Why is online shopping fun but online ticket purchases frustrating?
The answer is simple. The market for ticketing software is rooted in a different context. In the past, ticket software applications were programmed to be operated by a company employee and were designed to enable staff, for example in a museum, to complete as much administrative work as possible. This included ticket sales via the cash desk, personnel administration, complex customer management, accounting tasks and contingent management. Online ticket sales were a mere afterthought. The result was highly practical but not pretty. This was compounded by the fact that the graphics of today’s online ticket shops are 20 years out of date.
Today we need to decide who our target group is: your employees or the visitor? Not all clients reach the same answer, but it is clear that purchasing habits have changed radically over the last two years. To take one example: on average, museums used to sell a maximum of 20% of their tickets online, some 60% on the door and a further 20% through distribution partners. Today however, 90 % of sales are made online and up to 80 % of these are made on the in-house website. As such, it becomes clear that it is no longer the employee who is the target group, but the visitor themselves.
Technological progress means that ticket systems no longer need to do everything; the crucial requirement is that the various technical tools – the ticket shop, CRM management, merchandise management and space management – are interconnectable. Only specialization brings efficiency and top performance. This in turn enables the combination of several expert software solutions: match the best online shop with the most suitable cash and entry solution and the guide management that best caters to your needs.
Creating the best possible user experience requires us to satisfy visitor needs. These are based on their previous experiences of online shopping, such as a mobile-optimized service, intuitive operation, no long sales processes, “the 3-clicks-to-ticket rule”, the availability of express payment methods, the offer of additional products, security and service.
Put yourself in your visitors’ shoes and see if buying a ticket at your attraction is fun. If it is not, change something!
