Making ticketing easier for the consumer and the client is the paramount goal at Etix. The question daily among the nearly 100 employees at Etix offices in Raleigh, N.C., and Nashville, Tenn., is the same: How can we help you sell more tickets?
But technology isn’t easy. That’s where the team of experts comes in, developing systems and processes that not only drill down to functionality but up to communicating change in a friendly and acceptable way to the client.
Today, Etix is rolling out one batch of improvements each month, coming from the backlog of client requests and new options available, explained Bob Seaton, chief technology officer. “Backlog is a prioritized list of the things we’re going to work on. If it matches with our user experience and helps drive ticket sales forward, we will address it.”
Each month, they prioritize the backlog and choose the “stories” to address over a two-week sprint, using a team of five to eight technicians. At the end of two weeks, they demonstrate to the product and sales teams. It’s a company event. “Every two sprints we have a release, so we have a release once a month now,” Seaton said.
But it’s all for naught unless one communicates what is coming and clients are ready to embrace change. “We have a product calendar we share with our clients and treat as our map. These are the big rocks. We focus on big rocks, then the pebbles and then the sand.”
This year, the important things are broad and the goals are clear. Joe Kustelski, Etix CEO, listed them:
• The user-experience (UX) has changed. When the Etix application was first defined, Mobile First was not even in the lexicon. “Half of all emails are read on a mobile phone now,” Kustelski noted. “One third of our page views now come from a mobile device.”
• Data and analytics are far more robust and Etix is differentiating its product with actionable analytics. “There is so much data out there. If you are the general manager of a venue, it’s better to have a couple of different reports that are important to you, delivered to you in a way you’d like to get them, and sharable,” Kustelski observed. “In our ecosystem, you can quickly get your partners the data they need.”
• Automation, segmentation and personalization (ASP) are “imbedded in our company,” Kustelski said. “ASP is the hallmark of what we do.”
For instance, after each event, Etix automatically sends reports to the box office manager and GM and automated thank-you emails to the patrons. “Then, guess what, here are the next three shows in the genre you like. The response rate is incredible from sending thank-you emails to consumers during the afterglow,” Kustelski said.
Refining and streamlining that consumer experience is very much a part of every improvement Etix implements. Dale Liszka, director of Technology for Rockhouse Partners, is particularly excited about improved tracking tools so the company can discover that user path and drill down to what’s effective and what’s not.
“This year, with some upgrades with Google Analytics, we have a clearer picture than ever of exactly how marketing and ticket purchasing works,” Liszka said.
For instance, A/B (choice) testing on checkout buttons, where five percent of consumers are given one option, five percent another, revealed that the most effective button text for the checkout was not “Buy Tickets” or “Get Tickets” or “Add Tickets,” it was “Find Tickets.” After an hour of gauging responses, the next 90 percent were sent the “Find Tickets” text. It was a small but exciting change and one Liszka wouldn’t have guessed.
“We want to make sure we can make it the most silky smooth transaction possible to check out,” Liszka said.
Going forward, they will keep checking that button. “That’s the exciting part about working here – we are nimble enough to do experiments like this. We were surprised by the results, but you cannot argue with the numbers,” Liszka said.
Liszka has been with Rockhouse Partners for five years, with eight years in ticketing. He was there for the transition from entertainment marketing to ticketing and marketing when Rockhouse Partners was acquired by Etix.
But throughout his tenure, the philosophy has not veered from the basic belief in venues, he said. “We think the venues have the most powerful marketing capital of everybody in this space. We are big advocates for venues and have been from day one.”
And Liszka believes that, in 2014, “venues are really getting in the game and realizing they have a lot of swing,” improving bookings and the venue profile with promoters and booking agents as well as consumers by using the data they have and the loyalty they’ve built. Everything Etix and Rockhouse Partners do is laser focused on ticketing, Liszka said.
Seaton who has nearly a quarter-century of technology experience, agreed with Liszka that the company culture at Etix is extremely nimble and flexible, with the energy of a startup but the depth of 15 years in the business. He joined Etix in 2013 with the marching orders to set up agile systems and processes responsive to customer needs.
“Process really is your friend,” he said.
The new Etix homepage with improved search algorithms and an improved experience on the back end was a big advancement in 2014, he said.
For instance, the new user experience involves an expanded data infrastructure to Amazon Redshift for enhanced analytics within the Etix platform. “Basically, we move the aggregate of sales data from your performances into Amazon Redshift and then we can run heavy computations against that to provide analytics back to you. It allows you to do things in our analytics and community views, such as comparing performances, without going to Amazon,” Seaton explained.
In the year of Google, everyone thinks search is solved, Seaton said with a chuckle. But it is still, and probably always will be, a very interesting problem. “That’s what user experience is about,” he said. “Given what I want to do, what is the fewest number of steps I need to take to do that?”
The challenges at Etix never stop and “from an engineer’s perspective, you don’t want the problems to stop. It’s a joyful thing to be presented a hard problem,” Seaton said, voicing another mantra at Etix.
It fits into the core company values: Service, simplicity, tenacity, results, Seaton said. “That sets us apart. We want our clients to know we care about them. Their interests are perfectly aligned with ours.”
That’s why another change — opening API’s (Application Programming Interface) up in support of mobile and for partner integration was key, Seaton said. “Access to our core business functionality through risk-based APIs is a big initiative within the company.”
API’s allow other systems like LoyaltyMatch, to interact with Etix without going through the website. System-to-system interface is faster, cleaner and direct. “If you want to be part of someone else’s ecosystem, you have to open yourself up so they can interact with you in a way natural to them. In laymen’s terms, it is to allow venues or other systems to connect with the Etix ticketing platform directly.”
Security is thoroughly addressed, he added. “The biggest challenge is that in the continuum, security is on the far left-hand side and convenience on the far right-hand side. To find a way for the user to do something conveniently and securely is a real magic act. One of the ways is via APIs.”
Fraud prevention tools continue to improve as the Etix data warehouse grows, Kustelski added.
“More and more tools are being driven by data — Better data products, better marketing services.”
“We are going to make it easier,” he reiterated.