had  an issue ordering my season tickets/match tickets on line for home or away fixtures, though I’ve never understood how my loyalty points were derived (never added up to what I thought they should be - sometimes more sometimes less than I’d calculated at different times during last season). However, having driven up from Cambridge to queue for hours on the car park for Exeter tickets only to miss out by being 10/15 places from the front when they ‘closed the doors’ what we have now is still an improvement in my eyes but obviously there’s some way to go for everyone to be satisfied.

Who knows, if we’d had a pre-season home game or two perhaps new systems/procedures would have been tested then rather than us having to be Guinea pigs in the season, but at least we now seem to have more opportunities like the forums and local radio ‘phone ins’ for the fans to provide feedback and find out what’s going on.

You could actually check how they calculated what points you had, and you could export the spreadsheet to excel.

I also have had no troubles whatsoever with tickets

[robf]

33 minutes ago, Doha said:

My point of view on ticketing comes solely from wanting to be protective of PVFC and its interests.

The online ticketing platform is not fit for purpose. It shouldn't take people 3 hours, like it did Jacko, to get a ticket for Blackpool because the hamsterwheel server ground to a halt. People shouldn't have their card debited but not get a ticket confirmation message & email, not least because it then takes up club staff time and resources the next day when fans have to try to ring up or go out of their way to show up in person to make sure it actually did go through and they actually do have a ticket.

We are all about trying to grow the fanbase. Carol's ambition is a 10,000+ average. Mega, I love that ambition. If you're a weary experienced Vale fan you are used to getting frigged about and the ticketing portal crashing every away ticket release, points resetting without warning, 1876 membership discounts not being applied correctly, only being allowed to buy 1 away ticket despite having 2+ STs linked to your account, turnstile scanners being down etc, it's all par for the course and so you persevere. If you're not a Vale fan but you're wanting to start taking your kids to the football for the first time for summat do and see the big away game as an attractive proposition, or if you've just moved into the area and are curious, or the thousand other reasons where we could attract a new money spending fan to the club, you're not going to bother again when the website crashes on you and the office phone just goes to voicemail, and you can't get a ticket without going out of your way, you can't be bothered with the whim anymore. Worse, you might end going to that lot up the road instead. We could be missing out on future diehards who over their lifetimes could quite easily each spend tens of thousands at the club, simply through making it too much of a ballache to get properly involved.

For every 'product' we have, tickets, food and drink, merchandise, membership packages, we have got to make them all as accessible and easy to buy as possible.

100% agree and I know it's said as constructive criticism in the hope that solving it will benefit the club.

I do wonder if it's time to research a completely new system? Surely that's the sort of project the team at the club would be used to doing - that is:

• Come up with a list of key processes you want the system to do e.g. import your existing database of fans/ST holders / server capacity to cope with surges in demand  / a system that is upgradeable and so on
• Do a competitive analysis and see what systems other clubs use / see if they match your key processes
• Get some tenders in to compare the cost / customer support / capacities of each system
• Come up with an implementation plan with some commercial goals in it for the provider (in that if they fail to meet them then penalties are applied) to ensure it is produced efficiently and to budget
• In other words a complete root and branch removal of the existing system and replacement by a modern, efficient system

I know it's easy to say the above without knowing the budget but surely the benefits outweigh any one-off costs for the club in the long-term.

Moving to a new system may take time and effort but I think communication is key. If the club tell the fans they want to take their time and get it right then I suspect the majority of fans would be OK to bear with them if it would take until (say) next summer to come up with a better solution.

I think we'd all be happier with them taking a proper, long-term approach than trying to patch up the existing one.

As @Doha says it just isn't fit for purpose. A new, potentially off the shelf white label system could also do all the things that @Doha mentions in not antagonising existing fans and potential new fans by being quick and easy to use -  so it's a key Vale Park system and they need to get it right as the benefits are enormous if they do. 

[NorthwoodValiant]

I wonder if we could use skiddle or anything like that

[vallyunt]

I think moving the ticket office into the club shop is so people can look at what is on offer for the merchandise where as before you could get your ticket then walk straight back out of the door. 

I speak from experience as when I went to collect my season ticket this week it cost me an extra £60!

[Rory]

2 hours ago, NorthwoodValiant said:

Well considering all anyone has ever done for the past year is moan about ticketing, hopefully everyone will be over the moon that the club have gotten rid of the people responsible.

Makes perfect sense to me.

Or perhaps everyone will moan about that as well now

Makes sense to me too, but shutting it down seems a strange way of dealing with it to be fair.

[NorthwoodValiant]

Just now, Rory said:

Makes sense to me too, but shutting it down seems a strange way of dealing with it to be fair.

Potentially now that a lot of tickets are bought online there isn't the same demand for a permanently staffed ticket office

[philpvfc]

39 minutes ago, NorthwoodValiant said:

I wonder if we could use skiddle or anything like that

Skiddle is fine but they will charge either the club or the fans for using them. Just hope they don’t use Ticketmaster.

[Rory]

Just now, NorthwoodValiant said:

Potentially now that a lot of tickets are bought online there isn't the same demand for a permanently staffed ticket office

Seemed to be when I was queing out the doors and onto the car park on a Monday afternoon the other week.

The online system is broken for me anyway, they've revoked my membership.

[philpvfc]

15 minutes ago, vallyunt said:

I think moving the ticket office into the club shop is so people can look at what is on offer for the merchandise where as before you could get your ticket then walk straight back out of the door. 

I speak from experience as when I went to collect my season ticket this week it cost me an extra £60!

I would guess it’s so the people working in the club shop can be responsible for both and not having either stood round doing nothing. They can employ extra staff if need be and take responsibility for both club shop and ticket office.

[NorthwoodValiant]

3 minutes ago, philpvfc said:

Skidded is fine but they will charge either the club or the fans for using them. Just hope they don’t use Ticketmaster.

Yes they would charge the club but if the club is saving on wages then perhaps it would be net neutral

[philpvfc]

3 minutes ago, NorthwoodValiant said:

Yes they would charge the club but if the club is saving on wages then perhaps it would be net neutral

Good job you knew what I was on  about….bloody predictive text, could have been taken a lot worse