Exploring an omni-channel service proposition in music event ticketing

Abstract

CM.com is a conversational commerce company specialised in offering solutions in CPaas (Communication Platforms as a service). One of the industries to which they point their ‘software as a service’ is music event ticketing. With their General Admission (GA) Ticketing product, CM provides event organizers with a platform to set-up their ticket sales process, sell tickets, handle event registrations, communicate with visitors, and support other event logistics.

The recent COVID-19 pandemic has had a significant effect on consumer behaviour related to music events and festivals. Event organizers must innovate in their offering to stay relevant to consumers within the overcrowded market. This has led to changes in organizer’s needs and priorities regarding their ticketing platform. CM needs to respond in their service offering to stay relevant in the market and fulfil their client’s needs. In combination with the desire to leverage the potential of their product portfolio better, CM seeks to identify new opportunities in the way their ticketing product is designed and delivered to their client.

The project involves creating a holistic perspective of the project context and involved stakeholders through gathering extensive qualitative data, taking a service design perspective. The gathered information serves as fundamental knowledge to co-create towards a new strategic service proposition, combining user-research, industry trends and strategic competitive positioning with CM’s technological potential.

The results conclude CM’s ticketing product should be developed towards “Facilitating the Easy creation of Rich & Effective omni-channel communication touchpoints for event organisers.” This proposition aims to facilitate organisers to adopt a progressive, data-driven approach to communication between organiser and consumer. Data allows for effectively targeting consumers in a personalized way, boosting the conversion of communication touchpoints. Working with this data proposition should be designed for non-data experts, making the workflow for the creation of data driven communication touchpoints as easy as possible. Ultimately, the proposition seeks to enable organizers to create more points of engagement between organiser and consumer over a rich array of channels and purposes, contributing to a unique and pleasant visitor experience.

To deliver this value proposition to clients, three development stages must be completed. Firstly, the focus should be put on improving the fundamental functionalities through which organisers gain knowledge through data, whereafter its usability should be improved. Finally, the communication possibilities to improve the visitor experience should be enriched. The proposed final service proposition is concretized through UX-use cases, illustrating the proposed user-flow on an interaction level.

Due to CM’s unfamiliarity with the design process and the different internal project teams working in silos, additional guidance is provided to embed the project outcomes effectively. The guidance in the shape of a visual overview describing the service proposition’s value in terms of desirability, viability, and feasibility aims to persuade company-wide value. However, this does not guarantee implementation within CM. Additionally, a “From Research to Development Guide” facilitates the product team to work towards the proposed service proposition with the created product materials, ensuring a user-centred process.