Online Ticketing - response from Mr. Mansford

Gun point? A big stick? Odd turn of phrase that.

I used the online facility, but I didn't see the instructions until they were pointed out on here and even then I didn't think they were particularly clear or easy to implement once I understood what was required. It was the most difficult procedure for buying tickets I have ever encountered. Eventually I just made up a name and gave that imaginary person my email address so I could assign a ticket to someone else.

 

Mr Mansford's keen on communicating with supporters it seems so how about a nice easy to follow article in The Chron explaining this loyalty thing and how then to achieve it through online - it may prompt supporters who haven't used e-ticketing or those who don't have internet access to investigate and get involved.

Rather than assume everyone has a Facebook or Twitter account.

Understand your customers.

 

You didn't have the same trouble as I did, did you? Did you have to assign tickets for the Burton match?

 

No, but then read about the bother on here, tried again for a laugh and then I hard to start assigining etc.

Mind of its own

 

I don't necessarily disagree with the principles behind it, but the apparent assumption from the club that a post on social media is enough. Nobody Ive spoken to knows about it. The 'how we can force' comment is telling imho.

 

As a balanced view I have just ordered Chesterfield tickets on line, couldn't be simpler, didn't even get out of bed to do it. Same for Burton game. Didn't even read any instructions. Also heard some people saying how easy it was in the ground last night about ordering Burton game tickets.

 

As jay said I had a bit of a nightmare buying a ticket for a 2nd person until the instructions were pointed out to me but this was only for Burton game, i bought 2 tickets for the Colchester game and it was straight forward, like Marc as said I don't understand why I had to assign a name for the Burton game but not for last nights game

 

FWIW I think I'm pretty competent using a computer and I've been buying stuff over the web for 15 years+. Almost exclusively these days, I rarely buy owt other than food and bacca from a shop. I found it very difficult. I've never encountered problems like that on any other site. If your customers need detailed instructions on how to buy your product rather than the process being intuitive then there's something seriously wrong with the system. We've all got some serious bits of technology (PCs, laptops, smart phones, tablets) that do a multitude of tasks far more involved and complicated than buying tickets, but the manuals remain unread because the designers make it obvious what you have to do. Half of the fun of purchasing a new bit of kit is seeing how it works and it rewarding you with doing exactly what you wanted within minutes of picking it up. There was nothing fun about buying Burton tickets, just frustration.

 

League games seem to be easy, and once you have friends assigned it seems straightforwards. But there's (imho) a big issue of how this was all communicated to the wider fanbase.

 

So what Ben said in his email to Marc "There is no way we can adjust the settings so some supporters have to assign clients and some do not." and " if tickets are on sale to Season Ticket Holders only or if we have the ‘Add to Season Card’ enabled then supporters must assign each ticket to a different person." simply isn't true.

 

Dunno mate, I just bought multiple Burton tickets without assigning owt to anyone.

 

There's definitely a way of doing it then.

 

It was explained in his response I believe. You had to do it as you were assigning tickets to your season card.

 

I didn't. I had to assign the tickets but I didn't put them on my card, I printed them out. Well, I put mine on my card, the other one that I was struggling to buy I printed out.

 

He mentioned eticketing in his programme notes. He mentioned how many for the Burton match ordered online and said we'd collected 1,400 email addressess from it. I guess it will be easier once season card numbers have been added to an online account, as all the information doesn't need adding again in the future. It's a way of presuading fans to not pay on the day and always pay in advance so they can see on your account how many games you've been to incase in future we have strict away allocations so it's fairer.