Southampton FC today (28 February) announced a major new benefit for its supporters with the official launch of its real-time interactive on-line ticket office, the first Premiership club to offer this service.
The innovative service will allow supporters to log in and act as the ticket operator. In short, they will be able to choose the stand and block in which they wish to sit and the computer will show them the best seats available at that very time.
It also means that the entire stadium can be made available for sale over the internet, giving the fan who wants to purchase over the internet, exactly the same choice of seat as the fan who comes into the Ticket Office or phones.
Fans can also state their favourite seat via the internet and the computer will always try to allocate that seat for future on-line purchases.
Under other systems, only certain areas of the stadium are made available via the internet, thus providing fans with a limited choice on-line.
Southampton’s chairman Rupert Lowe predicts a substantial demand for the new service: ‘At Southampton we are continually looking at ways of improving customer service and we believe we are the first Premiership club to offer fans the chance to choose their seat on-line.
‘We have nearly doubled our average attendance in the space of one season to around 30,000 and of the last seven homes games five have been sold out in advance. Against that background and in this day and age we believe we should be able to make it easier for our customers to buy tickets. It is unreasonable to expect fans to continue to queue for tickets at a ticket office in all weathers or to experience a long wait on the phone. The new service will eliminate the need to queue and I am sure it will be successful.’
The service is available to the Club’s 17,500 season ticket holders and 23,000 members.
David Luker, the Club’s Ticket Manager said: ‘In the past when tickets have initially gone on sale for big matches supporters have had to wait too long either queuing in person at the Ticket Office or trying to get through on the phone. It has understandably been frustrating. The new service will minimise that problem. Another advantage is that by buying on-line fans will also avoid paying the normal handling fee associated with credit card purchases.’
Glenn Jackson, Technical Director of Software4Sport, the business solution provider to the Club, explains: ‘We have thoroughly enjoyed working with the Club to introduce this new service. Our market edge is the design of Talent sport that enables modules including Web Sales to integrate and run in real time.
Talent Web Sales makes match day and season ticket sales available from the live ticket database, ending the need to allocate blocks of tickets for internet-only sales. And of course Talent sport accumulates information about customers on-line, saving time, increasing accuracy and automatically building a high value customer base for the business’.
How the interactive on-line ticket office works:
Log on at www.saintsfc.co.uk
Click the register button on the site, where you will be prompted to provide your customer details.
These details are then sent via e-mail to the Club’s ticket office, and a response will be sent within 24 hours providing the customer with an user id and password.
Anyone registering is checked to ensure that they either have a valid membership or are a season ticket holder.
Once confirmation is received, the customer can log in and purchase their tickets.
For further information please contact:
James Cornelius
Bell Pottinger Public Relations
T: 020 7861 2443
M: 07714 329787
E: jcornelius @bell-pottinger.co.uk