I’m really excited about an upcoming opportunity to present at the NACMA convention this June in Anaheim on starting an outbound ticket sales staff in college athletics. It’s a topic I’m very familiar with and passionate about after seeing first-hand how it revolutionized how we approach ticketing at the University of Utah. We’ve moved from a transactional, call center model to a sales oriented, customer-centered relationship model. We’re generating more ticketing revenue than ever before and more importantly we have a more personal relationship with our fans and have improved the customer purchasing experience. We still have room for improvement but I’ve received a significant amount of unsolicited feedback from our fans about how much they enjoy having their own personal account representative that can service all of their ticketing needs.
Right now I’ve named the session- How to start a ticket sales staff: From selling it to your Athletic Director to hiring the right people to fit you needs. I’m not in love with the title- any suggestions would be much appreciated.
Here’s a basic outline of what I intend to cover:
How to sell the Ticket Sales Staff concept to your AD/boss
Emphasize the additional potential revenue generated and return on investment (ROI)
Wrap all your startup and ongoing costs into your ROI model
Don’t underestimate the improvement in relationships and customer service
Need to be the passionate champion of the concept- get as much internal buy-in up front as possible
Provide success stories/case studies from around the country
Provide an exit strategy in the rare instance that program isn’t matching your goals
Implementation Decisions
Types of Ticket Sales Staffs in college athletics (Full time, part time, seasonal sales academies)
What are your needs and goals? Matching your staffing to fit your needs
Hiring the right type of people
Compensation structures and strategies
Integration within your current Athletic Department structure- Marketing, Ticketing, Fundraising
Best Practices, Tips and Advice from current ticket sales managers in college athletics
Thanks for reading. I'm really hoping for some suggestions on how to improve or clarify some of my thoughts. Please post your comments below, email me at zlassiter@huntsman.utah.edu, and contact me on twitter
Wednesday, May 5, 2010
Starting a Ticket Sales Staff in College Athletics
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I think this is some interesting stuff. I am sending this to our marketing guy. We currently use the university event ticketing staff (they sell for every event on campus) to sell our tickets and there are some real downsides to that including customer service people that have little buy-in to our mission. I was reading today in Brian Solis' new book Engage about listening to customers--"outsourcing support and service caused a significant negative impact on customer satirfaction." I think this feeds right into what you're talking about. I hope you do some writing on the subject for those of us who won't be at NACMA.
ReplyDeleteZack, I can't wait to catch up with you and hear all of your successes.
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