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Somerset County Cricket Club bowled over by online ticketing

When Somerset County Cricket Club first started using the online advance booking system ticketingsolutions to sell memberships and match tickets for the 2006 season they had no idea quite how successful it would be. Sally Donoghue, Operations Manager at Somerset County Cricket Club, explains, “advance sales were at an all time high before the season had even started. And then we sold out in advance for the first time ever in the Club’s history for June’s Sri Lanka International match and we realised that the system was capable of much more than we’d initially expected”.

Sell-out Success

With the Internet-delivered ticketingsolutions system handling all web, phone and walk-up sales for Somerset and providing the Club with its own-branded online sales kiosk, tickets went on sale early this year. “We used to be limited to just selling advance tickets over the phone and only for selected matches”, says Sally. “Since we implemented the ticketingsolutions system our supporters have been able to buy advance tickets online for every single match this season, including those for the action-packed Twenty20 games. And, as a result, our ticket sales have been going from strength to strength. We’ve even had another sell-out match for July’s Twenty20 game against Warwickshire”.

Open All Hours

As an ‘open all hours’ ticket office the ticketingsolutions system allows the Club to provide its supporters with a consistently high level of service. Customers can purchase their tickets quickly and easily online, at a time to suit them, and will automatically receive an email confirming their purchase. Tickets are then posted to them from the Club’s county ground in Taunton.

Queue Busting Service

With such a reliable booking system in place the Club is able to manage all its ticketing operations more effectively. As Sally says, “we used to have to manually hand-write each ticket which was not only labour-intensive, but also meant supporters had to wait longer for their tickets. Now using ticketingsolutions we can run off printed thermal tickets directly from the system in a matter of minutes and these are then posted out to the supporters, enabling us to cut queue times at the ground”.

An additional benefit of the ticketingsolutions automated system is the fast delivery of funds from credit and debit card sales direct to the Club’s bank account. “Payments are processed immediately, without any delays,” says Sally, “and the real-time sales reporting within the system also makes administration and financial reconciliation much easier”.

Improved Customer Service

Advance booking not only secures more revenue for the Club but also helps protect it against bad weather causing low attendance on match day, so the benefits to the Club’s cash-flow have been significant. Whilst the most noticeable advantage of the ticketingsolutions system is its ability to increase advance ticket sales, this is not the only positive change it has brought about at the Club. “We’re delighted that the system makes our ticketing operations easier to manage and this means we can provide a much improved service to supporters. Because we can now sell tickets through so many different channels, we’re all looking forward to many more sell-out matches like Sri Lanka and Warwickshire”, says Sally.