Question about renewing tix

[theTurning]

So I got my renewal email and went through the whole process this week. Same old same old regarding moving seats; you just type in the changes you're requesting and hope for the best. My dad and I would like to move, not even to better seats, just to a different part of the stadium.

My question is this: The initial online process for choosing seats in TCF was great. You had your allotted time, could see exactly what was available and picked exactly where you were going to sit. Is that process just too difficult to sustain from year-to-year?

Hoping someone here on GH might have some insight.

 

[GoAUpher]

So I got my renewal email and went through the whole process this week. Same old same old regarding moving seats; you just type in the changes you're requesting and hope for the best. My dad and I would like to move, not even to better seats, just to a different part of the stadium.

My question is this: The initial online process for choosing seats in TCF was great. You had your allotted time, could see exactly what was available and picked exactly where you were going to sit. Is that process just too difficult to sustain from year-to-year?

Hoping someone here on GH might have some insight.

That system comes from a 3rd party vendor (Seats3D by Ballena Technologies...can still look at the U's seatmap here). I don't know if anyone has confirmed this with the TO, but my guess has always been that the cost to use the system each season is more than the U is willing to invest.

 

[theTurning]

Thanks for the seatmap. Brings back memories! But yeah I figured it just might not be sustainable. Still would be nice some time in the future. We kind of want to bounce around the stadium. Like it would be fun to have something in 150 one year and the top row of 206 the next.

 

[GoAUpher]

Thanks for the seatmap. Brings back memories! But yeah I figured it just might not be sustainable. Still would be nice some time in the future. We kind of want to bounce around the stadium. Like it would be fun to have something in 150 one year and the top row of 206 the next.

I'm hopeful that it's one of those things that the U could be convinced to see the value in. It would make the seat improvement process much smoother and would be a huge customer service win. This assumes that the cost isn't really exorbitant of course.

 

[Tater]

I can't imagine creating a program for mapping seats would be overly difficult. Funny that the U can't get some comp sci students to whip something up.

 

[highwayman]

So I got my renewal email and went through the whole process this week. Same old same old regarding moving seats; you just type in the changes you're requesting and hope for the best. My dad and I would like to move, not even to better seats, just to a different part of the stadium.

My question is this: The initial online process for choosing seats in TCF was great. You had your allotted time, could see exactly what was available and picked exactly where you were going to sit. Is that process just too difficult to sustain from year-to-year?

Hoping someone here on GH might have some insight.

The only problem being: To be fair, you would have to allow every season ticket holder this opportunity every year. In order, by points. How many holders actually did it in 2009 on the internet? I think I heard around 50%. Too arduous, too time consuming. A logistic nightmare for a season by season process.

 

[theTurning]

The only problem being: To be fair, you would have to allow every season ticket holder this opportunity every year. In order, by points. How many holders actually did it in 2009 on the internet? I think I heard around 50%. Too arduous, too time consuming. A logistic nightmare for a season by season process.

Right, but the current process does the same thing by hand. Someone sits there and reads every request, somehow checks seat availability and reassigns the tickets. That seems 100x more difficult and time-consuming.

 

[theTurning]

I can't imagine creating a program for mapping seats would be overly difficult. Funny that the U can't get some comp sci students to whip something up.

That's what kills me: It already exists. The 2009 process was great. They don't have to reinvent the technology, they just have to figure out how to let people use it every year.

 

[Golden Elephant]

I've gotta agree with you - it seems the U should be able to do this.

But I'm not upset with how it is because they said that if there is space available to move my tix, they would call me to confirm that the new seats are OK before actually moving me. So, I'm fine with that arrangement. It would be nice to be able to do the online renewal thing, but if 95+% of people are renewing, then I'm probably not going to move much anyway.

But the details are key here to the reason I think they don't do it. They'd have to educate all the season ticket holders about the process, then man the support hotlines when everybody did it. I had no problem renewing online, and I thought it was a slick process, but I'm also very comfortable doing stuff online. If highwayman is correct, and the online sign-up was only 50%, I understand why they wouldn't want to go through that again. Though, OTOH, if you could opt-out of the online thing, then only us folks who are comfortable with it would do it, and it might be a much, much smaller operation.

Well, we'll see if they do anything in the future, but unless they get a bunch of people clamoring for it, I don't think they'll change.

 

[DLguy]

I think one reason is time. I think right now, they have a person that goes thru all the seat requests, looks at the moving comments, and accomodates the best they can and moves on to the next person. Takes just a few minutes. If it is online, then each person would have to have a time slot open for them to go in and look at a map, and pick seats. How big of a time slot are you going to give them? The process back in 2009 took months. This would be a huge time consumption for the U to have a time for each season ticket holder to upgrade. Plus, seat upgrades is like a puzzle. They want to have as few single seats as possible.

If you give a good enough description of what you are looking for, the TO will take care of you.

 

[nooram]

Current Seat improvement process

 

[monk10]

I can't imagine creating a program for mapping seats would be overly difficult. Funny that the U can't get some comp sci students to whip something up.

A thread that is dedicated to the current usability of a process should not be solved by developers (comp sci students) that have the hardest time grasping usability issues.

 

[monk10]

That's what kills me: It already exists. The 2009 process was great. They don't have to reinvent the technology, they just have to figure out how to let people use it every year.

The introduction of the technology solution wouldn't reduce the need for someone to have to do it by hand. On a very simplistic level there are people who don't want to do it online, and therefore would require someone to rectify the online system with those who are doing it by hand.

There is a base assumption that the number of people requesting change is less then during 2009 when everyone was requesting their tickets for the first time. One would have to understand the technology cost of implementing an online solution for a segment of the users interacting with this use case.

How many people are requesting change every year? Is the overhead of doing it by hand greater then the technology cost of implementing a solution?

 

[Swaggerson]

Ticket office called me to upgrade

I got a call earlier today thanking me for my renewal and asking if I would like to "upgrade" into the donation seats...happy where I am, thank you very much.