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Blog Entry 16 of 26 Audience Development Specialists
Do you want to learn how to build an audience for your events? During the week, join me on the adventures of audience development. It is my mission to help you to build a more loyal and satisfied audience!

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Audience Development - Top Customer Service

Contributed by: Shoshana Fanizza   on 3/23/2008

Many organizations find themselves either using community box offices, an online box office service, or hiring another organization that has a box office to sell their tickets. I know that due to money and small staff, it may be necessary to have another organization handle box office duties, but it does create a challenge in regard to audience development. Without control of the box office, the first person the customer speaks with is not someone from your organization. Do they know how to answer questions about your organization? Do they have top customer service skills in order to create good relations with your audience members or are they simply "doing their job?" Do they know about the events and how to book a subscription?

Many in house box office programs are becoming more affordable. Keeping your box office in house is one of the best audience development decisions you can make for your organization. It will help you to control the quality of your organization's customer service.

For those of you that do have control of some sort and can either train the other organization or have an in house box office system, the next thing to consider is properly training your box office people to become top customer service agents. Again, they are the first to speak with your patrons. If anything goes wrong, it could damage your relationship with your patron. If things are handled in top customer service fashion, you will find your patrons are happier with your organization.

Good customer service has been preached for many decades, but are you implementing quality service? The following are some things to consider for implementing a quality customer service program:

1. In house box offices give you the control to staff and train the right person for the position. You will want to find someone you has good customer service skills, has some marketing abilities, and deals with stress well since dealing with challenging patrons happens from time to time.

2. You may want to consider the box office manager position to be a more permanent position and not a temporary/seasonal position. Since the box office staff are the first in line to deal with your customers, consider someone that would enjoy this position and stay in it for a while. Terming your box office "entry-level" can cause you to constantly rotate your box office staff. This is very distressing for your patrons having to deal with someone new year after year. Also think how your rotating staff affects your ability to build relationships with your patrons.

3. Top customer service means making the patron happy. You may need to follow certain policies, but whenever you can go the extra mile to make your patrons happy, it is well worth the efforts. We all know that finding new patrons is more difficult and more expensive than keeping your existing ones.

For example, I once took a box office call and all the regular avenues for delivering her tickets didn't work for her. She needed the tickets right away. It happened that we had a staff member that lived very close to her office. I made arrangements for the staff member to deliver the tickets to her on their way home. What do you think happened next? The patron was so thankful, they not only profusely thanked the staff member, but they called to speak with the executive director to thank them as well and compliment our organization on our wonderful customer service.

4.The happier your patrons are each time they deal with your organization, the more they are likely to help you create positive word of mouth. Most people usually tell between 3-10 people about their experiences. If it is a negative experience due to indifferent or impolite customer service, that is 3-10 people that will know your organization isn't very nice to their patrons. If your service is extremely positive, then that is 3-10 people that will know how wonderful your organization is.

Going back to the above example, since the patron made the extra effort to call the E.D.to compliment the organization, it may be safe to assume that she also told her coworkers, friends and family about our organization. This eventually will add up to more patrons which means more ticket sales and donations!


5. Each box office staff needs to be trained in regard to knowing the information about your events and your organization and how to book the sale. There is nothing more exasperating than being tossed around through an organization's phone system in order to get an answer to your question or to finish the sale. Unless it is a highly targeted question, such as one only your marketing director or operations manager can handle, it is best to have an extremely knowledgeable box office staff. Having staff that stays from year to year will help knowledge retention in these positions. Make it a point to train your box office on specifics by creating a check list and testing them on each question. Make sure they have a FAQ sheet by their phone if they are new or have trouble remembering some of the answers. There is no shame in looking up the answer for a customer, and I assure you the customer will be happier knowing that the person who is supposed to be helping them is working on it rather than being tossed to the next person.

6. If for some reason your box office staff has a problem with a customer, have the box office staff offer to transfer them to a person higher up the organization ladder before the customer suggests in a huff to talk to the manager. The customer will appreciate it knowing that although you cannot help them, you will find someone who can. The other option is to put the customer on a short hold to get the answer for them.

7. Speaking of putting a customer on hold, make sure the customer is not on hold for over 2 minutes. Learn to pay attention to the phone alerts that are set. If for some reason you cannot get to their call, take a message and call them back within the next 30 minutes if possible or some other arranged time.

8. Smiling is important. Having a box office that enjoys talking with people and smiles during the transaction can really have a positive effect on your customer. The experience of the event starts with the purchasing of the tickets. I have seen people say "forget it" after getting crabby service.

9. In regard to marketing skills, you will want your box office people to be able to ask the customer certain questions in order to obtain add on sales or to convert to more expensive seats. Having someone in the box office that has this talent will have your customers happy that they are receiving the knowledge to make better purchasing decisions.

10. Top customer service in the box office will help make it easier to ask for an add on donation to the patron's order. If the patron had a top customer service experience, it is more likely they will consider a little add on donation. Add on donations, as mentioned in my last blog post, can really add up!


So I hope you consider increasing the quality of your customer service in your box office if you have some control over the hiring and the training of the box office staff. Top customer service can mean creating positive relationships with your existing patrons and creating new patrons after their good experiences. The customer is always right is the saying, but with top customer service, the customer is always happy is the better saying!

Until next time, may your audiences be happy and loyal ones, and if not, feel free to contact me!

~Shoshana~


Shoshana Fanizza is the founder of Audience Development Specialists. Her mission is to introduce organizations to their existing and potential audiences and to help them form more rewarding relationships with them.

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CONTRIBUTOR INFORMATION

Shoshana Fanizza

Boulder , CO

Shoshana Fanizza has posted 26 blog entries and 0 comments since joining on 1/18/2008. Shoshana Fanizza 's average blog rating is 5.
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